Christopher Roosen
I am a 20+ year veteran practitioner of Human-Centred Interaction, Experience & Service Design
As one of the early cohort of usability specialists in Australia, I’ve been learning, thinking, reading and working in user research, service design and experience architecture since 2005.
I’ve spent a lifetime at the interesting and complicated intersection of people, business and technology
With an original background in Applied Psychology and Human Factors, I’ve covered nearly all aspects of research and design. From company-wide strategy and board-level facilitation, through service design, usability testing, technology ethnography, and into detailed service, experience, and interface design. Having been steeped in some of the earliest traditions of Object-Oriented User Interface Design, I’m especially good at untangling complex experiences and helping create the experience architecture that underpins usable experiences.
A deep grounding in people, business, and technology means I can confidently take on any research and design challenge, for projects small to big, and communicate their meaning, progress, value, and outcomes. My insights have helped guide products, services and experiences that serve hundreds of thousands of Australians, created value and won awards. I’m dedicated to guiding and shaping a world where technology serves a more authentic, meaningful and safe human experience. While still ensuring the organisations that offer those experiences also benefit.
HISTORY
Cognitive Ink (Sydney: 2013 - 2024, Melbourne: 2024 - present) Co-founder, Principal Researcher, Interaction, Experience & Service Designer
From 2013, after nearly ten years of consulting and freelancing, I co-founded the boutique research and design company, Cognitive Ink. It’s been the most rewarding and challenging part of my career so far. Building and sustaining a business, while serving clients, has brought me face-to-face with many experiences and business challenges. I’ve worked with amazing organisations across Australia, NZ and globally, met teams of interesting people and explored products and services across a wide variety of domains.
Christopher Roosen (2011-2013) UX/UI Freelancer
From 2011 to 2013, I spent two years delivering the services as a UX freelancer. My first freelance projects were small, a return to the first days of usability testing and wireframing. But they were exciting and fresh because I was fully and solely responsible for their execution. In the mid 2010’s, the web was changing, with a massive rise in transactional systems, so it was a great time to be helping organisations untangle their ever more complex mobile apps, software, web-based systems, and more.
News Digital & Truelocal (2010-2011) Senior Experience Architect
In 2011, I spent time with Chris Khalil and his team of cutting-edge user experience architects and ethnographers; first with News Digital and their Paid Content Team, then with the True Local business directory service. I interviewed everyday news consumers to help shape the experience vision of News Digital’s first paid content experiments.
Demibooks (2010 - 2013) Co-founder, Head of Design
In late 2010, I co-founded one of the world’s first interactive book app tools, Demibooks. Over the course of several years, we designed and built cutting-edge on-iPad software that let authors, artists, and educators create interactive books, presentations, story-apps, and lessons. A challenge that pushed the envelope of what was possible with the technology of the time. Techniques so new that we applied for a patent (abandoned), “System and methods for generating interactive digital books.” The journey came to an end when we sold the company to EDC, one of the largest educational book publishers in the US.
Digital Eskimo (2010) Senior Experience Architect
In 2010, I joined Dave Gravina and the team at Digital Eskimo, one of Australia’s premiere boutique service and experience design-for-good creative agencies at the time. At Digital Eskimo, I branched out from deeper structural exploration of complex transactional systems into end-to-end services and experiences.
PTG-Global (2005-2010) Usability Analyst then Senior User Experience Architect
From 2005 to 2010, at PTG-Global I joined one of Australia’s first usability and user experience architecture firms. I worked on hundreds of projects across Australia, in multiple domains and across technology platforms and service models. Projects at PTG involved extensive interviewing of people from all walks of life, modelling complex systems, and developing end-to-end experience architectures.
NSW Roads & Traffic (2004) Business Analyst
In 20113, in my first commercial role, I learned how to map, design and build databases that interacted with my own simple interfaces. My work helped saved the Roads and Traffic Authority NSW time, money and mistakes when updating and sharing Occupational Health and Safety data across the organisation.
EDUCATION
2007 – Prince II Project Management Certificate
2006 – Graduate Certificate Human Factors (High Distinction Average), University of Queensland
2004 – Master of Science (Honours) in Psychology, University of Canterbury. My thesis focused on Human Factors and Human Centred Design practices.
2002 - Bachelor of Science in Psychology, University of Canterbury
SKILLS
Planning: framing, scoping, management, stakeholder mapping, team setup, project management
Research: background research, competitor reviews, expert evaluations, cognitive walkthroughs, ethnography, interviews, workshops, formal usability testing
Mapping: affinity mapping, behavioural personas, root-cause analysis, journey mapping, service blueprints, business models, object & workflow modelling
Design: ideation, requirements gathering, information architecture, wireframing, rough-and-ready physical prototypes, complex interaction design, object-oriented user interface design.
Storytelling: persuasive writing, presentations, public speaking, stakeholder engagement
Mentoring: skills uplift, training programs, personal mentoring
Advocacy for Human Centred Design
Five years of long-form, deep writing on psychology, technology, culture and human centred design on Adventures in a Designed World, my online think-a-zine. As of 2024, that’s 293 articles and more than half a million words.