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Chris Austin
UX/UI Design
User Research
Usability Testing

Chris Austin

Senior Product Designer and UX Leader with over two decades of experience shaping digital products through a blend of UX strategy, human-centered design, enterprise engineering experience, and multi-platform design systems. Adept at simplifying complex workflows and business rules into elegant, scalable user experiences for web and mobile platforms. Recognized for aligning stakeholder priorities, advancing accessibility and design maturity, and leading multidisciplinary teams across healthcare, insurance, construction, education, fintech, and security technology sectors.

Download CV

My Passions (What I Do)

Problem-Solving & Critical Thinking Through Design

Designers must combine critical thinking, creativity, and a problem-solving mindset to navigate increasingly complex design challenges. This means identifying root problems, challenging assumptions, exploring multiple perspectives, and using research, data, experimentation, and AI-assisted tools to rapidly evaluate potential solutions. Effective design decisions balance user needs, business goals, accessibility, and technical feasibility while remaining grounded in human judgment and evidence.

Visual Design

Strong visual design skills are essential for creating clear, intuitive, and engaging digital experiences. This includes applying principles of typography, color, visual hierarchy, spacing, composition, and layout to communicate information effectively, reinforce brand identity, and guide users through an experience. Effective visual design balances aesthetics with usability, accessibility, consistency, and purpose.

User-Centered Design

User-centered design begins with a deep understanding of the people we design for. Designers use research, observation, feedback, and usability testing to uncover real user needs, behaviors, and pain points. These insights inform and validate design decisions throughout the process, resulting in experiences that are intuitive, accessible, inclusive, and focused on solving meaningful user problems.

Prototyping & Testing

Modern UX practice requires the ability to move quickly from concept to working experience using rapid prototyping, AI-assisted design, and vibe coding. Combining tools such as Figma with generative AI and conversational coding workflows enables designers to prototype more realistic experiences, validate ideas through usability testing, and collaborate more effectively with development teams before committing to production.

Testimonials

I had the pleasure of working with Chris, a talented UX designer who is exceptionally user and accessibility-centric. He stays updated on the latest and best practices, provides insightful feedback, and encourages team growth. As a manager, Chris made me feel supported and helped facilitate brainstorming sessions to tackle complex design issues. His expertise and dedication make him a valuable asset to any team.

Nivina Warner

Nivina Warner, UX Designer

InEight Inc.

Chris is a wonderful designer, mentor, and manager. His ability to understand a problem and thoughtfully create solutions is meticulous and always backed by research and reasoning. I learned a lot from Chris in my time working with him. We collaborated on style guides, countless product designs for web and mobile, iconography and more. I am certain that much of my own success is directly correlated to the teachings and guidance that he provided during our time working together. Thank you, Chris!

Rachel Bonner

Rachel Bonner, UX Designer

InEight Inc.

Chris has exceptional UX skills. He is thorough, focused, iterative and thoughtful in his user centered designs. Chris always advocates for the user while searching for solutions. His work leans towards ease of implementation and cost effective development approaches. Chris has a strong knowledge of FrontEnd Development which benefits his design skills.

Jason Hinze

Jason Hinze, UX Designer

InEight Inc.

I have worked with Chris for many years. If you are looking for innovative designs, Chris Austin is the one you want on your team.

Brandi Heffner

Brandi Heffner, Director

InEight Inc.

Companies

The Doctors Company
InEight
Nelnet
NTT DATA
Northrop Grumman

Resume

Accomplished Product UX/UI Designer

Core Competencies

  • Product & Design Strategy: Product Vision, Roadmapping, Journey Mapping, Service Design, JTBD, Design Sprints
  • Research & Analytics: Qualitative & Quantitative Research, Usability Testing, A/B Testing, Siteimprove, Hotjar, Google Analytics
  • Enterprise & Systems: B2B SaaS, Regulated Workflows, Multi-Brand Design Systems, Governance, Design Tokens
  • Architecture & Leadership: Information Architecture, Rapid Prototyping, Cross-Functional Leadership, Mentorship
  • Tools & Front-End: Figma, Axure RP, Azure DevOps, Jira, Confluence, HTML/CSS, React Fundamentals, Generative AI (Claude, ChatGPT)

Professional Experience

The Doctors Company
8/2025 - Present

Digital Experience Specialist

  • Streamline complex enterprise portal workflows, customer acquisition funnels, and data-dense dashboards into intuitive, multi-step digital journeys.
  • Create interactive Figma prototypes for complex transactions and analytics dashboards, integrating AI into the design process to accelerate concept exploration, prototype development, and iteration, reducing stakeholder sign-off cycles.
  • Establish reusable UI component libraries and design tokens and styles across multi-brand ecosystems to ensure design-to-code consistency.
  • Conduct audits to mitigate contrast and layout gaps, bringing legacy and new portal features into full WCAG 2.2 AA compliance.
  • Leverage analytics insights to identify user friction, optimizing core workflows to increase task completion.
  • Partner with Product, Marketing, and Engineering teams to define design specifications, facilitate design reviews, and streamline QA delivery.
InEight Inc.
4/2017 - 7/2024

Lead UX/UI Designer

  • Led end-to-end UX/UI strategy for complex construction software across web and mobile platforms, aligning user needs with business goals.
  • Architected InEight Compliance Mobile with multimedia capture and offline support, reducing field reporting time by 40%.
  • Designed a web-based specialty form builder featuring conditional logic, dynamic workflows, and configurable components for Safety, Quality, and Environmental admins.
  • Conducted 15+ in-depth user interviews with inspection administrators to translate complex operational pain points into scalable software requirements.
  • Standardized design patterns across the entire product suite and mentored junior designers, driving process efficiency and UI consistency.
Nelnet
4/2015 - 4/2017

UX/UI Designer

  • Executed user research and interaction design for financial services platforms serving K-12 and higher-education client networks.
  • Led accessibility audits to align core applications with WCAG 2.0 standards, coverting audit findings into actionable UI design updates.
  • Designed responsive web applications focused on improving user task efficiency, content clarity, and customer retention.
NTT DATA
9/2013 - 3/2015

UX/UI Designer

  • Introduced structured qualitative research and interaction design methodologies into security-focused application development.
  • Collaborated directly with software engineers throughout the SDLC to validate front-end implementation against visual and interaction standards.
Northrop Grumman
7/1998 - 9/2013

Software Engineer II

  • Designed and developed secure, high-reliability software applications supporting national defense environments.
  • Leveraged strong software engineering foundation to bridge technical gaps between development and design teams.

Education & Credentials

Human Factors International

Certified Usability Analyst (CUA 2014-5142)

Bellevue University

Master of Science, Computer Information Systems (CIS)

University of Nebraska at Omaha

Bachelor of Science, Biology

Additional Credentials & Skills

Federal Aviation Administration
1/2002

FAA Private Pilot License (PPL)

Authorized for Airplane Single-Engine Land. Developed 100+ hours of advanced situational awareness, precise navigation, and critical-management capabilities.

Federal Aviation Administration
8/2023

FAA Light-Sport Repairman Certificate (LSRI)

Inspection Rating for Experimental Light-Sport Aircraft. Demonstrates strict adherence to federal regulatory frameworks (14 CFR § 65.107) and rigorous quality-assurance standards for complex mechanical systems.

Domains

Enterprise SaaS | Healthcare & Insurance | Construction Tech | Education & FinTech | Security | Defense & Government

Research

Critical Thinking

95%

User Research

85%

Usability Testing

75%

Design

Visual Design

90%

User-Centered Design

95%

Mobile-First Design

80%

Responsive Design

80%

User Interface Design

95%

Rapid Prototyping

95%

Design Systems

85%

Accessibility

70%

Axure RP

95%

Figma

90%

Development

HTML / CSS

80%

JavaScript

70%

Bootstrap

80%

React

50%

Product Management

Market Research & Analysis

60%

Product Strategy & Roadmapping

75%

Cross-Functional Collaboration

80%

Data-Driven Decision Making

75%
Download CV

Portfolio

Selected Work
Mobile Query Builder

Mobile Query Builder

Mobile
Perform Form

Perform Form

Web / Mobile
Pilot Watch

Pilot Watch

Concept
Form Builder

Form Builder

Web
Product Navigation

Product Navigation

Mobile
Snapshot

Snapshot

Web
User Profile

User Profile

Mobile
Design System

Design System

Web
Compliance Mobile

Compliance Mobile

Mobile

Contact

Get in Touch

chris_austi@yahoo.com