Mike Binder
UX Designer & Accessibility Strategist · Founder, Inner Spark Media
- Austin, TX (remote nationwide)
- innerspark.studio
- linkedin.com/in/innerspark
Inner Spark Media, LLC
Founded 2006 · 19+ years serving clients nationwide
Education
B.S. Interactive Media Design
Art Institute of Southern California · 2006
Certifications
- Accessibility: How to Design for All IxDF – Interaction Design Foundation · 2023
- AI for Designers IxDF – Interaction Design Foundation · 2024
- Human Centered AI Design IxDF – Interaction Design Foundation
- W3C Accessibility World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
- UX Management: Strategy & Tactics IxDF – Interaction Design Foundation
Biography
I started building websites in the mid-90s with MS Paint and Notepad — long before "UX" was a job title. I was freelancing for local businesses in high school and launched my own agency as a teenager. After earning a degree in Interactive Media Design, I evolved into a full-stack hybrid before committing fully to UX Design in 2009.
Today, through Inner Spark Media, I focus on what I've spent decades getting good at: making complex enterprise products accessible, intuitive, and provably better. I champion information architecture that makes complexity feel simple and web accessibility that genuinely includes everyone — not just as a compliance exercise, but as a design philosophy. I also built AccessSpark — a web accessibility auditing platform that helps teams automatically find WCAG issues on any website, including pages behind authenticated logins.
At Dun & Bradstreet, I built accessibility programs that cut issues by 40% and changed how teams thought about inclusive design. At iBASEt, I built and led a UX team from zero, transforming manufacturing workflows for aerospace and defense customers. At Realogy, I redesigned a platform handling 50,000+ daily leads and improved task completion time by 40%. These aren't portfolio numbers — they're real outcomes from years of embedded team work.
Experience
-
Jul 2022 – Mar 2026
Sr. UX Designer
Dun & Bradstreet · Business Information & Data Analytics
- Led research and redesign of D&B Hoovers — sales reps prospect 28% faster
- Pushed accessibility company-wide: wrote guidelines, started the accessibility working group, drove WCAG standards — cut issues by 40%
- Design System Governance Board member — built a scalable, accessible enterprise system
- Co-led AI integration: prospect scoring, smart search, intent data, generative tools — sped up prospecting 20–30%
-
Oct 2021 – Jun 2022
Lead Product Designer
Ozmo · Tech Support & Customer Experience Software
- Mentored a team of designers across multiple products
- Boosted platform adoption 20% through targeted UX improvements
- Conducted user research (personas, competitive analysis, usability tests, A/B) — bumped satisfaction scores 20%
-
Sep 2020 – Oct 2021
Lead User Experience Architect
Realogy (now Anywhere Real Estate) · Residential Real Estate
- Led UX for a new enterprise Lead Management platform serving 50K+ daily leads across Century 21, Coldwell Banker, Sotheby's, ERA
- Increased lead conversion rates 20%
- Cut task completion time 30% through IA improvements that reduced cognitive overload
- Achieved 90%+ stakeholder alignment on launches through structured design workshops
-
Apr 2015 – Jun 2020
Head of User Experience
iBASEt · Manufacturing Execution Systems — Aerospace & Defense
- Owned UX end-to-end for Solumina iNEXT/iSeries — flagship MES for aerospace, defense, and precision manufacturing
- Led full redesign from concept to launch: 80%+ shop floor adoption in Q1
- Built and led a UX team from scratch — established UX as core to iBASEt culture
- Built scalable design system — cut bugs 40% and accelerated development
- Designed for gloved/cleanroom operations, mobile, AR, and multi-device manufacturing environments
- Improved shop-floor productivity 40% through error-resistant workflow design
-
Jan 2013 – Apr 2015
Senior User Experience Designer
EQUATOR® · Fintech & Real Estate Technology
- Designed SaaS solutions for government agencies, major banks, and mortgage companies
- Built and maintained the company design pattern library and internal UX documentation
- Collaborated directly with UI development teams to ensure pixel-perfect, accessible implementation
- Researched, designed, and developed web and mobile financial applications for enterprise clients
-
Sep 2009 – Mar 2012
User Experience Designer
CU Direct · Financial Technology / Credit Union SaaS
- Designed full SaaS platform for credit unions nationwide — focused on usability and zero accessibility barriers
- Partnered with development teams to bridge design and implementation, ensuring UX fidelity from mockup to release
- Developed application designs alongside developers to eliminate usability issues before they reached users
-
Dec 2006 – Present
Founder & Principal UX Consultant
Inner Spark Media, LLC · Self-Employed · Nationwide
- Founded and have run Inner Spark Media for 19+ years — delivering accessible UX for clients across industries including fintech, healthcare, real estate, and enterprise software
- Focus on accessibility-first design, information architecture, and building digital products that work for every user
- Clients range from startups to Fortune 500 companies seeking embedded UX expertise without the overhead of a full agency
Core Skills
Design
Research
Technical
Leadership
What Colleagues & Managers Say
Verified LinkedIn recommendations from direct managers, peers, and cross-functional partners across Dun & Bradstreet, Realogy, and iBASEt.
"I've had the good fortune of working with Mike for four years. He has demonstrated his ability to take on new challenges, work outside his comfort zone, and proven to be an innovative UX Designer. Time and time again, Mike has shown he is someone that is willing to take charge and lead initiatives — with minimal direction needed. This was especially true as he helped lead the effort to overhaul our accessibility compliance process across multiple business units. Mike is a savvy UX Designer that would be a good addition to any team, especially those looking to up their game in innovation, accessibility, and designing forward thinking products."
"Mike is an exceptional designer and a dedicated colleague. Over the past three years, I've had the pleasure of working with him across various products, and he has never hesitated to provide support, guidance, and leadership. His expertise in accessibility is both deep and well-founded, making him an invaluable asset to any team. I highly recommend Mike to any company looking for a talented leader and designer."
"I was on the sales team and Mike was leading the charge of our new UX. Mike was open and collaborative to understand our prospects and client needs, ensuring he knew end user specific needs and designing a solution that was both aesthetically pleasing and technically functional. Mike led the group to design, test and implement. He was great to work with, innovative, and focused on results. I recommend Mike to lead similar teams or can excel as an individual contributor."
"Mike is an exceptional UX designer. He always does an amazing job getting the right balance between big picture thinking and attention to detail. He has the ability to design solutions that bring long-term value."
"Mike is passionate about creating aesthetically-pleasing and highly-functional user interfaces. He built up a small UI/UX team at iBASEt and led the team from project initiation through initial release and beyond. Mike's successful leadership helped establish UI/UX as an important part of iBASEt culture. Mike puts a lot of thought into design decisions, listens carefully to feedback, and collaborates well with software developers, product managers, and other designers."
View all 9 recommendations on LinkedIn →
Let's Work Together
If you need a UX strategist who connects accessibility to business outcomes and can speak to executives and engineers equally — I'd love to talk.