Hi, I’m Ryan.

Senior product designer for complex enterprise tools. Over the past 6 years, I have tracked down messy workflow problems, designed scalable interfaces, and brought interactions to life directly in code.

  • B2B SaaS
  • Design Systems
  • AI Workflows
Stick-figure crayon drawing of Ryan, his wife, toddler son, their two cats Pickles and Pesto, Texas bluebonnets, and Austin bats under a smiling sun, labeled 'AUSTIN, TX'

Selected work

Three shipped product projects, plus a look at how I built this portfolio.

D-Tools Cloud executive BI dashboard showing sales results, close rate, sales cycle gauge, and trend reports
62% Multi-Dashboard Adoption

Custom Dashboards & AI Summaries

Replaced Monday morning spreadsheet exports with role-based dashboard templates. Users built their own views for dispatch and margins. Sustained platform views jumped 71%.

Core Craft
Modular KPI Widgets · Drag-and-Drop Canvas
AI Experience
1-Click Summaries Bound to Visible Data
Real Outcome
62% Saved Multiple Views · +71% Daily Usage
Redesigned i4cp member portal homepage organized by strategic practice areas
+500% Ahri Sessions

i4cp Member Portal & Research Discovery

Cleaned up a bloated research catalog for HR executives. I paired a simple drill-down menu with an AI search box on the homepage. Daily activity doubled in two months.

Architecture
Progressive IA · Unified Search Discovery
AI Interface
Ahri Conversational Assistant · Source Citations
Engagement
+500% Research Sessions · 2× Daily Activity
Real-time equipment asset tracking, serial numbers, stock quantities, and PO statuses in D-Tools Cloud
+8% ARR · Stalled Enterprise Deals Unblocked

Inventory, Purchasing & Receiving

Tied warehouse receiving directly to active job schedules so teams tracked parts end-to-end. Unblocked six-figure pilot deals and drove an 8% lift in platform ARR.

Architecture
Connected Ledger · Purchasing to Staging
MVP Scope
PO Receiving · Stock Conflict Alerts
Enterprise
Unblocked Pilot Deals · Dual-Track UX
Design token system, semantic HTML architecture, and browser testing for Ryan Schmidt portfolio
Lab · Designed & Built in Code

Building My Portfolio in Code

Built this site in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, including reusable page patterns and an AI assistant that retrieves context from my project notes.

Approach
Semantic HTML · Tokenized CSS · Vanilla ES6
Assistant
Context Retrieval · Grounded Project Notes
Workflow
Browser Prototyping · Responsive & Keyboard Testing

Design principles

How I think about systems, prototyping in code, and building software that holds up under pressure.

  1. 01

    Systems Over One-Offs

    Enterprise UI falls apart when teams start inventing one-off buttons and random custom forms. I build tokens and component libraries that keep the interface consistent so engineers can ship fast without fighting design debt.

  2. 02

    Prototyping in the Browser

    Static Figma mockups hide latency, responsive quirks, and real keyboard friction. I build interactive prototypes in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript so we can test how an interaction feels before engineering writes production code.

  3. 03

    Grounded in Real Use

    Good design proves itself in daily user habits, not Figma presentations. Every project here tracks back to verified operational changes: eliminating manual Excel exports, unblocking customer pilots, or speeding up daily task completion.