TJ Harrop

I’m TJ Harrop, a design manager, agile coach, and born-again coder. I specialise in design systems and design technology.

Design Systems is about providing tools for designers and developers to make things technically better, better for users, and more efficient.

Design Technologists merge engineering and design processes. Technology and creativity together result in scalability, systematic quality, and productivity for product teams. My desTech intro in Interactive Mind (2015)

Why people hire me

People hire me when they already understand the benefits of well designed products and services, but want a more robust way to make sure their outputs meet those standards in an efficient way.

I work with companies to design, build, and adopt style guides, component libraries, design systems, UI platforms, and opeating models.

My favourite approach to work is getting my hands dirty alongside designers and developers, which is why I also keep my coding and interaction design skills current, but I'm not the guy you hire just to write code or make wireframes.

Projects & roles

I've been working with digital products since 2002. My goal is to make better products and services. In 2002 I did this by designing and building them, now I help large teams do the same.

My past work includes:

• IAG, Design System Increasing scalability, opeationalisation, and user-needs focus of a 30+ multi-brand design system
• NSW Gov, Design System Transforming the successful UI/UX component library in to a Dsign System & DesignOps practice (current)
• Canadian Gov, Rules as Code Advising teams working on Canada's first foray in to Rules as Code
• NSW Gov, Rules as Code Leading the product and tech work to roll out RaC in NSW
• EY-Seren Embedding design & build in to a globally distributed innovation consultancy service
• Jaguar Land Rover Introducing digital product design processes to infotainment engineering teams
• The Home Office (UK Gov) Creating tools to feed a design-the-code culture & a skills-based design resourcing process
• Sky TV Making an easier dev/design handoff process which also embeds common design language into products
• Basic Key Basic key was my first paid client in 2002. I was 15 and made their website, and they deserve an honourable mention.

TJ for hire (plug)

Good design, UX, and UI development is valued and respected by organisations, the new challenge is how they become an integrated part of everyday operations.

I can help refactor your design system, design practice, or UI development approach to be better integrated, more productive, and to have robust quaity.

In 2017, an organisation in Sydney told me they had the biggest UX team in the southern hemisphere as a kind of brag. Don't be like them - contact me about adopting & improving design and UI development.