Senior UX Designer

Israel Hale

Senior UX Designer with 10+ years at the intersection of visual craft, systems thinking, and technical execution. Background in graphic design evolved into UX leadership across complex web and mobile products — with a focus on design systems, information architecture, accessibility, and engineering collaboration. At Apple, currently building an internal design documentation platform using AI to generate responsive, mobile-ready HTML/CSS/JavaScript prototypes from design files — committing directly to an enterprise GitHub repo and partnering with engineering to close the gap between design intent and implementation.

Apple

UX Designer

Cupertino, CA Feb 2022 – Present Current
  • Building an internal design documentation platform using AI (Claude) to generate interactive HTML/CSS/JavaScript prototypes — accurately reproduced from Sketch, fully responsive across desktop and mobile — committing directly to Apple’s enterprise GitHub via pull requests and partnering with engineering to eliminate spec friction and accelerate implementation fidelity.
  • Conducting a full inventory and audit of design elements across a critical global HR platform to establish component standards, improve consistency, and support an upcoming information architecture refresh serving employees across multiple roles, countries, and languages.
  • Identified and solved a structural information architecture gap in policy page navigation by independently designing a filterable, discoverable navigation system — unsolicited and self-directed. Now the scalable framework across 1,255 pages on a platform receiving 4 million monthly visits, merging previously siloed content types into one system all content producers can maintain.
  • Serve as design translator between engineers, content producers, and localization teams — externalizing complex decisions visually and establishing shared standards that give teams confidence to move forward.
  • Participated in user interviews that identified key pain points, enabling design solutions that redirected users to self-service platforms and reduced HR phone service wait times by at least 30%.
  • Created and maintained a responsive UI component library — designed to work across desktop and mobile — aligned with Apple’s design and accessibility standards and delivered in 19+ languages.
  • Improved image management workflow for retina displays through templates, documentation, and team training — reducing production workload by 50%.

Watchtower

Senior UX Designer

Tuxedo Park, NY · Remote May 2022 – Present Volunteer
  • Proposed and secured alignment from 3 department leadership groups on a new exploratory file format that redefines the application’s production scope — enabling designers to experiment and iterate before committing to final output. When shipped, this will eliminate manual document recreation across multiple international branches on a platform designed to scale to 1,000+ languages and dialects.
  • Proposed and drove adoption of an infinite pasteboard canvas model over a conventional divided-pasteboard approach — a foundational architectural decision designed to keep the application flexible for interactive design use cases over the next two to three years.
  • Resolved the core orientation challenge for users migrating from InDesign by designing a complementary system of contextual anchors — rulers, an origin indicator, and a page panel with section grouping — ensuring users never lose spatial context as they work.
  • Leading full redesign of a legacy application using the double diamond process — balancing user needs, stakeholder priorities, and technical constraints from discovery through delivery.

Freelance

UX & Visual Designer

San Diego, CA Jun 2009 – Jan 2022
  • Delivered end-to-end UX and UI design for startups, including two mobile apps that launched post-beta.
  • Directed branding, identity, and marketing collateral for clients across health, fintech, and food industries.

Apple

Genius & People Ops

San Diego, CA Oct 2014 – Jan 2022
  • Delivered technical support and managed employee experience initiatives, onboarding programs and recognition events — including a 7-month internal rotation in Web Production managing global content updates and localization across Apple’s web properties.

Design & Strategy

  • UX Strategy & Leadership
  • Information Architecture
  • Design Systems
  • Responsive & Mobile Design
  • Wireframing & Prototyping
  • User Research & Synthesis
  • Accessibility (WCAG)
  • Localization & Global Design
  • Visual Design & Brand Systems

Collaboration & Process

  • Agile Collaboration
  • Cross-functional Communication
  • Project Management
  • Stakeholder Facilitation

Tools

  • Figma
  • Sketch
  • Adobe Creative Cloud
  • HTML / CSS / JS
  • GitHub
  • Claude Code
  • Drupal CMS
  • Keynote
  • Wrike

B.A. in Applied Arts & Sciences

San Diego State University

Emphasis in Graphic Design  ·  Cum Laude  ·  Distinction in Art  ·  June 2017