research → product → traction → organizations that ship
I came up through Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, and started practicing UX in the 1990s, before the label existed. Since then I have shipped product across finance, telecom, healthcare, retail, and government — through 126 projects and a couple of eras of the web.
Today I run a small design practice focused on three things: leading product design engagements, advising teams that want design to drive outcomes, and mentoring the next generation of senior designers.
126 products shipped 47 designers mentored $300K+ hardware savings 48% error reduction
Architected the Agentic framework: modular AI agents managing the network infrastructure lifecycle from provisioning to decommissioning. Redesigned DNI Portal diagnostics, saving $300K+ in hardware. Built VLAN triage tools that cut resolution from weeks to minutes.
Shaped the mobile product experience for a modern credit card platform focused on financial inclusion for students and new-to-credit users.
Built the design practice from zero: product vision, research rituals, and the systems that let engineers ship with confidence.
Unified component library and design tokens across web and mobile — cut handoff time roughly in half and standardized accessibility.
A flexible canvas for operators to compose, compare, and share KPIs without waiting on an analyst.
A cohesive 400+ icon system designed for clarity at 16px and expressiveness at 64px.
Mapped the end-to-end homeowner journey and redesigned the dispatch experience around the technicians actually doing the work.
Rebuilt the customer portal around real account tasks — replacing a brochure site with a tool customers actually use.
Proposed and led the unification of hundreds of legacy Fortran applications into role-based dashboards, shipped as the Acumen platform. One source of truth where there had been hundreds. Error rates fell 48%, with federal nuclear compliance preserved throughout.
End-to-end product design for the Acumen platform — strategy, flows, and visual system.
First persona-driven e-commerce strategy for a government retailer. Five buyer personas aligned retail, web, and collector channels around a single customer model. Cart abandonment fell 31%. Revenue rose 20%.
Set the UX direction for enterprise product lines, building the research cadence that fed product roadmaps.
Brand strategy and identity system for a craft soda company — retail-ready from day one.
Creative direction across digital and print for a national healthcare supply-chain company. Brand Overhaul of the Year, 2010.
Product consulting for PCG's education platform serving public school districts.
Brand strategy and identity system for a confectionery e-commerce venture.
Your pilot works. Nobody uses it. Two weeks inside a stalled AI pilot to find out why the humans are not adopting it. Most pilots fail on interaction design and workflow fit, not on the model. I map where people drop off, redesign the interaction model, and hand your engineering team a path they can build.
Design direction for teams shipping AI without a design leader. Ongoing advisory for teams building AI products. Roadmap direction, review of agent UX before it ships, and mentoring for the designers and engineers doing the work. Usually follows a teardown.
Leverage 20+ years of shipping product to pressure-test direction, sequencing, and the org work that makes design land.
From discovery research through launch and post-launch measurement — design that survives contact with production.
One-on-one coaching for product, UI, and UX designers ready to move into senior and leadership roles.
“He is always ready to discuss the pros and cons of various strategies or designs and work with you.”
Reach Micah Boswell through the contact form at conscious-shell.com/#contact or on LinkedIn.