Ben Katz

Ben Katz

Product Design in San Francisco

About

I'm a product designer with a background in industrial design. I think that people and process should always come before pixels. I thrive in fast-paced product teams and always prefer to design based on knowledge and user empathy rather than just ideas. I love a good cup of tea and have an affinity for marvel comics, space documentaries, and the Back to the Future trilogy. When I'm not doing design work you can find me painting, playing pick-up soccer, or randomly stopping on the street to pet dogs.

Work Experience

2021 — 2023
San Francisco, CA
  • Spearheaded the creation and evolution of the foundational Opto design system and assisted in extending those foundations to the Opto brand.
  • Designed, shipped, and evolved the first version of the Opto product as Opto’s first and lead designer using a high degree of user research.
  • Designed, and implemented workflows to improve personalization, deliver education, and reduce the private investment process time 35%.
2019 — 2021
San Francisco, CA
  • Crafted and lead the handoff process for six hero pages for the Omada marketing website rebrand, increasing customer conversions by 18%.
  • Lead the research, synthesis, design, and handoff of participant and coach experiences for non-elevated BMI users, increasing the number of treatable new users by 36%.
  • Led and facilitated the exploration and execution of a web and mobile product design system & associated documentation for patient and health coach teams, ensuring over 75% mobile app design system compliance.
2017 — 2019
San Francisco, CA
  • Audited and redesigned Getaround’s product style guide with product team, giving consistency to product deliverables and reducing handoff time to engineering teams.
  • Lead an initiative in redesigning Getaround’s renter experience informed by user interviews, journey and experience mapping, as well as sketching, wireframing, and prototyping.
  • Designed a brand new fuel recording experience for Getaround renters, improving renter and owner net promoter scores and reducing company customer happiness operation costs.
2016 — 2016
Atlanta, GA

• Designed and implemented a master set of wireframe, annotation, and flow elements for product UX design, increasing speed of UX development and handoff to visual design and marketing teams.
• Redesigned product’s web and mobile experiences for creating and assigning photograph watermarks.

2015 — 2015
Atlanta, GA

• Designed and developed "magic moments" user feedback features for qualifying and resolving web based experience issues, increasing user retention.
• Designed and coded new user onboarding flow via emails and in-app notifications, improving customer conversion from trial to full product account by 23%.

2015 — 2015
Atlanta, GA

• Researched and developed modular circuit construction techniques for the development of production-ready e-textile garments.
• Developed a haptic mirror therapy glove to aid in the treatment of a paretic limb after a stroke.

2014 — 2014
Atlanta, GA

• Prototyped an updated mobile TV remote app for LG’s line of Smart+ TVs through sketches, wireframes, and clickable prototypes, revamping the LG TV viewing experience.
• Provided user experience strategy for Smart+ TVs interfaces via user personas and scenarios, affinity diagramming sessions, and usability testing.

2014 — 2014
Atlanta, GA

• Introduced wireframing into company digital design process, improving company design efficiency and breadth.
• Developed ten real estate websites through sketching and wireframing.

2013 — 2014
Atlanta, GA

• Designed and implemented three campus-wide Georgia Tech sponsored graphics to promote improved student life and campus activites.
• Designed and developed student assistant handbook to increase efficiency of student eployees.
• Introduced use of project management software Trello in office to facilitate effective management of projects, jobs, and tasks.

Volunteering

2015 — 2015
2015 — 2015
Student Volunteer at Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA

Volunteered for the Georgia Tech School of Industrial Design's inaugural Symposium on Design and Wearable Computing.

Contact

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