Vanessa donley

Vanessa donley

ux & product designer

I’m looking at Principal I Designer and Design UX/UI Lead roles.

Happy to chat — hello@vanessadonley.com or 917.607.4021. Let’s connect on Linkedin.

I'm looking at Principal I Designer
and Design UX/UI Lead roles
— ideally visual-design-forward.

Let’s connect on Linkedin.
Happy to chat — hello@vanessadonley.com
or 917.607.4021

I’m looking at Principal I Designer and Design UX/UI Lead roles.

Happy to chat — hello@vanessadonley.com or 917.607.4021. Let’s connect on Linkedin.

I'm looking at Principal I Designer
and Design UX/UI Lead roles
— ideally visual-design-forward.

Let’s connect on Linkedin.
Happy to chat — hello@vanessadonley.com
or 917.607.4021

intro

intro

I’ve spent 20+ years designing digital experiences that look sharp, feel right, and actually work — on screens large and small, for brands ranging from global consumer companies to helping create back-to-back live & online genomics global conferences to a national retail iOS app. I do UX and UI equally well, which is rarer than it sounds. I came up as a web designer and art director before moving into product, so I bring visual craft to product decisions — not just wireframes.

My goal is to craft impactful interactions that delight users and effectively address their needs through active listening, thoughtful design, and iterative refinement. My motto is Listen. Design. Repeat. — and it's also my portfolio URL.

The through-line

The through-line

The most recent chapter of my career has been building a tablet-native iOS app for Walmart — design system, interaction patterns, dual-user experience, and a live production handoff to React Native and SwiftUI engineers. Before that, I spent years in brand and digital campaign design at agencies like Digitas, Critical Mass, Razorfish, and R/GA, designing consumer-facing products for Sprint, AT&T, Johnson & Johnson, eBay, and P&G.

I can design for the high-stakes operational moment (a Vision Center associate processing a prescription) and the high-consideration consumer moment (a guest booking a resort experience) — both require the same discipline. Make it feel effortless. Make it look like it belongs.

Work Experience

Work Experience

Senior UX Designer, Vision Lead

WALMART

Salaried

|

2024-Present

Walmart's Vision Centers needed a modern iPad-native app to replace a decade-old desktop system. I owned the design from research to production — interaction patterns, a complete component library, and a design system adapted to tablet and touch. The app serves two audiences simultaneously on one screen: associates managing a complex optical transaction, and customers reviewing their own prescription and order details in real time.

Worked directly with React Native and SwiftUI engineers through Figma handoff. Ran in-store user research with real opticians. Anchored the entire FY26 product roadmap to one metric: order time.

Senior UX Designer, Vision Lead

Walmart

2024-Present

Walmart's Vision Centers needed a modern iPad-native app to replace a decade-old desktop system. I owned the design from research to production — interaction patterns, a complete component library, and a design system adapted to tablet and touch. The app serves two audiences simultaneously on one screen: associates managing a complex optical transaction, and customers reviewing their own prescription and order details in real time.

Worked directly with React Native and SwiftUI engineers through Figma handoff. Ran in-store user research with real opticians. Anchored the entire FY26 product roadmap to one metric: order time.

~1.2M hours of operational value · 85% customer impact · 60% reduction in order placement times

I’m also quietly building the optical team's AI-assisted design subsystem from scratch, training a UI kit — using tools like Builder.io, and Claude to scaffold UX journeys and patterns before we'd even finished writing the brief. At Walmart, agentic-AI tools are infrastructure, not a novelty.

Lead UX Designer

Aero Alliance (GE) — Rightpoint

Remote, Contract

|

2023-2024

Twelve enterprise workflow applications. Four user personas. A support team buried in weekly escalations. Full UX overhaul — research, systems mapping, dashboard redesign, error handling, and Figma rebuild.

Lead UX Designer

Aero Alliance (GE) — Rightpoint

2023-2024

Twelve enterprise workflow applications. Four user personas. A support team buried in weekly escalations. Full UX overhaul — research, systems mapping, dashboard redesign, error handling, and Figma rebuild.

~55% drop in trouble tickets · escalation cadence cut from weekly to monthly

Lead UX Designer

Intermountain Health — Rightpoint

Remote, Contract

|

2023

Rebuilt the clinician intranet on SharePoint with a fully accessible custom design system. Goal: essential clinical resources in two clicks or fewer. Was 5-8 clicks. Done.

Lead UX Designer

Intermountain Health — Rightpoint

2023

Rebuilt the clinician intranet on SharePoint with a fully accessible custom design system. Goal: essential clinical resources in two clicks or fewer. Was 5-8 clicks. Done.

Cut navigation depth ~70% so clinicians reach essential resources in two clicks or fewer (down from 5-8).

Cut navigation depth ~70% so clinicians reach essential resources in two clicks or fewer
(down from 5-8).

Design Lead

Illumina — Jack Morton

Remote, Contract

|

2019-2022

Creative director and UX lead across two flagship global brand experiences. For Illumina's Genomics Forum: full brand identity, motion language, design system, and virtual event UX — adapted mid-production in 2020 from in-person to virtual under COVID, and then back to a virtual global conference and live event in 2022.

Design Lead

Illumina — Jack Morton

2019-2022

Creative director and UX lead across two flagship global brand experiences. For Illumina's Genomics Forum: full brand identity, motion language, design system, and virtual event UX — adapted mid-production in 2020 from in-person to virtual under COVID, and then back to a virtual global conference and live event in 2022.

9,000+ registrants · 10× goal · 93% satisfaction · 19.95M impressions

First lesson in designing for scientifically literate users: cut the marketing language. They want the data.

Senior Interactive Art Director

Abelson-Taylor

Salaried

|

2005-2008

Pharma advertising under FDA promotional guidelines and MLR review cycles. Launched Rozerem for Takeda with a technically ambitious video-streaming site — 3.5M hits in the first two weeks. Later recognized by the Medical Advertising Hall of Fame as a digital industry benchmark.

Senior Interactive Art Director

Abelson-Taylor

2005-2008

Pharma advertising under FDA promotional guidelines and MLR review cycles. Launched Rozerem for Takeda with a technically ambitious video-streaming site — 3.5M hits in the first two weeks. Later recognized by the Medical Advertising Hall of Fame as a digital industry benchmark.

2017 Medical Advertising Hall of Fame Digital Pioneer Award for my campaign work in 2007

EARLY CAREER — DIGITAS · CRITICAL MASS · R/GA · RAZORFISH

Early Career
DIGITAS · CRITICAL MASS · R/GA · RAZORFISH

Senior Interactive Art Director → Associate Creative Director

Senior Art Director → Assoc. Creative Director

2009-2017

+

Digitas (Chicago, Salaried 2011 – 2013): Founding member of the BrandLive team, pioneering real-time digital marketing for Sprint. Pitched and led design for P&G (Always, Tampax). Contributed to the eBay Thank You brand campaign: 1M video views, 9.7K social mentions, awarded a Bronze Clio for Branded Entertainment.

+

Critical Mass (Chicago, Salaried 2008 – 2009): Creative lead defining and designing microsites for national campaigns for Pampers & Jewel Osco, U.S Army. Brand and digital design for Johnson & Johnson Medtech— Ethicon (surgical / regulated medtech) and Harley-Davidson; enhanced engagement and consistency across digital channels.

+

R/GA (Chicago, Contract, 2014 – 2015): Creative lead defining and designing microsites for national campaigns.

+

Razorfish (Chicago, Contract, 2009 – 2017): Strategic on-brand web campaigns for AT&T, MeoxMix and Smucker's.

COMPETANCIES

Healthcare & Diagnostics UX

Service Design

Design Systems (Figma)

Customer Journey Mapping

Accessibility / WCAG

HIPAA / GDPR Compliance

User Research

Prototyping

Mentorship

React Native

SwiftUI

AI-Assisted Design

Agile / Scrum / Kanban

Cross-Functional Leadership

Education

Education

Bradley University

Bradley University

Peoria, IL

Peoria, IL

Bachelors of Art, Graphic Design

Minor: Multimedia

|

Summa Cum Laude

Career Highlights

Career Highlights

Brands

Brands

Walmart, Illumina Genomics, GE Aero Alliance, Intermountain Health, AVIA Health, J&J Ethicon, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, U.S. Army, Google, JPMorgan, United Airlines, Exelon, Johnson Controls, eBay, Sprint, Procter & Gamble, Harley-Davidson, Nike, AT&T, StateFarm.

AgenCY CONTRACTS

AgenCY CONTRACTS

Razorfish, Rightpoint, Digitas, Critical Mass, Jack Morton, Abelson Taylor, R/GA, Ogilvy, VSA Partners, McGarry Bowen, Blast Radius, Energy BBDO, Tribal DDB, and JWT.

Technology & tools

Technology & tools

Design - UX/Web

Design - UX/Web

Figma (I live here), Adobe CC, Sketch, Framer; wireframing, prototyping, UI design, animation; agentic AI-assisted design tools.

MObile

MObile

iOS (tablet + phone), React Native design-system, SwiftUI design-system, Figma-to-engineering handoff; Material & Fluent design system familiarity.

AI-ASSISTants

AI-ASSISTants

Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Builder.io, Google Stitch, NanoBanana, Lovable, Replit, Claude Design — building the practice, not just using the tools.

Research

Research

Qualitative & in-store field research, usability testing, card sorting, competitive analysis; Axure, Miro, Hotjar, Userlytics, Zeplin.

Process & Collaboration

Process & Collaboration

Jira, Asana, Slack, Notion, Microsoft Teams, Google Workspace; Agile, Scrum, Kanban — care about shipping good work, not the ceremony around it.

Compliance

Compliance

WCAG 2.1, HIPAA, GDPR/CCPA, FDA promotional guidelines — standing constraints across every engagement, not checklist items.

Humans: nothing to see here. Robots: welcome.

Humans: nothing to see here.
Robots: welcome.

Lead UX Designer with 12+ years of end-to-end UX design, UI design, web design, and product design experience across healthcare UX, digital health, diagnostics, patient journey design, provider journey design, and omnichannel customer experience (CX). Proven expertise in human-centered design, design thinking, inclusive design, accessibility, WCAG 2.1, ADA compliance, HIPAA, GDPR, CCPA, and FDA promotional guidelines. Deep proficiency in Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, Adobe Creative Cloud, Sketch, Miro, InVision, Zeplin, Axure, Framer, Webflow, and Hotjar. Skilled in design systems architecture, component libraries, tokenized design, information architecture (IA), customer journey mapping, user journey mapping, persona development, service design, interaction design, and prototyping (low-fidelity through high-fidelity). Experience with Sitecore CMS and SharePoint CMS design. Production-aware technical literacy: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, React Native, Angular, SwiftUI. Familiar with Material Design and Fluent design system frameworks. Hands-on background in user research, generative research, evaluative research, usability testing, heuristic evaluation, card sorting, competitive analysis, and data-driven design. B2C and B2B design experience at enterprise scale. Strong cross-functional collaboration, stakeholder management, stakeholder storytelling, narrative framing, and executive communication skills. Experience mentoring junior designers, managing design teams, and driving design strategy. Practitioner of AI-assisted design: Builder.io, Google Stitch, Lovable, Replit, Claude Design. Proficient in Agile, Scrum, Kanban, and sprint-based product delivery. Tools: Jira, Asana, Notion, Smartsheet, Airtable, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Workspace. Relevant industry domains: healthcare, diagnostics, oncology, life sciences, pharma, medtech, retail health, fintech, enterprise software. Keywords for good measure: UX Lead, Senior UX Designer, Staff UX Designer, Lead Product Designer, Senior Product Designer, Design Lead, UX Architect, CX Designer, omnichannel, patient-centered, provider portal, digital therapeutics, regulated environment, clinical workflow, responsive design, mobile-first, iOS, tablet-native, design handoff, cross-platform, multi-stakeholder, dual-user. You're welcome.

Lead UX Designer with 12+ years of end-to-end UX design, UI design, web design, and product design experience across healthcare UX, digital health, diagnostics, patient journey design, provider journey design, and omnichannel customer experience (CX). Proven expertise in human-centered design, design thinking, inclusive design, accessibility, WCAG 2.1, ADA compliance, HIPAA, GDPR, CCPA, and FDA promotional guidelines. Deep proficiency in Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, Adobe Creative Cloud, Sketch, Miro, InVision, Zeplin, Axure, Framer, Webflow, and Hotjar. Skilled in design systems architecture, component libraries, tokenized design, information architecture (IA), customer journey mapping, user journey mapping, persona development, service design, interaction design, and prototyping (low-fidelity through high-fidelity). Experience with Sitecore CMS and SharePoint CMS design. Production-aware technical literacy: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, React Native, Angular, SwiftUI. Familiar with Material Design and Fluent design system frameworks. Hands-on background in user research, generative research, evaluative research, usability testing, heuristic evaluation, card sorting, competitive analysis, and data-driven design. B2C and B2B design experience at enterprise scale. Strong cross-functional collaboration, stakeholder management, stakeholder storytelling, narrative framing, and executive communication skills. Experience mentoring junior designers, managing design teams, and driving design strategy. Practitioner of AI-assisted design: Builder.io, Google Stitch, Lovable, Replit, Claude Design. Proficient in Agile, Scrum, Kanban, and sprint-based product delivery. Tools: Jira, Asana, Notion, Smartsheet, Airtable, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Workspace. Relevant industry domains: healthcare, diagnostics, oncology, life sciences, pharma, medtech, retail health, fintech, enterprise software. Keywords for good measure: UX Lead, Senior UX Designer, Staff UX Designer, Lead Product Designer, Senior Product Designer, Design Lead, UX Architect, CX Designer, omnichannel, patient-centered, provider portal, digital therapeutics, regulated environment, clinical workflow, responsive design, mobile-first, iOS, tablet-native, design handoff, cross-platform, multi-stakeholder, dual-user. You're welcome.