# CV: John Slater – UI & UX Designer > The full CV of John Slater, UX designer: founder of Ability Owl, with roles at L&Q (previously Trafford Housing Trust), EKM, Evocus and Kahn Design, plus skills, education and side projects. Published: 2020-11-06 · Updated: 2026-07-26 · Author: John Slater · Canonical: https://www.slaterjohn.com/cv --- 1. [Quick overview of me](#quick-overview-of-me) 2. [About me](#about-me) 3. [Experience](#experience) 4. [Skills](#skills) 5. [Education & Qualifications](#education--qualifications) 6. [Projects & Hobbies](#projects--hobbies) 7. [Contact me](#contact-me) --- ## Quick overview of me My name is John, I am a **UX Designer** and the founder of **Ability Owl**, currently working with social housing provider **L&Q** (previously Trafford Housing Trust). I have previously worked for digital agency **Evocus**, e-commerce SaaS provider **EKM** and luxury car company **Kahn Design**. In these roles, I have worked with **Klarna**, **eBay** and **PayPal**. I have over **20 years of experience** with the majority of that time spent as a **UI/UX Designer** (Product Designer). I really love creating well-designed, inclusive, user-centred, user-tested and functional digital products. I have great knowledge of **making websites accessible** (WCAG 2.1) and the values of design inclusivity. I have **extensive knowledge of HTML, CSS and Javascript**. I have worked in React, React Native, PHP and ASP (Classic). I have also **created my own iOS apps** in Objective-C and React Native with one reaching over _25,000 registered users_. I have worked within an **agile web development team** as the squad designer. I worked closely with the product owner, head of engineering and other squads to develop the product roadmap around customer feedback. I currently use **Figma** for designing prototypes, high-fidelity designs and just about everything else. --- ## About me I am a user interface and user experience designer based in Preston, UK. I have more than twenty years of experience developing my skills in UI and UX design, graphic design and front-end development. With my solid understanding of web development principles I am able to build thoughtful and intuitive user interfaces putting the user experience first but working within development limitations. My passion for the design and development industry doesn’t stop when I leave the office, instead it’s driven my curiosity and led me to create products and apps in my own time. --- ## Experience Over twenty years working with industry-leading companies in luxury car manufacturing, eCommerce SaaS, holiday booking and social housing. ### Founder at Ability Owl (2025 – Present) In 2025 I founded [Ability Owl](https://www.abilityowl.com), an accessibility testing tool that helps teams find and fix accessibility issues on their websites. As founder I do everything from product design and development to marketing. ### UX Designer at L&Q (2020 – Present) ![Trafford Housing Trust logo, a chalk-drawn house with sun and tree, on dark teal](https://www.slaterjohn.com/images/2021/08/THT@2x.png) As **UX Designer** for [L&Q](https://www.lqgroup.org.uk) (previously Trafford Housing Trust) I am responsible for understanding and improving customer journeys through our digital services. I have been involved in designing improvements for most of our brands ([Trustcare](https://www.trustcare.org.uk), [Laurus](https://www.laurushomes.co.uk), MyAccount & Limelight) and have made a measurable positive impact on customer interactions with our digital services. Accessibility has been a considerable focus of mine at L&Q. Our aim is to create digital services that are inclusive and the most important way to do this is to make our products and services usable by everyone regardless of ability. My team and I have achieved this by following WCAG 2.1 standards, applying user testing and providing training to other teams. **You can read about some of the UX projects I worked on at L&Q**: - [Simplifying navigation to improve customer engagement](/improving-access-to-important-customer-information) - [Making information easily accessible to increase leads](/making-information-easily-accessible-to-increase-leads) _For access to password-protected articles please contact me._ ### Lead UI/UX Designer at Evocus (2019 – 2020) ![Evocus logo in bold white italic capitals on a magenta background](https://www.slaterjohn.com/images/2021/08/Evocus@2x.png) As **Lead UI/UX Designer** at [Evocus](https://www.evocus.co.uk) (SharpeVu Ltd) I was responsible for creating beautiful, usable and enjoyable interfaces for our clients. My work here included designing and implementing a from-scratch holiday booking system for [Harrison Holidays](https://www.harrisonholidays.com), a prominent holiday company in the UK. ### Lead UI Designer at EKM (2008 – 2019) ![White EKM logo with a shopping trolley icon on a blue background](https://www.slaterjohn.com/images/2020/11/EKM.png) As **Lead User Interface Designer** **_(Product Designer)_** at [EKM](https://www.ekm.com) I was responsible for taking ownership of all product design on EKM (ecommerce platform), EKM Email Marketing, EKM Web Statistics and EKM Live Chat. I ensured that new projects conformed to the same high standards and followed our in-house design system and design guide (the UIFW) to ensure a consistent user experience. **You can read about some of the UX projects I worked on at EKM**: - [Increasing conversions by reducing the number of fields](/increasing-conversions-with-fewer-fields) - [Improving the returning customer’s experience](/improving-the-checkout-experience-for-returning-customers) - [Building the EKM Analytics feature](/building-ekm-analytics) Before January 2013 I worked at EKM as a **Senior Web Designer** building bespoke ecommerce websites for EKM clients. ### Web Designer at Kahn Design (2007-2008) ![Kahn Design logo, a white angular ‘K’ above the word KAHN on a red background](https://www.slaterjohn.com/images/2020/11/Kahn-Design.png) As a Web Designer at Kahn Design I was responsible for design, development and ongoing maintenance of the in-house websites including Project Kahn, Kahn Landmark and Kahn Timepieces. --- ## Skills ### Design & research - UI/UX design - User testing through moderated and unmoderated sessions (both group and one-to-one, in-person and online) - Design systems – creating and governing them (I built EKM’s UIFW) - Customer journey mapping and stakeholder workshop facilitation - Ecommerce conversion rate optimisation - Product design presentation - Producing design rationale and requirements documents - Working in an Agile team (including SCRUM) ### Accessibility - WCAG 2.2 auditing – manual checks against the success criteria plus automated tooling - European Accessibility Act (EAA) compliance assessment - Screen reader and keyboard-only testing - Accessible component patterns (ARIA) and inclusive design ### AI & analytics - Agentic coding – directing, reviewing and testing AI-implemented work - Product analytics – instrumenting products and acting on behavioural data - AI search optimisation (GEO) – llms.txt, markdown variants and citable content - AI-assisted prototyping and image generation workflows ### Engineering - Extensive knowledge of HTML, modern CSS and Javascript - React, Next.js and Tailwind CSS - TypeScript (working knowledge) - Experience designing fully responsive mobile-first websites - Web development with PHP (with MySQL and SQLite) ### Some knowledge of… React Native and NodeJS --- ## Tools & Applications - OS: MacOS / Windows - Editors: VS Code and Claude Code - UI & Web Design: Figma (previously Sketch and Adobe XD) - Graphics: Illustrator - Image Editing: Photoshop - Version Control: Git - Prototyping: Figma (previously Marvel) - Accessibility testing: axe, Lighthouse, VoiceOver and NVDA - Analytics: PostHog, GA4 and Hotjar - CMS: WordPress, WooCommerce, Umbraco and Ghost --- ## Education & Qualifications ### \[Pass\] HND General Computing (2007 – 2009) While I worked in the industry I enrolled on the HND course to further develop the skills I’d learnt on my A-Level course. The course allowed me to further understand best programming practices, database infrastructure and my development skills in PHP. ### \[AB\] Double A-Level in ICT (2005 – 2007) This course allowed me to expand what I already knew about computing and was the deciding factor in moving into the web design and web development industry. --- ## Projects & Hobbies In my spare time I further build my skills in design and development by working on my own side projects – iOS apps with tens of thousands of users, a Pokémon binder app, a free payment logo pack and the odd power-tool build. [See my side projects](/side-projects) for the full list. --- ## Contact me I’m currently building [Ability Owl](https://www.abilityowl.com) alongside my UX role at L&Q, and I’m always open to hearing about interesting UX and product design work. If you have a UI/UX or Product Designer position you think I’d be perfect for, message me on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/slaterjohn). Prefer a PDF? [Download my CV](/cv.pdf).