About
I've been making things findable for nearly 30 years.
Not as a side note. Not as part of something else. As the whole job. I founded Murmuration because onsite search and findability deserved a consultancy that took them seriously.
I've spent nearly 30 years working in the Does Things With Computers™ industry. People understand that better than what I actually do. Make of that what you will.
I started out fixing broken software (turn it off, turn it on again, you're welcome). Realised fairly quickly that it was more interesting to stop things breaking in the first place. So I moved into designing them myself.
These days the whole job is information architecture and onsite search. The spice rack of the internet: when it's organised, you can find the cumin in ten seconds flat. When it isn't, you're staring at seventeen unlabelled jars wondering if that's paprika or cayenne.
I'm autistic. My brain is wired to find the pattern in the chaos, which turns out to be exactly the right kind of brain for this work.
If I can't find it, I can't buy it. Which means neither can your customers. And that's my business.
The name, since you're wondering: a murmuration is what happens when thousands of starlings move together as one thing, finding the optimal path in real time. No single bird leads. The whole flock just... works. I grew up in Somerset, where you can watch them over the Levels on a winter evening. It's one of the most extraordinary things you'll ever see. It also felt like exactly the right name for a consultancy obsessed with helping people find their way to what they're looking for.
In the last 15 years I've helped NHS.uk get COVID information in front of people who were actively Googling their way around the NHS website to find it. I helped the London Eye turn a £5k budget into an extra million pounds in the first month, just by applying some basic information architecture to a ticket page. I helped RNIB untangle a catalogue that was cancelling orders and sending customers to the phone instead. And I helped the Open University cut the time it took to convert a prospective student from two years to six months.
The clients are all different. The problem, mostly, isn't.
Murmuration is just me. If you hire me, you get me. I take on a small number of clients at a time so the work gets the attention it needs.
Outside work
There is a whole person here, not just a consultancy.
I'm currently based in rural Wiltshire, too close to Swindon for my liking. I'm mildly obsessed with Christopher Nolan films, extremely opinionated about music (deep house and trance, specifically Anjunabeats and Anjunadeep, this is not up for debate), and I read crime fiction at a pace that probably warrants professional attention.
I live with a Siamese called Luna, a Burmese called Ptolemy (aka Weirdo), and a golden retriever called Eliot. All three are complete arseholes. All three are completely adored.
Working with Emma
A few things worth knowing before you get in touch.
Next step
Sounds like the right fit? The diagnostic is where everything starts.
Fixed price, fixed output. It tells you exactly what's going on with findability on your platform and what it would take to fix it. No retainer required to get started.
Book the diagnostic