The GAP Partnership — Alex Ackland Designs

Background

In September 2024, I was tasked to do a UX audit of a negotiation platform for the GAP Partnership - a negotiation consultancy. This lasted 6 weeks, with the main task to find out if the platform was fit for the job for a negotiator.

I audited:

Functionality - Is the user able to complete their task? Is it fit for purpose?
Usability - Do they get stuck? How easy it is to accomplish their goal?
UI Design - Does it feel like a negotiation tool? Are components well designed? Does it fit in with brand? Does it pass accessibility checks i.e. AA WCAG.

I presented my findings to the C suite for them to deliberate whether this tool was fit for purpose.

Some of the slides I presented

Audit Outcome

Invited back!

After a few months I was invited back to come up with a brand new digital tool for those who had been on the course and use the old platform in real world negotiations. The new tool would incorporate learnings from the course and also have a ‘lite’ mobile version so they could access it whilst on the move.

In short; I was tasked with producing a 0-1 app that provides TGP negotiation tools, including an AI Copilot, and learning content that users learnt from the course.

Functionality - For a few reasons the user couldn’t complete their task. One of these was the fact some sections had to be filled out before moving onto the next section. This was a major blocker as areas that had to be filled out weren’t relevant.
Usability - The usability was awful, there was navigation on top of tabs on top of a timeline on top of secondary tabs. At a glance this was very confusing to the user and they didn’t know where they were in the platform.
UI Design - Several components failed WCAG AA standards and there was no consistency with elements later on in the platform.

In short I said the product wasn’t fit for purpose and needed massive improvements both in terms of UX and UI.