Work

Case studies in growth systems, loyalty mechanics, design leadership, and measurable product impact.

These stories are ordered around the evidence a hiring team should care about first: ecosystem strategy, design leadership, market growth, research-to-strategy translation, and motion systems as a quality lever.

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What these case studies show

How I frame ambiguous product problems as growth systems with measurable business stakes
How I use experimentation, loyalty mechanics, and operator thinking to move outcomes
How I scale design quality through managers, tooling, and cross-functional operating models

Case Study Index

Selected work with an executive lens.

Each case study is written to show the business context, the system or mechanic that mattered, the leadership role design played, and the measurable outcomes or organizational leverage that followed.

Growth and LoyaltyMulti-quarter initiative

Building the Casino Generosity Ecosystem

Led the design strategy that turned scattered rewards, promotions, and loyalty moments into a more coherent value model that improved generosity perception, engagement, retention behavior, CRM performance, and market portability.

LoyaltyGrowthService Design

Strategic Role: John's role was to move the work from fragmented feature delivery into a portfolio-level design and decision model: connecting customer motivation, business goals, research signals, and cross-functional priorities into direction teams could use.
Why It Mattered: Rewards Club A/B testing delivered +6% APDs, +9% GGR, and a +9% generosity perception score in the U.S.
Organizational Leverage: Created a reusable model for rewards, promotions, CRM, and loyalty surfaces instead of isolated feature work.

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Product Strategy and Growth SystemsPeriod-based 2022-2026 narrative; exact dates to confirm before using as employment chronology

Leading Design Through FanDuel Casino's Customer-Value Evolution

A flagship case study about leading design across FanDuel Casino's evolution from isolated promotional value toward clearer customer-value systems, operating models, and measurement discipline.

Product StrategyRewardsLoyaltyGenerosityResearch

Strategic Role: I led design across key parts of the Casino product evolution, helping teams connect rewards, loyalty, promotions, research, generosity mechanics, and measurement into clearer product and operating models.
Why It Mattered: Public Flutter reporting provides business context for FanDuel Casino growth, rewards, and engagement evolution while the case study stays focused on John's design-leadership contribution.
Organizational Leverage: Aligned product, design, analytics, CRM, research, engineering, operations, games, and delivery around shared decisions.

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Org and Team DesignOngoing leadership work

Scaling Design Leadership Across Casino

Built stronger operating systems for a casino design organization by clarifying expectations, strengthening critiques, coaching growth, and creating management rhythms that made quality and decision-making easier to scale across the portfolio.

Org DesignManagementQuality Systems

Strategic Role: John's role was to strengthen the organization itself: defining clearer management systems, building better critique and coaching rhythms, and making design quality easier to scale across a growing portfolio without depending on one leader's direct intervention.
Why It Mattered: Improved how design work was framed, prioritized, and reviewed across a growing portfolio.
Organizational Leverage: Raised the consistency of critique, growth conversations, and quality expectations.

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Growth and Market LeadershipFeb 2023 – Dec 2025

FanDuel Casino Growth / Market Leadership Story

Led and shaped design strategy across promotions, loyalty, CRM, gamified rewards, operator systems, and platform infrastructure that moved revenue, engagement, support efficiency, and market scalability from 2023 through 2025.

GrowthMarket StrategyExecutive Storytelling

Strategic Role: John's role was to shape the design strategy behind growth-critical casino surfaces and systems: partnering with Product, Engineering, Analytics, CRM, Marketing, and Operations to turn isolated promotional mechanics into a connected portfolio of growth levers.
Why It Mattered: Drove measurable growth across loyalty and promotions systems, including +9% GGR in Rewards Club A/B, +18% higher NGR and +22% higher eGGR in Reward Machine Bonus Draw, and +363% daily active players on a branded bonus-spin launch.
Organizational Leverage: Created a more connected portfolio story across Product, CRM, Analytics, Operations, and Engineering about how design could influence growth.

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Research and StrategyCross-functional strategic initiative

Turning Research Into Product Strategy

Used customer, behavioral, and evaluative research to sharpen product direction, helping teams move from raw signals to strategy, priorities, and clearer roadmap choices.

ResearchStrategyExecutive Storytelling

Strategic Role: Design leader translating research into strategic product direction across customer insight synthesis across growth and product strategy questions.
Why It Mattered: Sharpened the distinction between urgent fixes, growth bets, and longer-range opportunities.
Organizational Leverage: Built a clearer multi-source insight model across evaluative research, strategic research, and behavioral signals.

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Research-to-strategy executive framework

Craft and SystemsSystem-building initiative

Raising the Experience Bar Through Motion Systems

Established motion principles, explored Rive-based approaches, and built reusable interaction patterns that raised the perceived quality of digital products while supporting consistency across a complex ecosystem.

Motion SystemsDesign QualityDesign Systems

Strategic Role: Design leader advocating for motion quality, systems thinking, and design-engineering partnership across cross-product motion principles, reward reveal experiences, and reusable interaction patterns.
Why It Mattered: Helped position motion quality as part of premium product perception and system-level experience value.
Organizational Leverage: Created a shared vocabulary for motion quality across design and engineering.

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Discovery and Product Strategy6+ week accelerated zero-to-one initiative

FanDuel Casino Reels Discovery Strategy

Led product design strategy for a zero-to-one discovery initiative that explored how short-form video, social proof, and game trailers could create more compelling entry points into casino content.

0 to 1 StrategyDiscoveryResearch

Strategic Role: John's role was to move the work beyond lobby optimization by reframing casino discovery as an entertainment and motivation problem, aligning product, design, research, engineering, and commercial partners around a testable product direction.
Why It Mattered: The archived UXfolio case describes directional engagement and browse-to-play improvement, but confirmed metrics were not included.
Organizational Leverage: Created a shared vision for how casino discovery could move beyond static lobby inventory toward content-driven engagement.

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UXfolio Migration

Older work now supports the leadership story.

The old UXfolio archive is not being moved over one-for-one. The strongest story becomes a current case study, useful FanDuel source material folds into flagship narratives, and earlier work stays visible only when it adds range, systems thinking, or strategic context.

Promoted Case Study

FanDuel Casino: Reels

Where it lives now

FanDuel Casino Reels Discovery Strategy

Strongest standalone UXfolio story because it shows how design reframed game discovery from inventory browsing into a product strategy and roadmap question.

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Merged Source Material

Turning Play Into Progress

Where it lives now

Building the Casino Generosity Ecosystem and FanDuel Casino Product Evolution

Most valuable as proof inside the broader rewards, loyalty, generosity, and customer-value system story because it shows how progression turns value into repeat behavior.

Merged Source Material

Gamified Ecosystem

Where it lives now

Building the Casino Generosity Ecosystem and Raising the Experience Bar Through Motion Systems

Useful for explaining reward loops, motivation, and interaction feedback, but strongest when connected to the flagship growth and motion-system narratives.

Earlier Work

Archived projects framed through strategy, systems, and leadership.

These projects are preserved for continuity and source material. They stay below the main case studies so the portfolio remains focused on product design leadership, business outcomes, and organizational influence.

UXfolioMerge Into Existing Story

Turning Play Into Progress

Archived loyalty-progression story about making value visible enough to motivate return behavior.

Where it lives now

Building the Casino Generosity Ecosystem; FanDuel Casino Product Evolution

Source value

Shows how loyalty progression, reward comprehension, and customer value can become one behavioral system.

Why it stays here

Best used inside the flagship generosity story because the leadership signal is system framing: turning scattered value moments into a repeat-engagement model.

UXfolioMerge Into Existing Story

Gamified Ecosystem

Archived reward-loop story about motivation, feedback, and behavior design.

Where it lives now

Building the Casino Generosity Ecosystem; Raising the Experience Bar Through Motion Systems

Source value

Shows how interaction feedback, reward loops, and motivation mechanics can clarify what customers should do next.

Why it stays here

Supports the generosity and motion-systems narratives because the strategic signal is connecting mechanics to behavior, not presenting gamification as a feature.

UXfolioSelected Work / Archive

Retirement Transformation

Archived financial-services transformation story about making complex planning decisions easier to navigate.

Where it lives now

Earlier Work

Source value

Shows systems thinking in a high-consideration financial context: decision flows, trust, comprehension, and legacy-product clarity.

Why it stays here

Useful as category range for complex regulated decisions, but should stay secondary until leadership scope and business impact are verified.

UXfolioSelected Work / Archive

Learning Management Systems During the Pandemic

Archived research story about learning-platform trust, usability, and remote education breakdowns.

Where it lives now

Earlier Work

Source value

Shows how research can turn a chaotic system into clearer product and service priorities during a high-pressure context.

Why it stays here

Useful as evidence of research judgment under messy conditions, but not strong enough to carry the current Director-level narrative.

UXfolioSelected Work / Archive

Craftable

Archived product concept about discovery, community, and marketplace-style decision support.

Where it lives now

Earlier Work

Source value

Shows early systems thinking around discovery, community signals, preference formation, and product-market framing.

Why it stays here

Useful as a breadth signal, but should stay archived because the stronger current portfolio shows higher-stakes leadership and business impact.

UXfolioSelected Work / Archive

Skincare Coach

Archived consumer strategy story about confidence, guidance, and personalization in a self-care journey.

Where it lives now

Earlier Work

Source value

Shows consumer insight, positioning, service-experience thinking, and how guidance can reduce decision uncertainty.

Why it stays here

Useful as a human-centered breadth signal, but should not compete with loyalty, growth, research, and leadership stories.

UXfolioSelected Work / Archive

Trust Neighborhoods Redesign

Archived trust-and-information architecture story about making neighborhood content more credible and easier to evaluate.

Where it lives now

Earlier Work

Source value

Shows systems thinking around trust, content hierarchy, local context, and decision confidence.

Why it stays here

Potentially useful for trust-and-content strategy, but should stay archived unless leadership role, business context, and verified outcomes are strengthened.

UXfolioSelected Work / Archive

Nukeleus

Archived concept story about user choice, personalization, and decision control.

Where it lives now

Earlier Work

Source value

Shows early product strategy around choice architecture, preference setting, and helping users feel in control.

Why it stays here

Archive only; the current portfolio has stronger evidence for strategy, leadership, and measurable business outcomes.

UXfolioSelected Work / Archive

SAVR Design Sprint

Archived sprint story about reducing friction in a high-intent consumer task.

Where it lives now

Earlier Work

Source value

Shows rapid alignment, task-flow clarity, prototyping, and evaluation around a practical consumer problem.

Why it stays here

Archive only; the useful signal is decision-speed and task clarity, not the sprint process itself.