Client
Tide - Procter & Gamble
Role
Director of Experience Design
Methods & Disciplines
Tools Used
I partnered with Tide to pilot a custom detergent offering, directing end-to-end UX and experience strategy. I led the design of mobile and web experiences and established the research and measurement frameworks used to test the concept, capture user feedback, and assess the product.
Could personalization drive growth in a commoditized category like laundry detergent? Tide needed to quickly answer this by piloting a custom subscription model. The challenge: design and deliver a fully functional digital experience and research program in six weeks to validate both customer interest and feasibility.
Process
Ran co-creation sessions to help ideate and develop core functionality to support a user in building their custom laundry mix.
Developed the user flows and systems map for building ecommerce integrated processes of the back end of the experience.
Led the prototype build for mobile and desktop experiences and ran initial concept testing with users.
Revised the experience based on user feedback and finalized the core design across screen sizes.
Established the research and measurement frameworks used to drive the pilot test and gather user feedback.
Design sprint co-creation gave momentum to prototype design
Defined the user journey from acquisition through ordering for the experience.
High-fidelity design concepts bringing the pilot program experience to life across key user journeys.
High-fidelity design concept for the mobile experience.
Utilized a mobile prototype in user testing to gather feedback and iterate on the experience.
High-fidelity design concept for the desktop experience.
Key Learnings
It’s interesting… at first – People liked the idea of customization, but the novelty wore off quickly.
People don’t really want to play chemist – After trying, most users preferred letting Tide handle the formula instead of building their own.
Getting it wrong has real consequences – If someone made a mix they didn’t like, they were stuck with it—and that quickly turned them off.
Testing it early mattered – Running the pilot made it clear this wasn’t something worth scaling, before investing more heavily.
The pilot with Tide showed that while the idea of personalized detergent was interesting to people at first, it didn’t hold up over time. Across two cities and 150+ participants, users were curious and engaged early on, but that wore off—especially when they ended up with a custom mix they didn’t like and still had to use. In the end, the work helped Tide decide not to move forward with the concept as a larger offering, and reinforced that most people would rather trust the experts when it comes to something like detergent. That said, the experience itself was well received and went on to win regional Addy Awards for consumer experience design.
Next Project — SERVICE DESIGN · AI · STRATEGY
SOURCING
Kroger Enterprise Sourcing: Vendor Ecosystem Design
Brian Pinkney
10+
Years leading teams
6+
Industry Awards Won
8
Business Sectors Served
20+
Countries & Markets
Sectors
IMAGINE.
CREATE.
EXPERIENCE.
I'm a design leader and experience strategist with 20+ years in product design, user experience, and strategy. Over that time I've worked with dozens of companies and brands across healthcare, retail, advertising, and innovation consulting, most recently leading experience work at Kroger, with prior roles at Cardinal Health and Grey. I'm a bit of a Swiss army knife. I design what people see, but I also design the systems behind it: the people, processes, and decisions that shape how an experience actually feels.
Right now I'm focused on the evolving relationship between humans and AI. I'm especially interested in Agentic Experience Design, moving past chatbots toward AI systems that act with intent, transparency, and real utility, with humans firmly in the driver's seat. I think a lot about the UX of delegation, the feedback loops that build trust between people and agents, and what 'Responsible AI' looks like when it's designed in from the start instead of bolted on at the end.
I like the unglamorous detail. The hand-off between teams that quietly breaks a customer's trust. The data model that decides what a frontline worker can actually see. The back-of-stage process that creates the experience a user never notices but always feels. I'm comfortable in a service blueprint, a stakeholder boardroom, a Figma file, or a terminal running Claude Code.
AI & Emerging Tech
- Agentic Experience Design
- UX for AI
- Responsible AI Frameworks
- AI Strategy (MIT / Wharton certified)
- Human-AI Interaction Patterns
Service Design
- Service Blueprinting
- Journey Mapping
- Ecosystem Mapping
- Co-design Facilitation
- Systems Thinking
Research & Strategy
- Discovery & User Research
- Contextual Inquiry
- Experience Strategy
- Data-Driven Design
- KPI & Metrics Strategy
Design & Craft
- UX / UI Design
- Interaction Design
- Figma (Advanced)
- Design Systems at Scale
- Rapid Prototyping
Build & Tooling
- Cursor
- Claude Code
- Tailwind CSS
- HTML / CSS / JavaScript
- Figma-to-Code Workflows
Leadership & Ops
- Product Design Leadership
- Team Management & Mentorship
- Workshop Facilitation (LUMA certified)
- Stakeholder Alignment
- Design Operations
Education & Recognition
BBA, Marketing — Ohio University
Human-Centered Design Practitioner — LUMA Institute
AI: Implications for Business Strategy — MIT Sloan School of Management
AI Strategy and Governance — University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School
AI for Product Management Specialization — Duke University
Agentic AI for Leadership — Virginia Tech