Hey, I’m Simon. A dad, a Geordie, and a designer who helps B2B SaaS companies turn confusing products into experiences people actually enjoy using.

I’ve worked on 30+ products, collaborating closely with founders, product managers, and engineers to fix the UX problems that cost customers and revenue.

I don’t do long research reports or get hung up on processes for the sake of it.

My approach is flexible and pragmatic: we figure out what the problem is, wireframe solutions, iterate to high-fidelity prototypes, and launch fast.Always keeping the user front and centre.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

- 25% uplift in paid conversions + 2X ACV (SendX)- 30% revenue increase (SiteGuru)
- Upsold existing clients + converted new customers (RealTyme)
- Faster launch to win early customers (Ring4)

I love the variety of projects I get to work on: from payroll to email marketing software. And I love seeing founders and teams get excited about their product again.

It’s rewarding to know that the work I do not only improves the product but rejuvenates the entire team.

When I’m not designing, you’ll find me in Newcastle with my family, following football (I’m a recovering Manchester United fan), testing new tech, or spotting great, and sometimes terrible, UX in the wild.

If you want to fix your UX and create a product that actually converts and retains customers, DM for a chat.

Simon McCade

I’ve built a little something to help founders see exactly how much they could make from UX:

I've spoken to over 300 founders in the last 5+ years. They know UX makes money… but struggle to pin down how much.

So I built a simple ROI Calculator [it's in the comments]

It pulls from real project data I’ve gathered over the years, and lets you plug in the numbers that actually matter:

▪️Trial to paid conversions
▪️Retention + churn reduction
▪️Account upgrades + expansions
▪️Even things like support load and dev time saved

Pop in a few figures and it’ll show you the impact UX can actually have, without needing a maths degree or a 40-tab spreadsheet. 

(Trust me, I’ve tried both. Only one of them ends with me still having hair.)

Why did I build it?

Because if I want founders to understand the value product designers bring to the table, I should show it in their language: revenue, retention, runway.

Give it a whirl.

I help B2B SaaS companies convert & retain more customers through better product design.

UX design for early-stage vs for growth stage products.
Why the work feels so different:

There are two very different types of UX project. 
Both can be brilliant in their own way.

When I’m brought into an established SaaS product that already has paying customers and clear product market fit, the work feels grounded. 

There’s real data, real feedback and usually a clear sense of where the value is. 

You can add a huge amount here because every improvement ripples out to users who already rely on it. It’s steady and it’s satisfying.

Working on an MVP is a different energy entirely. 

You’re shaping something from thin air and you’re working closely with a founder who has a vision but no market proof yet. 

When they’re properly backed and have the budget to do it well, these projects can be exciting. 

You get to lay the foundations and steer the whole experience from day one.
Seeing a founder light up when their idea finally takes shape is always a lovely moment.

But I’ll be honest, MVPs can be hard work. 
Lots of unknowns. 
Scope that changes weekly. 

And without solid funding, the budget can become a bit of a battle. 

Starting from ground zero does mean fewer constraints between design and dev though, which can be a real breath of fresh air.

Both types of project stretch different muscles. Both can be rewarding. The important thing is knowing which one you’re walking into and making sure the setup is right from the start.

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Hey, I'm Simon!
I'll help you fix your UX, so trial users convert and customers stick.
Follow me, Simon McCade, for regular design tips
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Canva’s done an incredible job democratising design, but this dashboard is crying out for a spring clean. Cut the clutter, bring back the personality, and give users more control.

It’s busy, repetitive, and oddly impersonal for a brand that prides itself on creativity and clarity. 

Here’s where it could do with a serious tidy-up. 👇 

𝗜𝗻𝘃𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗱.
If Canva wants teams to collaborate, why hide the button in grey? Make it loud and proud.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝘁𝘁𝗼𝗻’𝘀 𝗮 𝗯𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗰𝗸.
For a tool that’s all about speed and flow, one button for everything is a pain. Split it out so users can jump straight into the right type of design.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗮𝘀𝗵𝗯𝗼𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗹𝘀 𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗰.
What will you design today? is fine, but where’s the warmth? A simple greeting with a name would make it feel like Canva actually knows who I am.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗲’𝘀 𝗴𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘀.
Doc? Sheet? What do they actually do? A few hover tooltips would fix that in minutes.

𝗥𝗶𝗴𝗶𝗱 𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗼𝘂𝘁.
Why can’t I reorder the top design types? It’s 2025 people work differently, let them customise it.

𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝘃𝘀. 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮 𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘀.
I shouldn’t have to squint to work out what’s mine and what’s shared. It’s confusing and slows people down.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗛𝗲𝗹𝗽 𝗯𝘂𝘁𝘁𝗼𝗻’𝘀 𝗽𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀.
A static question mark buried in the corner isn’t helping anyone. Make it contextual, make it useful, or remove it entirely.

Canva’s a great product, no question. It’s slick, it’s powerful, and it’s made design accessible to millions. 
But let’s be honest: the dashboard feels like it’s been designed by committee.

It’s not about changing what Canva is, it’s about helping it live up to its own promise of being beautifully simple.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments: 👇 
__

Hey, I'm Simon!
I'll help you fix your UX, so trial users convert and customers stick.
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Most SaaS founders assume self-serve onboarding is the dream. 
But sometimes the fastest way to ship is to ditch the dream:

Concierge onboarding first. Self-serve later.

With concierge onboarding, they can:
▪️Personally help early adopters get set up
▪️Hear friction points live, instead of guessing
▪️Build real relationships with their first user
▪️Ship something functional without burning the team out

Why?
Because when you’re improving a product against the clock, scope is your enemy.
But learning isn’t. 

Self-serve will come, when we’ve got the insights to design it properly.

Sometimes the smartest UX move is the most human one:

__

Hey, I'm Simon!
I'll help you fix your UX, so trial users convert and customers stick.
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Everyone thinks good design comes AFTER growth. But, in my experience, good design CREATES growth. This client is the perfect example of that:

A few years back, RealTyme got in touch. 

They’d built a secure communication platform used by some of the most security-conscious organisations in the world. Governments, global enterprises, defence teams. 

But as the platform grew, so did the challenge of keeping everything clear, consistent, and easy to use. 

It’s something I see quite often, a great product that’s evolved quickly, and now needs to bring the design up to the same level as the tech.

So we took it one step at a time. Over three and a half years, I worked closely with their team to:

🔸Redesign the product experience end-to-end
🔸Establish a new visual language so everything felt consistent
🔸Build a design system to help their engineers move faster and more confidently
🔸Gradually shift the product from being sales-led to product-led

None of it happened overnight. But bit by bit, the experience started to feel purposeful, cleaner, and more connected.

The result was a product that not only looked better, but worked better. 

Users could get started faster, support requests dropped, and RealTyme saw a real commercial impact. Happier customers, stronger retention, and more conversions.

As their CEO, Onur, said afterwards:
'We not only gained competitive advantage but also increased customer satisfaction which started to pay off commercially by upselling through existing clients and converting new ones.'
__

Hey, I'm Simon!

I'll help you fix your UX, so trial users convert and customers stick.
Follow me, Simon McCade, for regular design tips
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I’ve never seen a discount fix a value problem in SaaS. 
Yet every November we give it another go... 🙄 

Every year around this time I see the same thing happen across SaaS. 

Big Black Friday discounts like this one from Adobe start flying about and for a moment it all feels a bit frantic. 

I get why teams do it. It brings people in the door quickly and it gives the numbers a short term lift. The trouble is what happens next.

When someone signs up because of a heavy discount, their expectations rarely match what the product is actually worth. Retention becomes harder. The relationship starts off on the wrong foot. 

One SaaS company that seems to understand this better than most is Notion. 

They never run Black Friday sales. They hold the line on their pricing because they know the value they deliver and they stick to it. 

For SaaS founders this is worth thinking about. When you start cutting money off the price, even with the best intentions, you might be training customers to wait for the next offer rather than building a stable long term relationship. 

Holding your ground on price can feel uncomfortable in the moment but it often pays off in the quality of the users you attract and keep.

__

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Founders often come to me feeling stuck. They’ve reached the  ‘Something feels off but we can’t put our finger on it’ stage. Design has become a bottleneck. Here’s why:

The front-end engineers are doing their best to make it look good and make it work, but design isn’t really in their wheelhouse. 

Things slow down. Progress stalls.

If you’re running a SaaS, but growth is slowing, design isn’t just about polish. It’s a growth lever.

And by the time I get involved, it’s usually reached the ‘stuck’ stage.

Here’s what I’ve learned after 12 years of helping teams through this:

📌 Early design decisions compound. 
What starts as a quick fix can turn into design debt that’s hard to unravel later.

📌 Founders put off design for too long. 
It feels non-essential at first, but once you’ve got users, design is growth. 

It’s what reduces friction, shortens time-to-value and helps turn trial users into paying customers.

📌 Calm comes from clarity. 

Once we map out the product experience, founders go from feeling “stuck” to feeling in control again.

Make your product easier to use, quicker to learn, and it’ll start doing more of the heavy lifting for you.
__

Curious if you’ve felt that same “bottleneck” moment?
What helped you move past it?

Hey, I'm Simon!
I'll help you fix your UX, so trial users convert and customers stick.
Follow me, Simon McCade, for regular design tips
📌 Repost if you found this useful
📌 DM me for a chat

Launched Ascend Payroll Limited.  A premium payroll service with a difference. www.ascendpayroll.co.uk

My History 
After 28 years with Dataplan Payroll was made redundant (by Iris) June 2023. 

Operations Director with almost three decades of experience for a fast paced outsourcing payroll company providing innovative, flexible solutions for businesses serving over 3000 clients paying over 180k employees per month.

October 2021 to June 2023. stepped into MD role managing the business for 170+ employees 3000+ customers payrolls following acquisition by Iris software.

I increased turn over by over £2million in 16 months from October 2021 - June 2023.

Headed up team managing payroll migration from Flexipay Payroll by Advanced onto Iris Staffology platform amongst many other hats I would wear day to day.

Built an Award winning service provider with previous fellow Dataplan Directors and staff during the previous 15 years as Operations Director.

Dataplan team won over 10 national awards for professional services including Payroll Service provider of the year in 2008 and 2013 to name a few.

I’m exceptionally proud to have grown Dataplan over the last 28 years from a team of 5 people to more than 150 in my home town of Grimsby. Along the way changing it from a small payroll business working in the back office at a local accountancy practice to an exceptionally well respected, recognised, and awarded outsourcing business serving clients across every sector and throughout the UK.

Times change though and Iris acquired Dataplan in 2021. Iris will drive Dataplan through the next stage of  it's change.

As for me, having helped to guide the business through the transition into the Iris Software up to June 2023 where I left the business following redundancy.

Then comes Ascend Payroll

You can now contact me on email at stewart@ascend.co.uk

www.ascendpayroll.co.uk

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