Alan Mills

I design for the full range of how people think, not just the median user. The breadth is the strategy — and the results follow.

2×

activation rate

62%

increase in conversions

40%

longer subscription lifespan

See how I doubled activation rates →

About

Giving business goals a human lens.

Roadmaps are built on averages; customers aren't average. I started out designing custom multimedia and A/V systems around the people who'd run them, and the job hasn't changed: I help teams see the people they serve the way HCI research does — how they actually behave, work and thrive today — then transpose what we learn into objective product and service decisions the business can measure.

Observe how customers behave, work and thrive today
Transpose that behavior into opportunities and trade-offs
Decide on products and services with evidence, then measure

Read my full story

Equal-loudness contours: every line is one perceived volume, yet the energy it takes changes with pitch. Same signal, different experience — the idea I bring to every product decision.

Case Studies

Selected Work

2×activation rate

35%faster purchase flow

6 mosdev costs saved

Doubled Activation Rates by Reducing Friction in Signup and Purchase Flows

Prospective customers were spending up to 40 minutes trying to make a purchase. By redesigning the purchase experience and building a case for UXR with skeptical stakeholders, activation rates more than doubled — from 4.5% to over 10% — with time-to-completion dropping by 35%.

ConversionUX ResearchGrowth

Advancing 508 Compliance to Support Record B2B Education Sales

Ed-tech buyers in federally funded education markets don't just want a usable product — they require 508 compliance before a contract is even on the table. Years of advocacy for accessibility as revenue infrastructure, not a design nice-to-have, helped unlock record B2B education sales once that friction came down.

AccessibilityDesign GovernanceB2B Growth

Augmenting Value Proposition with CertXP — 62% Increase in Conversions

Users tolerated too much friction before reaching value in an on-demand training platform. I led the design of CertXP — a gamified certification exam prep tool — that reduced friction to value, drove a 62% increase in conversions, and surfaced unexpected insights about how users adopt learning products.

GamificationBehavioral DesignProduct Design

Enhancing Group Admin Experience to Support B2B Retention

Enterprise clients struggled to manage group licenses without calling support. A responsive, OOUX-driven redesign reduced support volume and improved retention among high-revenue B2B accounts.

B2BEnterprise UXOOUX

Achieving User Adoption by Reducing Navigation Friction in HMX

Hiring managers struggled to navigate a highly customizable enterprise environment with inconsistent terminology and poor mobile support. A unified navigation structure, mobile-first redesign, and targeted usability enhancements reduced friction to value and drove measurable gains in user adoption.

IA & NavigationAdoptionMobile-First

Onboarding for Habit — Applying Behavioral Science to Reduce Churn and Grow Subscription Lifespan

Students on monthly subscriptions were canceling before finding value — offboarding surveys kept surfacing the same theme: they couldn't make time. I brought a behavioral design sprint to leadership to open up a conversation about designing toward outcomes over outputs, and shipped a calendar-based onboarding intervention that increased average subscription lifespan by 40% and reduced offboarding volume by 8.5% in its first 30 days.

Behavioral DesignRetentionOnboarding

From Figma to Production, Solo — An AI-Augmented Design Build

How I designed and shipped this portfolio using an AI-augmented workflow: Claude for the front-end, Figma's MCP to bridge design and code, Lottie MCP for motion.

AI-Augmented WorkflowDesign EngineeringDesign Systems

Recommendations

What colleagues say

Alan is by far the best UX designer I have ever worked with throughout my career. He has the best combination of aesthetic design sensibilities backed up with scientific approaches to improve user experience. While I worked with Alan I saw improved metrics on every part of the application Alan was involved in making changes.
David Fekke
Application Architect
Same team · October 2025
What I most appreciate about Alan is his dedication to being an advocate for all users — spending time to do research for groups that are not always considered in Design is an important part of the job, and Alan takes that responsibility seriously. His mastery of Figma makes a huge impact for the organizations he's performed at, and he provides valuable insight into user group needs.
Max Vecchitto
Product Designer · Senior UX Strategy
Colleague · March 2023
Alan's support and input throughout our engagement provided great insight as we refined product requirements. He invited us to help evolve the company's design system as we found opportunities for new patterns, and kept the team focused on ensuring designs were accessible and met user needs across the board.
Rafael J. Hernandez
Product Design Leader
Cross-company · March 2023
Incredibly talented designer. Listens to the business and is a great collaborator with dev and product. Thoughtful about the user and passionate about creating something delightful regardless of your abilities.
Judy Bumgarner
Senior Leader
Senior colleague · December 2022
Alan Mills is a thorough, proactive, enthusiastic UX designer. The thorough prototypes that he iteratively delivers have helped our product's quality increase — including in accessibility and screen responsiveness — and our team's productivity increase.
Ellen Munson
Product Manager II
Same team · December 2022
Alan brings extensive technical knowledge when it comes to the latest tools and methodologies in UI/UX. His intuitive nature allows him to come up with creative designs that satisfy business requirements while providing end users with seamless, easy experiences — and he ensures designs adhere to the latest WCAG guidelines.
Abdel Aziz Akkoub
QA Technical Manager
Colleague · March 2023
Alan is an outstanding UX designer, always willing to help and collaborate to ensure that products are accessible and accommodative to all kinds of users. I appreciate his thorough and thoughtful approach to coming up with awesome designs.
Jason Skipper
Software Engineer
Colleague · March 2023