About
Work History
Senior Service Designer
Sept 2024 - Present
The Department for Education
The Department for Education
2023 - Present
Testimonials
Gemma Say
Senior Service Design Consultant @ Farsight Consulting
First and foremost, Xanthe's design work is consistently of high quality. She has a remarkable ability to transform ideas and concepts into visually simple but, highly functional designs. She really thinks through the nuances of scenarios and user behaviours, coming up with elegant solutions rapidly (…) Moreover, whether she's providing feedback, or collaborating with the team, her interactions are always respectful, insightful, and productive.
Lani Jacobs
Senior Research Consultant @ Farsight Consulting
As an ID, Xanthe is brilliant - she's meticulous in how she approaches her work, she picks up user needs and pain-points in the research and can quickly think through what that might mean for how we adapt the designs, and she's always looking ahead to how future decisions could impact the designs as well. She's also super sharp and picks up new things, ideas, concepts etc, super quickly. And she's able to flex and adapt to work in different ways, depending on the working styles and skill levels of her colleagues. She's been an absolute stellar colleague :)
Caroline Simpson
Content Design Consultant @ Farsight Consulting
Xanthe is extremely helpful and responsive to any question or query I have. She has a brilliant and thorough understanding of her role, as well as the service and this particular project, as a whole. She works very well in the team, supporting all members. She is very fluent at using all the technologies deployed in her role and explains them all very clearly, and in a way that a non-SME can understand.
She is a great colleague who I have really enjoyed working with.
Stephen Chapman
Senior Content Design Consultant @ Farsight Consulting
Xanthe was the interaction designer on the project. Not only did Xanthe demonstrate impeccable design skills, she understands that great design is only one aspect of user-centred design. As such, she integrated easily and efficiently into a team of researchers, content designers, and product owners.
Xanthe designed for the user and their needs, and she was always driven to provide the best outcomes. She would justify her decisions based on user research and best practice (…)
John Carroll
Head of Design @ Zen Educate
I had the pleasure of managing Xanthe at Zen, and have no doubt she has a big future in Product Design. In the time she spent at Zen, her work went from strength to strength, and will no doubt continue to do so. She's passionate, inquisitive and her personality is infectious! Hopefully our paths cross again down the line.
Lucy Casey
Product Manager @ Zen Locum
I really enjoyed working with Xanthe. She’s an asset to the team as a UX designer but she’s also an all rounder and will get stuck into any problem and delve into the weeds with you during both the discovery and delivery phases. She’s really empathetic to users and always champions the voice of the customer in discussions
Andreea Timpu
UX Designer @ Zen Educate
Xanthe's been wonderful to work with. She led the research initiative at Zen Educate, always pushing the product team to include our users at every stage possible (something which is hard to do at startups). She was also such a bright spirit in the design team, welcoming every new joiner with open arms and a coffee on her!
Luca Patrick Tajana Rodriguez
Front End Developer @ 94YS
Xanthe is a seriously experienced, empathetic and passionate designer. She was able to share her expertise as a contract designer at 94YS and she surpassed every expectation. Working with her has been a pleasure as you can feel her sincere passion to design top-notch web experiences which cater to all users.
Kristi Beak
Senior Delivery Manager @ The Department for Education
Xanthe is very good at facilitating sessions, particularly complex run throughs of prototypes and longer pieces of user journeys which can be difficult to translate effectively. She's also good at proactively picking up on feedback and collaborating with people to get things done well.
Chris Wadsworth
Product Manager @ The Department for Education
Xanthe knows her work inside out, to the granular detail. This is incredible valuable to the wider teams and our objectives! She's collaborated with Service Design across teams which is difficult and challenging, but she's took it in her stride. I particularly want to highlight the working relationship and understanding she has with User Research and how this feeds into her work. Xanthe's especially in her element when she's facilitating sessions, she always comes across so calm, prepared and ready to roll!
Gabrielle Van Asselt
Associate Partner @ UNKNOWN Recruitment
Xanthe was a dream to work with! It felt almost too good to be true. She was passionate about design but had actually been working in other industries, one of them training to be a Biomedical student (Clever clogs). But she wanted to be a Designer who was a part of something that was improving this industry.
About Me
Core Principles
My Design Process
In a perfect world, the design process would be smooth sailing from start to finish. The reality, however, is that most projects face time, resource, or technical constraints. That’s why adaptability is at the core of my approach. Every project is unique, but by grounding my work in empathy, collaboration, and iteration, I ensure that even the most challenging circumstances lead to impactful, user-centered solutions.
Designing Success