About

I am a UX designer with over 25 years of experience across fintech, editorial, e-commerce, and consumer products. I currently work at PayPal, where I design merchant checkout experiences used by millions of people. Before that, I led creative teams, shipped award-winning websites, and built design systems from the ground up. I focus on removing friction, whether someone is completing a transaction, accessing critical information, or navigating a complex product. I stay sharp by constantly researching and evolving my process, and I bring that range to every team I join.

Steven Vanden Heuvel

Experience

PayPal (Contract) 2025 - Present
UX Designer
  • Redesigned merchant checkout flows to reduce friction and improve usability
  • Improved checkout experiences within a large-scale product ecosystem used by millions of people
  • Worked across merchant checkout surfaces and payment flows
  • Collaborated with cross-disciplinary teams to ship design improvements within PayPal's established design system and brand guidelines
Steven Design Co 2019 - 2024
UX Designer and Creative Director
  • Designed and built responsive web experiences across food and hospitality, media, and B2B industries
  • Created user flows, wireframes, and high-fidelity prototypes for digital products and editorial platforms
  • Built brand identity systems that extended across digital and print touchpoints
MTG Media Group Previous
VP Creative Director
  • Led creative teams responsible for digital and print design across multiple industry publications
  • Designed the Plateonline.com redesign, which won a Jesse H. Neal Award for Best Website and a Folio OZZIE honorable mention
  • Created the Blackbird Interactive oral history experience, which won a Jesse H. Neal Award and reached Grand Neal finalist recognition
  • Led the transition from static sites to responsive, mobile-first platforms serving professional audiences

Skills

  • User research and usability testing
  • Interaction design and prototyping
  • Information architecture
  • Design systems
  • Wireframing and user flows
  • Visual design and typography
  • Figma, Sketch, Adobe Creative Suite
  • HTML, CSS, Sass, Tailwind
  • Drupal, WordPress, React basics
  • Responsive and mobile-first design
  • Accessibility (WCAG)
  • Working across design, engineering, and product teams

Awards

  • Jesse H. Neal Award, Best Website
  • Jesse H. Neal Award, Best Interactive Feature
  • Grand Jesse H. Neal Finalist
  • Folio OZZIE Honorable Mention, Site Design
  • Multiple ASME awards

Education

University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
Art with an emphasis in Graphic Design, minor in Marketing

Download Resume (PDF)

Open to new opportunities.
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