Principal UX Architect · Enterprise Payments Modernization · 2025
America's Car-Mart operates 150+ dealerships serving 100,000+ customers with in-house financing. Their payments infrastructure was fractured across multiple legacy systems with no unified source of truth. Most customers preferred to pay their auto loans by driving to a local dealership and paying a cashier.
I was brought in to architect the UX strategy for an enterprise-wide payments modernization. I worked with a cross functional team of leaders in the business to identify the Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) by the payments system across the organization.
Eight weeks in, leadership pivoted: ship a customer-facing payments platform by June 1, or miss a critical financial audit window. This was a major change since we initially would not be building our own interface, instead relying on an out of the box solution from the payment provider, ACI.
The scope collapsed from "transform everything" to "launch or else."
When the timeline compressed, I carved out the customer-critical Jobs to Be Done from the broader research and built a focused product strategy that could ship within the time requirements.
With the new requirements, I was able to hire a designer I had worked with in the past to act as a force-multiplier. This was necessary since we needed to continue strategic research within the business, and implement our findings in the customer portal.
Before bringing in this senior designer, I stood up the design system, documented the workflow, and synthesized each requirement with business and technical context in Azure Dev Ops. This enabled us to deliver a working demo by the end of their first week.
Coached the team through usability studies with store managers, customer service associates, and actual customers. We recorded sessions and used the findings to reinforce design decisions to skeptical stakeholders.
As we were coming in for a landing to achieve our launch date, a senior leader bypassed our process entirely.
A front-end developer had been pulled aside and directed to build a modal—one that would hijack the payment confirmation flow. The intent was to increase autopay enrollment. The method was a deceptive pattern that was confusing and broke the user experience.
When I raised concerns, the response reflected delivery pressure more than discussion. Leadership focused on whether we could ship the request as stated. The Product Director advocated for forward progress, with the intent to iterate once compliance, UX, and revenue concerns were aligned. The developer had already coded the change, and momentum favored the fastest path to launch. While I had support from peers across design, the responsibility to reframe the problem and present a viable alternative ultimately landed with me.
This wasn't just about ethics, the blocking modal created real business risk:
Compliance exposure.
Intercepting a payment action to push an unrelated enrollment could trigger regulatory scrutiny. The cognitive load to dismiss the modal and complete the original payment was high enough that some customers might believe they'd paid when they hadn't.
Delinquency risk.
Customers confused by the flow might leave thinking their payment was submitted. They'd find out they were delinquent when collections called.
Trust erosion.
America's Car-Mart serves customers with limited credit options. Many have been burned by predatory practices before. A bait-and-switch at the moment of payment would confirm their worst expectations—and tank the adoption we were trying to build.
I didn’t fight the modal with words. I used design to cast a clearer vision. I designed an alternative solution with inline visibility of autopay status during the one-time payment flow. While I validated and advocated for the solution, I designed and prototyped a version of the modal that aligned with our design language.
Customers could see whether they were enrolled, and opt in without leaving their primary task. The same information appeared on the confirmation screen, a second, non-blocking touchpoint. I prototyped both approaches and created side-by-side GIFs: the directed solution (modal hijack, confused flow, small dismiss target) versus my solution (clear status, optional action, expected behavior).
I presented the update to the full team as an iteration to our auto payment feature. No drama. No ultimatum. Just a better answer to the same business goal.
The CTO approved the alternative on the spot. What changed wasn't just the UI, it was the relationship. That moment of respectful resistance, backed by a concrete solution, built trust I couldn't have earned by complying. I was pulled into higher-visibility projects and the Product Director started bringing me into strategic conversations earlier.
Results spoke for themselves. A 200% increase in autopay enrollment, double the baseline, achieved without deception. Turns out, when you make it easy and honest, people say yes.
Senior leadership isn't about avoiding conflict. It's about knowing which conflicts matter and showing up with solutions. The shortcut everyone wanted would have hit a number. The solution I built hit the number and protected the customer relationship that makes long-term numbers possible.
That's the difference between executing and leading.
Our team launched a zero-to-one payments platform in four months, achieving 200% increase in autopay enrollment. Successfully reframed a late-stage executive request that would have degraded the customer experience. Users of the portal had their needs satisfied, indicated by customers paying their bill through our portal rather than choosing to drive to a car lot.
Jared brought exceptional strategic thinking and technical expertise to this complex project. They architected an end-to-end experience that balanced user needs with business requirements and technical constraints. What set Jared apart was their collaborative approach—making complex UX concepts accessible to all stakeholders and maintaining alignment throughout.
— John Whitman, Product Director
I'm looking for my next role building teams and shaping product strategy. If you need a design leader who ships measurable outcomes, let's talk.
Available for full-time roles