Every child is an artist. The challenge is to remain an artist after you grow up. — Pablo Picasso
Christopher Hincks — Principal Product Designer | Design Systems
I turn fragmented enterprise experiences into accessible, measurable, and AI-ready product infrastructure that scales across products, teams, and platforms.
Design as product infrastructure
I am an enterprise product-design strategist with more than 30 years of experience transforming complex SaaS, cybersecurity, healthcare, and public-sector platforms into accessible, cohesive product experiences. My work connects business strategy, customer needs, research, and technical constraints to create products that are useful, measurable, and ready to scale.
I build design systems as product infrastructure: semantic tokens, reusable components, responsive foundations, interaction standards, accessibility guidance, implementation documentation, and governance. These foundations help product, design, engineering, and QA teams reduce fragmentation and deliver consistent experiences across products, platforms, and devices faster.
My practice moves through four connected phases: discover the users, workflows, data, constraints, and system debt; define the opportunity and measures; systemize decisions into reusable foundations; and measure adoption, accessibility, performance, and experience outcomes.
A career of systems, platforms, and organizational change.
01 / Sectigo
Built the design team and hired the personnel to execute token architecture, Figma operations, WCAG 2.2 AA foundations, governance, adoption analytics, and a trusted AI/MCP roadmap across 10 independent interface systems.
Read the abridged case study →02 / OpenText
Created the UX function and shared design model for a security-product portfolio generating more than $250M in annual recurring revenue.
View selected work →03 / Zix
Research, interface standards, and acquisition integration for a consolidated platform channel representing more than $100M in annual recurring revenue.
View selected work →04 / Healthcare + Early Web
Clinical applications, mobile UX, more than 100 hospital sites, government services, media, and academic web resources.
View selected work →Case Study 14 / Sectigo / 2025–present
A multi-product transformation spanning Figma architecture, semantic tokens, reusable components, accessibility, governance, adoption measurement, and trusted AI/MCP workflows.
Ten independent interface systems had no shared token foundation and minimal common documentation.
Audit the ecosystem, normalize foundations, establish decision rights, and connect shared design data to delivery.
7,613 component insertions tracked, 129 design stories closed, and 46 people trained in accessibility.
The design system foundation connects shared primitives to product themes, responsive typography, documented components, status language, light and dark modes, and accessibility checks. Components are treated as operational product assets: versioned, reviewed, measured, and prepared for implementation.
A strategic steering committee, weekly design-system board, and product councils provide a path for local product needs to become reusable standards. Delivery gates connect accessibility, shared naming, Jira guidance, backlog stories, UX review, and component change management.
AI capability is framed as an extension of trusted system data, not a substitute for it. Structured tokens, components, documentation, and accessibility rules provide reliable inputs; MCP integrations and assisted workflows remain subject to product-fit, accessibility, governance, and human-review gates.
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