About Sara Williams

Designing for people
navigating hard systems.

I'm a UX designer who thinks in systems and advocates for the humans navigating them. I've spent the last few years designing products in some of the most constraint-heavy environments out there: healthcare enrollment platforms, Medicaid compliance tools, and government portals. I work end-to-end , from early discovery and messy whiteboard sessions to high-fidelity prototypes, design system components, and handoff that actually helps engineering ship correctly. I care about accessibility not because it's a checkbox, but because the people who depend on it most are often the ones systems overlook.

6+ Years Deloitte Healthcare + Gov 2× Award Winner SCAD BFA
Sara Williams, UX Designer

Sara Williams

Chapter 01

Where I started

I came up through Savannah College of Art and Design with a BFA in UX Design, graduating summa cum laude, grounded in craft, research, and the belief that design is a discipline, not decoration. From there I moved into research and strategy at Amway, where I learned how to translate qualitative insight into decisions that product teams would actually act on.

Chapter 02

Where I am now

At Deloitte, I've led UX for products that affect real people making high-stakes decisions: enrollment flows, admin dashboards, Medicaid compliance tools, and account management across multiple surfaces. I've owned the full lifecycle: discovery, design, systems, and handoff. Along the way I've built design systems that reduce rework, introduced AI-assisted workflows to my team, and designed AI-powered products where the hardest problem wasn't the technology; it was making users feel in control of it. I was promoted to Consultant within my first year, not because I executed fast, but because I brought strategic thinking to every problem and built trust across product, engineering, and client teams.

Chapter 03

How I think about design

I believe the best UX work happens when you hold two things at once: deep empathy for the user in front of you, and a clear understanding of the system around them. I don't design features; I design experiences that fit into people's lives, even when those lives are complicated. And when it comes to AI: the goal isn't to make the AI feel powerful; it's to make the human feel confident. Trust is the product. Constraints don't frustrate me. Regulated environments, accessibility requirements, legacy systems, opinionated stakeholders. These are the conditions where thoughtful design matters most.

Chapter 04

What I'm working toward

I'm growing into senior product design leadership, the kind of role where I can shape not just what we ship, but how a team approaches the work. I want to bring the rigor I've developed in regulated environments to products that reach more people, and help build design cultures where quality and accessibility aren't afterthoughts.

Design Philosophy

"Designing for complex systems takes more than good taste. It takes the ability to hold ambiguity, navigate competing priorities, and advocate for the user even when no one in the room is asking you to. That's the work I show up to do, and the work I want to keep doing at a higher level."

What I Bring

Column 01

Design & Strategy

  • End-to-end product design
  • UX research & synthesis
  • Interaction design & prototyping
  • Design systems (strategy & governance)
  • Accessibility & inclusive design (WCAG)
  • AI experience design (human-in-the-loop, regulated contexts)

Column 02

Collaboration & Process

  • Cross-functional team leadership
  • Agile / iterative product teams
  • Dev handoff & QA partnership
  • Stakeholder alignment & facilitation
  • Design mentorship

Column 03

Tools & Industries

  • Tools: Figma · Adobe Creative Suite · Jira · Premiere Pro & After Effects · ChatGPT / Co-Pilot
  • Industries: Healthcare & health tech · Government & public services · Regulated enterprise products · Medicaid & compliance platforms

Experience

Deloitte Oct 2022 – Present Promoted June 2023

Consultant (UX), Government & Public Services

Led end-to-end UX across complex, compliance-driven government and healthcare products, owning discovery through high-fidelity design, design systems strategy, and cross-functional alignment.

  • Owned full design lifecycle for 19+ change requests across 7 releases serving 1M+ renewals per cycle.
  • Facilitated the Decreasing Duplicates workshop, a 3-day session that turned 5.7M duplicate records into a prioritized roadmap with projected 30% reduction.
  • Drove documentation process reform reducing handoff time by projected 70%.
  • Secured Microsoft Co-Pilot access and established AI-assisted workflows for the team.
Product Application Redesign May 2025 – Jun 2025 NDA

Senior UX/UI Designer

Senior designer on a 4-person product pod, owning core application flows and establishing the product design system from the ground up.

  • Led UX for an in-app AI chatbot experience.
  • Built the product design system and delivered handoff-ready artifacts.
  • Collaborated across feature areas while maintaining end-to-end ownership of assigned flows.
Amway Nov 2021 – Jun 2022

Consumer Product Research Co-op

Conducted generative and evaluative user research to inform product strategy across consumer goods and digital experiences.

  • Facilitated HCD workshops with cross-functional stakeholders.
  • Produced personas, journey maps, and empathy maps that translated qualitative research into design requirements.
Amway Jun 2021 – Aug 2021

Human-Centered Design Intern

Partnered with product development teams to prototype and iterate new features informed by user interviews and usability testing.

  • Built interactive prototypes and low/high-fidelity mockups to validate concepts with users and stakeholders.
Client Project × MGM Mar 2022 – Jul 2022 Industry-sponsored studio course

Project Lead, XR Entertainment

Led design and development of XR entertainment platform concepts in an industry-sponsored studio course with MGM.

  • Served as project lead across a multidisciplinary team.
  • Concepts progressed to further development beyond the course scope.
Client Project × Deloitte Mar 2021 – Jun 2021 Industry-sponsored studio course

UX & Research Lead, Future of 5G

Led UX research and design for multidisciplinary concepts exploring the future of 5G, sponsored by Deloitte.

  • Directed research synthesis and UX direction across a cross-disciplinary student team.
  • This engagement pre-dated joining Deloitte, a full-circle connection to the organization she would later join professionally.

Education

Savannah College of Art and Design

BFA, User Experience Design · Minor in Graphic Design · Summa Cum Laude

Awards & Recognition

  • The Rookies Draft Selection
  • International Design Awards
  • Core77 Design Award
  • European Product Design Award
  • Indigo: 5 Gold
  • Indigo: 7 Silver
  • Indigo: 8 Bronze (Solace, 2021)

Get in Touch

Let's Connect

I'm always open to thoughtful conversations about design, collaboration, or new opportunities. The best way to reach me is email; I actually read it.