Recent work

Product Design / leadership / Strategy / Vision

My role

In addition to being an individual contributor for Hiya’s B2B SaaS product and consumer mobile apps, I’m also Hiya’s Director of Product Design. I lead a design and research team that supports and contributes to multiple products and teams. I’m passionate about supporting and nurturing designers and collaborating with my teammates across design, product, and engineering.

Delivering results

  • New features and improvements driven by our team routinely solve customer pain points, reduce churn, and generate revenue for the business.

  • Our team's research and design efforts tangibly improve the bottom line: "ease of use," design clarity, and "user experience" are frequently cited by customers as valuable differentiators and have been cited by the sales team as sales factors.

  • Our team uses customer feedback and research to guide our design work. I've led efforts to implement engagement measurement and user monitoring tools to augment our user understanding when time or research resources are tight.

  • A small but mighty design and research team supports 3 separate verticals. Together we drive development of multiple successful mobile apps and enterprise web apps while supporting internal product teams and business development.

What have I been working on?

Oh wow. So much. Here are some highlights of cool work I’ve done at Hiya:

Design Leadership

  • I lead a high-performing team of design and research ICs across multiple B2B and consumer products, including hiring for research and design roles

  • I mentor designers and would-be designers whenever the opportunity arises. I’m happy to share my experience and knowledge with design-curious teammates at Hiya, friends of friends who are considering design as a profession, and other designers seeking feedback on their work or way of working on their own teams.

  • I created design and research career leveling docs, codifying roles and requirements that provide reliable guidance and goals for my team to grow in their careers.

  • I create and present vision docs, strategic roadmaps, and market opportunity reports to stakeholders and leadership about where we’re headed and possible new revenue streams. I seek to provide guidance and new ideas that can lead to innovation and business success.

  • I created and launched customer Help Centers for enterprise and consumer products, directing and writing their support content. Those Help Centers continue to grow and mature thanks to contributions by others and they are the go-to resources for self-serve users with questions about our products.

  • I’ve successfully transitioned design work from myself to other designers on my team, providing guidance along the way and empowering them to own their work and take a greater share of their teams’ successes

  • PMed a multi-team collaboration to build and launch a valuable sales conversion tool for our sales and marketing teams

  • I’ve also created and implemented:

    • Design process documentation

    • A JIRA-based research & design ticket system and process

    • Design and research feedback structures

    • Enterprise and consumer app design systems

    • Go-to-market plan documentation

Hands-on Design work

  • I’m the lead designer for Hiya AI Phone, a consumer phone assistant app for iOS and Android that launched to the public in Jan 2025

  • I was the sole designer for Hiya Deepfake Voice Detector, an AI audio analysis browser extension featured in Engadget, Fast Company, PCMag, and more

  • I completely redesigned our high-value B2B SaaS product, resulting in increased sales and revenue

  • I created and manage a design system, Figma components, and style guide for our Enterprise product. A second design system is in progress for our consumer Hiya AI Phone app

  • As a sole designer, I shipped a stable of new features and data visualization tools for our enterprise SaaS product that regularly surpass engagement goals

  • In collaboration with our product researcher, I created and shared user journey maps across the organization to identify opportunities for improvement or new perspectives

Get in touch

Wanna learn more about my recent IC work or leadership role at Hiya? Send me a message at hi@hichristopher.com or on LinkedIn.