David Leggett

David Leggett

David Leggett

David Leggett

Product Design

Seasoned UX leader focused on practical design methods, user advocacy, and team empowerment to drive impactful, user-centered solutions.

📐

Product Design

⚙️

Design Ops

UX Strategy

🧑‍🤝‍🧑

Management

🔍

Research

Simplifying complex workflows using innovative strategies and tried-and-true design thinking methods

Senior UX Design Manager

2023 -> 2024

2023 -> 2024

Drove innovation in design operations, processes, and consistency while leading high-impact projects. I led design efforts, established content review processes, spearheaded design management practices, and oversaw the development of a component library.

Implemented an Enhanced Design Process

I collaborated on developing an end-to-end design process, enhancing tasks through coordination with Legal, Risk, and Compliance stakeholders. I established a specialized Jira Design issue type and integrated a Kanban board, improving the efficiency and visibility of our design projects.

Content Strategist

RBC Clear

"

David spearheaded establishing a process for content reviews. Thanks to him, our content review process is robust, and perfectly aligned with our design goals. David’s leadership, expertise, and collaborative spirit make him a real asset to any team."

Content Strategist

RBC Clear

"

David spearheaded establishing a process for content reviews. Thanks to him, our content review process is robust, and perfectly aligned with our design goals. David’s leadership, expertise, and collaborative spirit make him a real asset to any team."

Spearheaded an Enhanced Component Library

I planned, proposed and led the creation of an Interactive Component Library, using Component Properties to accelerate design time by reducing manual adjustments.

This library enhanced design efficiency, ensured uniformity, facilitated rapid prototyping, and improved QA testing quality.

Read more about the challenges and benefits of this project in the case study:

Facilitated Design Methodology Workshops

I conducted transformative workshops to refine key components such as Tables, Navigation, and Modals. These workshops led to greater pattern standardization and the development of more sophisticated components used throughout the portal.

Feature Design Leadership

I led critical value streams like Client Onboarding and Reports. The complicated, non-linear user workflows within the Onboarding space required handling several concurrent user workflows, including entity and account onboarding, product enrollment, document upload and validation, and agreement signing.

The RBC Clear Relationship Management hub screen identifies next-steps for clients in the Onboarding process.

Senior UX Design Manager

2022 -> 2023

2022 -> 2023

Grew and managed a multi-disciplinary design team, leading impactful projects like a client lifecycle management platform, user testing of an onboarding application, and product/market-fit discovery. The new platform replaced the previous onboarding system within six months.

Dir. Research & Strategy

Silicon Valley Bank

"

David excelled in building relationships with the Product Management team, ensuring alignment between design efforts and product goals. David's strategic thinking, leadership, and commitment to excellence have made a lasting impact.

Dir. Research & Strategy

Silicon Valley Bank

"

David excelled in building relationships with the Product Management team, ensuring alignment between design efforts and product goals. David's strategic thinking, leadership, and commitment to excellence have made a lasting impact.

Strategic Project Management

I led a multi-disciplinary team, managing resources, defining roles, and aligning with organizational goals to achieve strategic objectives in coordination with Product leadership.

Hands-On Leadership

I acted as a ‘player/coach,’ participating in projects while mentoring the team, balancing workloads, and demonstrating leadership and commitment to excellence.

Launched and Managed User Testing Efforts

I proposed and managed SVB’s first user testing with bank clients in a live environment, gathering insights, correcting assumptions, and revealing friction points. This significantly influenced design and introduced the team to user research, enhancing their user-centric approach.

Read more about the challenges and benefits of this project in the case study:

Design-Led Innovation

I fostered design-driven innovation in the Product Development workflow, enhancing creative processes and outcomes. One proposal by the design team was to use QR codes to streamline document scanning and uploads from mobile devices, showcasing practical design-led solutions for real-world user challenges.

Improved Operational Efficiency

I advanced the operation of design by overseeing the creation of a Design Component Library, the organization of Figma files as screen flow diagrams, and enabling a holistic approach to designing experiences using prototyping.

An example of the organization of a design file in Figma, where each frame was a prototype experience representing that step in the workflow

2021 -> 2022

2021 -> 2022

Designed experiences for Capco's clients in Wealth Management, Banking, and Insurance.

Design Leadership

Led design teams on discovery, research, and design projects, ensuring comprehensive and user-centric outcomes. Mentored junior designers on subjects like stakeholder presentations and design methodology.

Cross-Project Coordination

Coordinated with designers of related development projects to effectively utilize company UX Personas, presenting a unified user base definition to executives and managers, improving authenticity of proposed designs.

Managing Principal

CAPCO

"

Our clients were also consistently impressed with his performance, both in his ability to execute design work and to manage junior team members in an empathetic way. Dave is able to zoom in and out seamlessly, focusing on the details of design production but also on the systemic needs of a larger project team."

Managing Principal

CAPCO

"

Our clients were also consistently impressed with his performance, both in his ability to execute design work and to manage junior team members in an empathetic way. Dave is able to zoom in and out seamlessly, focusing on the details of design production but also on the systemic needs of a larger project team."

Efficiency Improvements

Identified opportunities to reduce development requirements, cutting the number of pages involved in project development by 15%.

Prototyping and Design

Produced designs and immersive design prototypes for feature definition, providing clear references for project managers and developers.

Senior UX Designer

2017 -> 2021

2017 -> 2021

Designed experiences for Guidewire's flagship product, InsuranceSuite, led the MVP development of Data Studio, and managed full-scope, '0 to 1' projects involving all aspects of research, design, and prototyping.

Senior UX Researcher

Guidewire

"

He takes the time to thoroughly understand the problem at hand while synthesizing the many voices present in the design process. You can expect Dave to be valuable and effective at managing difficult design work and a reliable voice for engaging design in your team."

Senior UX Researcher

Guidewire

"

He takes the time to thoroughly understand the problem at hand while synthesizing the many voices present in the design process. You can expect Dave to be valuable and effective at managing difficult design work and a reliable voice for engaging design in your team."

MVP Design & Development

As the design lead for Data Studio, an MVP for Guidewire clients to manage data, I led a team of three designers, creating designs, prototypes, and specs for feature definition, validation, and developer implementation. I also coordinated user tests with UX research.

A user creates a new Query in Data Studio, drags a data source in, then runs the Query to produce a table of results.

Tools & Operations assessment

Studied Guidewire's design tools, workflows, impacts and costs. Produced recommendations for changes to optimize production workflow and value.

Enhanced Component Library

Modernized the appearance of about 50 components in Guidewire's component library, improving the aesthetics and consistency of the components while also ensuring compliance with WCAG 2.0 AA standards.

Data Visualization Component

Created a DV Component based on UX principles and the Conclusion, Evidence and Data framework by Brian O'Neill. Advocated for the purpose-driven creation of visualizations based on research of the User Persona involved.

Designed experiences for Guidewire's flagship product, InsuranceSuite, led the MVP development of Data Studio, and managed full-scope, '0 to 1' projects involving all aspects of research, design, and prototyping.

In design, I employ concepts taught by frameworks like Jobs to be Done, Brian O'Neill's CED framework for analytics and others. Here are some articles I've written or to which I've contributed, showcasing my expertise and insights in user experience design.

VALUE OF DESIGN / PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

How JTBD can be used to enhance product innovation by uncovering customer motivations.

INSURTECH DESIGN / FOCUS ON THE USER

How Guidewire's design team leverages user-centric design to enhance trust, efficiency, and satisfaction in insurance products.

REMOTE WORK / TOOLS FOR DESIGNERS

The tools Guidewire uses to enhance collaboration, improve user experience, and streamline the design process

© 2024 David Leggett