Bryan S. Holland · Principal product designer · Oakland
For twenty years I’ve designed software where a mistake has consequences: safety analytics that feed NHTSA, AI governance for regulated trading, the mortgage platform behind a third of US applications, prior authorization in healthcare. I do the research, design the workflow, build the system that keeps it coherent, and more and more, write the front end myself.
Apple, Hyundai, Honda, Acura, Volkswagen, Toyota, Lexus, Disney, Activision, Intel, Netscape, Cisco, Oracle, Autodesk, Charles Schwab, UnitedHealthcare, Ellie Mae, Belkin, Bosch, Mattel and others.
A technician’s traveler and a planner’s board on one design system at two densities: 64px controls for a gloved hand, 40px for a cursor. It photographs the hardware kit and catches a wrong washer before install starts, enforces torque sequence at the wrench, and measures its own task time, so a design change is argued with a number.
I couldn’t find a straightforward way to see the approval steps and appeal path for a drug, so I built one: more than 10,000 drugs, services and procedures, with the source bulletin behind every answer. I designed and built every surface: the API, an MCP server for AI agents, a Salesforce integration, native apps and the web front end.
The backend was already covered by nine patent filings when I joined to design the interfaces. I designed workspaces for four roles moving a request through intent, policy, approval, execution and audit, so every AI decision can be traced to its source. The design system didn’t exist, so I built it from a blank page, with rules written down so engineering could build without checking with me.
Analysts had rejected a dashboard of dials. I designed a workflow-first tool instead: an alert feed, a search tool and a case builder for 80 people mining 14 million service records for safety patterns. A wrong read here starts or misses a recall investigation.
Apple’s premium resellers outside the US needed stores that look and work like Apple’s own. I helped build and manage a token-based component system in Figma, built on variables with multiple variations so global management could test versions quickly. It captured the US Apple experience and gave developers what they needed to build it as Magento templates for every partner, tied into Apple’s systems and the partners’ financial systems.
Someone posts a need; someone else does the act. I proposed the four-user model of Seekers, Doers, Supporters and Advocates that shaped the go/no-go on the next funded phase, then designed and built it in Next.js and Supabase. Guest-first: people can help without making an account.
The first design seat, next to the founders. I own the product from thesis to shipped app: research, information architecture, the design system and the front end that proves it.
Finding the shape of a product before anyone draws a screen. Usually about three weeks to a thesis the team can build against.
Started with the first component, named by role, and written down so engineering can build without asking. I built the first real systems at AllRegs and ArtifactIQ.
Making a model’s output legible and keeping the person in charge: sources you can check, status you can see, and a clear record of who approved what.
Two-sided trust when real money moves: discovery, identity and the hand-off.
I started my first practice in 1993, doing information architecture for Netscape, Cisco and Travelocity when most companies didn’t have a website yet. Since then I’ve designed for Apple, Hyundai, Honda, Volkswagen, Activision and Disney, led remote teams, mentored designers, and taught IA and UX at UC Berkeley and the Center for Electronic Art.
Automatic Delight is the studio I run that work through. Every client gets the senior person on every problem. I can present to a VP in the morning and sit with an engineer that afternoon without the work changing meaning in between.
Tell me what it is and where it stands. I reply within one business day.