Karen Dean
Senior Product Designer
Projects
Sole product designer at ALPHA, a B2B SaaS clienteling platform for luxury retail.
I partnered directly with the CTO and engineering to take features from concept to launch across mobile and web, and helped grow the client base from 1 luxury brand to 15.
ALPHA gives sales associates at luxury brands one place to manage their clients: profiles, purchase history, tasks, appointments, and outreach. Associates send personalized product recommendations straight from the app, and those recommendations drove significant increases in client conversion.
As the only designer, I owned the experience end to end, from early flows to polished UI and handoff. I designed the mobile clienteling app, the new web app for CRM managers with its AI campaign builder, and the AI Look Builder for on-model looks. I also built and maintained the design system across both platforms.
The mobile app for sales associates and the web app for CRM managers
9-month performance in comparable stores.
Awake is a design agency working across brand, web, and product.
I led design for a wide range of clients, from brand redesigns and website refreshes to end-to-end product design.
Website for Advance Search Group
I turned each client's business goals and technical constraints into wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity designs. Projects ranged from full brand redesigns to website refreshes to designing new products from scratch.
Product landing page for Caleno Energy, an AI-powered set-point optimization tool
I mentored junior designers through critique and production-ready deliverables, from design specs to prototypes ready for development.
Developed advanced Figma design courses for Codecademy, focusing on design systems and enterprise workflows.
Created lessons, visuals, and screen-share videos to guide learners through complex concepts. Authored articles and documentation to enhance the learning experience.
Advanced Figma: Auto Layout. Watch on YouTube ↗
Bringing ALPHA from the sales floor to the desk, with a web app built for CRM managers instead of sales associates.
ALPHA was designed mobile-first for sales associates working with clients in store. CRM managers have a different job: they plan campaigns and oversee client relationships across stores and teams. A phone app built for the sales floor didn't give them the space or tools to do that.
CRM managers at luxury brands. They work at a desk with client lists in the thousands, and they need to see who to target, what a campaign could earn, and how their associates are following through.
I started from the mobile app's existing patterns and design system, then reworked them for a desktop layout and a manager's workflow.
The client timeline on mobile, and the same view adapted for desktop
Reusing the mobile app's components and structure kept both apps consistent and let a team of 1–2 engineers ship quickly.
A persistent sidebar and a client list that sits alongside the main work let managers keep the full audience in view while they plan.
With the AI campaign builder, managers describe their audience in plain language. The assistant asks for anything missing, such as event type, timing, and the sales attribution window. Then it builds an editable campaign with a ranked client list, projected sales, an outreach template, and product recommendations.
Managers start a campaign by describing it, or from a recommended template
The generated campaign, ready to review and edit before launch
The web app has shipped, and we're still collecting feedback and usage data from CRM managers to shape what comes next.
A white-label client registration flow that feels like each brand's own, plus the onboarding process that takes a new brand live.
The associate's QR card, branded for The Row
Luxury brands expect anything with their name on it to look like their own. As ALPHA grew from one brand to many, designing a custom registration experience for each brand would not scale.
Clients meeting a sales associate in store, who scan the associate's QR code to register, and the brand teams who approve the experience before launch.
I designed one registration structure that every brand shares: the associate's QR card in the app and the page clients land on after scanning. Brand elements like logo, typography, imagery, and language swap in per brand. Alongside it, I set up and led a dedicated onboarding process with each new brand.
The same structure, customized for Jessica McCormack and Galénic
Every brand gets the same flow and layout, and only the brand elements change. That means less customization per brand, but each new brand can launch quickly and engineering maintains a single flow.
I led onboarding with each brand directly, from gathering their brand assets to reviewing the final experience before launch.
After scanning, clients land on a registration page in the brand's own look and language