Case studies
Three projects about trust: what a product should do on its own, what it should explain, and what it should always show.
Why it worked
Why it worked
Why it worked
Selected work
Coinbase opened business accounts to small and medium businesses, but signup was still invite-only, manual and built for institutions. Confusing fields and failed document uploads left applications stuck in manual review. We used research to check which information was really needed, renamed fields in plain language and reorganized the flow.
Coinbase Business was built for a single owner, so bringing in a team was awkward and it wasn’t clear who could act for the business. I designed team accounts: owners invite people, give each one a role, and change or remove their access at any time.
Hiring Assistant is LinkedIn’s first AI agent. Recruiting is high-stakes, and recruiters won’t hand it to an AI they can’t check. So it turns a hiring goal written in plain language into recommended candidates, explains each one, and leaves the recruiter in control.
As Intuit Assist spread across products, the experts’ tools risked drifting apart. I designed a design system for the Expert Portal, worked with engineering on the build, and ran QA to check it held up in real workflows.
Intuit Learning Academy is the public platform that trains and certifies the experts who support TurboTax and QuickBooks customers. It was trusted but dated: enrolling was clunky, progress was hard to follow, and long courses lost people. I led the strategy and the redesign.
Experts do high-pressure financial work live with customers, in a tool that hadn’t kept up with them. I led the redesign of the first-generation dashboard and core workflows, so the information that matters in a session is easy to find and live actions are quicker.
After the Expert Portal’s second version launched, adoption grew and so did the experts’ workload. I led the first concept and design draft for version 3.0, with better task orchestration and clearer feedback, built on the patterns experts already knew instead of replacing them.
Many tax experts aren’t trained in customer service, and in tense conversations their replies varied in tone. Recommended responses suggests a reply that fits the conversation, written to Intuit’s service standards, and the expert chooses what to send.
Profiles packed in so much that people couldn’t tell a personal profile from a Page, or who was behind it. Research, including in Brazil, showed that integrity signals like verification and admin info mattered but shouldn’t take over. I simplified the header and moved content higher, with every integrity signal one tap away.
Yahoo’s homepage was mostly static and the same for everyone, so it gave people little reason to come back each day. I explored concepts for a modular homepage people could fill with the content and tools they care about, and tuned the balance between flexibility and business goals through prototypes and user testing.
Millions of photographers sell prints, gifts and downloads on SmugMug, but its checkout was dated and hard to use on a phone. Print revenue was falling, carts were abandoned, and cropping mistakes spoiled orders. I led the redesign end to end, from research and benchmarking to a mobile-first checkout.
About me
Chris O’Boyle
Product design leader
Because my background is in psychology and human-computer interaction, I care as much about how something works as how it looks.
I’ve worked on consumer, enterprise and fintech products, from print checkout at SmugMug to Facebook profiles and business accounts at Coinbase. More recently I’ve designed AI products at LinkedIn and Intuit, including LinkedIn’s first AI agent.
Alongside the design work, I set strategy with product and engineering partners, guide cross-functional teams through ambiguous problems and mentor other designers.
“Chris was embedded with Coinbase’s platform team and was solid from day one. He’s the kind of designer you want on high-stakes work: strong product thinking, excellent craft, and proven ability to ship in fast-paced, ambiguous environments. Beyond the work itself, he’s a pleasure to partner with: low-ego, reliable, and zero drama. I’d work with Chris again without hesitation.”
Scott P.Owner
