I'm Christopher Dye, an award-winning user experience designer with 18 years of expertise spearheading creative projects in agile environments, delivering intuitive and emotionally engaging experiences while meeting business objectives.

I've designed mobile, online, and desktop apps for e-commerce, entertainment, education, and cultural industries. I excel at shepherding big initiatives while sweating the small details, and thrive in multidisciplinary teams. My core competencies are:

Take a look at my work, and contact me to discuss opportunities.

TurboTax New Simple Filer  View Demo

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Led a team of visual, interaction, and content designers to create a ground breaking application that shortened tax preparation to 15 minutes (vs 45 minute average), and delivered a record-high customer satisfaction score (NPS: 69).

• Managed all aspects of experience design (interaction, visual, content, animation)
• Partnered closely with product managers to define business opportunities
• Participated in customer research activities to understand customer mind sets and pain points
• Met daily with engineering to implement the experience and navigate technological and resource barriers
• Presented weekly to senior leadership team in order to deliver a fully developed and responsive application that met key business objectives and delighted customers.

TESTIMONIALS

Christopher and I worked together at Intuit on a development team tasked with designing and launching a streamlined version of TurboTax in less than 6 months. I was impressed with how quickly Christopher stepped up to the challenge. His excitement and passion for simplifying tax preparation came through in his designs. He not only broadly shaped the product, but was also compulsive over the details that made it great – enabling it to earn a 70 Net Promoter Score. His commitment to the project and the team was evident by the endless hours he spent designing, gathering feedback, and even quality testing the experience. I recommend Christopher and consider him a solid addition to any development team.

Carol Howe, Senior Product Manager

"Christopher is an extremely talented, customer-centric design leader. Any initiative he leads or contributes to delivers strong short and long term results. He partners well across teams, product management and product development. Christopher is unanimously viewed as a positive and thoughtful team member."

Jason Smerican, Product Manager

"Christopher is a stand out design leader. He is passionate about solving customer needs and creates experiences that are both engaging and successfully deliver business results. In his role as creative lead at Intuit, I was impressed by the way he challenged status quo and guided his teams to deliver experiences that customers loved. He is thoughtful, detail oriented, and pragmatic. He plans well to ensure the team is on track to meet project deliverables and timelines. He would be an asset to any organization."

Kavita Appachu, Senior Manager UX Research, Kelly Blue Book

TurboTrack Mileage Tracker for iOS  View Demo

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Designed a mobile app for iOS devices to easily track vehicular mileage for tax purposes. With a simple click, a customer's start location was recorded on their mobile device; a second click ended the tracking session with the trip data stored for later use in tax preparation.

• Conducted task flow analysis
• Produced wireframes, prototypes, UI specs, interaction designs, visual designs, animation and sound designs

TESTIMONIAL

"I've worked alongside Christopher for almost two years on core TurboTax, on the same team and collaborating across teams. If there's one word I could think of, it's 'fearless'. He's always breaking down any barriers that inhibit good work, be it technological or organizational. He's very good at seeing problems from many different angles. And, for his visual design, he knows when to be 'loud' and when to seamlessly integrate."

David Snow, Lead Designer, Tradera

QuickBooks Online

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As part of a project to deepen customer engagement through data and enable better business decisions, created visualizations so that customers could compare their business financials against "others like them".

• Conducted brainstorming sessions
• Produced wireframes, prototypes, interaction, and visual designs

MyTaxRefund Tracker for iOS and Android  View on App Store

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Invented and designed a popular mobile app that helps customers track their federal tax refunds, solving a huge customer problem that reduced customer contacts and preserved company resources.

• Produced all aspects of experience design (visual, interaction, animation)
• Conducted task flow analysis, produced wireframes, prototypes, UI specs, interaction designs, visual designs
• Went from concept to app store availability in under 2 months
• Over 2 million downloads and 4 1/2 star ratings on both iTunes and Google Play stores,
• Copied by all major competitors and the IRS

RECOGNITION

Winner of the Scott Cook Innovation Award, recognizing innovations that deliver significant benefits to Intuit's customers, employees, and shareholders.

TESTIMONIAL

"I have worked with Christopher on several projects and the collaboration has always been a pleasure! Christopher is a very versatile, creative, and hard-working designer. He is always open to new ideas, considers them thoughtfully, and is not timid to give feedback and express his opinion in a very professional manner. Some of Christopher's accomplishments throughout our work together have to do with some ambitious and successful end-to-end re-designs of a very complex personal tax preparation software product as well as designing a very innovative and useful iPhone application from scratch."

Alex Genov, User Research Manager, Zappos

MyTurboTax Dashboard

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Led the design of a flexible (and responsive) application framework that supports customized experiences and increases year-round customer engagement.

• Partnered closely with product management, engineering, research, and customer care to understand customer pain points and define business opportunities
• Managed an interaction and content designer
• Conducted task flow analysis, produced wireframes, prototypes, UI specs, interaction designs, visual designs
• Participated in research activities to understand user needs and test new designs
• Drove down customer contacts on key metrics

TESTIMONIAL

"Christopher and I worked together for a little over a year on the 'MyTurboTax' project. I was the development team manager, and Christopher was the lead designer on the team. A few things that I appreciate about Christopher:

• Get's design/UX done quickly: We didn't have to wait days or months for big design changes. Christopher would get us comps in hours/days. Dev was never waiting on design when Christopher was on our team.
• Is comfortable with iteration: Delivers initial design quickly, then iterates WITH the rest of the team (dev/QA/PM/Analysts) to polish/improve the design.
• Is pragmatic AND blue sky: Christopher has a good mix of 'blue sky' and 'get it done.' We were pushing the design envelope together, but all conversations we're based on reality. No unrealistic frivolous research/design that leads down rat holes. Everything was laser focused and gently pushing the rest of the team just past what they knew. PERF
• Beautiful, highly usable design and UX: While this is qualitative and arbitrary... me and the rest of the team really liked how our application feels thanks to Christopher's input.
• Fun to work with: Christopher got along great with the entire team. He was senior and confident enough to not get steam-rolled by developers pushing back on his ideas... and diplomatic enough to handle design/dev conflict while maintaining great relationships.

I can't say enough good things about Christopher. Our project was highly successful and... because of that he was reassigned to a project that needed more help. I miss him on the team and I hope to work with him again (soon!)"

Justin Hardin, Development Manager

TurboTax DigiDocs

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Led the design of a mobile application (unlaunched) to faciliate the capturing of tax related documents and information throughout the year.

• Partnered with product management, engineering and research, to understand customer mindsets and define opportunity
• Conducted task flow analysis, produced wireframes, prototypes, UI specs, interaction designs, visual designs
• Participated in research activities to understand user needs and test designs

TESTIMONIAL

"Christopher understands how to integrate design into an organization and how to include stakeholders in the design process. His understanding of the impact of visual design, as evidenced by his contributions to TurboTax for the last couple of years, clearly demonstrate his ability to take an otherwise staid brand/interaction paradigm and re-engage customers with what made the brand engaging in the first place."

Erikheath Thomas, Lead iOS Engineer, CBS Interactive

TurboTax for Android Tablets  View Demo

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Transformed the desktop TurboTax product in to a native Android application for tablets. The project included the creation of a new on-boarding experience, a navigation paradigm shift, and updated UI elements and interactions to take leverage Android platform guidelines and patterns.

• Conducted task flow analysis
• Produced wireframes, prototypes, UI specs, interaction designs, visual designs

TESTIMONIAL

"Christopher is by far one of the most gifted experience designers. His energy and drive to solve for easy and delightful customer experience in software is awesome...plus he has a great positive outlook and energy which is critical to collaborative/team sessions. He is thoughtful in his approach and delivers awesome results."

Aliza Carpio, Social Media Manager, TurboTax

TurboTax Flagship

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Designed key customer experiences for the flagship TurboTax application (online, Windows, and Mac platforms). Accomplishments include significantly improving customer interactions and simplifying task flows to increase conversion and decrease customer contacts; refreshing overall visual language and navigation to match branding, and establishing consistent user experiences across 40,000 screens.

• Produced wireframes, prototypes, UI specs, interaction designs, visual designs, animation
• Established design pattern library and weekly designer meet-ups
• Participated in research activities to understand user needs and test new designs

TESTIMONIAL

"Christopher is relentlessly passionate about design. We worked together for years at Intuit, collaborating on projects for TurboTax, and I was often astounded at his intuitiveness and creativity. Christopher is a strong design partner who encourages teamwork above all else and compels others to do their best work. He's a whiz at effectively interpreting problems into feasible design solutions (not as easy as it sounds) and produces a breathtaking amount of design materials quickly and flawlessly. While he can execute on a dime, Christopher is equally talented at leading and keeping teams marching toward his customer-focused vision. His positive energy and enthusiasm are infectious, and he makes the workplace just plain fun. We need more people like Christopher... I'd work with him again in a heartbeat."

Lisa O'Malley, Content Designer & Strategist

Illuminating the Renaissance  View Interactive

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Created this immersive website to highlight manuscripts created during the Renaissance period. A rich interactive experience was created by leveraging Zoomify technology, allowing visitors to see and learn in a playful and engaging way.

• Produced wireframes and prototypes
• Produced most aspects of experience design (visual, interaction, animation, programming)

RECOGNITION

Macromedia Site of the Day
Yahoo Pick of the Day

"Created to accompany an exhibition that runs until September 7, the online version of Illuminating the Renaissance is, to use the vernacular, a one-trick pony - but it's quite a trick... And thanks to the wonders of Zoomify's long-distance close inspection capabilities, the Getty has also taken the act of viewing fine art online one step closer to actually being there."

Christian Science Monitor
August, 2003

Devices of Wonder  View Interactive

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Created much of this highly interactive, Webby award-winning website for the J. Paul Getty Trust that encourages hands-on experience with the objects found in the exhibition by allowing visitors to control the devices virtually.

• Produced wireframes and prototypes
• Produced many aspects of experience design (visual, interaction, animation, programming)

RECOGNITION

6th Annual Webby Awards Winner
Yahoo Pick of the Week
USA Today Pick of Day

"To see how it works, log on to the exhibit's exceptional flash-animated Web site, which lets visitors digitally manipulate lenses on a portable diorama and investigate anamorphic toys, shadow puppets and other wonders."

New York Times
December 30, 2001

"This is definitely a situation where it's worth waiting for the downloads - after all, toys are not for viewing, toys are for playing."

Christian Science Monitor
December 6, 2001

"Take your time and poke around -- imaginative treasures are waiting to be discovered."

Yahoo Pick-of-the-Week
November 19, 2001

"Sites so forward thinking they seem strange when viewed without the future in mind. This category includes sites that reflect a fresh perspective in thought and action strong enough to start a revolution, change a behavior pattern, or advance old thinking lodged in bad habits."

6th Annual Webby Awards - Winner

Bill Viola – The Passions  View Interactive

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Created this Flash-based exhibition website for the J. Paul Getty Trust that focuses on acclaimed Los Angeles based video artist Bill Viola. The site encourages exploration and a deeper understanding of the artists' work through interactive "contextuals" and QuickTime video clips of his recent works exhibited at The Getty.

• Produced wireframes and prototypes
• Produced most aspects of experience design (visual, interaction, animation, programming)

Photogram Interactive  View Interactive

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As a part of the Photographer's of Genius exhibition website, created this interactive that allows visitors to create their own online photogram, and then print their creation at the end of the process.

• Produced wireframes and prototypes
• Produced most aspects of experience design (visual, interaction, animation, programming)

UCSD Redesign

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Redesigned multiple university websites to bring a cohesive experience across all web properties. Working with an outside agency for branding, and partnering with administrators, front-end integrators, content editors, usability researchers, and subject matter experts, we introduced a new consistent customer experience that leveraged shared visual assets, simplified taxonomy and navigation, and template page layouts.

• Evaluated legacy designs
• Restructured information architecture
• Established style guidelines
• Developed new navigation systems, icons, buttons, and controls
• Participated in user research activities to understand user's needs
• Produced wireframes, prototypes, UI specs, interaction designs, visual designs

TESTIMONIAL

"Christopher not only understands, but lives and breathes the principles of user centered design. He has done excellent work for UC San Diego by being the first user interface designer on campus and instantly earning the respect and trust of both programmers and users. He takes time to understand the needs of users and produces interfaces that are not only easy to use, but actually enhance the user's experience. He is meticulous, and his knowledge and practice of design are models that should be imitated whenever possible. He is not only a talented designer, but he is an inspiration to work with. He single-handedly does more for users than a room full of people were able to do in the past. I have the utmost respect and admiration for his work and would hire him again with absolute confidence and trust in his abilities to be successful in creating excellent user interfaces."

Karen Cangialosi, Manager, UCSD

Getty Museum Redesign

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Re-designed the museum's multiple websites (encompassing over 100k pages) over an 18-month period, developing templates to be used by external departments.

• Evaluated legacy designs
• Restructured information architecture
• Established style guidelines
• Developed new navigation systems, icons, buttons, and controls
• Participated in user research activities to understand user's needs
• Produced wireframes, prototypes, UI specs, interaction designs, visual designs

TESTIMONIAL

"Christopher Dye belongs to an elite band of Web designers who bring a passionate and intelligent empathy to both audience needs and sensitivity to content. His work on the Getty's site redesign was a huge leap forward in clarity and usability."

Vicki Porter, Head of Discovery & Engagement, Wellcome Collection

Universal Pictures

Designed a site to promote the Universal Pictures film. The marketing site included an animated introduction, photo galleries, screensavers, and an interactive feature to send postcards with their own love letters.

• Produced interaction designs, animation

RECOGNITION

"When I go to Captain-Corellis-Mandolin.com I watched a beautiful and poignant Flash animation that instantly made me forget the turd of a trailer I'd just seen. Somebody hire the Flash animator to edit the trailers!"

Ain't It Cool News
Harry Knowles
August 12, 2001

Collaborative Arts Resources for Educators

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Created an arts-based lesson plan Web site for educators, parents, and students sponsored by the San Diego Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, and the Museum of Photographic Arts.

• Conducted user research activities to understand user's needs
• Developed task flow analysis and information architecture
• Produced wireframes, prototypes, UI specs, interaction designs, visual designs

TESTIMONIAL

"It has been a pleasure to work with Christopher. He is extremely professional and truly knows his craft. His guidance, in both design and content, was instrumental in creating our Web site."

Robin Kaplan, Manager, C.A.R.E.

Digital Domain

Participated in development of James Cameron's special effects company website. The cutting-edge design utilized a Flash-based front-end married to a database driven back-end.

• Designed animations

North Park Community Association  View Poster

Created the branding and posters for the annual Bird Park Summer Concert series held in the North Park neighborhood of San Diego.

• Produced logo designs and posters

Typography samples

Posters created for typography projects at Otis School of Design.

LA FilmFest Zipper Sign  View Demo

Created an animated zipper sign that displayed at the Hollywood & Highland center in Los Angeles to promote the Los Angeles Film Festival.

• Produced animation

North Park Main Street

Served as co-chair on a committee devoted to enhancing aesthetics in the business improvement district via streetscape furniture, storefront improvements, signage, and branding.

• Designed permanent tree grates
• Designed trash can emblems`
• Co-authored streetscape manual
• Co-authored parking district recommendations