A dark stone ring split by a single vertical seam of warm light

Case 01A connected ecosystem

The first designer in the room.

Leadership lens

I connected decisions across product, brand and operations so customers encountered one coherent system—not four internal org charts.

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Philosophy

The next generation of consequential products will embed intelligence into the spaces, objects and rituals of everyday life. Interfaces are becoming ambient, adaptive and context-aware, but capability alone won’t win.

The products people return to will be the ones that feel natural, emotionally resonant and culturally relevant — while preserving human agency and trust.

Why it existed

A device, an app, a storefront and a factory floor. Four parts that had to behave like one product — and, until I arrived, no one whose job was to make them one.

I joined PAX Labs as an early design hire — the first UX Designer in the company — helping build a connected ecosystem that spanned mobile apps, wireless hardware, ecommerce and manufacturing tools.

Evidence neededAdd one moment where fragmentation became visible to a customer or to the business. Name the consequence, not just the inconsistency.

Why it was difficult

Four surfaces. One source of truth.

Fig. 01 — The system, as I found it and as I left itSurfaces 4 · Cadences 3 · Designers 1

Tension A

Hardware moves in years. Software moves in weeks. The design had to hold across both clocks.

Tension B

What constraint was unique to a connected vapor device?

Tension C

Which teams held competing priorities—and what was each protecting?

The object

PAX Era companion app showing session control for a connected device

The product is a physical object first. Everything else is how it keeps its promise.

Fig. 02PAX Era session control—software extending the physical product without competing with it.

What I decided

Three decisions the rest of the system was built on.

Start with the relationship, not the settings.
The onboarding studies make device selection, pairing and readiness legible before exposing controls. Confirm the rejected alternative and its cost.

Fig. 03a — Pairing and onboarding studies
Fig. 03b — Navigation system studies

Make device state persistent.
The interface keeps identity, security, settings and status in a stable frame while the control surface changes. Add who challenged this model and what evidence resolved it.
Design the family, not a single device.
Device management studies account for multiple products and states in one system. Confirm where this pattern persisted and what complexity it removed for customers or teams.

Life is a team sport. Train hard. Collaborate. Never make big decisions in a silo. People never forget a feeling — especially delight. Design is never done, only due. Surround yourself with intelligence and genius.

Capability alone never wins.

Working principle — carried from PAX into everything since

The evidence

PAX mobile device drawer and device-management interface studies — PAX.01 — Device management systemMobile product study

A working wall of PAX mobile flows with annotations and feedback notes — PAX.02 — Working system, made visibleFlows · critique · iteration

PAX responsive ecommerce experience shown on desktop and mobile — PAX.03 — One brand across screensResponsive ecommerce

Why it mattered

What changed—and whatcarried forward?

[Metric — adoption]: [X]
[Metric — quality or speed]: [X]
Years the foundations outlived my tenure: [X]

07 — Why it's mine

There was no established UX function to hand this to. The strongest version of this story will name the pattern that outlived the work, the people who adopted it, and the business or customer consequence it unlocked.

A triangular doorway in dark stone with a slit of white light

Next case — 02 GoPro

Set in Newsreader, Hanken Grotesk and IBM Plex Mono. Built with HTML, CSS and one line of light.

The first designer in the room.

A device, an app, a storefront and a factory floor. Four parts that had to behave like one product — and, until I arrived, no one whose job was to make them one.

Four surfaces. One source of truth.

Three decisions the rest of the system was built on.

Start with the relationship, not the settings.

Make device state persistent.

Design the family, not a single device.

What changed—and whatcarried forward?