I'm Corey, dad of 4 (got a bogo twin) + 4 🐕 (long story) and Lead Product Designer & Strategist with 27 years' experience simplifying complexity and streamlining inefficiency. I'm action-biased and flexible with process, but in general, I:
I'm also a zero-to-1 thinker with experience at 3 startups plus founding ~10 apps. See more below, or grab my résumé if you need it. Thanks!
ACT test reg time
student success
products founded
startup jobs
years experience
years EdTech
years HealthTech
years managing
On a team of 2, I designed future visions, internal tooling, and the current responsive web app, including 3 AI-powered features and an updated left nav that increased student success 8%.
MyACT is ACT.org's responsive e-Commerce portal where ~3 million students/year register ACT tests, view scores, and explore careers, colleges, and majors. The result? Task time decreased from 30 to 7 minutes, great user feedback, and revenue-per-registrant expected to increase.
View ACT Case StudyRelated: ACT Design System
At Owl.health, I designed new features, analytics dashboards, and high-fi interactive mockups of future concepts that helped secure $15M in Series B funding.
View Owl Case StudyAs the senior-most designer on a team of 3 at SchooLinks, I quickly designed new features, improved existing ones, and helped increase their UX maturity.
View SchooLinks Case StudyFor my current pre-launch side project (with a dev partner), I do all the product vision, strategy, and design for the hybrid React-based SaaS that streamlines the messy multi-person process of creating, collaborating on, and teaching a cheer or dance routine. It'll also include a 3-sided marketplace and other helpful tools.
HERO is an iOS app that I conceived, designed, marketed, and managed contract developers to build. In English, just 9 letters are used 80% of the time, so my patented design makes them bigger and centered where your thumb likes to be. The result? Finger travel is reduced by 35%, or "3 feet per tweet."
View HERO Case StudyAs the UX Specialist for a global multi-office civil engineering firm from 2013-2016, I researched and designed internal enterprise SaaS web apps, native tablet apps, and legacy systems that increased efficiency, productivity, and profits.
View Kleinfelder Case StudyAnother 'scratch my own itch' iOS app that I founded, designed, marketed, and managed the contract development. Built in 2015, it's still used and loved by many coaches, making steady sales with no advertising.
View MixPlay Case StudyI led the 2012 redesign of the million-page KU.edu web presence into a new responsive CMS, plus designing the home page, top-level pages, unit templates, and award-winning Admissions site.
View KU.edu Case StudyFor the soccer training app that my kid's ODP team uses, I had some behavioral design ideas on how to increase player motivation and engagement through goal-setting, self-assessment, plan authoring, tracking, and reminders, so I mocked them up and presented them to the app owner. She loved the designs and added some of the functionality.
View Figma PrototypeFrom 2004-2006, I designed various UI's for a major medical software company, solving complex interaction and data-display problems for use in environments that demand efficient error-free workflow.
View Healthcare Case StudyMy kids' gymnastics gym owner wanted to educate kids on reducing their risk of being sexually abused. We got written content from a family therapist, which I gamified, designed, and art directed into a free kid-friendly game-like app.
View Marketing Site“Corey is super creative, thoughtful, innovative, responsible, ethical and an all-around decent, good egg.”
- Todd Cohen, former Director at KU
“Corey is very collaborative, creative, and super fun to work with. He has a knack for solving tricky problems. I was always impressed by his ability to describe ideas, and willingness to brainstorm. ”
- Andrea Baker, VP at CannonDesign
“Corey is an excellent designer with strong technical chops. He is able to proactively move projects forward with minimal guidance and oversight. He is not afraid to tackle complex problems and always brings a fresh point of view. He can think big and enjoys brainstorming big ideas, but he can also patiently navigate his way through the weeds. His humor and style help to diffuse hectic, tense, and dynamic situations. Bottom line — he's a craftsman, he's fun to work with, and he gets stuff done.”
- Mark Kopulos, Staff Product Designer at Sofar Sounds
“I cannot recommend Corey highly enough. His approach to design is not only creative but also deeply intelligent and understanding of a product’s users. Corey consistently brings out innovative ideas that not only address past challenges but also pave the way for future advancements. In addition to his design prowess, he is a fantastic collaborator and team player. He effectively communicates his ideas, actively seeks feedback, and readily incorporates suggestions from stakeholders.
- John Norwood, Construction Tech & Innovation National Manager at Terracon
“At Chegg, Corey provided exceptional mentorship that significantly enhanced my growth as a UX designer. His ability to listen and teach created a supportive environment, and his constructive feedback encouraged critical thinking ultimately allowing me to produce effective designs. His patience, knowledge, and engaging personality made him a pleasure to work with, and I am incredibly grateful for his guidance. Corey is an invaluable asset to any team or designer looking to learn and grow.”
- Paul Williams, UX/UI/Web Designer
“Corey has a way of bringing an idea to life by turning the brainstorming of a concept team into a clear product design. He understands the customer and is always creating great solutions that both delight the customer and save money and time for the company. He is also a great team member, always bringing ideas to the table along with a sense of humor.”
- Kaitlynn Griffith, VP at College Board
“Corey continually raised the bar in intelligent UX design, prototyping, A/B testing, and maximizing conversions. He has an impressive depth of knowledge in UX research and a rich understanding of marketing, customer funnels, and value laddering. Corey is a fantastic team player, always sharing knowledge. ”
- Ben Mossman, Lead Solutions Architect at ACT
“As his manager at Kleinfelder, I appreciated Corey's willingness to learn new things and take on challenging projects. He is a very talented UX Designer with a good eye for incorporating what is really important into his design. He does not hesitate to ask questions. Corey is responsible and reliable – I never had any concerns that he would complete a project on time or produce a quality product.”
- Rebekah Stevens, BA Manager at Kleinfelder
“Corey’s always looking for the best ways to enhance a design, jumped right in when learning new research and collaboration tools, has a thorough understanding of the user-centered design process, and was able to thrive in very challenging circumstances. I’d highly recommend Corey for any senior or leadership position within user experience or product design.”
- Derek Darby, former UX Director at ACT
“Corey is always user focused in his designs! His designs take into account the constraints and business goals and still are very user friendly. I have always found him to be super friendly and a great team player. His communication skills are amazing and he can easily express what his designs are trying to achieve. Super fun to work with as well!”
- Sri Rao, Sr. BA at ACT
I've recently learned to create interactive vector animations in Rive.app (which DuoLingo uses) for Chegg and my Fullout side project. Here's a Chat loading animation and "SkillMate" AI-powered chatbot icon for Chegg Skills, which has an onLoad animation, a persistent calming slow breathing effect, a hover state, and an onClick outro animation.
For my CheerKeys iOS app, I created these frame-by-frame PNG animations for use in chat apps:
A couple illustrations I did as contract work:
Everyone paints floor-to-ceiling murals on their kids' rooms, right? No? Hmmm. Since we moved a couple times, I ended up free-hand painting 4 rooms – here are the last two (click for zoom-able versions).
The KU ID program gave me a well rounded design education partly due to the three design professors' different approaches:
Overall, the design-thinking user-centered ID process was perfect preparation for digital product design and UX work.
Despite my design professor telling me I should get my master's in Cognitive Science, I got it in Ergonomics / Biomechanics to improve my ability to design physical products. Turns out he was right. He was always right. Oh well — live and learn, I suppose.
For my thesis, I tested the muscle activity and efficiency of finger and postural muscles during slow, normal, and fast typing on a standard keyboard, a "fixed-split" ergonomic keyboard, and Kinesis' Contour keyboard (now discontinued, but similar to this). Turns out, there wasn't much difference. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Even though I've been doing this a long time, I always strive to improve my design skills and design-adjacent knowledge. Some courses I've taken include:
And my weekly news/pod diet: