Ryan Courter | Lead UX Designer & Design Systems Architect
Available for UX Leadership & Principal Roles
NN/g Certified
Shaping enterprise-grade digital experiences through research, systems, & craft.
Ryan Courter is a seasoned User Experience Lead and Design Systems Strategist with 20+ years of pedigree. From redesigning Honeywell’s global digital workplace to architecting multi-channel platforms for Fortune 500 leaders, he bridges human empathy with technical rigor.
The intersection of visual excellence and evidence-based UX
A rare blend of 10+ years in foundational Art Direction & Design paired with 10+ years of modern UX Leadership, Design Systems, and Usability Research.
Enterprise Digital Transformation
Led the end-to-end UX architecture for Honeywell’s Digital Workplace, standardizing tools across cross-functional units and instituting design guidelines that elevated productivity for thousands of global employees.
UX Facilitation & Team Enablement
Expert in leading cross-stakeholder alignment sessions, collaborative online workshops, persona mapping, and feature prioritization. Personally mentored 20 IT professionals to achieve their official UX certification.
High-Fidelity Prototyping & IA
From complex healthcare clinical tools to Fortune 500 responsive email systems, Ryan creates pixel-perfect interactive prototypes, sitemaps, user flows, and annotated specifications that de-risk development.
20 Years of Proven Impact
Progressive track record spanning UX Leadership, enterprise design systems, and art direction.
UX Lead
- User-Centric Research: Work directly with clients and end-users to conduct generative and evaluative user research that directly informs user-centric solutions.
- Collaborative Workshop Facilitation: Facilitate high-engagement online discovery workshops to architect nuanced personas, end-to-end user journeys, and strategic feature prioritization matrices.
- Rapid Prototyping & Requirements: Lead stakeholder requirements gathering sessions to conceptualize and deliver detailed wireframes and high-fidelity interactive prototypes.
Sr. User Experience Designer
- Design Mentorship & Leadership: Coordinated and mentored early-career designers across multi-disciplinary teams to guarantee project excellence and timely delivery.
- Enterprise UX Playbooks & Training: Created and delivered comprehensive UX training curricula and design playbooks. Personally coached 20 IT professionals to successfully earn their UX Certification.
- Tooling Standardization: Organized and led a cross-organizational team of UX practitioners to systematically evaluate design tools, consolidating the company’s toolset and presenting strategic findings to executive leadership.
- Executive Communication & Evangelism: Authored in-depth UX industry reports to articulate the ROI of human-centered design, actively evangelizing UX methodologies across enterprise IT divisions.
UX Designer
Ogilvy CommonHealth
ICC Trio
- Intranet & Microsite Systems: Designed enterprise intranets and targeted microsites, architecting user flows, wireframes, sitemaps, and pixel-perfect design comps.
- Cross-Platform Optimization: Built interactive wireframe prototypes, annotated UX specifications, and intuitive interfaces optimized across desktop and mobile form factors.
- Tablet-Optimized UI: Designed specialized UI layouts and interaction patterns for sales and product value propositions deployed on tablet devices in field settings.
Art Director
American Express
Western Union
TJX
Pogo
- Team Management: Managed a high-output design and production team delivering multi-million recipient digital marketing campaigns for Fortune 500 leaders.
- Cutting-Edge Dynamic Technology: Pioneered early adoption of dynamic device targeting, real-time Movable Ink contextual elements, responsive email frameworks, and HTML5 video.
- Mobile Architecture: Consulted directly with enterprise clients to re-architect legacy template libraries into modular, mobile-first responsive solutions.
- Client Partnership: Built and nurtured collaborative relationships across client marketing directors, account executives, and creative teams.
Art Director
Merck
Pfizer
Nestle Nutrition
Pacira
- Interactive Platforms for Healthcare: Conceptualized responsive websites and interactive digital tools tailored for healthcare professionals (HCPs) and patient consumers.
- IA & Technical Collaboration: Collaborated intimately with engineering teams to produce detailed information architecture (IA), comprehensive sitemaps, wireframes, and functional specification documents.
Art Director
Directed concept ideation, brand design systems, and digital interactive collateral across multidisciplinary client accounts. Spearheaded creative strategy, visual design execution, and client stakeholder presentations.
Art Director
Led visual design production, digital layout, typographic refinement, and color accuracy systems. Established high standards for graphic consistency, visual polish, and production prepress across high-profile media.
Comprehensive Capability Matrix
Search or filter through 35+ core competencies spanning UX research, design systems, and software.
Design Architecture
10 Core Disciplines
Structural, conceptual, and aesthetic systems for cohesive product ecosystems.
Strategic
Core
Enterprise
Expert
20+ Yrs
End-to-End
Contextual
Mastery
Vector
Brand
UX Research & Testing
8 Core Methodologies
Evidence-based validation, discovery frameworks, and voice-of-customer analytics.
Strategic
Systems
Quantitative
Auditing
Empathy
NN/g Std
Evaluative
Framework
Software & Ecosystem
15 Tools & Platforms
Full spectrum design, prototyping, usability testing, and collaboration tools.
Photoshop
Illustrator
InDesign
Adobe XD
InVision
Validately
UserZoom
Balsamiq
Axure RP
Omnigraffle
Sketch
Mural
Acrobat
Excel
Powerpoint & Word
The 5-Stage Human-Centered UX Engine
Click each phase to inspect Ryan’s battle-tested methods for de-risking complex enterprise initiatives.
Uncovering the Voice of the Customer
Before sketching a single wireframe, Ryan grounds solutions in qualitative and quantitative research. Through stakeholder mapping, Voice of Customer (VOC/OVOC) discovery, and collaborative workshops, business objectives align with genuine user needs.
- Stakeholder interviews & expectation mapping
- Generative user research & field discovery
- Persona development & Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD)
- Collaborative online alignment workshops
User Journey Maps
VOC Reports
Mural
UserZoom
Education & Professional Certifications
Rigorous fine arts foundation backed by industry-standard UX certification.
GOLD STANDARD CREDENTIAL
NIELSEN NORMAN GROUP
Certified in evidence-based usability and user experience methodologies by the world’s preeminent UX research authority. Covers usability heuristics, testing protocols, user journey optimization, and UX governance.
Testing Methodology
NN/g Certified
THE COLLEGE OF SAINT ROSE
Comprehensive 4-year fine arts and design curriculum emphasizing typography, color theory, layout composition, visual hierarchy, and conceptual problem solving.
Visual Design
Fine Arts
SUSSEX CO. COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Applied science degree focusing on technical design systems, digital media production, and practical interactive design execution.
Applied Science
Design Systems
Ready to elevate your product’s user experience?
Available for Lead, Principal, and Director UX opportunities, advisory, and high-impact digital initiatives.
rcourter9@gmail.com
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862.268.2909
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New Jersey, USA
Remote / Hybrid
