Your Go-To Strategy Expert

Why Work With UX & Product Strategy Consultant Will Phillips?

Will is a veteran user experience and digital product strategy professional with over a decade of experience creating pragmatic, real-world UX solutions.

That experience has been across a variety of contexts—agencies, in-house teams, & consulting—and as roles ranging from UX leadership to UX solo practitioner. All together, they've imparted an appreciation for practical solutions and processes.

He is able to leverage a broad base of UX & product design experience for each engagement: from research through strategy into information architecture, content strategy, and UI/interaction design.

But, it is his big-picture capability to apply product research and design thinking principles to uncover strategc opportunities and direction that provides the most value to his clients and their products.

Creating a Roadmap to ROI

Core Principles for Successful Digital Projects

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus may have famously said you cannot step into the same river twice, but it's still wise to know how bridges are built. No project is ever identical to another, and it's important to remain adaptable in approach—while remaining committed to those handful of principles that can help ensure a digital project is poised for success.

Users and Businesses Are Not Enemies

There is no business without users (vis-a-vis customers) engaging with the business' services or buying its products. At the same time, if that business is unsustainable, those same customers cannot have their frustrations and pain points alleviated—much less delighted—by services and products that would otherwise do so. In your product strategy and customer experience, you must consder your users' needs and business needs to be equal partners.

Look & Feel Is Often Least Important

With all do respect to color theory, the specific hue and font of any given element on the screen is a very low priority consideration as long as they are clear, contrasting, and easy to read—particularly for those would-be users with a disability or imparement. When you think design, worry less about colors and custom designs and more about ease-of-use and the value of your content.

Triangulate Your Research Efforts

There is no one channel to rule them all, and beware those who would tell you otherwise. Analytics, qualitative amd quanitative user research, competitor benchmarking, stakeholder and business analysis, expert UX reviews: to best understand where your users are and what your business needs, you need to consider multiple angles—and allocate your discovery budget appropriately.

Understand What Is Possible & Pragmatic

Buzzwords like design thinking, Agile, and human-centered design can be powerful tools when leveraged appropriately by organizations who have the maturity and capability to do so. But all too often, it's too easy to give into the temptation of the next shiny product solution (or the process to get us there) while hoping the organizational maturity will catch up. Understand what the team, stakeholders, and company culture will support and align your efforts with what is possible. Incremental progress is better than a great idea that fails.

Fred Liner

Director of IT,
PBA Health

“PBA Health engaged Will to help us refine the focus of our new B2B platform in 2017…Customer response has been very positive and we have spent much of the year rolling a good portion of the user experience improvements into our platforms aimed at other market segments we service.

I can't recommend Will Phillips highly enough in the UX and Digital Strategy space. He is engaging to work with, professional and timely with project milestones, and his quality of work is outstanding.”

Working from the Middle of the Map

Focusing on the Growing Midwest while Consulting Remotely Nationwide

Map of metro areas in the region surrounding Kansas City

A native Okie and member of the Osage Nation who graduated from Oklahoma State University, Will spent nearly a decade honing his UX work in various in-house and agency roles in the scenic—and, yes, frequently rainy—Pacific Northwest before moving to Kansas City in 2015.

Upon making it to the Midwest, he spent a few years in senior UX roles at two prominent KC-based agencies before stepping into consulting opportunities, where he now focuses primarily on clients in the growing regional markets of Kansas City, St. Louis, Tulsa, Northwest Arkansas, and Omaha.