Joel Cory — UX Architect
20+ years designing complex enterprise systems. From AI-powered educational ecosystems to platforms serving 70M+ students.
Summary
Over 20 years of experience creating user-centered, innovative solutions across EdTech and enterprise systems. Proven success in leading the design process from concept to delivery, enhancing user experiences while aligning with business goals. Expert in UX architecture, design systems, and cross-functional collaboration.
Core Competencies
- Information Architecture
- User-Centered Design
- Design Systems
- Interaction Design
- Optimizing Workflows
- Reducing implementation costs through strategic design
Experience
IMA (Contract)
Jan 2024 – Present | UX Designer
- Designed Figma design system components following best practices, driving consistency across UX/UI experiences, improving page consistency, and reducing time on task for designers.
- Designed and implemented a publication submission system for contributing authors using Monday.com forms, enabling authors to submit articles, reviewers to assess work, and the system to calculate publish/reject recommendations.
- Redesigned their B2C site to communicate the benefits and professional advantages for finance and accounting professionals to join the organization and advance their careers.
FedPoint (Contract)
Jan 2024 – Aug 2024 | UX Designer
- Designed Figma design system components following best practices, driving consistency across UX/UI experiences, improving page consistency, and reducing time on task for designers.
- Conducted comprehensive UX audits to refine system usability and accessibility, enhancing overall design quality and user acceptance.
- Collaborated on design tasks and front-end development to ensure seamless UX across digital touchpoints, reducing development costs through consistent design and code patterns.
- Consulted with leadership to propose user experience changes to improve customer experience, reduce confusion and interface clutter, and drive user acceptance.
Southern New Hampshire University
Oct 2021 – Aug 2023 | UX Architect
- Spearheaded UX architecture for an AI-powered educational ecosystem, integrating back-office workflows and front-end experiences.
- Collaborated with leadership and designers to implement end-to-end design and development of the Confetti Design System, resulting in significant cost savings and streamlined user experiences.
- Conducted extensive UX research to inform design strategies, including user interviews, journey mapping, and heuristic evaluations.
- Managed cross-functional teams, incorporating Agile methodologies to deliver high-impact UX solutions.
- Collaborated with Google AI experts to design a personalized learning platform, leading to a patent application.
- Assumed product manager responsibilities for the communications and support systems project, leading a team of designers and developers.
Emily Masterson
Manager at SNHU, and IMA
Product Design & UX Leadership, Design Strategist, Innovative Thought Leader
I had the pleasure of working closely with Joel for these last two years on designing a learning ecosystem from the ground up. Joel was invaluable throughout the experience, he led the design of the ecosystem through his robust and thoughtful architectural diagrams that carefully considered both experience and technical opportunities and constraints, he mentored both senior and junior staff on the architecture to ensure comprehensive understanding and fluency in the vision, and he was a collaborative and insightful thought partner, working across teams to ensure his designs met all requirements and user needs.
Additionally, Joel is an exceptional mentor to the team – his insights during design review often pushed designers to think more critically about their work and generate even stronger designs. He made himself available to any designer or product manager who wanted to talk through part of the ecosystem, and consistently provided sound advice while still ensuring designers had creative freedom to explore possible solutions. For me, he was a critical thought partner on vision and strategy and would ask deeply insightful questions and offer up potential solutions, through our collaboration we were able to produce even stronger work.
Finally, Joel is also an exceptional designer. Beyond his architecture work, Joel was never afraid to tackle sticky UX problems and draft up multiple wireframe solutions to engage stakeholders and developers in creative solutioning. He was design lead on multiple feature sets for our first major greenfield software release and delivered high quality, accessible, and engaging UX designs. He also served as a QA reviewer for all design system work and contributed significantly to the refinement of components and patterns. For these reasons and more, I enthusiastically recommend Joel for anywhere his career may take him!
PowerSchool, Inc.
Jan 2019 – Oct 2021 | UX Manager
- Managed a multi-disciplinary team in delivering user-centered designs for enterprise K-12 solutions, balancing usability with business objectives.
- Conducted UX research and design sprints to drive innovation in the Student Information System (SIS), enhancing both web and mobile experiences.
- Conceptualized and led a cross-functional team to redesign and overhaul Information Architecture to streamline workflows, eliminate redundancy, improve consistency, and reduce user time on task by 30%.
- Implemented design systems and guidelines, driving standardization across complex product suites and acquisitions for internal development teams and external customizers.
- Presented at a UX conference on best practices in design strategy, usability testing, and interaction design.
PowerSchool, Inc. (Pearson)
Dec 2007 – Dec 2019 | Senior UX Designer & UI Developer
- Conceptualized and implemented UX/UI solutions for dozens of features in the K-12 Student Information System, focusing on reusable, responsive, accessible, and intuitive interfaces.
- Conceptualized UI patterns and design system components to reduce UI development time by 40% and improve interface consistency.
- Implemented information architecture and interaction patterns, ensuring consistent user experiences across multiple rebrands and system overhauls, reducing support calls by 10%.
- Conducted UX research, including usability testing, cognitive walkthroughs, and persona development, to guide iterative design improvements.
- Led workshops on design thinking, front-end coding best practices, and standards, facilitating cross-functional collaboration and higher consistency across multiple products and business lines.
Joel has consistently received positive feedback from PowerSchool project stakeholders and from members of the core development team. This positive feedback is due in part to his attention to detail, ability to think through edge cases, and ability to anticipate user needs.
Joel has worked proactively to ensure the long-term system health of PowerSchool’s presentation layer. He has successfully met the objectives by developing reusable components and user interface modules and contributing to UI documentation and standards. Joel has been an effective steward of PowerSchool’s UI.
Joel has built solid relationships with his peers throughout K-12 Technology and he is a friendly and engaging member of the team. He has shown a willingness to help and teach teammates, shift his priorities to best support the business, and he effectively communicates with his teammates and project stakeholders. Joel is well respected throughout the engineering organization.
Hewlett Packard
Jan 2007 – Dec 2007 | Instructional Designer & Technical Writer
- Developed user-centered instructional designs for global procurement systems, aligning training materials with key user needs to drive more consistent and efficient ordering practices.
InsWeb, Inc.
Dec 2005 – Sept 2006 | UI Designer & UI Developer
- Conceptualized and implemented UX/UI solutions for web and dynamic advertising, improving conversion rates through user-centered designs and A/B testing.
- Implemented standards-based, accessible, and SEO-compliant design practices, reducing page load times and enhancing user engagement.
Earlier Experience
Crawford & Associates International – Multimedia Developer
- Created web-based training and interactive experiences for major corporations, focusing on accessibility and UX best practices.
Sevant Inc. – Graphical Courseware Designer / Developer
- Designed graphically rich UX/UI experiences for in-home IT training, integrating personas and journey mapping into design processes.
CrystalGraphics – Product Manager / Graphic Designer / Tech Support
- Managed design projects from concept to delivery, balancing UX needs with business and technical requirements.
Education
- Industrial Design, San Jose State University
- Project Management Training, Davis & Dean
- ActionScript Certification, Macromedia
- Business of Thinking Training, Herrmann International
Skills
- Design Tools: Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD, InVision
- Design Systems: Creation, implementation, and governance for large-scale projects
- UX Research & Strategy: Persona development, journey mapping, wireframing, and prototyping
- Information Architecture & Interaction Design: Structuring user flows, navigation systems, and interaction patterns
- AI & ML Integration: Experience with AI-driven UX enhancements and generative AI applications
- Front-End Development: Proficient in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and responsive design frameworks
- Agile UX Methodologies: Design sprints, iterative prototyping, and collaborative design thinking
- Leadership & Collaboration: Cross-functional team leadership, mentoring, and stakeholder engagement
- Public Speaking & Training: Conference presentations, design workshops, and training programs