Arnold Porras

Staff Product Designer · AI Systems · Mentor

I design the decision systems behind creative work

Staff Product Designer at Adobe, 18 years in design. Brand and entertainment work first, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for Nickelodeon and illustration for Sony's Spider-Man. Then e-commerce at Overstock and Nu Skin, then enterprise platforms at Workfront. Today I design how creative work gets approved: who decides, on whose authority, and what the record says afterward. Increasingly that includes AI agents as participants, not features. Three years teaching UX at the University of Utah and BYU-Idaho. English and Spanish.

Killer salsa skills. The accent comes free.

Experience
Jun 2025 – Present · Adobe · Lehi, UT

Staff Product Designer

Originated the founding concept behind AI Collaborators: an AI agent onboarded like a worker, not installed like a feature. Pitched at Adobe Design Innovation Week, first collaborator live at Adobe Summit 2026. I lead the governance and setup side of the program.

Designed the AI Reviewer, running brand compliance checks inside the review workflow instead of after it.

Jan 2022 – Jun 2025 · Adobe · Lehi, UT

Senior UX Designer

Established the unified approvals vision across Adobe Clouds, running the workshops that positioned Workfront as the connector between products, then synthesized close to a decade of Adobe research into one decision model spanning Workfront, Frame.io, GenStudio, Adobe Express, and Creative Cloud. I wrote the specification and built the AI-assisted React proof of concept in Adobe Spectrum 2 that engineering shipped against. It replaced Workfront Proof, the platform enterprises had built their approval process on, and shipped in April 2026 as Adobe Unified Review and Approval, available to every Workfront customer.

Designed and shipped the project and task dependency tracking system for cross-team coordination.

Led the Workfront data tables upgrade, turning user research into a prioritized set of clarity and efficiency improvements on the roadmap.

Redesigned a Workfront Home widget under a tight deadline and presented it to the VP of Design for approval.

Jul 2019 – Jan 2022 · Adobe · Lehi, UT

UX Designer

Led research and design for Workfront Blueprints, from discovery through launch. Thirteen enterprise administrator interviews and 600+ coded quotes distilled 61 jobs down to the five that mattered, which reframed the brief from setup speed to reuse: installable, governed configurations a customer could adapt and reinstall for the next team, replacing a 22 to 26 week manual build. Setup time dropped 30 to 40 percent, implementation partners could stand up a working instance in about four weeks, and onboarding moved from a services problem solved by headcount to a product capability. Shipped 2021, still in the product and still documented five years later.

Nov 2017 – Jul 2019 · Nu Skin · Provo, UT

Senior UX Designer

Rebuilt the global e-commerce experience end to end: information architecture, search with real-time autocomplete and error tolerance, homepage, category, product, cart, and checkout.

Added site-wide add to cart, including inside the search flow, which increased sales globally.

Built the design system behind it, made for internationalization across languages and global markets.

Mar 2017 – Nov 2017 · Overstock.com · Midvale, UT

UX Product Designer

Led research, design, and implementation for the Canada and UK e-commerce launches. Designed the brand for Worldstock, a line of handmade goods from artisans worldwide.

May 2014 – Mar 2017 · EKR · Provo, UT

Lead Designer

Logo and brand style guide for Brigham Young University Law School, drawn from their 1975 Fetzer & Fetzer building. Led the rebrand of Revere Health, the third-largest health network in Utah. Designed EKR's own identity and brand standards.

May 2013 – May 2014 · Red Olive · Lehi, UT

Senior UX/UI Designer

Led branding and UX projects for local and national clients, including the brand for HZO, a nanocoating company that protects electronics from water damage.

Jul 2012 – May 2013 · Independent · Provo, UT

Freelance Designer

Branding, UX, and print work for direct clients.

Aug 2008 – Jul 2012 · Struck · Salt Lake City, UT

Graphic Designer

Branding and campaign work for Disney, Sony Pictures, and Nickelodeon, mentored by the studio's senior designers. My second job out of design school.

Led brand strategy for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series on Nickelodeon. Created the digital illustrations for Sony's The Amazing Spider-Man.

Apr 2008 – Jul 2008 · Larsen Design · Minneapolis, MN

Graphic Designer

First role out of design school, on brand and print work.

Independent research
2026 · Independent · My own time

Delegated Authority Framework

Initiated and drive a governance model for AI agents that act rather than answer: what an agent is allowed to do right now, under whose authority, with what reach, and on whose record. The research, the framework, and a working prototype are all mine.

Enterprise C-suite and senior technology leaders across banking, healthcare, advertising, asset management, fintech, and professional services independently specified the same core controls the framework was built around.

Teaching
Three years, two universities
May 2023 – May 2024
UX Professor

University of Utah, via the 2U tech bootcamp.

Dec 2018 – Dec 2020
UX/UI Online Professor

Brigham Young University–Idaho.

Skills
What I bring
  • Product & Systems Strategy
  • AI Governance & Human-AI Collaboration
  • Decision & Workflow Systems
  • User Research & JTBD
  • Design Systems
  • Prototyping & Spec-driven Build
  • Storytelling & Communication
  • Creative Direction & Mentorship
Education & certifications
Degree
BFA Graphic Design

Brigham Young University, April 2008.

Certification
NN/g UX Certification

Nielsen Norman Group, May 2018. #1023157.

Certification
Mastering Design Thinking

MIT Management Executive Education, May 2019.

Certification
Certified Scrum Master

Scrum Alliance, December 2021.

Certification
Storytelling for Influence

IDEO U, May 2025. #44735-4011625.

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