Bret Schwalb

I’m a Product Design Consultant with 15+ years of experience modernizing design practices and strengthening enterprise digital products for organizations across financial services, healthcare technology, and enterprise software.

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Career Camp: Agentic AI Career Coach App and Website

Mobile agentic AI career coach app.

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Modernizing a Consumer Benefits & HR Platform

Consumer and employee benefits solutions.

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International Avatar Design

One design for a global audience.

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Reducing Operational Costs by Putting the Customer First

Native mobile app for retiree benefits.

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Modernizing the Discover Network Partner Portal

Payment solutions and technical documentation

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Transformation of a Legacy B2B Customer Experience Portal

A full suite of marketing solutions.

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Video Library and Player

Custom video library for a Fortune 500.

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Custom Furniture

Custom furniture to the consumer and the trade.

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Reduced Call Center Volume

↓ 20%

Achieved through key application design at Alight Solutions

Increase in Operational Throughput

↑ 50%

Redesigned and optimised customer service solution at Omeda

Unified 6 Legacy Design Systems

↓ 1

Moved to a mobile-first, WCAG compliant system.

Product Launch Cycle Speed

↑ 20%

Transformed product design framework at Discover

Scalable People Centered Process

My approach to product design balances rapid discovery with an accelerated path to market. I champion an adaptable process that honors existing business workflows, collaborating deeply with cross-functional peers to optimize and mature institutional design practices where needed.

Hypothesis
  • Define Project Intent: Collaborate with product managers and key stakeholders to align on project intent, establishing a shared understanding of success metrics, expected outcomes, and user and business benefits.
Discovery
  • Heuristic Design Review: Conduct an initial heuristic evaluation of existing and proposed products, assessing the user experience, identifying market opportunities, navigating technical constraints, and shaping the high-level concept.
  • User Research: Conduct end-user interviews to deeply understand user workflows, core objectives, mental models, and critical pain points.
Definition
  • Evidence-Driven Alignment: Refine and realign the project intent, with cross-functional partners, based on data and insights gathered during discovery.
  • Collaborative Requirements: Define core product requirements in continuous collaboration with key stakeholders, engineering, and product management.
  • End-to-End User Journeys: Map comprehensive user flows of the entire lifecycle from upstream experiences to entry points, core interactions, exit states and downstream experiences.
Design
  • Rapid Iteration: Translate requirements into low-fidelity concepts, driving rapid iteration through sketching and wireframing.
  • Cross-Functional Feasibility Reviews: Validate the design direction through technical feasibility syncs with engineering and strategic alignment checks with product leads
  • Detailed Design & Prototyping: Promote selected concept into high-fidelity designs and interactive prototypes optimized for evaluative testing.
Validation
  • Usability Testing & Refinement: Conduct usability testing sessions, translating user feedback into design refinements.
  • Stakeholder Evacuation: Present final designs to cross-functional leadership, clearly articulating design rationale, testing methodologies, and validated results.
  • Handover & Engineering Support: Deliver developer-ready specs and assets, maintaining close partnership with engineering throughout implementation to ensure design fidelity.
Continuous Improvement
  • Post-Launch Optimization: Partner with data analysts, product managers, and engineering to continuously optimize the live experience using quantitative usage data, A/B testing, post-launch user interviews, and direct feedback loops.
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Discovery conversations, with all stakeholders, are the foundation to great results. 

User Flow Example - DCI Onboarding 800c

The user journey allows us to verify that our solution meets all requirements.

Wireframes and design in progress - Cropped

Wireframes rapidly become a prototype for both testing and presentation.

Please Note: Much of my work is considered trade secrets and I do not have permission to display, or otherwise share, my design files.