User experience consultant
Proving the value of UX by delivering measurable results
I am a user experience consultant. I support design leaders, product owners and marketers like you. Together we can show that a great user experience leads to organizational success.
ux experience
What We Can Work On Together
I’ve grouped my UX work into four areas so you can quickly find the support you need. But, in truth, most clients end up with a combination.
Strategic UX Improvements
I can help you form your user experience strategy. To move from managing digital services on an ad-hoc basis to having a clear vision. A roadmap and strategy that allows you to become user-centric.
Conversion Optimization
If you want to improve the conversion rate of your website I can help. As a user experience consultant, I identify opportunities to improve the experience and nudge users to act. Through rigorous testing and design iteration I increase conversion.
Leadership Coaching
Transforming into a user-centric organization takes time and a lot of effort. It involves hundreds of decisions and discussions every day. Having an outside expert you can turn to makes all the difference.
Training & Workshops
I educate management, colleagues, and your team on various UX topics. I offer training that helps colleagues adopt best practices, persuade management, and help your team.
UX consultant services
- UX Review and Recommendations
A deep dive into your site or service to uncover issues and opportunities. - Journey Mapping
Pinpoint where people drop off or struggle, and where you can exceed expectations. - Prototyping
Test and refine ideas before committing resources. - Governance Frameworks
Clear policies and processes to ensure consistent quality.
- CRO & UX Audits
A detailed review of your site, app, or service to identify usability and persuasion gaps. - Sentiment Analysis
Online research to uncover your users’ questions, objections, and concerns so we can address them head-on. - Competitive Analysis
Reviewing comparable products or services to spot opportunities and avoid their mistakes.
- Design System Creation
Maintain consistency, speed up delivery, and reduce rework. - User Acceptance Review
Using a technique called SUPA, I will review potential projects to assess their viability. - UX Business Case and Capability Reviews
A business case and roadmap for becoming more user-centric at an organizational level.
- CRO Strategy & Roadmaps
A clear plan for iterative improvements, aligned with your business or service goals. - Landing Page Redesigns
Focused redesigns for high-impact pages where improvements will matter most. - Usability Testing
Watching real people use your site to uncover blockers and confusion points.
Need UX leadership? Hire me as a part-time design lead.
It can be hard to justify the cost of a full-time senior design leader. But what if you could get the benefits of an experienced UX leader—without the full-time cost? You would get their oversight, mentorship, and advocacy.
Consider retaining me to work with your team 1-2 days per week.
- Strategic Vision Without Breaking the Bank. I’ll help shape your UX approach to keep your product user-focused while meeting your business goals—no need for a full-time hire.
- Mentorship for Your Team. If your junior staff need guidance to grow, I can provide the mentorship and support to help them thrive.
- Flexible and Budget-Friendly. As a part-time design lead, I offer the expertise you need without the cost or commitment of a full-time salary—perfect for tighter budgets.
- Improved User Experience. I’ll ensure your users’ voices are heard and their needs drive your design decisions, even in tough times.
- Stakeholder Alignment. I can advocate for UX at the leadership level, helping align decisions with user insights to deliver better results for everyone.
Actionable Insights
Paul has the ability to see what is hiding in plain sight. He validated ideas under consideration and provided new, actionable recommendations. The most valuable insight was illustrating how our issues were symptoms of an inefficient UX project team structure.
Unique Talent
Paul used his unique talent to help us pull together a business case to implement a UX team here at the University of Oxford. During the process, Paul provided insight into the wider UX community and offered his personal recommendations on how best to present the opportunity to our Pro-Vice-Chancellor. This helped us develop a compelling business case and quickly secure funding for a UX team.
Superior Abilities
Paul has superior abilities in communications and of understanding the user experience, in addition to excellent technical web design skills. He has a deep understanding of the way in which organisations are structured and therefore is able to provide the best possible solutions. He is, above all, a people person.
Fantastic
Paul has been a fantastic mentor. He’s full of energy and ideas and has been an invaluable support in navigating all aspects of leading a fast-moving digital team.
Actionable Insights
Paul has the ability to see what is hiding in plain sight. He validated ideas under consideration and provided new, actionable recommendations. The most valuable insight was illustrating how our issues were symptoms of an inefficient UX project team structure.
An inspiration
Paul is an inspiration, I only wish I’d worked with him earlier in my career. His ability to understand and break down problems and offer advice, drawing on his many years of experience is unrivalled. He genuinely wants to get the best out of you and your organisation and you can’t ask for more than that.
Invaluable
Medecins San Frontieres, being a decentralised international association, faces challenges in meeting the needs of a diverse global audience. Paul and the team at Headscape have been invaluable in helping us see the potential of digital for doing this. They have helped us recognize the changes needed to engage with our connected audiences, bringing clarity and innovation to our digital strategy.
Supportive and Challenging
It’s been a pleasure working with Paul. He manages to be both supportive and challenging at the same time and has a very accessible approach. It’s been a really inspiring process and I would love the opportunity to work with him again.
Entertainingly Informative
We can count on Paul to be entertainingly informative. When we bring him to speak at our workshops, people walk out of the session energized and with a better understanding of how a multichannel journey should be assessed and optimized. Thanks Paul!
How I work
As a service
Many organizations hire me for a day or two each week. It’s cheaper than hiring a full-time UX lead. It’s also more effective than hiring a user experience consultant for a one-off project.
Per project
As a user experience consultant, I often work on a per-project basis. I help you deliver a great experience with the specific scope you specify.
Time bank
If you’re unsure about the scope of work, you can buy a time bank of hours from me. We can then collaborate to find the best approach.
Frequently Asked Questions
Get answers to common questions about hiring me as a user experience consultant. Learn about the results you can expect, my experience and how I will work with your team.
- What is a user experience consultant? A user experience (UX) consultant helps organizations enhance their digital products. They focus on usability, accessibility, and customer satisfaction. Using research, design, and testing, they ensure a smooth, enjoyable user experience. For more about what user experience covers, I recommend reading this Nielsen Norman Group article.
- Why should I hire a user experience consultant? Hiring a user experience consultant ensures your website or application is intuitive, meets user needs, and drives conversions. A consultant can identify and fix usability issues. I can improve accessibility and align design with your business goals.
- How does a user experience consultant work with my team? A user experience consultant works closely with your team. They offer insights through collaboration, workshops, interviews, and research. Moreover, they can give tailored advice, collaborate with designers and developers, or lead the entire UX process.
- How long does it take to see results from UX improvements? Results vary by project complexity. Many clients see improvements, like higher conversions, within weeks of implementing UX changes.
- What industries do you work with? I have experience with a wide range of sectors. They include charities, higher education, government organizations, and commercial businesses. This breadth allows me to adapt strategies to meet the unique challenges of your industry.
- Can you help us with just a small part of a project? Absolutely! I can help with user research, A UX strategy or usability testing. I’ll tailor my services to your specific needs, no matter the scope.
- How much do UX consultancy services cost? Costs vary depending on the scope and duration of the engagement. I offer flexible options, including one-off workshops, discovery phases, and ongoing support. There’s a solution to fit most budgets.
- Will UX consultancy disrupt my existing processes? Not at all. My goal is to enhance your team’s capabilities, not replace or disrupt them. I aim to fit into your processes. I provide insights that improve your workflows rather than undermine them.
- What kind of results can I expect? Better UX can boost conversion rates, reduce support queries, and increase user satisfaction.. I’ll work with you to set measurable goals and track progress along the way.
- Do we need to be a big company to benefit from UX consultancy? Not at all. Businesses of all sizes can benefit from UX consultancy. Whether you’re a startup or a large organization, improving user experience is critical to achieving your goals.
- How can I get started? Getting started is simple—just contact me to discuss your needs. We’ll arrange an initial consultation to identify your challenges and determine how I can help.
I’ve collaborated with clients across numerous sectors. Here’s a selection.
Charities
- Doctors without borders
- UNICEF
- The Samaritans
- IRC
Higher Ed
- University of Oxford
- UCAS
- University of Florida
- Cambridge University Press
Government
- European Commission
- Egyptian Government
- UK Government
- Icelandic Government
commercial
- PUMA
- GlaxoSmithKline
- Shopify
- Nestle
8 Ways A User Experience Consultant Can Help Your Business Succeed
People often ask me what exactly it is I do as a user experience consultant. It’s a fair question as there is a lot of confusion around the role of user experience consultant. In this post, I explain how I work with clients.
I have written before about how people confuse user experience and user interface design. I even tried my best to outline what user experience designers do. However, people still ask me questions about the role of user experience consultant.
Well, I thought I’d answer those questions by briefly outlining eight ways I work with clients to help their businesses. Hopefully this time I will succeed in explaining what a user experience consultant does!
1. UX Consultants Help Better Understand Customers
For a company to provide a better user experience, they need to understand their target audience.
Because I work alone, I cannot undertake big user research projects for clients like some larger UX consulting firms can. But, often that isn’t necessary. Most of what organisations need to know about their users already exist within the company. It merely requires collating and extracting from the heads of key members of staff.
Where there are gaps, I help fill them using surveys, user interviews and reviewing various forms of analytics.
Most of the time the challenge isn’t gathering the data, but rather expressing it in a way that is useful. Typically most user experience consultants do this through various visualisation techniques including customer journey mapping and empathy mapping.
2. UX Consultants Audit Websites
Although user research is vital to improving the user experience, there is often work that can be done even before that. In truth, after 23 years of working in the industry, I can look at many websites and see improvements that will make the experience better for any audience.
That is why user experience consultants like myself are often asked to audit websites. The result of this is normally a report identifying areas of improvement that will increase satisfaction and conversion in the short term. These reports focus on addressing the ‘low hanging fruit’ that obviously need fixing before more nuanced improvements can begin.
3. UX Consultants Prototype and Test Better Experiences
Often when auditing a website, issues are identified which a user experience consultant could address in a variety of ways. The best solution is not always immediately apparent and so different approaches need testing.
To achieve this, a user experience consultant will often build a prototype for their clients on which they can carry out usability testing.
This cycle of prototyping, testing and iteration is one of the favorite parts of UX consulting.
4. A UX Consultant Will Establish Your Strategy
Creating a great user experience does not happen overnight, and organisations will not achieve it just by improving the user interface. Often it requires organisational change and at least some degree of digital transformation. Organisations need a strategy to make this possible.
A big part of UX consulting is for the user experience consultant to help organisations draw up these strategies. That involves a lot of research, meeting with stakeholders and understanding the business before they even start.
Once that has been done, a user experience consultant will draw up a long-term vision for a companies user experience and a roadmap that outlines what needs to be done to reach that goal. That set of recommendations becomes the organisation’s strategy.
5. UX Consultants Help Implement Change
The problem with strategies is that they often lack granular detail, and as we all know, the devil is in the detail.
That is the world of service design, where company processes, structures and systems need to be adapted to meet consumer expectations. An area that I spend an increasing amount of time addressing.
To help clients implement change, I work with them as an ongoing mentor. I am there for them on a daily basis as challenges arise that need addressing. After all, you quickly learn as a user experience consultant, that no company has ever succeeded implementing a strategy as it was written. There is always the need to adjust as you go along.
6. UX Consultants Educate and Inspire Colleagues
One of the most significant challenges in UX consulting are company employees. It is impossible to deliver a quality service to users without staff buy-in. People do not like to change and are often resistant to it. That is particularly true when introducing digital.
Most people don’t fully understand the impact of digital or why they need to change the way they work. That means for any strategy to succeed the organisation must win the hearts and minds of their employees. It is not enough to tell them to change; we need to inspire them to want to change.
Many user experience consultants help clients do this by creating training programs that range from workshops and inspiring presentations all the way through to self-learning video guides and internal comms campaigns.
7. UX Consultants Create Design Systems
Enthusiastic staff is excellent, but if everybody doesn’t have the right tools and isn’t moving in the same direction, it can lead to chaos. Before long the user experience becomes fractured as too many people are managing too much online content without explicit coordination.
To help address this problem user experience consultants work with clients to create design systems. These contain your classic pattern library, but also include content style guides, design principles and service manuals. Together these things provide a framework within which everybody can work to ensure a consistent user experience.
8. A UX Consultant Will Help Incrementally Improve the Experience
Of course, we never finish our digital services (such as our websites). They are always evolving and improving. We are continually seeking to increase conversion and provide a better experience.
That is why I work with many of my clients over the long-term to continually optimise and improve their user experience. You won’t find me redesigning anybody’s website. But you will see me working with clients to take their existing site and incrementally improve it.
So, now you know what a user experience consultant does. If any of that sounds of interest to you, get in touch.
Got a challenge? Let’s fix it.
Whether you’re stuck on a tricky UX problem, need a second opinion, or just want to explore working together, I’m here to help.
About me
I’m a UX consultant and conversion optimization specialist with 32 years in digital. I help teams create user experiences that work; winning support, improving results, and making change stick.
Contact me
Email: paul@boagworld.com
UK Based – Clients in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia.
how I help
- UX Strategy – Spot what’s blocking a great experience and get a clear plan to fix it.
- Improving Conversion – Simple, evidence-based changes that make every click count.
- Coaching & Leadership – A sounding board to help you lead with clarity and confidence.
- Training & Workshops – Hands-on sessions, playbooks, and self-learning so your team keeps improving.
Actionable Insights
Paul has the ability to see what is hiding in plain sight. He validated ideas under consideration and provided new, actionable recommendations. The most valuable insight was illustrating how our issues were symptoms of an inefficient UX project team structure.
Genuinely brilliant
Paul is genuinely brilliant to work with. He’s funny, thoughtful, and really good at meeting you where you are. He matches my energy, communicates clearly, and always seems to know how to say the right thing. Working with him feels easy, constructive, and properly enjoyable.
Demonstrates his prowess
As we talk, a pronounced pattern in Boag’s patter becomes apparent: he enthuses about a topic, demonstrates his prowess and then knocks himself down with a swipe of self-deprecation.
Smart & Generous
Paul is one of the smartest, most passionate, most generous people I know in the web / online industry. He is truly committed to helping organizations become simpler and more customer-centric.
An inspiration
Paul is an inspiration, I only wish I’d worked with him earlier in my career. His ability to understand and break down problems and offer advice, drawing on his many years of experience is unrivalled. He genuinely wants to get the best out of you and your organisation and you can’t ask for more than that.
Invaluable
Medecins San Frontieres, being a decentralised international association, faces challenges in meeting the needs of a diverse global audience. Paul and the team at Headscape have been invaluable in helping us see the potential of digital for doing this. They have helped us recognize the changes needed to engage with our connected audiences, bringing clarity and innovation to our digital strategy.
Supportive and Challenging
It’s been a pleasure working with Paul. He manages to be both supportive and challenging at the same time and has a very accessible approach. It’s been a really inspiring process and I would love the opportunity to work with him again.
Entertainingly Informative
We can count on Paul to be entertainingly informative. When we bring him to speak at our workshops, people walk out of the session energized and with a better understanding of how a multichannel journey should be assessed and optimized. Thanks Paul!
Best investment
You’re the best investment I’ve made thus far in my business, and that includes a previous coach, paid mentors and many courses! Your expertise is absolutely invaluable. Thank you!
Moves the Needle
It’s not a question of whether I’d work with Paul again, but what we’re doing next. He takes the time to deeply understand your business and goals, then moves the needle across the growth levers that matter most.