Shout Digital strengthen user experience offering

Shout Digital strengthen user experience offering

A North East tech organisation that launched its own innovation hub earlier this year has increased staff numbers to cater for the new solutions coming from it.

Newcastle-based Shout Digital has installed a newly-created head of user experience in Kirk Tierney, whose role will be to focus on delivering client-ready solutions through the emerging technologies Shout is developing through its hub.

Shout’s innovation hub allows the 30-strong team to take full advantage of the necessary research and development time needed to transform their expertise in voice, augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI) into user-friendly solutions for its clients.

The developments have already attracted globally-recognised organisations in finance and sport to Shout’s door. Shout CEO, Gary Boon, says the new hire ensures their client’s user experience continues to be seamless when venturing into new technologies.

Boon commented: “The development of tech is accelerating at pace and businesses need to keep on top of it to stay ahead of the game.  We pride ourselves on giving our team the thinking space to properly explore these developments. It’s fantastic to be able to add someone of Kirk’s experience in order to guarantee our clients see the benefits.

“Providing unrivalled user experiences through these technologies is key to success. Developments such as AI can save an organisation millions in operational costs but when it isn’t implemented with user experience in mind, it can easily have an adverse affect.”

Joining Shout in the summer, Tierney is dedicated to ensuring user experience is flawless across all of Shout’s digital offerings.  Having previously worked for leading sports media group, Perform Group, and Fountain Digital Labs as a user experience architect, he has provided solutions to global brands including goal.com and Soccerway.

Tierney added: “I’m really excited to join the Shout team. As technologies develop, user experience is more important than ever. Organisations need to ensure new apps, voice activation and bots still work for their customers and continue to provide a high standard of service. Customer have high expectations and if an organisation doesn’t meet those they will move elsewhere.”

Shout, which has offices in Newcastle, London and Philadelphia in the United States, has worked on major digital platform builds for the likes of The World Travel & Tourism Council, Northumbria University and global financial security experts, CPP. In addition, it has developed smartphone app solutions in a range of sectors including finance, sport and leisure.