A national magazine added real value to its mobile app
How do you make a magazine's app worth opening on its own?
Read case study →Complex systems nobody can hold in their head.
That's where I'm most useful. Multiple legacy platforms, too many user roles, a backlog no one can prioritize because nobody agrees on what the pieces are. I use the ORCA process from Object-Oriented UX to find the structure underneath, then work with your team to build from it.
The output isn't a report. It's a shared model your designers, developers, and stakeholders can all point at and agree on.
Where I'm most useful
If any of this sounds like your week
These are the situations where object-oriented thinking earns its keep — and where I do my best work.
- Two teams have been building the same thing under different names for a month.
- You're consolidating legacy systems and nobody can say how many there actually are.
- Every requirements conversation restarts from zero because there's no shared vocabulary.
- The roadmap is a list of features with no argument underneath it.
- A redesign is about to start and the team can't agree on what the product is.
How engagements usually work
Object Map Sprint
Two to three weeks. Noun foraging across your docs and product, object and CTA matrices, and a validated Object Map your whole team can work from.
System Definition
Six to eight weeks. Everything above, carried through to build-ready requirements — object guides, relationship mechanics, attribute logic, a prioritized map with navigation flows.
Definition to Prototype
Ten to twelve weeks. System Definition plus an interactive prototype, tested against the foundational decisions and revised on what testing surfaces.
OOUX Audit
One week. A teardown of an existing product's object model, with findings and a ranked list of what to fix.
Workshops & enablement
Facilitated sessions, half-day through a two-day ORCA intensive, including preparation and a written summary. Remote by default.
Ongoing advisory
A monthly retainer for teams doing the work in-house who want a second set of eyes on the model as it evolves.
Rates depend on the shape and length of the work. Tell me what you're trying to figure out and I'll send a straight number.
How I work
Object-Oriented UX and the ORCA process
Most product confusion comes down to one thing: people using different words for the same concept, and nobody noticing until it's expensive. OOUX fixes that by defining the system's actual pieces before anyone designs a screen or writes a line of code.
The four elements
ORCA stands for Objects, Relationships, Calls-to-action, and Attributes. In a workshop, each gets its own color — which is why these four show up throughout my work.
ObjectsThe nouns. The real things your business and
your users care about.
Object definersSpecific instances — this customer,
that jurisdiction, this filing.
Calls-to-actionThe verbs. What each object invites
each role to do.
AttributesThe metadata. The content elements that
give each object its shape.
These four colors mean something specific. You'll see them on object maps and workshop artifacts — and nowhere else on this site, because a color that means everything means nothing.
The process runs in four rounds — discovery, requirements, prioritization, and representation — and it scales to the complexity in front of it. A small product might need one round. A sixty-system consolidation needs all four.
#PoweredByORCA
Case studies
From ten-person operations to Fortune 100 enterprises — how ORCA has helped teams cut through confusion and build better systems.
A Fortune 100 financial firm went from sixty systems to one
How do you fold 60 databases into a single coherent journey?
Read case study →
A compliance consultancy replaced a twenty-year-old system
How do you modernize without losing two decades of records?
Read case study →
A data analytics company opened AI modeling to its analysts
How do you automate the data cleanup that eats 60% of a developer's week?
Read case study →About
Why "Halftank"
Because we're not running on empty, and we're not running on full. We're operating at that honest middle place where you have enough fuel to keep going but not enough to waste on bullshit.
Being on half a tank means you're still in motion, still capable, but strategic about it. You're selective about where you spend your energy because you've learned the hard way that some destinations aren't worth the drive. That's how I work with clients too — I'd rather find the one structural problem that unlocks the rest than bill you for a tour of everything that's wrong.
Twenty years in product strategy and UX across financial services, healthcare, and education. Certified ORCA / OOUX Strategist and a PMP. Based in Roanoke, Virginia; working remotely with teams anywhere.
Writing
Bad Fit
A memoir about how tech work broke me and how I repaired myself — nine layoffs in fifteen years, and what they revealed about the systems doing the laying off. Out now on Amazon and other major platforms.
I also publish Fuel, a newsletter on tech strategy, and write about product practice and organizational dysfunction on Medium.
Contact
Tell me what you're trying to figure out
If you've got a system that's outgrown anyone's ability to explain it, that's the conversation I want to have. No pitch deck required — just describe the mess.
Curious about the method first? Download the free eBook on four common product design mistakes OOUX prevents.