01
Website Redesign
Springfield Church of Christ
Designing for a community where the stakes aren't conversion rates. They're people finding connection and faith they would have missed otherwise.
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A0.00
Home Sheet
Home Sheet
COMPLEX PROBLEMS SOLVED BY DESIGN
Thirty years of understanding what people actually need, creating solutions, and delivering something that worked. The case studies below are just the ones with wireframes.
A0.01–A0.07 / Selected Work
Case Studies
02
Concept Exploration
NavEase: Adaptive UX Exploration
A self-directed exploration into whether an interface could identify friction, learn from it, and gradually reshape itself around the people using it.
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03
Design Process Innovation
AI-Assisted UX Workflows
Design thinks better out loud. How AI tools augment the solo design process, from research synthesis to sharper deliverables, without replacing human judgment.
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04
Retrospective
The Pastry Kitchen
Before UX had a name, the same principles applied: understand the client, work within constraints, execute with precision, and know that one structural failure undoes everything.
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05
Graphic / Visual Design
Keepers of the Kingdom
Designing a visual identity and custom apparel system that made a 28-person VBS volunteer team immediately recognizable.
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06
Design System Audit
The Drafting Table Design System
Auditing my own design system against the live site, and fixing a contrast failure in my signature green across 11 pages.
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07
Illustration & Visual Design
Creative Work
The same eye for composition, proportion, and detail that drives the UX work, expressed in watercolor and sugar.
View the GalleryA0.07 / Field Research
I test with real people before I build
Right now I'm running four studies across two projects: interviews and app tests with orchid growers and pet owners for Con Cura, a care companion app, and a layout study with small business owners for my web design studio. When a study wraps up, its findings go into a case study here.
4Studies open
2Projects
3Audiences
Open now
See all open studies
Orchid care interviews
How growers care for orchids today, then a first look at the app.
Sign up Open nowOrchid app test
Three short tasks in an early version of the orchid care app.
Start the test Open nowPet app test
The same care companion, built for pets of every kind.
Start the test Open nowSmall business site study
Compare layouts and colors for a local web design business.
Start the study (opens in a new tab)Interviews and unmoderated tests · Orchid growers, pet owners, small business owners
A0.08 / Field Results
The Record
16
Year client partnership
25+
Years of leadership
36
Locations managed, 4 states
4.0
GPA · B.S. Computer Science
Springfield Church of Christ, since 2010 · Retail operations leadership · Tiffin University
A0.09 / Title Block
About David
Most designers studied UX. I was doing it before it had a name.
25 years of operational leadership. IT depth. A 4.0 in Computer Science. Wedding cakes, retail floors, and an ongoing church technology partnership dating to 2010. I came to UX through a longer road than most, and that road is the point.
- Focus
- UX/UI Design, UX Technology
- Education
- B.S. Computer Science, 4.0 GPA
- Experience
- 25+ Years, Leadership & Operations
- Partnership
- Springfield CofC, since 2010
- Craft
- Pastry Arts Silver Medalist
A0.10 / The Story
Three careers.
One through line.
Different industries. Same discipline.
Understand people. Remove friction.
Design better experiences.
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Craft
Long before I knew the term “UX,” I was practicing it.
Every wedding cake began with deep client research, iterative sketches, and a high-stakes delivery where failure was not an option. I learned to translate someone's vision into a beautiful, tangible experience: on time, on budget, and under extraordinary pressure. Design thinking, baked in from the start.
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Leadership
Operations are really about people.
Managing 36 locations across four states taught me that systems only work when the humans inside them are understood. Understanding behavior, removing friction, and designing workflows that scale. That's UX, even when you don't call it that.
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UX Design
The tools are different. The process is the same.
Understand the user. Design with intention. Deliver something that works. Now I apply that discipline digitally, with Figma, analytics, and a 4.0 GPA in Computer Science backing every decision.
The Through Line
Different industries. Same discipline.
Understand people. Remove friction.
Design better experiences.
Every path I've taken has been about solving complex problems and creating meaningful experiences for real people.
A0.11 / Published Notes
People-first AI
Essays on LinkedIn about technology, design, and what both look like from outside the tech bubble.
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We Keep Asking People to Adapt to AI. It Should Be the Other Way Around. (on LinkedIn, opens in a new tab)
A self-order kiosk, a cashier standing right beside it, and the question behind NavEase: why is the person always the one doing the adapting?
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AI Will Not Take Your Job. But Your Refusal to Engage With It on Your Own Terms Might. (on LinkedIn, opens in a new tab)
From the Jetsons to the Enterprise bridge to a 1990s home-automation assignment. Why curiosity beats fear, and why our ability to rewire how we think is the one advantage AI doesn't have.
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Does the AI Industry Actually Want the Perspectives It Says It Needs? (on LinkedIn, opens in a new tab)
AI is past the infrastructure phase and into the consequences phase. That phase needs people who have watched technology land on real communities, and hiring practices that stop filtering them out.
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Listen First. Why the AI Industry Needs More Than Youth and Brilliance to Get This Right. (on LinkedIn, opens in a new tab)
Listening is the one skill no certificate confirms. What a community fracture taught me about the warning signs the AI industry is showing now.
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I'm 55, I'm Pivoting Into AI, and I'm Not the One Who Should Be Scared. (on LinkedIn, opens in a new tab)
Gutenberg, the automobile, the microchip, and now AI. Why three decades of watching technology land on people is the perspective the AI conversation is missing.
A0.12 / Specification Schedule
What I bring to the table
Design & UX
- UX Research
- UI Design
- Wireframing
- Prototyping
- Figma / Adobe XD
- Accessibility (WCAG)
- Usability Testing
Technical
- IT Support
- Troubleshooting
- HTML / CSS
- Wix / WordPress
- Web Analytics
- SEO Optimization
- GitHub / Git
Strategy & Leadership
- Project Management
- People Management
- Digital Strategy
- Data-Driven Decisions
- Mentorship
- Budget Oversight
Business
- E-commerce
- Targeted Marketing
- Sales Leadership
- Inventory Optimization
- P&L Analysis
- Cross-functional Teams
Creative & Craft
- Watercolor Painting
- Wedding Cake Design
- 3D Modeling (Blender)
- Shapr3D
- Adobe Photoshop
- Procreate
- Illustration
A0.13 / Issued for Review
Ready to contribute
David R. Bailey, UX/UI Designer
Full resume available for download. 25+ years of cross-industry experience, a 4.0 in Computer Science, and a portfolio that proves UX thinking predates the tools.
A0.14 / Contact
Let's work together
I'm currently open to full-time UX/UI design roles and select freelance projects. If you're building something that needs a designer who can also speak the language of technology and operations, let's talk.