CRAIG MELBOURNE

Product design practitioner and leader with 25 years experience in architecting experiences that deliver on business and customer objectives.

Passionate about helping organisations leverage all aspects of the design toolbox to guide strategic direction and deliver best-in-class experiences.

Sectors and organisations I've worked in

  • Travel Expedia Group (Hotels.com)
  • Media BBC Sport, NME.com, Fa-Premier.com
  • SaaS Teya, Bango, Ada Health
  • Public sector Network Rail, Cambridgeshire County Council
  • Ecommerce World of Books, BlinkBox, 7Digital

CORE SKILLS

HANDS-ON PRODUCT DESIGN

  • Translating corporate and product strategy into inspiring experience visions
  • Synthesis of research and data for uncovering high impact opportunities
  • Defining UX architecture for large scale products
  • Code and software based hi-fidelity prototyping
  • Expertise in interface / interaction design for web, apps and TV interfaces

DESIGN OPERATIONS & LEADERSHIP

  • Leading and managing design teams embedded across multiple product functions.
  • Attracting, developing, and inspiring design talent.
  • Identifying and embedding tools to drive product design efficiencies and quality

TESTIMONIALS

(aw-shucks)

MAIRI BREWIS

Head of Strategy at YouTube EMEA
Mairi worked with Craig on the same team at Expedia
"Working with Craig was one of the highlights of my time at Expedia. He is a fantastic thought partner - be it facilitating workshops and ideation; or translating ideas into product experience and execution. He is an excellent strategist - able to cut through a lot of noise to really get to the heart of an issue. I highly recommend him."

JOSH CROSSICK

Chief Product Officer at Preply
Josh managed Craig directly at Expedia
"Craig is quite simply a fantastic UX thinker and leader. His ability to cut through complex problems, and develop simple, elegant solutions, never ceased to impressed me. When others got stuck, Craig was always able to un-stick things. Over the years, I've seen Craig work super effectively on everything from the nuts and bolts of detailed UX design work, to hiring and managing a scaled design team. Would absolutely recommend him."

EXPERIENCE & CASE STUDIES

Expedia Group / Hotels.com

Principal, Experience Strategy and Design / Jul 2019 - Dec 2021
Director, Product Design and User Research / Mar 2016 - Jul 2019
Senior UX Manager / Jan 2015 - Mar 2016

Led design, research and experience strategy teams during Hotels.com’s growth from $500m to $5bn+ in yearly sales.

  • Ongoing product optimisation programme: Designing 1000s of optimisation experiments that delivered $100s of millions of business upside.
  • International growth: Delivering the design framework for optimising the Hotels.com website across EMEA, APAC and North and South American markets.
  • Extending product-customer fit: Product discovery and design for adapting the experience to cater for family, business and large group travel.
  • Service offerings: Research and experience strategy for development and design of the Hotels.com rewards programme, branded credit card and travel insurance products (US only).
  • Scaling supply mix: Redesigned the end to end product experience for the integration of Vacation Rental style properties as we increased the volume of properties from 200k to 1m+.
  • Affiliate partnerships: Creates the design system and framework for the Hotels.com white label product used by 100s of partners across the globe.
  • Design operations: Establishing a design system to increase productivity and holistic quality of design execution and creation of frameworks to embed customer insights into product planning and development.



Evolving the map experience to help travellers find the right location to stay in

Long Tail Destinations: Extending Hotels.com offering to cater to regional and rural travel

Shaping the Hotels.com product strategy to address changes in demand post-Covid

Personality profile

Insights Discovery Personality Type

  • Conscious: Inspiring Motivator (Accommodating)
  • Unconscious: Directing Motivator (Focused)

Key individual strengths

  • Adaptable and adventerous
  • Persuasive and inspirational
  • Perceptive and innovative
  • Enjoys and seeks variety
  • Constantly seeking his new mountain to climb