Every few years the medium changes. I've made a habit of being there first.

Charlotte AI

As founding designer, I helped define Charlotte AI's product, not just its interface — co-writing requirements with product, walking working designs through review with product and engineering on a regular cadence, and owning the research plan end to end: framing the questions, running the sessions, doing the synthesis myself. I spent real time with company leadership translating their goals into features that were differentiated, not just possible, and helped shape the roadmap around what design and the team could realistically deliver. The team grew from one designer to four.

Charlotte AI announced on the keynote stage at Fal.Con.

Disney Parks

Four years at Disney taught me that the hardest interface is the one that spans a screen and a physical place — a band on a wrist, a voice in a hotel room, a paid upgrade inside a system guests already knew by heart. Three products, each asking something different of me.

Wearable · Lead designer, team of two

MagicBand+

I came onto MagicBand+ after a prototype had already sold leadership on the idea — my first job was archaeology: interviewing the team to find what execs had actually bought into, then turning the features hinted at in that prototype into something real. The scope kept growing. What began as a Disney World launch expanded to Disneyland — the first bands there — with no existing system to build on, so I worked across product, ops, and engineering to define one from scratch.

Hardware collaboration Prototype & field testing Cross-platform app design Guest interviews Systems definition

Pairing a MagicBand+ from the native app.

Hardware partner

Not just a vendor

Amazon built the physical band. I worked with their team regularly on firmware, sensors, and haptics — testing prototypes myself and feeding back what guests would feel.

Two apps

Built where guests already were

Setup, band management, and customization lived inside the Disney World and Disneyland native apps, alongside in-park games designed for guests wearing them.

Field-tested

Proven in the park

Interviews shaped what to build. In-park testing with real bands confirmed it worked — sensor placement, game responsiveness, all of it.

Voice · Lead designer, small team

Hey Disney

Hey Disney started as a side door into MagicBand+ — I was brought in to connect the band to a new in-room voice device, building games hotel guests could play together. The role grew into leading the core Hey Disney experience: defining what "the Hey Disney voice" should sound like, working with Amazon on a new tool for tuning its tone, and rewriting phrasing that read like it came from a machine, not a person. Underneath all of it sat a harder question: how do you design trust into a device that might be listening, in a room with someone's kids?

Voice & tone design Conversation design Trust & ethics framework Onboarding & permissions

Hey Disney devices, each surfacing a different in-room experience.

Voice & tone

Sounding human

Early scripts read like they were built by a machine. I pushed the language — and Amazon's new tone-tuning tool — until it sounded like something a person would say.

Trust & ethics

Designing for comfort

An always-available device in a family's hotel room raises real questions. I worked through permissions, onboarding, and disclosure so guests felt in control, not surveilled.

Handoff

Built to outlast me

Once the core experience worked, the team grew to take it forward, and I moved back to MagicBand+ full time.

Monetization · Led two teams of four

Lightning Lane

Lightning Lane is the monetized version of FastPass+, and for most of its life it was one of the most closely-guarded projects at Disney — which shaped how we worked as much as what we built. Before I could design anything new, I had to document what already existed: every FastPass use case and edge case, verified against product, so nothing broke when paid tiers were introduced. What began as a Disney World product later expanded to Disneyland. I helped define the three product tiers and designed the original naming and identity — renamed Lightning Lane, with new iconography, shortly before launch.

Use-case audits Naming & identity Focus group research Cross-platform commerce design Team leadership

Booking a Lightning Lane pass in the app — and using it in the park.

Discovery under wraps

Documenting the invisible

Every existing FastPass use case had to be mapped and verified before we could safely design monetized tiers on top of it.

Naming & identity

From working name to launch

I created the original names and logos for the tiers under tight secrecy — Lightning Lane was the name, and the look, that made it to launch.

Scaling the team

Two teams, one product

I led design across native apps and web as separate teams, each with a different commerce backend to design around.