uBack

uBack was a real charitable giving startup working with DESIGNATION (now the Flatiron School) as part of the school's embedded startup partnership program.

The uBack app aimed to make micro-donations frictionless — allowing users to give back to causes they cared about through everyday digital interactions. My team was brought in on a focused UI engagement: working from completed UX wireframes developed by a prior cohort, we were tasked with producing high-fidelity screens and a comprehensive style guide to unify two divergent versions of the app and prepare it for development handoff. The scope was deliberately bounded — this was a craft and systems challenge, not a discovery project.

The complete UX process documentation for this project lives at the direct link below.

Read the complete case study

    • Daryle M. // UI Designer

    • Lainey S. // UI Designer

    • Shaleenee J. // UI Designer

  • Conducted competitive analysis of charitable giving and social impact apps to establish visual benchmarks and identify differentiation opportunities. Working within uBack's established brand guidelines and building on the existing UX wireframe foundation, developed a high-fidelity UI system that unified the two app versions into a single coherent visual language. Produced a complete style guide to ensure consistency across all screens and support a clean handoff to the development team.

  • Delivered a production-ready UI system and style guide that resolved the visual inconsistency between the two app versions and prepared uBack for development. The engagement demonstrated the ability to operate within defined constraints — an existing brand, an existing UX foundation, a real client with real development timelines — and elevate the product through disciplined craft and visual systems thinking. uBack has since ceased operations as a startup; the work here represents a real-world client engagement during the product's active development phase.

  • Thinks about the entire 360 of his work

    "Daryle is a superb human being, kind, funny and caring. He brings those qualities, plus his incredible design skills, to his work day in and day out. Daryle thinks about the entire 360 of his work, from the impact his designs have on engineering to how the end user will experience them. He took the lead on accessibility for our team, continually sharing valuable guidance with designers and others in a way that was easy to understand and act on. On top of all that, he always has a smile and a music recommendation (probably someone you’ve never even heard of) at the ready."

    — Sara Womack, UX Writer & Content Strategist

  • The ability to translate complex problems into ultra-intuitive, elegant solutions

    "One of Daryle’s standout strengths is his ability to simplify complex problems and translate them into ultra-intuitive, elegant solutions. He demonstrated this by taking a predominantly paperwork, owner-to-renter process and transformed it into a mobile-first experience. He also brings a deep understanding of accessible design and was instrumental in guiding both our design and engineering teams toward building inclusive components that serve a broad range of users."

    — Ben Richard, Product Design Leader

  • An obvious passion for the user-centered design process

    "Daryle is an exceptional UX professional with a keen eye for detail and an obvious passion for the user-centered design process. He has demonstrated a consistent ability to influence product strategy by leveraging data and insights, along with a natural ability to clearly articulate the rationale behind his decision-making. I have no doubt that Daryle's experience will help elevate any design/product team and I am thankful for the opportunity to have worked with him."

    — Dion Alexander, Product Design Consultant

  • The first designer I've worked with who was interested in the data behind the designs

    "Daryle is a very skilled designer who devotes a lot of time working with engineers and other designers to build sophisticated UI. He was involved with several projects I worked on, and I couldn't get over just how many designs he created that covered every aspect of the feature. His designs are clean and very pleasing to the eye. I appreciated that he was always available to answer questions whenever needed. He was also the first designer I've worked with who was interested in the data behind the designs. Highly recommended!"

    — Marty Miller, Senior Android Developer

  • Valiantly represents the customer throughout the product experience

    "I had the pleasure of working with someone that was both a brilliant designer and friend. Daryle and I collaborated for over a year across various projects and building out our design system. Daryle is incredible at providing thoughtful feedback, and I was most stricken by how valiantly he could represent the customer throughout the product experience. His positive attitude will be missed, but I look forward to following his impeccable DJ holiday sets. I highly recommend Daryle if you need a great design lead!"

    — Chije Wangati, Senior Product Designer