Rex Chekal
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Rex Chekal

Principal Product Designer in Chicago, He/Him

Looking to connect with those curious in the intersection of generative AI and design!

5 months ago

About

👋
With 18 years of experience, I've led various projects, from large-scale innovation workshops to in-depth product strategy to launching new startups. My design expertise encompasses the spectrum of print, UX/UI design and brand development for an array of digital and physical products.

My career took root in journalism, where I honed my narrative and creative skills as a print news designer, eventually evolving into a vanguard for the need for the digital transformation of newsrooms. My tenure includes impactful creative and editorial work at the Chicago Tribune and a pivotal role as Creative Director at the Chicago Sun-Times.

With a focus on feasibility and pragmatism, spending my formative years in newsroom environments directly informs my inquisitive and collaborative research and design approach to product design today.

My current role as our Principal Product Designer centers on advancing our digital therapeutics vertical, a field where I actively contribute through writing and speaking. Additionally, I support the shaping of our internal strategy around the transformative potential of generative AI in custom software and its impact on our work.

In 2023, I delved into mentorship to deepen my industry insight and address the diverse career paths and challenges within design recruitment. My dedication to the mentorship platform ADPList.org has allowed me to guide over 50 sessions, imparting 1500+ minutes of wisdom to designers globally and earning me a spot as a "Top 50 Mentor in Content Strategy."

Beyond professional pursuits, I am a voracious consumer of news, a video game enthusiast for creative replenishment and a keen follower of generative AI developments, fueling my passion for continuous learning and innovation.

Contact

LinkedIn

Projects

2021

Putting the essentials of physical therapy into people’s hands (literally) empowers them to take control of their wellness and proactively combat the fear of becoming injured and losing access to an activity that brings them joy.

2020

Spectacular reinvents how architects and firms connect through a shared appreciation of the work, building authentic relationships to help inspire, hire and expand your network.

2019

Discovery and research to drive a beta concept for a fully digital therapeutic for Overactive Bladder to support an application for FDA approval.

2018

Wearable devices help patients and their doctors identify personalized ways to support their journey toward recovery.

2018

Brink approached TXI with big dreams of building accessible software to empower voters. Founded by former “Hillary for America” campaign strategists, the Brink team wanted to guide all voters through the voting process — especially those with disabilities.

2017

With Australia deregulating elderly homecare, our client had an opportunity to build an alternative to a largely antiquated system — introducing technology where there were previously only papers.

2017

Through the sprint process, we helped Rice University's Doerr Institute find a way to reach students and communicate new programs that they cared about. We utilized a chatbot to meet students where they were most often, without it feeling forced.

2017

The goal was to give buyers — for the first time ever — a transparent online marketplace website where they could see every available plant, which suppliers had them, what types and sizes were available, and, most revolutionarily, how much everything cost.

2017

Tyson’s ask went well beyond technology: Work with us to invent a new, sellable food that finds innovation in food waste — and teach us design thinking in the process.

2016

We developed a new CMS for a digital storefront as well as an iPad application to help sales drive engagement with customers.

Speaking

2023
Las Vegas

I joined a panel discussion of leaders from pharma, healthcare, medical devices, and biotech to dig into questions about what innovation looks like across the healthcare ecosystem today.

2022
Las Vegas

Innovating in healthcare is complicated. To understand the parties involved and create innovative solutions, you must invest in and support user research and discovery.

2022

Rex Chekal, principal product designer at TXI discusses user-centric research, specifically:
• Why product innovation should be rooted in user research & what does that research look like.
• How can product managers weigh the needs of two distinct user groups during the research and design process
• Defining a culture of innovation
• Threats to innovation within an organization

2019
Chicago

In this episode, TXI discusses adapting their design sprint process for general product design, specifically working with Tyson Foods Innovation Lab on projects such as creating the Yappah brand to prevent food waste. Chemia Davis and Santi Proano from Tyson, Rex Chekal from Table XI, and Jessie Shternshus from the Improv Effect will explain how design thinking and the Agile process were applied to food products.

Writing

2023

To drive adoption, digital health solutions must solve real user problems, which means users cannot be an afterthought in developing these solutions. But it’s also important to recognize that end users aren’t the only group whose needs matter. Workable, scalable digital health solutions must also clear the hurdles of technical feasibility and business viability.

2022

Great healthcare design improves outcomes—if you keep people at the center

2022

Remote therapeutic monitoring (RTM) and remote patient monitoring (RPM) services are poised to transform the field of digital health in the coming years, thanks to new CPT codes that let clinicians get reimbursed for prescribing these solutions, among other market forces.

In this piece, I’ll dive into why that’s true, examining key lessons from our past work developing remote patient monitoring solutions and the advantages of those solutions that work uncovered.

2022

In this piece, we’ll go deep into six ways that innovation consultants can support the work of in-house product development teams to help organizations develop digital products that deliver real value to end users and, by extension, the organization as a whole.

2022

Three points to consider for any healthcare system that aims to develop apps that enjoy high adoption and, as a result, improve patients’ lives.

2022

Empathetic app design encourages patients to stick to a treatment plan, empowers them to participate in their own care and improves their health.

2022

How product innovation works in healthcare and how it leads to better patient treatment adherence and, ultimately, better health outcomes.

2021

A look at three trends—everyday software integration, task automation, and personalized care—shaping software design for medical devices.

Features

2023

Featured in article:
"One of the attractions of LLMs was that they could discover patterns on vast unlabeled data sets on their own, at least as a starting point. The industry is waking up to the requirements for vetting and refining data or fine-tuning models for best results. Rex Chekal, principal product designer at software development consultancy TXI, expects innovations in smaller self-teaching models that compete with large data-hungry models, like GPT-4. One early example is Orca from Microsoft, which imitates the reasoning processes of larger models using progressive learning and teaching assistance to overcome capacity gaps. "For CIOs, using [LLMs] will be like hiring an all-star employee who continuously improves and is transparent about how they work," Chekal said."

2023

No one these days can afford to waste money in the production process - so how do you ensure you're not overspending?

2023

How to navigate the communication pitfalls in product design, and to keep control of costs once the process has begun.

2020

Tyson Foods established Tyson Innovation Lab in 2018 to drive faster product development using approaches and tools that are not traditionally part of a packaged food company.

I helped facilitate, teach and develop products with the Innovation Lab as a partner through TXI. We refined a process over a year that led to rapid research and prototyping to test and validate, and brand new consumer goods.

Awards

2022

Worked with Theragen, creator of a lumbar spine fusion device, to enhance an accompanying mobile app that traditionally suffered from low patient adoption rates with competitors. The app allows back surgery patients to log their recovery at home, helping doctors create more tailored recovery plans.

Theragen saw app adoption rates double, resulting in improved patient outcomes. One year after surgery, patients who received nine months of lumbar fusion device therapy were more than twice as likely to achieve overall success versus placebo control.

Volunteering

2023 — 2023
Remote

My 2023 goal was to increase my skills and exposure to mentoring. I started mentoring with ADPList.org at the encouragement of a teammate and since January 2023 I have:

• Mentored for +1500 minutes
• Completed over 50 sessions with aspiring and current UX/UI and product designers from across the globe.
• Listed as one of the "Top 50 mentors in Content Strategy"
• Gained deeper levels of empathy and understanding for how uniquely one can chart one's career path and how unaccessible finding that path can be when the design hiring process gate keeps.

Work Experience

2005 — 2007

Education

2001 — 2004

Teams

Current
TXI Design Practice