Darren Trautwein
Verified Expert in Design
Designer
New York, NY, United States
Toptal member since October 21, 2016
Darren is a UX leader with 25 years of applied practice providing research and design for complex transactional workflows. Leveraging executive intent and uncovering the unmet needs of users through research, he creates user experiences that capture workflow, motivate users, and are easy to use. He produces comprehensive artifacts for engineers, product managers, and designers to help articulate information architecture and user interactions.
Portfolio
Work Experience
User Experience Designer
Toptal Clients
- Designed user experiences and user interfaces for 19 Toptal clients over a span of three years. Focused on digital health and wellness, including dashboard designs and the creation of patient and client programs.
- Provided experience design within Agile methodology across the majority of clients.
- Demonstrated the ability to lead UX efforts from discovery to daily interaction with development teams.
- Ensured continuous iteration and delivery by collaborating with displaced teams at the global level.
User Experience Design Consultant
Merck
- Rolled out—incrementally—a self-service application that is an easy way to resolve technical and device workflow issues, resulting in a reduction of technical support costs and unproductive employee hours.
- Conducted global, cross-division interviews of over 35 employees to establish baseline personas representing the entire user base.
- Conducted usability testing at incremental releases with global employees verifying qualitative and quantitative baseline data.
- Designed a permission-based ecosystem driven by data, leveraging a universal collaborative interface and pattern library.
- Discontinued numerous legacy siloed products and unusable prior self-service solutions.
- Ensured that the service is device and country agnostic.
- Created innovative solutions that helped extend working engagement.
User Experience Design Consultant
Sanofi
- Used persuasive strategies and implemented research-based solutions throughout the design process to make diabetes digital products more trustworthy and convincing.
- Created user experience solutions enabling deeper relationships with customers through conditioned learning and how patients make decisions that lead to conversion.
- Partnered on a weekly basis with global and internal teams, marketing, SEO, technology, and the Sanofi agency of record.
User Experience Design Consultant
YooFitness
- Designed UX and UI for wearable devices that are sold via retail and distributed through payer and corporate wellness organizations.
- Integrated with healthcare technology platforms for convenient, easy access to digital health data.
- Provided heuristic and usability testing of hard devices and mobile applications.
- Made gamification enhancements, increasing adoption and retention.
- Contributed to overall product strategy and innovations, including engagements and modifications inline with initiatives for Fortune 500 apparel companies, healthcare insurers, pharmaceutical companies, and corporate wellness.
- Collaborated daily with international strategic and technology teams.
- Created the UI and UX design of device interfaces.
User Experience Design Consultant
USGA United States Golf Associations
- Designed UX for the USGA, the governing body of golf, with a suite of products including tournament creation, scoring, handicapping, and course ratings.
- Contributed to the design of club-facing tournament software and a scoring application used to schedule and organize USGA golf events used by more than 8,000 clubs and the PGA.
- Conducted interviews nationally of more than fifty club directors to establish baseline personas representing the entire USGA membership.
- Organized the tournament ecosystem with hundreds of course specific attributes leveraging a universal collaborative interface and pattern library.
- Created an innovative solution transitioning course ratings paper workflow to a tee and gender agnostic iPad application.
- Spoke at the USGA Members Meeting, addressing course directors from the across the U.S. on USGA application innovation and emerging products.
- Created a foundational pattern library used by USGA technology groups.
User Experience Design Consultant
RxNetwork
- Designed the UX and UI of a SaaS-based mobile ecosystem enabling pharmacies to gain efficiencies and customer loyalty while improving patient outcomes.
- Integrated with existing pharmacy scheduling solutions without disrupting workflow.
- Made strategic integrations with existing pharmacy loyalty cards and promotions.
- Implemented geo-locatable medication reminders with one-click refill.
- Increased percentage-of-days covered through a smart scheduler enabling refill syncing of multiple medications.
- Increased therapy compliance and decreased medication non-adherence.
- Contributed to product innovation and VC engagements.
VP, Digital Strategy, Innovation and User Experience Design
Inventiv Health
- Handled client, partner, and offshore management, research, user interviews, and persona development.
- Led UX and creative projects establishing practices for UX, interactions, IA, and design for multi-device, breakthrough, award-winning consumer experiences that are uniquely patient-centric and which increase satisfaction, drive product preference, improve health outcomes, and enhance therapy adherence.
- Concepted consumer experiences and designs for pitches on US-based pharmaceutical brands.
- Drove participatory design integration and adoption across the entire network.
Director of User Experience and Design
PHH
- Handled internal client management, stakeholder interviews, mortgage origination floor observations, and user interviews.
- Managed projects and stakeholders; set best digital (application, software, web) practice for user experience, interaction, information architecture, and design with multiple stakeholders and technical teams for a private label with correspondent lending and sub-servicing applications.
- Conducted strategic research and creation for a long-term mortgage origination platform defined in an iterative process and reported in a series of linked requirements.
- Drove participatory design exercises.
Director of User Experience and Design
Ferrara & Company
- Directed consumer experiences, concept creation, and designs for pitches and projects on US-based major brands including Heinz, Church & Dwight, Boston Market, Health Valley, Lea & Perrins, and Trojan.
Partner; Director of Strategy, User Experience, and Design
Candent
- Strategized new business activities for a boutique startup.
- Designed UX.
- Handled PR.
- Directed projects.
Senior User Experience Designer
Primedia
- Led user experience design for industryclick.com and related verticals.
Senior User Experience Designer
Dow Jones/Factiva
- Led user experience design for dowjonesinteractive.com and factiva.com.
Education
Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Design
Mason Gross School of the Arts - New Brunswick, NJ
Certifications
Certified Design Sprint Master
Design Sprint School
Skills
Tools
Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Sketch, Figma, OmniGraffle, Adobe InDesign, Jira, Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Industry Expertise
Insurance, Insurance Technology (Insurtech), Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals, Fitness
Other
iOS App Design, Usability, Pharmacy, Medicine, Electronic Patient Care Reporting (ePCR), Usability Testing, Web Design, Fintech, Personas, Medical Billing, Dashboard Design, Medical Software, Software Design, User Experience (UX), Google Design Sprints, Wearable Technology, Interface Design, Information Architecture (IA), Interaction Design (IxD), Financials, Health IT, Healthcare Management Systems, Fitness Trackers, Nutrition & Supplements, Loans & Lending, Mortgages, Digital Product Design, Digital Strategy, UI Design, UX Design, Mobile App Design, Branding, SaaS, UX Research, UX Strategy, Enterprise, User Interviews, Design Thinking, Desktop App Design, Android App Design, UX Flows
Experience
- Interface Design - 20 years
- UX Design - 20 years
- Interaction Design (IxD) - 20 years
- SaaS - 20 years
- Dashboard Design - 15 years
- Software Design - 15 years
- Mobile App Design - 8 years
- Design Thinking - 4 years
How to Work with Toptal
Toptal matches you directly with global industry experts from our network in hours—not weeks or months.
Share your needs
Choose your talent
Start your risk-free talent trial
Top talent is in high demand.
Start hiring