Experience

MLKSTK&Co.

Portland, Oregon

2023-Present

Principal Designer
• Provided strategic design consultation across multiple industries including adtech, insurtech, and productivity SaaS.
• Designed UX architecture for AI-powered insurtech claims platform, focusing on process automation and insights generation.
• Partnered with PMs and engineers to develop application structure and key features for an adtech campaign management system that increased client capacity by 3.5x.
• Conducted comprehensive user journey mapping through review of existing processes, documentation, and stakeholder interviews to define solution requirements.
• Implemented user-centered design methodology with regular stakeholder testing to validate solutions against business requirements.
• Established design systems and user flows for early-stage productivity software focused on cross-team collaboration.

Sureify

San Jose, California

2020-2023

Staff Product Designer
• Defined comprehensive product suite architecture through iterative modeling and low-fidelity prototyping during company growth from $100K to $15M revenue.
• Led UX design for agent portal from concept to launch, conducting competitor analysis, user research, and delivering high-fidelity Figma designs.
• Generated 30+ core transactions that facilitated product discovery with customers and their policyholders.
• Standardized product development patterns across multiple product pods, ensuring actionable outcomes and consistent user experience.
• Built and maintained cross-functional consensus by educating product, sales and engineering teams on long-term design viability.
• Represented Sureify design at client sites and industry events, effectively communicating solutions to insurance industry experts.
• Conducted user interviews to identify pain points, constructed personas, and integrated findings into product roadmap.
• Collaborated on SureUI design system implementation and rollout, establishing design consistency across 5 product lines.
• Directed feature designs and oversaw multiple designers' contributions to the agent portal.
• Utilized narrative storytelling to evangelize design thinking methodologies across the organization.
• Presented wireframes and product models to internal stakeholders and anchor clients, building alignment on problem-solving approach.

2017-2020

Senior Product Designer
• Served as founding product designer, establishing core product patterns during company expansion from 10 to 300 employees.
• Created design solutions addressing complex customer requirements in the legacy insurance sector.
• Established standardized product terminology across web and mobile platforms serving both consumer and corporate users.
• Developed and maintained a resilient design system across three platforms while supporting customization for client-specific needs.
• Built and scaled design team, managing resources to ensure delivery timelines and enhanced client experience.
• Contributed to company transition from service-oriented to product-centric business model.
• Designed first web application, creating foundational UX patterns that supported product suite expansion.
• Balanced technical constraints with user needs to deliver intuitive solutions for complex insurance workflows.
• Oversaw transition from Sketch to Figma, establishing best practices and workflows that improved design team efficiency.

Fieldwire

San Francisco, California

2015-2017

Senior Product Designer
• Served as first product design hire at construction tech startup that secured $8M in funding and achieved $300M acquisition by Hilti.
• Redesigned task, worksite, and project management features, implementing high-impact UX improvements with minimal development resources.
• Created markup tools and plan version control for architectural drawings, significantly expanding core product functionality.
• Reduced support ticket volume through strategic redesigns of knowledge base, account management, and multi-project billing systems.
• Improved product accessibility through targeted design enhancements for colorblind users.
• Maintained design quality through structured collaboration with engineering leadership.
• Supported marketing efforts by revamping company website, creating case studies, and producing video content that strengthened brand identity.

Noble Brewer

Oakland, California

2015

Product Designer
• Served as founding designer for craft beer marketplace startup, collaborating directly with Founder and Head of Growth.
• Increased website traffic by 70% through experience optimizations and campaign effectiveness testing.
• Transformed company WordPress site into full-featured e-commerce platform with optimized checkout experience.
• Managed offshore engineering team to ensure high-quality implementation of design specifications.
• Designed physical product packaging, labels, and informational materials to enhance brand consistency.
• Represented company at startup events, driving user acquisition and brand awareness.

Foglocal

San Francisco, California

2013-2015

Web Designer
• Consulted with San Francisco restaurants and bars as contract designer, interpreting client needs and translating them into digital assets.
• Created comprehensive design deliverables including logos, illustrations, website designs, and style guides.
• Collaborated with small cross-functional team of sales, engineering, and project management professionals

Feastly

San Francisco, California

2013-2014

Product Designer
• Led product design for peer-to-peer supper club marketplace as sole designer in the company.
• Architected strategic platform shift by decoupling menu listings from event scheduling, enabling chefs to gauge interest before committing to dates.
• Created interest-based notification system that increased event attendance and facilitated lower-cost expansion into new urban markets.
• Designed dual-sided marketplace solutions addressing both host needs and guest discovery challenges.
• Developed innovative content sourcing mechanism using social media timestamp and hashtag data to populate chef profiles with event photos.
• Established design review process through daily engineering standups, ensuring consistent implementation quality.
• Balanced competing needs of two-sided marketplace, focusing on both supply (chef retention) and demand (guest engagement).

Womply

San Francisco, California

2012-2013

UI Designer
• As sole designer, transformed credit card-based loyalty program into comprehensive small business analytics dashboard.
• Expanded product features to include social media presence monitoring, competitor research, and market trends analysis.
• Created wireframes, production-ready designs, and redlines for implementation by engineering team.
• Optimized existing design assets, reducing load times by nearly 30% across products and marketing website.
• Designed marketing materials including website, pitch decks, and advertisements to support multi-channel sales and fundraising.

Newsbound

San Francisco, California

2012

Junior Product Designer
• First design hire, collaborated with CEO to create efficient news consumption experience for time-constrained users.
• Conducted user testing with paper prototypes and clickable mockups to validate hypotheses and optimize user flows.
• Analyzed test data to refine application structure and designed novel components for story update visualization.
• Established consistent brand identity across marketing materials, mobile applications, and desktop widgets.
• Created visual assets to complement content within embeddable explainer widget.

LIME Marketing

Provo, Utah

2011

Junior UI Designer
• Contributed to cross-disciplinary team supporting client campaigns and software products.
• Designed iOS and web applications including a budgeting app from concept to execution.
• Implemented gamification elements within the application to improve user retention and engagement.
• Ensured high-quality implementation by providing detailed redlines and stylesheets.
• Created custom iconography, illustrations, logos, storyboards, and motion graphics for client campaigns.

Education

Rhode Island School of Design

Providence, Rhode Island

BFA, Illustration

2007-2009

Maryland Institute College of Art

Baltimore, Maryland

Foundation

2006

Side Projects

United Designers

Online Design Community Management

Hacklab PDX

Tech Community in Portland, Oregon

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© Anders Houston 2024