Chris Gaffey

Product | Visual | UI | Psych

đź‘‹ Hello!

I’m Chris Gaffey

Senior Product Designer

Digging into the messy, human parts of design (that too many designers gloss) to get the whole team making confident design decisions.

Me

8+ yrs experience

In-house & agency

AI products

Complex domains

Psych background

Why Me

What I bring that’s hard to find

Strategy and execution, in both directions

I'm useful whether the problem is well-defined or not. On fuzzy problems I help define what to build and why. On defined problems, I don't lose the "why" when things get tactical.

Good design starts with the right questions

My psych background means understanding that what users say and what they do are often different. This awareness shapes how I probe in research, how I design around uncertainty, and how I de-risk decisions in high-stakes contexts.

From “zero” to “impact” in unfamiliar domains fast

I've had to get fluent in a wide range of industries, usually within weeks. That builds not just a pool of analogous patterns to pull from when a new problem looks unfamiliar, but nimble tactics for pivoting between complex problems quickly.

I've done in-house and thrive in that ownership.

In 3 years as the sole designer at Health IQ, I owned products concept to post-launch iteration, running experiments that drove 2x conversion, and was accountable to outcomes rather than deliverables. That's the work I'm built for.

Case Studies

Selected work

Designing trust into an AI recommendation engine

IDC's expertise was trapped in a consulting model that didn’t scale. I led UX for a platform that changed that, designing confidence scoring, explainability, override mechanics to make high-stakes AI recommendations feel trustworthy enough to act on.

$2B Market Opportunity | +80% assessment speed | -64% cost

Helping Google's smartest think like founders

Google's internal startup incubator had a 90% failure rate, not because the founders couldn't build, but because they were building the wrong things. I designed the workshop frameworks that shifted 40+ teams from feature-factory thinking to user-centered product strategy.

+260% graduation rate

Turning 20 years of healthcare survey data into a policy tool

Congressional staffers and journalists needed to explore Gallup and West Health's survey data — but the existing interface buried the insights. I led the data exploration experience, including a "View By" pivot mechanic that changed how users interacted with the data entirely

đź”— Live at westhealth.gallup.com

Applying behavioral economics to make people more honest about their health

Life insurance companies have a data problem: the more they ask, the more people lie. I worked with actuaries and a behavioral economist to design application flows that used anchoring, social proof, and disclosure sequencing to collect more accurate data without losing users.

Experimental, all-digital mobile UX | Sole designer, concept to launch

Running 3 years of conversion experiments as the only designer

At Health IQ I owned the full funnel, from brand and website to product and marketing. The work that moved the needle most was redesigning single-page forms into multi-step conversion flows, tracked question-by-question using Amplitude.

+190% conversion | 2x ROAS | –80% CPL

IDC TechMatch: AI Transformation (again)

New AI-powered product modernizing legacy business model

+67% faster recommendation | –55% eval’s needed | +80% assessment | –64% cost

Chris Gaffey

Product | Visual | UI | Psych

Chris Gaffey

Product Design | UX | Psych

đź‘‹ Hello!

I’m Chris Gaffey

Senior Product Designer

Digging into the messy, human parts of design (that too many designers gloss) to get the whole team making confident design decisions.

Me

8+ yrs experience

In-house & agency

AI products

Complex domains

Psych background

Why Me

What I bring that’s hard to find

Strategy and execution, in both directions

I'm useful whether the problem is well-defined or not. On fuzzy problems I help define what to build and why. On defined problems, I don't lose the "why" when things get tactical.

Good design starts with the right questions

My psych background means understanding that what users say and what they do are often different. This awareness shapes how I probe in research, how I design around uncertainty, and how I de-risk decisions in high-stakes contexts.

From “zero” to “impact” in unfamiliar domains fast

I've had to get fluent in a wide range of industries, usually within weeks. That builds not just a pool of analogous patterns to pull from when a new problem looks unfamiliar, but nimble tactics for pivoting between complex problems quickly.

I've done in-house and thrive in that ownership.

In 3 years as the sole designer at Health IQ, I owned products concept to post-launch iteration, running experiments that drove 2x conversion, and was accountable to outcomes rather than deliverables. That's the work I'm built for.

Case Studies

Selected work

Designing trust into an AI recommendation engine

IDC's expertise was trapped in a consulting model that didn’t scale. I led UX for a platform that changed that, designing confidence scoring, explainability, override mechanics to make high-stakes AI recommendations feel trustworthy enough to act on.

$2B Market Opportunity | +80% assessment speed | -64% cost

Helping Google's smartest think like founders

Google's internal startup incubator had a 90% failure rate, not because the founders couldn't build, but because they were building the wrong things. I designed the workshop frameworks that shifted 40+ teams from feature-factory thinking to user-centered product strategy.

+260% graduation rate

Turning 20 years of healthcare survey data into a policy tool

Congressional staffers and journalists needed to explore Gallup and West Health's survey data — but the existing interface buried the insights. I led the data exploration experience, including a "View By" pivot mechanic that changed how users interacted with the data entirely

đź”— Live at westhealth.gallup.com

Applying behavioral economics to make people more honest about their health

Life insurance companies have a data problem: the more they ask, the more people lie. I worked with actuaries and a behavioral economist to design application flows that used anchoring, social proof, and disclosure sequencing to collect more accurate data without losing users.

Experimental, all-digital mobile UX | Sole designer, concept to launch

Running 3 years of conversion experiments as the only designer

At Health IQ I owned the full funnel, from brand and website to product and marketing. The work that moved the needle most was redesigning single-page forms into multi-step conversion flows, tracked question-by-question using Amplitude.

+190% conversion | 2x ROAS | –80% CPL

IDC TechMatch: AI Transformation (again)

New AI-powered product modernizing legacy business model

+67% faster recommendation | –55% eval’s needed | +80% assessment | –64% cost

Chris Gaffey

Product | Visual | UI | Psych

Chris Gaffey

Product Design | UX | Psych

đź‘‹ Hello!

I’m Chris Gaffey

Senior Product Designer

Digging into the messy, human parts of design (that too many designers gloss) to get the whole team making confident design decisions.

Me

8+ yrs experience

In-house & agency

AI products

Complex domains

Psych background

Why Me

What I bring that’s hard to find

Strategy and execution, in both directions

I'm useful whether the problem is well-defined or not. On fuzzy problems I help define what to build and why. On defined problems, I don't lose the "why" when things get tactical.

Good design starts with the right questions

My psych background means understanding that what users say and what they do are often different. This awareness shapes how I probe in research, how I design around uncertainty, and how I de-risk decisions in high-stakes contexts.

From “zero” to “impact” in unfamiliar domains fast

I've had to get fluent in a wide range of industries, usually within weeks. That builds not just a pool of analogous patterns to pull from when a new problem looks unfamiliar, but nimble tactics for pivoting between complex problems quickly.

I've done in-house and thrive in that ownership.

In 3 years as the sole designer at Health IQ, I owned products concept to post-launch iteration, running experiments that drove 2x conversion, and was accountable to outcomes rather than deliverables. That's the work I'm built for.

Case Studies

Selected work

Designing trust into an AI recommendation engine

IDC's expertise was trapped in a consulting model that didn’t scale. I led UX for a platform that changed that, designing confidence scoring, explainability, override mechanics to make high-stakes AI recommendations feel trustworthy enough to act on.

$2B Market Opportunity | +80% assessment speed | -64% cost

Helping Google's smartest think like founders

Google's internal startup incubator had a 90% failure rate, not because the founders couldn't build, but because they were building the wrong things. I designed the workshop frameworks that shifted 40+ teams from feature-factory thinking to user-centered product strategy.

+260% graduation rate

Turning 20 years of healthcare survey data into a policy tool

Congressional staffers and journalists needed to explore Gallup and West Health's survey data — but the existing interface buried the insights. I led the data exploration experience, including a "View By" pivot mechanic that changed how users interacted with the data entirely

đź”— Live at westhealth.gallup.com

Applying behavioral economics to make people more honest about their health

Life insurance companies have a data problem: the more they ask, the more people lie. I worked with actuaries and a behavioral economist to design application flows that used anchoring, social proof, and disclosure sequencing to collect more accurate data without losing users.

Experimental, all-digital mobile UX | Sole designer, concept to launch

Running 3 years of conversion experiments as the only designer

At Health IQ I owned the full funnel, from brand and website to product and marketing. The work that moved the needle most was redesigning single-page forms into multi-step conversion flows, tracked question-by-question using Amplitude.

+190% conversion | 2x ROAS | –80% CPL

IDC TechMatch: AI Transformation (again)

New AI-powered product modernizing legacy business model

+67% faster recommendation | –55% eval’s needed | +80% assessment | –64% cost