Ben Judy builds and leads human-centered design teams

Head of Design • User Experience Strategy & Ops • Remote collaboration • Designing digital things since 1999

I've designed, researched, innovated, and led UX teams here:

Experience

Career timeline

A visual guide to my professional journey

CASE STUDIES

Practice Leadership

Building & Leading the 7-Eleven UX Practice

Design System

Creating the FRESH retail UX design system

Skills

UX Strategy

Plan organizational HCD goals and design paths to success

I help organizations envision a better future. I create an environment where design excellence and innovation are nurtured.

PROVEN EXPERIENCE: During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, I worked with the US Digital Service and the CDC to rapidly research and design a user-centered strategy for fast, accurate, and efficient COVID test reporting to public health departments. I've also been deeply involved with the UX STRAT community since 2013 serving as a conference emcee, presenter, and workshop facilitator.

Value delivery

Maximize business value from design and user experience

I help businesses manifest strategic intent and direct investment to realize greater value through design thinking and UX excellence.

PROVEN EXPERIENCE: As head of the UX practice at 7-Eleven, I oversaw a redesign of the 7NOW delivery app leading to a 213% lift in conversion, and a 7-Eleven app home screen redesign that drove $5.8M in incremental sales. Read more about these unprecedented results.

Practice leadership

Build and lead a mature design practice with a focus on excellence

I help organizations of all sizes plan and navigate a journey from no formal design practice to being industry leaders in design excellence.

PROVEN EXPERIENCE: At Flexion, I brought an increased focus on UX practice maturity in many ways such as leading the UX Guild (in-house special interest group) and establishing new team practices for research and design.

Coaching & mentoring

Make the whole team better, every single day

I love helping other designers grow, as I myself has been given guidance and instruction by many great design leaders.

PROVEN EXPERIENCE: As a Designlab mentor, I have coached dozens of new and aspiring UX designers as they pursue a career in this exciting field. My mentorship includes written critiques and feedback for student design projects, and one-on-one career guidance via portfolio reviews and mock interviews.

Clarity & alignment

Drive priority alignment across teams and functional groups

I use design thinking methods to help businesses break down silos and align efforts across departmental boundaries.

PROVEN EXPERIENCE: I helped the MAX.gov software migration team bust through bureaucracy and align a disjointed team of federal employees and contractors. I arrived finding chaos and confusion around how to conduct user research and a lack of strategy for the brand and website. I left the team in a much better place with solid research methods and a clear plan to win with the new website.

Human-centricity

Research and design for delightful and efficient experiences with digital products and services

I help teams deliver awesome product and services experiences–because human-centered means it’s good for all of us.

PROVEN EXPERIENCE: I contributed usability guidance, accessibility tips, and UI pattern design for the U.S. Web Design System—making lasting improvements to scores of federal government websites, accessed by millions of users annually. I also helped Wingstop design more efficient, digitally-enabled kitchen operations by applying tried-and-true UX research, design, and usabilily testing methods.

Thought leadership

Represent the organization to industry groups and the global design community

I frequently present to audiences of all sizes on topics related to user experience strategy and design leadership.

PROVEN EXPERIENCE: I'm a sought-after and polished presenter and workshop facilitator with experience at dozens of venues including: SXSW (Austin), Digital Summit MX (Guadalajara, Mexico), Experience Design Week (Denver), Adaptive Path MX (San Francisco), Big Design (Dallas), IBM, Capital One, The University of Texas, and many more. My writing has been published in the prestigious Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing and elsewhere.

Leadership

Creative Direction

I set the bar for quality and provide creative vision. I lead thoughtful critique sessions grounded in established principles of good design.

PROVEN EXPERIENCE: I built my creative leadership muscles with brand definition and digital marketing efforts at RAPP, for clients such as Bank of America, TruGreen and Best Buy.

Management

I set an empathetic tone and foster a 'can do' attitude through my managerial leadership.

PROVEN EXPERIENCE: As Head of UX at 7-Eleven, I gave constructive and encouraging feedback to my direct reports in frequent 1-on-1 conversations. I enjoyed clearing roadblocks and celebrating the professional development of my team members.

Operations

I optimize the design organization's effectiveness, making efficient use of resources and leading with just enough process and structure.

PROVEN EXPERIENCE: While managing the UX team at Aptitude, I established all the 'little things' the team needed for daily success such as shared design tools, recurring meetings and review sessions, and how communications were handled. I also proactively took care of the 'big things' such as finance, HR, facilities, and IT needs of the team.

Strategy

I create and refine UX strategy at all altitudes: products, practice, and organizational purpose.

PROVEN EXPERIENCE: I first began to articulate a 'full stack' UX strategy approach while doing innovative UI design for Intuit. I put it into practice fully at 7-Eleven, and then began teaching UX strategy workshops at conferences like Experience Design Week.