I design the systems behind the experience.

I’m a design leader specializing in human–AI collaboration and agentic UX design. At the heart of my work is a commitment to designing AI that makes life easier, fosters trust, and is built on responsible, ethical design practices. My goal is to shape how humans and AI collaborate – transforming not just products, but entire industries.

How I think

01 · AI evaluation

Design for outcomes, not outputs.

UX should help define how AI quality is measured — not just how AI behaves on screen.

02 · Agentic UX

Design for systems that act.

When products act on a user's behalf, UX becomes about orchestration, oversight, and intervention.

03 · Workflows

Design the system beneath the interface.

Products change. Workflows persist. Mapping the underlying system creates reusable experiences instead of one-off features.

04 · Trust

Make complex systems understandable.

Trust comes from transparency, appropriate uncertainty, and giving people meaningful control when things go wrong.

Talks & writing

Work

01

Shaping AI Agent Behavior

Enabling UX to take ownership of eval frameworks

Shifting away from manual, engineer-owned processes to an automated eval process that gave the team rich behavioral data.

AI Systems Evaluation
fig 1.1 — eval dashboard
02

The Project That “Couldn't Fail”

Finding alignment across leadership teams

How siloed practices threatened the success of the company's biggest bet — and what I did to turn it around.

Strategy Systems Influence
fig 2.1 — alignment map
03 Coming soon

Thinking in Workflows

Moving from bespoke products to a catalog of actions

In a world where the company is always pivoting, how do we create consistency and prevent teams from duplicating work?

Systems Workflows Strategy
fig 3.1 — action catalog
04 Coming soon

The AI-Native Design Team

Turning AI experimentation into meaningful design leverage

AI tools give designers endless ways to automate, prototype, code, and extend their capabilities. The hard part is knowing what actually creates real leverage in a cost effective way and how to build a team that can use AI to produce better work, not just more of it.

Leadership Design Operations Strategy
fig 4.1 — leverage map

About

Melissa Wittmayer
Based in — Santa Barbara, CA
Currently — Design Leader, AI Agent Systems and Evals
Leadership philosophy

People don't fail — systems do.

My role as a leader is to create the conditions for great work: clarity around the problem, trust within the team, and enough context and autonomy for people to make good decisions. I want teams to become more capable because I was there, not more dependent on me.

I lead with three principles
Human-centered
People do their most creative and thoughtful work when they feel psychologically safe.
Strengths-based
People do their best work when they're empowered to lean into what they do best.
Systems-oriented
When something isn't working, I look at the environment, incentives, processes, and structures around the team.
Experience
1
2023 - NOW
Design Leader
AI Agent Systems and Evals · Advise product and engineering leadership on architecting agentic systems, context-aware interaction patterns, and human-in-the-loop workflows. Partner with teams to design and operationalize UX-led AI evaluation frameworks that measure agent behavior, quality, and user trust.
2
2026
Director of UX
Ontra · Agentic legal & contract product suite — director leadership and hands-on IC across three teams
3
2019 — 2026
UX Manager, AI Agents
AppFolio · Design strategy for the AI assistant & agent ecosystem — grew from UX Designer to Manager
4
2016 — 2019
UX & Product Design Consultant
Freelance · Research-led design for e-commerce and content strategy