About | Kai Tran

I design learning experiences where brand & product play a duet.

I'm currently chronically tinkering and daydreaming in St. Louis, and I'm open for remote work or willing to relocate to Austin, Texas. Most recently I shaped brand and product at Tallo, an edtech platform for early career explorers. I designed the brand system, created Cal and the career quiz, and ran experiments in social and content that fed back into the product. Growth loops are my jam.

After hours, I tend Design Garden, a sprint platform I built and run where designers ship work together.

I tinker first and write second. Most of my field notes start as something I built in code with AI as my build partner, including this site. I care about the little moments that make something feel alive: a character, a transition, a phrase that tugs at you.

On teams I'm the resident translator. I turn technical ideas into stories people actually get, and what people say back into product decisions. Give me a problem and I'll mull it over on a Sunday night, in the grocery line, in all the boring spaces where thoughts get room to breathe.

how I work

Learning should feel like discovery, and discovery should be delightful.
I design interfaces to fade, so content can shine and shimmer.
The best designs remove friction rather than add it.
Solid systems should be practical and save time.
Great designs can be genius and stupid simple.

Kai Tran

Product designer · Open to remote or roles in Austin, Texas

howdyimkai.com · linkedin.com/in/uxdesignerkai

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Product designer who makes learning feel like play. I designed a three-minute career quiz that 9,400+ people finished in 6 months, and an AI brand system 14 teammates used.

Experience

Tallo · Edtech career platform for people 13 to 30

May 2025 – Nov 2026

Head of Creative, Aug 2026 – Nov 2026 · Multimedia Designer, May 2025 – Aug 2026
Role eliminated when the parent company closed the marketing department, Nov 2026.

Designed Cal, a compass mascot and three-minute story quiz, to test whether a smaller ask could pull teens into career discovery. 9,400+ people finished it on public pages in 6 months. Once Tallo’s product team built it in, 72% of starters finished, and about half of finishers went on to complete the full 60-question assessment.
Rebuilt the brand as structured data that AI reads before it writes, with Claude workflows, a brand linter and an eval. In testing, drafts that broke a brand rule fell from 80% to 31%. Drafts with made-up stats went from 31% to zero. 14 teammates used it.
Redesigned a scholarships application drive mid-campaign. Completion rose from 29.9% to 63.9%.
Built the community engagement framework. Community members came back at over 3x the rate of Tallo users overall. Took the results of Cal’s Passport Challenge, a back-to-school campaign where students earned stamps for profile tasks, to product, and art directed the Stamps feature that shipped in Feb 2026.
Hired and managed two creative interns, and wrote the video production guide they and our social team used for TikTok. The account grew from 1,750 to 11,700 followers in 11 months, including a 1.4M-view video.

Design Garden · Sprint program and web app where designers pair up and ship one goal in four weeks

Apr 2023 – present

Founder and Product Designer. Started as Sprintfolio with two cofounders, then rebuilt solo.

Designed and built the sprint app, with pair matching and weekly check-ins, using Claude Code and Supabase. 37 designers across four crews have gone through it, with about an 80% pair check-in rate, and 29 more are on the waitlist.
As Sprintfolio, ran nearly 200 sprint partnerships on Notion, then built a platform with the team that reached $1K MRR in its first month. One of 35 teams picked from 57,000 applicants to build in San Francisco with Buildspace.

USAA · Insurance, banking and investing for military members and their families

Sep 2021 – Jun 2022, Mar 2024 – May 2025

Senior Creative Designer (contract) · Life Company leadership team, then Enterprise Portfolio Management Office

Worked with subject matter experts to turn USAA’s value management framework into required training for 205 executives, teaching leaders how to size a bet: budget, goals and risks. 195 finished it, and USAA renewed it as an annual refresher.
Designed and built benefits training for 5,000 employees in Articulate 360 Rise and Storyline, checking color contrast so every learner could read it.
Created an employee recognition app in Power Apps, Power Automate and SharePoint for the portfolio office’s 219 employees, and took it through launch.

Innovare · Edtech company that builds data dashboards for schools

Sep 2022 – Jan 2023

UX Consultant, team lead (apprenticeship through Beginex)

Led three designers to design self-service onboarding for the dashboard. In testing, setup went from six to eight weeks to under three minutes.

University of Texas at Austin · Moody College of Communication, about 5,000 students and 200 faculty

Apr 2018 – Sep 2021

Multimedia Technician

Built Premiere Pro templates and guides for two journalism classes, and refreshed the Reporting Texas broadcast branding.

Earlier: designed the MVP of Aceable’s mobile driver’s ed app, marketing for 1,000+ Go! Retail stores (Disney, Hasbro, LEGO), and game cinematics for BioWare and Trion Worlds.

Skills

Design: interaction design, user flows, information architecture, prototyping, design and brand systems, accessibility, motion
Research: user interviews, usability testing, A/B testing, journey mapping, survey design
AI and build: Claude Code, Lovable, Midjourney, Nano Banana, AI workflows and evals, JavaScript, HTML/CSS, Supabase, Git, n8n, Power Apps, Power Automate
Tools: Figma, Paper, Framer, Webflow, Adobe CC (Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere), DaVinci Resolve, Jitter, Articulate 360, SharePoint, Typeform, Notion

Education

B.S. Radio, Television and Digital Media, minor in Digital Arts and Media · University of Texas at Austin, Moody College of Communication

Speaking

“Design, Test, Repeat” · UC Berkeley Business Academy for Youth, Haas School of Business · Feb 2026
Future Proof Your Portfolio with AI Projects + Insights · UX Camp Fall · Nov 2024
Bridging Gaps: How AI Transforms Design Learning and Careers · Chicago Camp Tent Talks podcast · May 2024
“The Future of Tech Needs Design Innovators” · University of Arizona, UX of UA · Mar 2023

Awards

“Voice of the User” and “Best Mentor” · Tallo Tallies, Tallo’s team awards · 2025
Miami Hack Week UX Designathon, winner · Feb 2023

Community

Judge and mentor at 3 hackathons: makeitMVP pitch night, Outside LLMs AI and music hackathon, imnotHackathon · 2023 – 2024

About Kai

how I work