Ally
Hwang 黃

Design & Product Leader

I'm a design and product leader with 14 years of experience in UX, product design, and user research across enterprise software, insurance, blockchain, and education. I believe that empowering team members is the foundation of great work, focusing on creating environments where UXers can grow, take risks, and deliver meaningful impact through close collaboration with product, engineering, and business teams.

about me

Hi, I'm Ally Hwang. I'm Taiwanese-American, born and raised in the United States. My last name is pronounced like "Hu-ahn." It means yellow.

My labors of love include photography, art illustrations, and videography (opens in new tab). I like to make and experiment with different mediums and ideas.

In my free time, I love to garden, watercolor, read graphic novels, watch pro-wrestling, and care for my 50 houseplants. I once was a dirtbag climber, but I outgrew bagged pepperoni dinners.

Once I took an enneagram test and it told me I was #1: The Perfectionist, to which I critiqued the label for not being exactly accurate to who I am. Take that and do with it what you will.

experience

work

UX Director, Enterprise Product Design Practice Nationwide • 2025–present

Sr. Director, Product Design TRAILS • 2023–2025

Head of Product Design Unstoppable Domains • 2022–2023

Design Program Lead, Enterprise Innovation Nationwide • 2019–2022

Design Manager, Market Development & Insights IBM • 2015–2019

UX Researcher, Designer IBM • 2013–2015

Product Development Lead, Custom Products Casemate • 2012–2013

Product Development Specialist Benchmark Brands • 2011–2012

Creative Services Intern Atlanta Spirit • 2010

education

Masters, Industrial Design Georgia Tech • 2009–2012

Bachelors, Industrial Engineering Georgia Tech • 2005–2009

Certificate, Business Analytics UC Irvine • 2016–2017

published

Avoid Extinction: Companies' Digital Transformation Journeys IBM • 2016

Master's Thesis Project: Bicycle Awareness System Georgia Tech • 2012

patents

Display screen with animated graphical user interface US-D1053894-S · Issued Dec 10, 2024

Display screen with animated graphical user interface US-D1053895-S · Issued Dec 10, 2024

awards

Human-Centered Digital Transformation Winner (Nationwide) Issued by Design and Innovation Global · 2022

Nielsen Norman Group 2019 Intranet Design Annual Award winner (IBM) Issued by NN/G · 2019

Step Two Intranet and Digital Workplace – Silver Award (IBM) Issued by Step Two · 2018

2012 WebAward for Outstanding Achievement in Web Development (Case-Mate) Issued by WebAwards · 2012

Collegiate Climbing Series Ambassador Scholarship Issued by USA Climbing · 2012

2012 Collegiate Climbing – Division 4 Regional's Women's First Place Issued by USA Climbing · 2012

2011 Collegiate Climbing – Division 4 Regional's Women's First Place Issued by USA Climbing · 2011

my leadership style

Empowering

In a word = "empowering." I felt like I could learn and had space to make mistakes with it all being OK.

A Leader Who Serves

Ally is the definition of a servant leader; she is not only growing the product and business, but she places an emphasis on growing people, too. She puts service ahead of self-interest; as a result, the team is smarter, more confident, and capable.

Not a D!ckhead

Strategic. Encouraging. Not a d*ckhead or gaslighter. One of my favorite work experiences (being on a team with Ally).

In Short, Awesome

In short, awesome! [Ally] allowed people to shine and take the lead on their own work, while being a very strong, reliable, trustworthy leader. Advocacy is a good word too. Patience to teach and mentor, giving us enough direction to move forward without dictating designs.

A Blender

Ally blends a depth of design and management experience to inspire her team to product excellence. She adeptly tackles areas with high ambiguity, and works across teams to ensure productive communication and shared goals.

10xer

Under Ally's leadership, we shifted to working in highly communicative, cross-functional teams, and we increased our release cadence tenfold. […] Ally doesn't just guide from above, either. She is deeply selfless and always ready to jump into the weeds to assist her team.

Very Organized

[Ally is] very organized and tackles problems head-on which I appreciate. [She] collaborates with the team to get the best outcomes. Very inclusive and always seeking feedback.

An Interesting Journey

It was such a joyful and interesting journey to work with Ally. Truly professional, but what is more important emphatic and open person. In short terms she did excellent work of transforming separated individuals to real dream design team.

A Testament

Ally's structured and highly visual thinking was evident in her approach to design, resulting in user-friendly and visually compelling products. Moreover, her beloved status among her team was a testament to her outstanding leadership.

Case
studies

Recent leadership

UX Director, Enterprise Product Design Practice

Nationwide · 2025–present

Lead 13 UX practitioners across 7 enterprise products, including Nationwide's Partner Integration Hub. A team that didn't think it could invent made 6 patent submissions this year.

Sr. Director, Product Design

TRAILS · 2023–2025

Led design for a K-12 mental wellness platform used by teachers in three states. Took releases from twice a year to every two weeks, matured a team of 4 designers, and helped grow returning users 40% year over year.

Head of Product Design

Unstoppable Domains · 2022–2023

Gave a 3-person design team and 6 product lines a shared way to learn from users: set up research protocols, started an insights repository, led a major study, and coached PMs to run their own.

Nationwide ThreeSixZero

2020 - 2022

Concept to market in 10 months · 6 design patents for the team

When it comes to insurance, customers are looking for the greatest value for their protection needs, which increasingly translates to low cost. Because many Direct & Digital insurance carriers have limited product offerings, consumers have little option other than to spread their protection needs across multiple companies.

What if customers could purchase all of their protection needs, serviced in one place at a single price?

Read it

Password on request

2022 Design & Innovation Award Winner - Human Centered Digital Transformation

Drove 6 team design patents from the work · named inventor on:

Display screen with animated graphical user interface • US-D1053894-S · Issued Dec 10, 2024
Display screen with animated graphical user interface • US-D1053895-S · Issued Dec 10, 2024

ThreeSixZero mobile landing screen: Surround yourself with personalized protection

IBM Bluemine

2017 - 2019

NPS −1 → +14 · Revenue ahead of projections

Bluemine is an intranet application that started serving competitive intelligence, market insights, and thought leadership to IBM employees from 2003. Over the course of 14 years, users begin describing the application as hard to navigate and overwhelming in information. With limited resources, efforts to improve user experience upon legacy code felt like patchwork.

So we formed and hired an in-house UX team to help Bluemine simplify the experience of finding and sharing market insights for IBMers employees all around the world.

Read it