Experience
Principal product designer · massmutual · June 2023–present
Spearheaded the end-to-end design of a custom email-marketing platform for financial advisors, reducing operating costs by nearly 50% and increasing adoption by 17%. Led design team, and directly contributed to discovery, research, wireframing, prototyping, and usability testing. Leveraged user insights to identify automation opportunities, drastically reducing time spent on key tasks. Ensured consistent use and integration of our design system, while also working with the system team to improve usability and extend the component library for shared use cases.
Redesigned a complex, manual sales-readiness assessment workflow for strategic distributors. Delivered wireframes and tested with users to uncover usability pain points and misdirected assumptions. Iterated designs and created high-fidelity mockups for further testing and clearly communicate experience to leadership and development team.
Led design of the first-ever comprehensive book-of-business dashboard and reporting system for our advisors, leveraging AI tools (Figma Make) to rapidly build a fully-functional prototype in just a week. Rapid progress was enabled by deep-dive research I previously conducted with advisors to understand the many difficulties they had in working with current systems, and how they actually needed to use and understand the available data.
Advocated for and modeled the adoption of AI tools in UX practice. Delivered presentation to design team focused on how to incorporate AI tools in our work, and framework for helping our team question critical assumptions as leadership pushes to introduce AI-enabled features into products.
Lead UX Strategist · AT&T · April 2022–June 2023
Established AT&T’s first enterprise-wide qualitative research program, directing a team of five researchers through 200+ user interviews to surface critical pain points and shape actionable insights that informed platform strategy and iterative design.
Defined the strategic roadmap and experience vision for a high-impact internal platform, securing executive sponsorship and piloting across multiple divisions—demonstrating ability to own complex, system-scale workflows and align business, user and technical strategy.
Collaborated closely with engineering, product and design leadership to embed accessibility best practices, design system governance and consistent interaction patterns across enterprise digital products, increasing design maturity and cross-team alignment.
UX Architect · DMI · April 2019–April 2022
Directed the redesign of a B2B insurance servicing portal with 20,000+ active users, transforming legacy analog workflows into digital self-service experiences for both end-users and administrators configuring access and options.
Designed and optimized responsive, cross-platform experiences for both desktop and mobile users, ensuring complex workflows were simplified and accessible for diverse user groups.
Partnered with product owners to define KPIs and success metrics for redesigned workflows, ensuring each design iteration directly tied to measurable business outcomes and user impact.
Developed and maintained a product-specific design system, establishing scalable UI patterns and ensuring alignment across multiple Agile development teams.
Led discovery and user research initiatives for an enterprise sales and inventory platform, conducting qualitative studies, defining personas, and synthesizing insights to guide key design decisions.
Operated in a client-facing, agency-environment, collaborating directly with product managers, engineers and business stakeholders to deliver high-impact UX and visual design solutions across diverse verticals; mentored four junior designers and assisted in new-business pitches—showing cross-functional collaboration, mentorship, and culture-building in a fast-paced context.
See my Linked In profile for additional experience. linkedin.com/in/jbriancrain/
Education
MFA Design Thinking & Leadership · Indiana University
Comprehensive program focused on preparing leaders for innovation processes, human-centered design methods and managing complexity. Studied and practiced the transferable skills necessary to succeed in design research, experience design, service design, innovation processes, and design planning.
BFA Graphic Design, Missouri State University
Developed the conceptual and technical skills needed for the process of solving problems in visual communication. Successfully delivered practice-based assignments for local businesses and non-profits.