Michelle Protzek

I design clear, polished digital products for complex workflows.

Product Designer for 15+ years — lately focused on AI-driven, data-heavy products. I design and ship end to end: hands-on in HTML, CSS, and Tailwind, using Cursor, v0, and Claude Code as the bridge from design intent to production. Currently at OpenSport.

Selected work

Case study · Sports AI

OpenSport

Explainable AI that performance teams actually trust.

UX/UI · Brand · Sole designer
Web · Mobile-first responsive

OpenSport cover sheet — a mobile AI-alert surface and desktop dashboards composed on a mint field

Designed the surface that gates investor and NFL-pitch demos — list, detail page, severity model, intervention flows, contextual AI chat sidebar. Plus the design system and the migration PRD behind it.

OpenSport · 2026 · Sole designer
Protected
Case study · Sports analytics

PlayWize

AI-driven performance insights, made legible.

UX/UI Designer
Web · Desktop + responsive

PlayWize cover sheet — dashboard and team-status screens composed on a lavender field

AI Chat + AI Insights for an AI-powered sports analytics platform — translating dense biometric and GPS data into clear, actionable decisions for coaches and analysts working under time pressure.

PlayWize · 2025
Protected
Case study · Language product

Parléa

The French you have to say out loud.

Designer & founder · Built solo
Brand · Design system · AI · Front-end

Parléa cover sheet — mobile onboarding and practice screens composed on a peach field

A French pronunciation and speaking trainer for Portuguese-speakers prepping for the TCF Canada exam. Designed and built solo: brand, design system, AI speaking surfaces, and the front-end.

Parléa · 2026 · Self-initiated
Case study · Fintech

Nexur

Payments, subscriptions, and a wallet — in one calm flow.

UX/UI Designer
Mobile + web app

Nexur cover sheet — wallet and payment phone screens composed on a sand field

Consolidated several payment journeys into one trustworthy experience for fitness pros getting paid — subscriptions, advances, and withdrawals, designed for real-world friction and time pressure.

Nexur · Fintech
Case study · Brand + e-commerce

cazu

A pet-friendly furniture brand, built end to end.

Multidisciplinary Designer
Brand · Naming · UI/UX · Front-end

Cazu cover sheet — pet-friendly furniture storefront pages composed on a straw field

A pet-friendly furniture store designed end to end — brand identity, the Shopify storefront, and frontend support — for a company built around the bond between people and their animals.

Cazu · 2018–2019
Case study · Career reinvention

paxe.

Helping people reinvent how they work.

UX/UI Designer
Web · Mobile

Paxe cover sheet — career self-assessment quiz screens composed on a violet field

A platform designed to support people through growth and transformation — built with brand strategy, product UX, and visual direction working in step.

Paxe

How I work

I lean toward prototyping early. When something is ambiguous, I'd rather build a clickable prototype than write another doc — the team reacts to a real surface, and we move faster.

Process
01

Clarify

Understand the problem, users, business context, constraints, and what's actually unclear.

02

Shape

Organize the experience, define flows, structure content, create direction.

03

Make

Turn ideas into screens, prototypes, systems, and usable product surfaces.

04

Refine

Improve the details, test with feedback, align with implementation, make it feel clear and polished.

Principles

Clarity before cleverness

Make things easier to understand, not harder to explain.

Craft is care

The care behind hierarchy, spacing, language, interaction, rhythm, and consistency.

Let reality teach the work

Prototypes and real surfaces create better conversations than long discussions.

Build systems, not only screens

A good design decision should help more than one moment.

Stay close to the work

Design becomes stronger when it understands implementation, constraints, and real usage.

About

The longer story — Flama, the move into product design, and what I'm drawn to now — lives on the About page.

Read the full About

Get in touch

Open to Product Designer roles where design partners with engineering on complex products, and where clarity is treated as a craft, not a step at the end. Especially interested in AI-driven, data-heavy, and mobile-first products. Authorized to work in Canada · open to hybrid or remote.

hello@michelleprotzek.com

LinkedIn  ·  GitHub

Product Designer · Canada · Available for new workDesigned and built by hand in Next.js + Tailwind · Hosted on Vercel
© Michelle Protzek · 2026