12 years in B2B SaaS. Now building agentic systems at Yext, from pages that draft themselves to agents that surface inside an advisor's conversation, and the trust controls that decide when they act.
> /scoping-partner [UX-247.md] [topic-page.png]
Notify teammates when content is saved to a shared topic.
Push + in-app, with controls to avoid noise.
agent: Reading ticket, screenshot, and risk surface...
One thing to clarify before drafting:
Should control live at the topic, workspace, or both?
> Topic-level only. Keep the first version narrow.
Problem: shared saves are invisible.
Users miss teammate contributions.
Decision: scope control to the topic.
No global notification settings yet.
Risk: repeated saves could create noise.
Group events before adding more controls.
Next:
- /research-partner (patterns + precedents)
- /ideation-partner (generate concepts)
rod@laptop ~ % /ideation-partnerI use AI like a design partner, not a shortcut. My reasoning-partner skills help me turn raw tickets, screenshots, and loose context into scoped decisions, execution plans, divergent directions, and share-out docs.
The point isn't more output. It's faster judgment: clarifying the right slice, naming the tradeoff, and moving the work forward before it gets over-designed.
8 weeks → 3 days
Slashed customer launch time from 8 weeks to 3 days as Senior Designer on Singlecomm Guided Interactions, a no-code scripting platform I led end-to-end.
Adopted by 3 scrum teams
As Lead Designer on Yext Relate, I rebuilt how design shows up in agile, from kickoff through ship, so engineering and PM stop guessing and start shipping in sync.
Zero missed alerts
Designed a notification system for my own smart home, turning a firehose of 557 sensors into a tight, prioritized feed I actually read.
More recent work, including current AI agent design, is available on request. Email for access.
“I can't give enough praise to Rod's inclination to pursue the right thing, in spite of resistance and pushback.”
“You kept the user's problem in mind and continued approaching it from different creative angles until finding the one that hit the nail on the head.”
“Rod isn't just a talented designer. He's someone who makes the people he works with better.”
“Rod, when something is in your hands, I don't worry.”
“It's not just about writing elegant code or crafting beautiful interfaces for Rod, it's about truly understanding the people who'll use what we build.”
“Rod took ownership of the UX Lab project and put together an integrated design solution to several usability problems our scrum team is aiming to solve. This has saved us a lot of time.”
