Critique / Matt Stangl portfolio · v3 / Apr 2026

Stronger than the first read suggested. Still not finished.

Second pass, with desktop screenshots. The Impact console, the About double-diamond, the Signal → Story grid, and the hero scatter are doing real design work — three of these I undersold the first time. What's left: a light-mode section that breaks the system, a credential card floating alone, four card-based About sections sharing one rhythm, and the case study depth gap. Sequenced to ship in one working session.

Summary

01 · Verdict

Revised after desktop review. Four moments earn the visit — the hero scatter, the Impact briefing card, the Double Diamond on About, and Signal → Story. The structural problems are narrower than first read: a theme break on the homepage, an isolated credential card, pattern fatigue across four About sections, and case study depth. The aerospace metaphor is less overreach than I thought — on the About page, the Discover / Define / Develop / Deliver diamond is the best IA on the site. Trust it.

4
Critical
7
Major
4
Minor
4
Working
Working

What earns the visit (revised)

Hero scatter — the teal particle bloom reads as signal/data, not ornament. Carries the "system" thesis visually before a word of copy. Impact briefing card — Operator / Role / Engagements / Scope / Window as an identity block. The clearest positioning device on the site. Double Diamond (About) — the Don't know→Could be / Do know→Should be spread, with Discover/Define/Develop/Deliver nested underneath, is genuinely distinctive IA. Signal → Story — the film grid works; keeps the case for taste without arguing for it.

Reversal

What I called wrong the first time

I said kill the decorative wave — wrong. The desktop hero scatter is the strongest first impression on the site. I said the aerospace metaphor was overreach on About — partly wrong. The Double Diamond application is the best structural moment in the portfolio. Those stay. What actually needs work is elsewhere: the light-mode section that breaks the system, the isolated credential card, and the four visually-identical sections below the diamond.

Top 10 fixes, prioritized

02 · Backlog

Merges the QA report's prioritized list with my read. Critical = ship before anything else; Major = before you send the link to anyone senior; Minor = polish pass.

Critical · 01

Replace hero positioning tag with a role

"CX · Product · Service transformation" is a category, not a title. Recruiters need a seniority signal in the first 10 seconds.

FixReplace eyebrow tag with: PRODUCT & SERVICE DESIGN LEADER — IC TO DIRECTOR SCOPE · ENTERPRISE TRANSFORMATION
Critical · 02

Give the $50M a denominator

Floating big number with no baseline. Credible-looking but dismissible. One sentence closes the gap.

Fix$50M+ incremental AOV · 12-mo post-launch window · prior-year AOV was flat Design & strategy lead on the service model that drove it.
Critical · 03

Write the three case studies

The stubs are the biggest credibility gap on the site. The QA report is right: the ratio of presentation quality to case study depth is the actual AI tell. The markdown you sent is 90% there — ship it.

Fix600–900 words each · problem → constraint → pivot → outcome → one thing that didn't work. Template in the Case Study design I'm building alongside this doc.
Major · 04

Cut "15 services shipped"

Output metric sitting next to outcomes makes the outcomes look softer. Replace with behavior change.

FixBusiness plan renewal rate exceeded 75% goal in Q1 post-launch
Major · 05

Bridge the EY scale gap

4.57M vs 715 looks like a broken funnel until you add one line.

Fix4.57M engagements (awareness) · 715 vaccinations (activation) Two stages, one program. The gap is the design, not a conversion failure.
Major · 06

Surface contact in the hero

Right now the only CTA is at the bottom of a long scroll. Put it where the recruiter is.

FixAvailable for senior design leadership · healthcare preferred LinkedIn ↗   ·   Get in touch ↗
Major · 07

Frame Signal → Story

One line above the film grid answers "why is this in a design portfolio." Without it, it reads as a hobby section.

FixThe same skill that makes a good product & service design leader makes a good storyteller: you watch before you design. Signal → Story is that practice in its own form.
Major · 08

Add one pivot or failure per case study

The markdown already contains them — Autodesk's CSM-capacity over-design, Wipro's four-tier cut-to-three, EY's late pivot from mass channels. Don't bury them. These are the trust-builders.

Minor · 09

Rein in the aerospace metaphor on About

"Launch pad / mission profile / operator log" earns its place in the process section. It doesn't need to govern the career arc too. Drop the metaphor for the biographical content.

Critical · 10

Fix the theme break on Home

Between the hero (dark, teal particles) and the Design & Transformation Impact block (dark), there's a three-screen light-mode section: "Experience isn't one moment" + headshot + AI for Product Strategy credential. It's visually shocking in a way nothing else on the site is, and reads as a leftover from a different portfolio template. Either convert that whole stretch to dark — matching the rest — or commit to a two-theme site with a rationale (e.g. "story in light, work in dark"). Right now it's neither.

Major · 11

The floating credential card

"AI for Product Strategy · View credential ↗" sits alone in a full-width white card on the homepage. One credential by itself reads defensive ("look, I have AI experience") rather than substantive. Either gather 3–4 credentials into a single strip (Northwestern Kellogg-style row), or fold it into the About page's existing content. It doesn't earn a standalone viewport.

Major · 12

Break the card rhythm on About

Below the Double Diamond, four consecutive sections — How I choose, What I do, What working together feels like, Career arc — all use the same outlined-card template. The diamond spent visual budget on a strong moment; then the page spends the rest of its scroll on uniform boxes. Rescue the opening by giving only one of those four sections the card treatment. The others become typographic sections — headline, body, done.

Minor · 13

Tier chips on Impact read as filters

The Business tier expands to show "Strategic success planning", "Executive business review", "Adoption roadmap" etc. as teal-outlined pill chips. At a glance they look like interactive filter tags — they're not. Switch to plain text with a separator dot, or a single-line list. Preserve the tap affordance on the tier row itself; kill the pill styling.

Mobile critique

03 · iPhone read

On mobile the site runs long. Every page is a single column of text panels — 7 to 9 screens on About, 8 on Home. The aerospace metaphor, which works beautifully as a diagram on desktop, fragments into unrelated boxes when they're stacked. Below: what breaks, and where.

MobileCritical

Home hero wastes the first viewport

First screen on iPhone: tiny eyebrow tag, 2-line H1, 3-line subhead, then ~40% empty dark panel and a decorative teal wave. The next scroll lands on a logo strip. You've used your most valuable real estate on atmosphere.

FixHero should end with the role line + inline LinkedIn/Contact. Logos go directly under, no dead panel between.
MobileMajor

About is 8 screens, 2 metaphors, 1 person

T-90 / T-30 / T+10 / T+90 launch timeline → double-diamond mission → L-0 through L-6 lander narrative → "even over" values → "what I do" bays → "CH 01–04" telemetry → Operator Log (career arc). Each frame is clever. Together they're a costume change every screen.

FixPick one spine. The mission/process metaphor is the strongest; let it own the methodology section and nothing else. "Even-over", "What I do", and career arc become plain typographic sections with a single shared rule: monospace eyebrow, sans headline, body. Half the screens. Double the clarity.
MobileMajor

Impact briefing card is too tall

The Operator/Role/Engagements/Scope/Window card on mobile reads as five identical rows of text. It's the best kind of data on the site, rendered at the lowest density.

FixCollapse to 2 lines on mobile: name + role on one row; engagements + window on the next. Scope moves into the body as a sentence.
MobileMajor

Home "How I choose" cards all look the same

Five "X even over Y" cards stacked identically. Teal label + grey body × 5. The rhythm dies. This is a pacing problem, not a content problem.

FixMake the first card (Clarity) the anchor — larger type, full-width. The other four shrink to tight two-per-row labels-only with a tap-to-expand, or inline one-liners separated by rules. Density, not uniformity.
MobileMinor

"CH 01 · LIVE" telemetry cards read as chat logs

"CH 01 · LIVE" visually imitates a messenger or live broadcast UI. It's an unintentional tell. Drop the "LIVE" pill; the chapter number is enough.

MobileMinor

Top nav truncates on 375px

Home · Impact · Signal → Story · Case Studies · About just fits. Any smaller (iPhone SE) and it wraps. Consider shortening "Signal → Story" to "Signal" on mobile breakpoints, or moving to a drawer.

Mobile heuristics Matt should enforce
  • 44px minimum tap target on every card link and tab.
  • Max 3 screens per page before a visible section break or jump link.
  • No text smaller than 14px. Monospace labels can go 11px if uppercase + tracked.
  • Every ornamental flourish (dashed lines, corner brackets, teal sparks) earns its place once per screen — not every block.
  • No decorative imagery taller than 40% of viewport in any viewport < 768px.

Home — line by line

04 · /index

Revised after seeing desktop. The hero itself is strong — the teal scatter carries real signal. The problems start at viewport two: the theme shifts to light, a single credential card sits alone, and the page introduces itself twice before saying anything specific.

Section  Hero
Eyebrow tag
CX · PRODUCT · SERVICE TRANSFORMATION
PRODUCT & SERVICE DESIGN LEADER
H1
I lead CX, product, and service transformation.
I rebuild fragmented enterprise experience into one operating model that ships.
Subhead
For enterprises where experience has splintered across teams, channels, and systems. I rebuild it as one operating model that actually ships.
Autodesk, Wipro, EY. IC to director-level scope. Healthcare, enterprise, public sector.
Add below subhead
— nothing —
Available for senior design leadership roles — healthcare preferred. LinkedIn ↗   ·   Get in touch ↗
Hero scatter
Teal particle bloom
Keep exactly. Reversal from v1 of this critique — the desktop rendering reads as signal/data visualization, not decoration. It's the strongest first impression on the site.
Section  Light-mode mid-page block · THEME BREAK
Whole block
Light cream background · "Experience isn't one moment" + headshot + AI for Product Strategy credential
Convert to dark theme to match hero and Impact block. The theme switch is the single most jarring moment in the entire site. Three dark viewports sandwich one light stretch — it reads as a layout leftover.
Headshot placement
Full-card right-side headshot at viewport 2
Keep the photo. Move to About, or inline it much smaller next to the positioning statement. A portrait at this size pulls focus from the "system" story the site is making.
"AI for Product Strategy" credential
Standalone full-width card with View credential link
Either add 2–3 credentials and make it a strip, or cut. A single floating credential reads defensive; it's answering a question the rest of the site hasn't been asked.
Section  Positioning statement
H2
Experience isn't one moment. It's the whole journey.
Most experience work fixes the wrong thing.
Body · line 1
Most organizations fix touchpoints in isolation, fragmented experiences, frustrated customers, wasted effort.
Organizations fix touchpoints in isolation. Customers experience the gaps between them.
Body · line 2
I work at the system level: mapping journeys, aligning teams, designing services that flow. Outcomes that compound.
I work at the system level — journeys, teams, and service models that compound into outcomes, not activity.
Section  Signal → Story grid
Add above grid
— nothing —
The same skill that makes a good product & service design leader makes a good storyteller: you watch before you design. Signal → Story is that practice in its own form.
Section  "Design & Transformation Impact" card
H2
Design and Transformation Impact
Three transformations. In numbers.
Sub
Journey-led operating models and service design.
Autodesk · Wipro · EY — what shipped, what moved.
Section  Case study teaser cards
AI Workflow · sub
AI as a creative and system design partner for structure, iteration, and system refinement.
Six weeks, four tools, one portfolio. What AI did, what it got wrong, and the decisions that stayed mine.
Synthetic Users · sub
Stress-test journeys before live traffic with plausible scenarios and edge cases.
Nine synthetic reviewers stress-tested this portfolio before launch. Three findings self-review missed.
Autodesk · sub
Planning as a system: tools, teams, handoffs, and shared success definitions.
Built Autodesk's global Service Design practice from zero. $50M+ incremental AOV in 12 months.

Impact — line by line

05 · /impact

Impact is the strongest page on the site. Don't overwrite it — tune it. Biggest wins: attribution sentences, metric cuts, and a mobile density pass.

Section  Briefing header
H1
Enterprise design, measured at altitude.
Three enterprise transformations. In numbers.
Sub
Three enterprise transformations. One leader. This is what the work returned — in revenue, resolution speed, and reach — after it shipped.
What shipped, what moved, and the design decisions behind each.
Briefing card
5 rows (Operator / Role / Engagements / Scope / Window)
Compress to 2 rows on mobile. Role and name together; Engagements and Window together. Scope drops into a single sentence above the card.
Section  Autodesk
H2
I built Autodesk's global Service Design practice from zero.
Keep. This is the best headline on the site.
Body
I led the strategy, design, and launch of a tiered post-purchase model — Business, Professional, Included — that turned customer success into a revenue engine.
I led the strategy, design, and launch of a tiered post-purchase model — Business, Professional, Included. Customer success became a revenue motion, not a retention cost.
Hero metric caption
Monetized AOV engine · 12 mo
$50M+ incremental AOV · 12-mo post-launch window · prior-year AOV flat Design & strategy lead on the service model that drove it.
Secondary metric
15+ services shipped
Business plan renewal rate exceeded 75% goal in Q1 post-launch
Section  Wipro
H2
I unified six service towers into one operating model.
Keep. Clear, active, owns the scope.
Body
At Wipro, I led transformation across six ITIL service towers for Estée Lauder and Takeda — building the frameworks, metrics, and delivery model that improved NPS past goal and secured an eight-figure renewal.
Six ITIL towers operating as six companies. I led the program that made them one — unified escalation, shared CX signals, tier ownership with teeth. Estée Lauder and Takeda. Eight-figure renewal.
Before/after table
6.8 days → 4.7 days copy
Keep exactly. This is the single clearest cause-and-effect story on the site.
Section  EY
Metric pair
10+ statewide healthcare & brand partnerships · 715 vaccinations · 4.57M public health engagements · 8-figure renewal
4.57M engagements (awareness layer) · 715 vaccinations (activation layer) Two stages, one program. The gap is the design — not a conversion failure.
Body
Led public health experience strategy for Georgia Department of Public Health and multi-state initiatives, designing engagement models that increased vaccine uptake across diverse populations.
Georgia DPH + Humana + Oklahoma. Mass-channel outreach wasn't converting — the more official the message, the more resistance it triggered. We rebuilt it as two separate motions: awareness at scale, activation through community partners. Recognized by the CDC as a national best practice.
Section  Three-tier ladder (Autodesk deep-dive)
Caption
The three-tier service ladder · Tap a tier to open
Keep. The tap affordance and per-tier revenue attribution are genuinely great.
Mobile polish
Expanded tier cards are cramped; teal progress bar underlines are thin
Bump the bar to 2px at mobile breakpoint. Ensure "% of lift" and tier number are vertically aligned — they drift by ~4px on iPhone width.

About — line by line

06 · /about

Major revision from v1. The Double Diamond at the top of this page is the best IA on the site — I undersold it in the first pass. What actually needs work: the four identical card-based sections below the diamond. Same shape, same tone, four viewports deep. Break the rhythm and the page gets 40% shorter without losing content.

Working

The Double Diamond spread

DON'T KNOW / COULD BE → DO KNOW / SHOULD BE, with Discover / Define / Develop / Deliver nested inside. The staged ignition + "Payload Lock" delivery deploy language lands. This is genuinely distinctive IA. Leave it alone.

Section  Hero
H1
I build design systems for exit velocity.
I turn ambiguous briefs into systems that ship.
Sub
The beliefs, the method, and the mission architecture behind how I move ambiguous briefs into shipped systems without losing altitude between them.
What I believe, how I work, and what I've learned to cut.
Section  Pre-flight beliefs
01
Design and business outcomes share one trajectory.
Keep.
02
Ambiguity gets structured into something teams can move on.
Keep.
03
Complexity is translated into systems people can actually use.
Complexity becomes systems people can actually use.
Section  Flight plan (T-90/T-30/T+10/T+90)
Whole block
Strategy / Systems / Adoption / Growth with T-minus labels and aerospace iconography
Cut the T-minus timestamps. They're ornament. Keep four phases, strip the astronaut dressing: STRATEGY → SYSTEMS → ADOPTION → GROWTH. One line each. Done.
Section  Double Diamond (confirmed working)
Verdict
DON'T KNOW / COULD BE + DO KNOW / SHOULD BE diamonds
Keep. This is the single strongest moment on About — and a serious IA reference a recruiter would screenshot. The constraint-to-delivery narrative (Rip the brief → Payload deploy) earns every pixel.
Section  Pattern fatigue — four card sections in a row · STRUCTURAL
How I choose (5 cards)
Outlined card grid · "X even over Y" format
Convert to a typographic list. First statement (Clarity) full-width as anchor; other four as inline one-liners separated by rules. Keeps the content, kills the box repetition.
What I do (6 cards)
Identical card grid · service lines
This is where the card treatment earns its keep — six discrete offers, equal weight is right. Keep as cards, but shrink padding by ~30% and drop the "BAY 01 / 02..." labels. Let the service names do the work.
What working together feels like (4 cards)
Outlined card grid · "CH 01–04" telemetry styling
Kill the card treatment entirely. Two-column plain type with hairline rules between. The content is good; the format is identical to the section above it and the section below.
Cadence fix
Diamond (strong) → cards → cards → cards → prose (Career arc)
Diamond (strong) → typographic list → cards (one, earned) → typographic list → prose. Variety, not monotony.
Section  Telemetry (CH 01–04)
Labels
CH 01 · LIVE · CH 02 · LIVE ...
Drop the LIVE pill. Too close to a broadcast chat UI. Chapter numbers are fine on their own.
Section  Career arc ("Operator Log")
Label
OPERATOR · OPERATOR LOG
CAREER · CAREER ARC
Body
Matt's work spans creative storytelling, consulting, and enterprise transformation. He started in creative environments, developing a strong instinct for narrative, craft, and audience. That foundation evolved into work shaping service models...
I started in creative — narrative, craft, audience. That became service models, experience systems, and organizational alignment for enterprise clients. The through-line: translating strategy into systems teams actually run.
Voice
Third person ("Matt's work spans...")
Switch to first person. The rest of the site is "I" — this section jarring.
"Personal note · off-shift"
I care about building a life that's not just work. I write, stay close to people who matter, and try to keep perspective. The work matters to me, but it's not the only thing, that balance shows up in how I think, how I lead, and what I build.
Off the clock: I write, spend time with people who matter, and try to stay outside the work long enough to bring something back to it.

Case Studies — line by line

07 · /case-studies

The hub page is fine; the individual case study pages are the problem. I've designed a template for those separately — see Case Study.html. Below: fixes to the index page only.

Section  Hub header
H1
Proof in flight.
Selected work.
Sub
Three missions where the strategy left the hangar. What shipped, what moved, and the trajectory each one actually traced.
Five studies. Three enterprise, two methodology. Read in any order.
Section  Card blocks (AI Workflow / Synthetic / Autodesk)
Card TOOLS/METHOD/OUTPUT rows
Three mono rows of "TOOLS: …" "METHOD: …" "OUTPUT: …"
One row, three pieces, inline separators: TOOLS · METHOD · OUTPUT. The current stacked format reads as a terminal printout rather than a case index.
"ARTIFACT" quote block
Teal bordered inset on each card
Keep. This is the one distinctive element. Make sure the quote is specific — "Map the system first, then use models for variation" is good; the Synthetic Users equivalent ("Stress-test journeys before live traffic") is actually the same copy from the subhead. Rewrite it to say something only this case study can say.
Section  "Let's talk" footer
H2
Let's talk
Let's talk.
Sub
Journey redesign, experience strategy, operational transformation.
Senior design leadership roles. Journey redesign. Experience strategy. Operational transformation. Healthcare preferred.

Cliché ledger

08 · Voice audit

Words and phrases currently on the site, and what to do with each. "Keep" earns its place; "Trim" appears too often; "Cut" is a tell.

#
Phrase
Why it's on the list
Verdict
01
"Outcomes that compound"
Specific, owned, does real work.
Keep
02
"Human-centered methodologies and systems thinking"
You didn't write this anywhere — good. If it creeps back in, kill it on sight.
Cut on sight
03
"At the system level"
Overused in the industry. You can earn it once if the page actually shows the system. Currently you use it twice in the homepage subhead.
Trim to once
04
"Journey-led operating models"
Phrase of the year in 2019. Fine for one subhead, not three.
Trim to once
05
"Exit velocity"
Startup vernacular in a service design context. Reads as borrowed.
Cut
06
"Proof in flight"
The aerospace metaphor stretched past the process page.
Cut
07
"Measured at altitude"
Same.
Cut
08
"From zero"
"Built Autodesk's practice from zero" — this is the one you earned. Keep.
Keep
09
"Beauty that doesn't ship doesn't count"
Tight. True. Only aphorism on the site that reads like yours.
Keep
10
"Plausible scenarios and edge cases"
Lifted from AI marketing copy. Replace with the actual method.
Cut
11
"Live briefing" / "Impact console"
The one metaphor that's doing real structural work. Don't touch.
Keep
12
"Operator" (as a title frame)
Fine once in the identity card. Not a career arc label.
Trim to one use