Hello, I am Donald Spangler, an Experience Designer (EX, UX for AI, PD, UX/UI, SD, CX) who helps companies with visualizing complexity, aligning products to purpose.

For over 17 years, I have been helping companies uniquely address modern challenges by blending human-centered design and UX principles with strategic business thinking, bridging silos, and connecting teams to deliver cohesive product and service experiences with clearly defining desirability, viability, feasibility, and business impact.

Clients & Organizations

I have been fortunate to work with a diverse range of clients across the globe, from innovative startups to large enterprises.

This experience has allowed me to collaborate with and support exceptional companies and brands in industries such as healthcare, banking, financial services, insurance, advertising, branding, marketing, entertainment, fleet management, and education.

Expertise in the following areas to be effective wherever needed

Experience Strategy & Leadership

Proven success as an Experience Strategist & Team Leader that can facilitate a big picture Systems Thinking approach for collaboration across departments and alignment to impact. My background has provided me with the knowledge to take the steps needed to develop a seamless and consistent experience across a company’s ecosystem of products and services. Companies lose up to 70% of their market share is missed or lost due to a lack of Experience Strategy.

Design Leadership

Budget Management
Coaching
Quality Assurance
Priorization & Alignment
Service Definition
Strategy & Vision
Talent Acquisition & Development

Product Leadership

Agile / LeanUX
Prioritization
Product Management
Roadmaps
User Stories

Content Strategy

Content Audit
Content Maps
Content Models

User & Customer Research

Don’t depend on luck! Applying research methods and tools that derisk critical decision-making and deliver value to the business and customers/users. Solve real-world problems, and explore new markets, new capabilities, and innovation that differentiates.

User Research

Card Sorting
Ethnography
Heuristic Evaluation
Interviews
Jobs To Be Done
Task Analysis
Usability Testing
User Personas
Conversational Design

Product Design

Whether you want to redesign or build a product from scratch, applying best practices to how product experiences are designed can be the difference between products winning or losing in competitive marketplaces.

Design Thinking

Collaborative Workshops
Design Critique
Design Facilitation
Rapid Prototyping
Validation Testing

User Experience

UX for AI
Flowcharts
Sitemaps
Visual Design
Storyboards
Requirements Definition
Wireframe

Don’t take my word for it..

“What sets Don apart as a leader is his ability to closely connect the dots between identity and experience. By doing so, he ensures strategy, design, and execution result in an end product that is a true reflection of the organization. He remains at equal ease in front of both the senior executive and the analyst and figures out a way to keep them both engaged in the same room. His passion runs deep which naturally builds a culture of true innovation even in the darkest of corners.”

— Kapil Kumar (Transformation Leader)

“Donald is an expert in how to focus teams on results. He has a passion for guiding teams through new ways of thinking to orient them on measurable results, assessing risk vs. reward, and problem-solving at a systems level. ”

— Jill Starret (Associate Director of Strategy & Insights)

“I’ve hired Don Spangler for a number of different primetime TV shows and pilots for 20th Century Fox TV. He produces consistent results and has various connections to the music world that he can use when needed to help finish any project. Don is one of our favorite guys here at Fox Music. I couldn’t recommend him highly enough.”

— Ward Hake (SR VP Music, Disney TV Studios, 20th TV, 20th Animation)

Work Highlights

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Digital Transformation, Service design & UX for a top 3 US bank

Executives at a top 3 US bank wanted to examine the ecosystem of the commercial cardholder experience and determine how they might identify and solve pain points, as well as surface new opportunities for digital transformation. …read more

Case study showcases:

Experience Strategy
Service Design
Technical Analysis
Customer and User Research
Workshop Facilitation
Experience Mapping
Stakeholder Management
Team Leadership
UX Design

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Helping a major US airline use a UX and Service Design approach to solve a challenge and surface opportunities.

The team was presented with a challenge by the CFO of a major US airline to take a “total experience” (TX) approach to gather insights, surface opportunities, and design a digital solution that would reduce costs associated with Special Services while maximizing Employee Experience (EX) and the guest’s Service Experience.