Debra Bush
Senior UX Designer · Enterprise & Workflow Systems
I design UX for complex operational workflows, using research and validation to turn messy systems into clear, reliable, and scalable product experiences.
Case Studies
Selected work demonstrating how I design and validate complex workflows and systems for products where clarity, risk, and human judgment directly shape outcomes.
Rodger
UX and Systems Design
A systems-first case study in designing and validating coordination, failure handling, and human decision-making.
Project Summary
Rather than starting with screens, I mapped the underlying service logic first: how requests move through the system, how roles interact, and how breakdowns are handled when real-world conditions disrupt ideal flows.Rodger was designed years before gig work became app-based, exploring how a dispatch and task-tracking system could scale without losing clarity, accountability, or human judgment.The system models the same coordination, permissioning, and failure-state challenges found in enterprise operations dashboards and internal tooling.The result was a role-aware dispatch model built around communication, clear handoffs, and decision support rather than blind automation.
My Role
• Mapped the complete task lifecycle from request → assignment → reroute → resolution
• Defined and separated user-facing, driver-facing, and operations-facing responsibilities
• Designed system logic to handle real-world edge cases, including access failures, time overruns, and no-shows
• Sketched administrative tools for tracking service status, notifications, and expenses
• Intentionally prioritized human judgment and clarity over full automation in service handoffs
Design Principles Demonstrated
• A systems-first approach to solving real-world coordination problems
• Early fluency in role-based UX and service design
• Comfort designing for failure states, not just happy paths
• Evidence of product and systems thinking applied early to real-world coordination problems
Outcome & Impact
The system models challenges common to enterprise internal tools and operational dashboards, including role-based permissions, state transitions, and failure recovery workflows.Rodger anticipated core patterns of modern workflow platforms years before they became mainstream.The work demonstrates early strength in scalable coordination design, role separation, and operational clarity under uncertainty.It reflects a systems mindset that prioritizes supporting human judgment rather than attempting to eliminate it.
Artifacts
These hand-drawn logic maps and system notes predate modern design tools and document early systems reasoning around roles, states, and failure handling.
• Role definitions and feature notes for the Rodger platform
• Task assignment logic balancing user needs with driver proximity
• Early flowcharts for driver notifications and task resolution routing
Language as a Safety Mechanism: Submit vs Launch
In many interfaces, “Submit” is treated as a neutral action. It suggests sending data, completing a form, or progressing to the next step. In systems where actions trigger real-world consequences, that neutrality can obscure intent.While designing role-based workflows and launcher systems, this distinction surfaced repeatedly. Actions that finalized a request or activated a system state required language that clearly signaled finality. Terms like “Launch” or “Request” made that commitment explicit.“Launch,” by contrast, signals activation, exposure, and consequence. Users pause before launching. They double-check. They expect impact.In high-stakes systems, this distinction matters. Language doesn’t just label actions—it frames responsibility and shapes user behavior.Designing content systems that allow these terms to be adjusted without redeploying logic enables teams to align language with intent, risk, and user expectation as products evolve.
Keep's Depths
Branding & Graphic Systems
From the start of development on Keep’s Depths, we created a set of visual anchors designed to keep the project within scope internally while serving as the foundation for its external identity. This system was designed to evolve safely over time, supporting long-term iteration across multiple releases without losing coherence, trust, or shared understanding.
Chapter Logos
The logo system for Keep’s Depths was designed as a stable, recognizable silhouette that could persist across chapters without fragmenting the game’s identity.Consistency in overall shape was intentional, providing a visual anchor for players and a reliable frame for internal decision-making. Within that constraint, elemental treatments and surface detail were allowed to change to reflect each chapter’s theme.In the final chapter, the silhouette is deliberately broken to signal narrative escalation and thematic rupture, reinforcing that the rules of the world have changed.
Splash Screens
These splash screens extend the logo system into full environmental compositions. While each chapter introduces new visual language, lighting, and tone, shared compositional structure and logo placement reinforce continuity across updates.
Across key surfaces, the logo was consistently positioned in the top-left corner. This placement established predictable visual hierarchy, allowed primary imagery to guide the eye rightward, and influenced internal alignment decisions within the logo itself, including text flow and structural balance.
AI Use & GuardrailsProject Neptune : Keep's Depths
Content design for governance, alignment, and long-term trust
ContextThis work demonstrates how content design can function as governance, setting shared expectations and reducing risk in ambiguous, fast-moving environments.
Keep’s Depths is an in-development game project with multiple creative systems and a small team. As AI tools became part of the workflow, we needed shared clarity around how those tools could be used without undermining authorship, quality, or intent.
Problem
Without clear guardrails, AI use introduced ambiguity around decision ownership, quality standards, and what constituted finished work. This created friction and risked inconsistency over time.
Constraints
• Preserve human authorship and accountability
• Avoid tool-driven decision making
• Keep the policy readable and usable, not legalistic
• Apply the same quality standards to AI-assisted and non-AI work
Approach
I treated the policy as a content design problem rather than a technical one. The goal was shared understanding, not enforcement. I focused on defining:• where AI supports exploration and iteration
• where it is explicitly excluded
• how review and quality gates work
• who owns final decisionsThe intent was to create alignment without slowing creative momentum.
Artifact Overview
The resulting AI Use Policy defines clear boundaries for how AI tools are used within the project, emphasizing human intent, review, and responsibility.
Keep’s Depths – AI Use PolicyOur ApproachWe see AI the same way we see any modern development tool.It is not a replacement for creativity, judgment, or craft.
It is a way to support them.Ignoring useful tools doesn’t make a project purer. It usually just makes it harder to execute well. At the same time, letting tools drive decisions instead of people is how quality and intent get lost. Our goal is to sit firmly in the middle of that line.How We Use AIAI is used selectively during development to support parts of the process where it makes practical sense, such as:• Exploring early ideas and directions
• Iterating on concepts and testing variations
• Assisting with workflows where speed or scale is helpfulWhen AI is involved, it is always guided by clear human intent and reviewed with care. Outputs are shaped, refined, and evaluated just like any other piece of work. Nothing ends up in the game by default, and nothing ships without being intentionally chosen.Creative decisions remain human decisions.What Ends Up in the GameSome AI-assisted work may appear in patches or releases.When it does, it has gone through the same process as everything else:• Directed and adjusted by a human hand
• Refined through manual iteration
• Held to the same quality standards as fully hand-crafted contentIf something doesn’t meet that standard, it doesn’t ship. Simple as that.A significant amount of what you see in Keep’s Depths is created entirely without AI involvement at all.What We Don’t Use AI ForThere are clear boundaries around how we work:• AI is not used as a shortcut for originality
• Raw or uncurated AI output is never shipped
• Creative decisions are not automated
• Artists, designers, and developers are not replaced with promptsAI can assist the process. Authorship stays human.Why We’re Open About ItGame development changes. Tools change. Being honest about that is healthier than pretending nothing ever evolves.We believe transparency builds trust, and trust matters more to us than maintaining a myth about how things are made.In ShortKeep’s Depths is a human-made game.AI may be part of the development process, but human intent, taste, and responsibility are behind every final decision.That’s the standard we hold ourselves to.
Design Principles Demonstrated
• Content design beyond screens
• Systems thinking and governance
• Writing for alignment, not performance
• AI literacy with restraint
• Senior-level judgment in ambiguous spaces
Outcome & Impact
• Shared expectations across collaborators
• Faster iteration without loss of intent
• Reduced ambiguity around authorship and quality
• A reference point that supports long-term consistency
Pantrii
Human-Centered Inventory & Planning System
A calm, emotionally intelligent system for managing everyday complexity, designed to reduce cognitive load and support sustainable habits over time.
Project Summary
Pantrii began as an exploration of how everyday systems can feel supportive rather than demanding. The problem wasn’t inventory tracking itself, but the friction, guilt, and cognitive overload that often accompany food planning and waste reduction.Rather than optimizing for speed or feature density, I focused on designing a pantry system that paired functional clarity with emotional tone. The goal was to create a tool that helps people make better decisions without requiring constant attention, discipline, or stress.
My Role
• Designed the brand identity, UI mockups, and core interaction flows
• Built a component system centered on calm visuals, legible hierarchy, and predictable patterns
• Mapped user flows for scanning, inventory management, and recipe-triggered planning
• Balanced functional requirements with emotional impact, ensuring every design decision served both utility and mood
Design Principles Demonstrated
• Ability to design emotionally intelligent UX for real-world, recurring tasks
• Sensitivity to cognitive load, decision fatigue, and behavioral friction
• Comfort integrating brand, system logic, and accessibility into a cohesive whole
• A design approach that prioritizes sustainable use over novelty or engagement metrics
Outcome & Impact
• Established a scalable foundation for a pantry and meal-planning system designed around habit formation rather than pressure
• Demonstrated early product design instincts that harmonize brand, flow, and emotional tone
• Served as a conceptual base for future explorations in emotionally aware systems and AI-assisted planning tools
Artifacts
• Early flow diagrams outlining scanning and inventory logic
• UI explorations testing hierarchy, calm color systems, and interaction affordances
• Mobile mockups demonstrating end-to-end flows from pantry state to meal decision
Debra Bush
Senior UX Designer · Enterprise & Workflow Systems
I design UX for complex operational workflows, using research and validation to turn messy systems into clear, reliable, and scalable product experiences.
Case Studies
Selected work demonstrating how I design and validate complex workflows and systems for products where clarity, risk, and human judgment directly shape outcomes.
Rodger
UX and Systems Design
A systems-first case study in designing for coordination, failure, and human decision-making.
Project Summary
Rather than starting with screens, I mapped the underlying service logic first: how requests move through the system, how roles interact, and how breakdowns are handled when real-world conditions disrupt ideal flows.Rodger was designed years before gig work became app-based, exploring how a dispatch and task-tracking system could scale without losing clarity, accountability, or human judgment.Rodger models the same coordination, permissioning, and failure-state challenges found in enterprise operations dashboards and internal tooling.The result was a role-aware dispatch model built around communication, clear handoffs, and decision support rather than blind automation.
My Role
• Mapped the complete task lifecycle from request → assignment → reroute → resolution
• Designed system logic to handle real-world edge cases, including access failures, time overruns, and driver no-shows
• Defined and separated user-facing, driver-facing, and operations-facing responsibilities
• Sketched administrative tools for tracking service status, notifications, and expenses
• Intentionally prioritized human judgment and clarity over full automation in service handoffs
Design Principles Demonstrated
• A systems-first approach to solving real-world coordination problems
• Early fluency in role-based UX and service design
• Comfort designing for failure states, not just happy paths
• Evidence of product and systems thinking well before it was formalized in my career
Outcome & Impact
The system models challenges common to enterprise internal tools and operational dashboards, including role-based permissions, state transitions, and failure recovery workflows.Rodger anticipated core patterns of modern gig-economy platforms years before they became mainstream.The work demonstrates early strength in scalable coordination design, role separation, and operational clarity under uncertainty.It reflects an early understanding that scalable systems succeed not by eliminating human judgment, but by supporting it.
Artifacts
These hand-drawn logic maps and system notes predate modern design tools and document early systems reasoning around roles, states, and failure handling, illustrating how I worked through coordination frameworks, role logic, and task routing using paper sketches and flow diagrams.
• Role definitions and feature notes for the Rodger platform
• Task assignment logic balancing user needs with driver proximity
• Early flowcharts for driver notifications and task resolution routing
Language as a Safety Mechanism: Submit vs Launch
In many interfaces, “Submit” is treated as a neutral action. It suggests sending data, completing a form, or progressing to the next step. In systems where actions trigger real-world consequences, that neutrality can obscure intent.While designing role-based workflows and launcher systems, this distinction surfaced repeatedly. Actions that finalized a request or activated a system state required language that clearly signaled finality. Terms like “Launch” or “Request” made that commitment explicit.“Launch,” by contrast, signals activation, exposure, and consequence. Users pause before launching. They double-check. They expect impact.In high-stakes systems, this distinction matters. Language doesn’t just label actions—it frames responsibility and shapes user behavior.Designing content systems that allow these terms to be adjusted without redeploying logic enables teams to align language with intent, risk, and user expectation as products evolve.
Keep's Depths
Branding & Graphic Systems
From the start of development on Keep’s Depths, we created a set of visual anchors designed to keep the project within scope internally while serving as the foundation for its external identity. This system was designed to evolve safely over time, supporting long-term iteration across multiple releases without losing coherence, trust, or shared understanding.
Chapter Logos
The logo system for Keep’s Depths was designed as a stable, recognizable silhouette that could persist across chapters without fragmenting the game’s identity.Consistency in overall shape was intentional, providing a visual anchor for players and a reliable frame for internal decision-making. Within that constraint, elemental treatments and surface detail were allowed to change to reflect each chapter’s theme.In the final chapter, the silhouette is deliberately broken to signal narrative escalation and thematic rupture, reinforcing that the rules of the world have changed.
Splash Screens
These splash screens extend the logo system into full environmental compositions. While each chapter introduces new visual language, lighting, and tone, shared compositional structure and logo placement reinforce continuity across updates.
Across key surfaces, the logo was consistently positioned in the top-left corner. This placement established predictable visual hierarchy, allowed primary imagery to guide the eye rightward, and influenced internal alignment decisions within the logo itself, including text flow and structural balance.
AI Use & GuardrailsProject Neptune : Keep's Depths
Content design for governance, alignment, and long-term trust
ContextThis work demonstrates how content design can function as governance, setting shared expectations and reducing risk in ambiguous, fast-moving environments.
Keep’s Depths is an in-development game project with multiple creative systems and a small team. As AI tools became part of the workflow, we needed shared clarity around how those tools could be used without undermining authorship, quality, or intent.
Problem
Without clear guardrails, AI use introduced ambiguity around decision ownership, quality standards, and what constituted finished work. This created friction and risked inconsistency over time.
Constraints
• Preserve human authorship and accountability
• Avoid tool-driven decision making
• Keep the policy readable and usable, not legalistic
• Apply the same quality standards to AI-assisted and non-AI work
Approach
I treated the policy as a content design problem rather than a technical one. The goal was shared understanding, not enforcement. I focused on defining:• where AI supports exploration and iteration
• where it is explicitly excluded
• how review and quality gates work
• who owns final decisionsThe intent was to create alignment without slowing creative momentum.
Artifact Overview
The resulting AI Use Policy defines clear boundaries for how AI tools are used within the project, emphasizing human intent, review, and responsibility.
Keep’s Depths – AI Use PolicyOur ApproachWe see AI the same way we see any modern development tool.It is not a replacement for creativity, judgment, or craft.
It is a way to support them.Ignoring useful tools doesn’t make a project purer. It usually just makes it harder to execute well. At the same time, letting tools drive decisions instead of people is how quality and intent get lost. Our goal is to sit firmly in the middle of that line.How We Use AIAI is used selectively during development to support parts of the process where it makes practical sense, such as:• Exploring early ideas and directions
• Iterating on concepts and testing variations
• Assisting with workflows where speed or scale is helpfulWhen AI is involved, it is always guided by clear human intent and reviewed with care. Outputs are shaped, refined, and evaluated just like any other piece of work. Nothing ends up in the game by default, and nothing ships without being intentionally chosen.Creative decisions remain human decisions.What Ends Up in the GameSome AI-assisted work may appear in patches or releases.When it does, it has gone through the same process as everything else:• Directed and adjusted by a human hand
• Refined through manual iteration
• Held to the same quality standards as fully hand-crafted contentIf something doesn’t meet that standard, it doesn’t ship. Simple as that.A significant amount of what you see in Keep’s Depths is created entirely without AI involvement at all.What We Don’t Use AI ForThere are clear boundaries around how we work:• AI is not used as a shortcut for originality
• Raw or uncurated AI output is never shipped
• Creative decisions are not automated
• Artists, designers, and developers are not replaced with promptsAI can assist the process. Authorship stays human.Why We’re Open About ItGame development changes. Tools change. Being honest about that is healthier than pretending nothing ever evolves.We believe transparency builds trust, and trust matters more to us than maintaining a myth about how things are made.In ShortKeep’s Depths is a human-made game.AI may be part of the development process, but human intent, taste, and responsibility are behind every final decision.That’s the standard we hold ourselves to.
Design Principles Demonstrated
• Content design beyond screens
• Systems thinking and governance
• Writing for alignment, not performance
• AI literacy with restraint
• Senior-level judgment in ambiguous spaces
Outcome & Impact
• Shared expectations across collaborators
• Faster iteration without loss of intent
• Reduced ambiguity around authorship and quality
• A reference point that supports long-term consistency
Pantrii
Human-Centered Inventory & Planning System
A calm, emotionally intelligent system for managing everyday complexity, designed to reduce cognitive load and support sustainable habits over time.
Project Summary
Pantrii began as an exploration of how everyday systems can feel supportive rather than demanding. The problem wasn’t inventory tracking itself, but the friction, guilt, and cognitive overload that often accompany food planning and waste reduction.Rather than optimizing for speed or feature density, I focused on designing a pantry system that paired functional clarity with emotional tone. The goal was to create a tool that helps people make better decisions without requiring constant attention, discipline, or stress.
My Role
• Designed the brand identity, UI mockups, and core interaction flows
• Built a component system centered on calm visuals, legible hierarchy, and predictable patterns
• Mapped user flows for scanning, inventory management, and recipe-triggered planning
• Balanced functional requirements with emotional impact, ensuring every design decision served both utility and mood
Design Principles Demonstrated
• Ability to design emotionally intelligent UX for real-world, recurring tasks
• Sensitivity to cognitive load, decision fatigue, and behavioral friction
• Comfort integrating brand, system logic, and accessibility into a cohesive whole
• A design approach that prioritizes sustainable use over novelty or engagement metrics
Outcome & Impact
• Established a scalable foundation for a pantry and meal-planning system designed around habit formation rather than pressure
• Demonstrated early product design instincts that harmonize brand, flow, and emotional tone
• Served as a conceptual base for future explorations in emotionally aware systems and AI-assisted planning tools
Artifacts
• Early flow diagrams outlining scanning and inventory logic
• UI explorations testing hierarchy, calm color systems, and interaction affordances
• Mobile mockups demonstrating end-to-end flows from pantry state to meal decision