/ Systems, service & platform design
For sixteen years, teams have brought me in when the accepted answer was that users were the problem. It rarely was. I find the real fault, in the system or the measurement, and design the structure that resolves it. Enterprise SaaS, developer tools, gaming, and compliance, always embedded with product and engineering.
Filter the work: click a category to narrow it
Electronic Arts · Frostbite · Game Engine Platform
Password protectedUser impact: Technical artists get a scalable way to define and review zone relationships, instead of a fully manual process that broke down past a handful of zones.
Biz impact: One team's problem becomes every team's solution: any team managing zone-based world data can inherit the pattern.
More details
OneTrust · SaaS: Data Privacy, Security & Governance
2 case studiesPassword protectedUser impact: Enterprise clients self-serve compliance migrations that used to require opening a support ticket.
Biz impact: Time-to-value cut from months to days across 14,000 organizations.
User impact: Investigators see how a case connects to other cases, people, and evidence, instead of piecing it together across scattered systems.
Biz impact: Validated by the Customer Advisory Board as solving their number one pain point; the pattern was adopted across every SpeakUp module.
Unity Technologies · Content Information Experience
Password protectedUser impact: Developers find any doc through one unified, searchable system instead of hunting across scattered, duplicated portals.
Biz impact: Support tickets down 34%, session depth up 41%.
More details
Intelex · SaaS: Environmental, Health, Safety, Quality
Password protectedUser impact: Client onboarding had stretched to six months at its worst, running on two fragile legacy tools stitched together.
Biz impact: I ran the discovery behind the decision to rebuild, and carried the redesign from service blueprints to a working prototype.
More details
Igloo Software · Digital Workplace Content Architecture
Password protectedUser impact: Wikis and articles share one content model, so cross-linking, search, and discovery behave consistently no matter which content type someone's in.
Biz impact: Shipped as a reusable content pattern other Igloo content types were built on afterward, instead of a one-off system requiring separate long-term maintenance.
More details
Migraine Canada · Patient Advocacy Information Architecture
Password protectedUser impact: First-time visitors get a clear next step instead of nested dropdown menus, with a translator page that teaches the Migraine Tree metaphor before asking them to navigate it.
Biz impact: Validated three-pathway IA and simplified user flow, co-designed live with clinical and technical leadership who could act on it immediately.
More details
Fenix Forge · AI Coaching Platform
Password protectedUser impact: Students arrive at coaching sessions already prepared instead of losing the first 20–30 minutes to catch-up.
Biz impact: 3× faster onboarding, $2,400+/yr in vendor costs eliminated.
More details
| Engagement | Already true | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| Unity | Fourth attempt. Three prior initiatives had stalled. 3M+ pages across 73+ portals. Search index maintained in a Word document. 23% of users were actively detracting. | 73 portals to 1. After launch: support tickets −34%, session depth +41%. |
| OneTrust | A year of engineering built without UX involvement. 420M misclassified records. Pilot clients chose Excel and JIRA instead. | Migration system validated with the clients who had walked away. Production-ready specs for 14,000 organizations. |
| Intelex | Two fragile legacy tools stitched into one import process. Client onboarding stretched to six months at its worst. | Ran the discovery behind the decision to rebuild; carried the redesign from service blueprints to a working prototype. |
| Fenix Career Forge | 158 designers, most sending 100+ applications with no response. | Excavation-based method, 7 proprietary frameworks, clients placed in Canada and the US. |
“Chris's biggest strength is his professionalism in dealing with a mix of priorities on complex design projects. He is able to gain alignment through his listening skills and his adeptness at giving clear presentations.”
Mary Luther
Director, Product Design, Unity
“Christopher demonstrated a deep understanding of our users and their needs, which allowed him to create user-centered designs that were both intuitive and efficient.”
Sean Bledsoe
Director, Product Design, Unity
“Chris is an outstanding professional who has shown high strength in designing solutions for clients. He combines a great balance between different skill sets that include a strong knowledge in design, user analysis, usability, and content architecture.”
Yared Rodriguez
VP, Technology, Huge
“Chris brings a passion to everything he does, which is infectious. I have often described him as the beating heart of the UX team.”
Kara-Anne Fraser
User Experience Manager, Intelex
“A powerhouse of UX knowledge, and any team fortunate to have him on board will only regret one thing: that they did not have him sooner.”
Martin Dahlin
Product Manager, Technical Artist, Frostbite, EA
“Running a workshop with the Docs Leads was a crucial step to ensure everyone was on the same page.”
Brian Coughlin
Senior Product Manager, Unity
“Before UX involvement, user adoption was low. Releases would come back needing an improvement package, or we find out 6 months later that the direction wasn't working for clients.”
Matt Conquer
Product Manager, Intelex
“Chris is a passionate designer with excellent interpersonal skills who always strives to make the design process transparent and welcoming.”
Marc Aquino
Senior Product Designer, Intelex
“Chris consistently demonstrated collaborative leadership. He expertly navigates trade-offs to deliver experiences that follow design standards while satisfying business goals.”
Celine Haddad
Developer Operations Engineer, Unity
“I quickly discovered a true design professional with an outstanding passion for the craft. Chris puts users first and collaborates effortlessly to make the best ideas win.”
Anton Iancu
Engineering Lead, Unity
I work on systems that were built fast and are now buckling. Most of what I do is figuring out what is actually true before anyone commits to the next answer.
More about how I workOutside of work I run Fenix Career Forge, a coaching practice and community for designers rebuilding their careers.
A good presentation is not just the pretty slides, it is timing, reading the room, and making people feel something before you ask them to agree with you. Comedians are masters at this; designers mostly wing it. A conversation on how improv and “yes, and” thinking, learning not to take a bad room personally, and using humour to build trust faster all make you a better designer.
Uncover the critical distinction between knowing how to tell stories and being prepared to deliver them when it counts. Learn practical strategies for spontaneous storytelling and explore how improv techniques can elevate your UX communication skills.
How team culture differs across freelance, agency, startup, and enterprise design, how to work with the pressure and mental health challenges designers face, and what over a decade of teaching and mentoring taught me about giving back to the community I came up in.
