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Jose Arocha • UX Portfolio

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DeathHydra / 2025–Present

DeathHydra: Turning Brand Storytelling Into A Conversion System

DeathHydra needed a memorable ecommerce experience that could explain the product, build brand appetite, and convert curiosity into purchase without flattening the brand voice.

Executive Summary

DeathHydra needed a brand and ecommerce system that could create memory, explain the product, and convert curiosity into purchase. As design advisor, I shaped the Shopify experience, creative and photoshoot direction, interactive game, conversion experiments, GenUI and AUI concepts, and an AI-assisted delivery workflow that made iterative changes easier to implement and deploy.

Operating Context

The brand needed to be distinctive enough to create memory while still functioning as a clear ecommerce system. Creative direction had to stay coherent across photography, campaign pages, product education, purchase states, and an interactive game, while a small team continued modifying and deploying the Shopify experience.

Decisions That Shaped The Work

  • Used product storytelling as part of the purchase flow instead of treating brand and conversion as separate layers.
  • Built Shopify sections around product education, brand memory, and decision confidence.
  • Explored Generative UI and Adaptive User Interface concepts that could tailor product education and purchase pathways to customer intent.

Shaping the experience

02 / Using Shopify As The Commerce Foundation

Shopify provided dependable catalog, cart, account, and checkout infrastructure. I focused design effort on product discovery, education, offer framing, and the brand moments that helped customers understand why DeathHydra was different.

DeathHydra Shopify storefront featuring the Tropical Witches Pack campaign and product-value cards.
03 / Directing The Visual System

I provided creative and photoshoot direction across campaign imagery, product styling, composition, and the visual relationship between packaging and the DeathHydra world. The product-detail experience carried that direction into education, pricing, subscription choices, and purchase.

DeathHydra Ominous Mangos product page combining directed product photography with pricing, product education, and subscription choices.
05 / Extending The Brand Through Interaction

Gamification turned product discovery into a guided, adaptive experience. A narrative prompt and card selection shaped the content shown next, demonstrating how GenUI could connect customer input, identity-driven storytelling, and a relevant commerce action without disrupting the purchase path.

DeathHydra Reveal Your Fate experience inviting customers to begin an interactive product-discovery game.
Mobile DeathHydra game result revealing The Warden's Apple and guiding the customer toward the related offering.
Desktop DeathHydra game result connecting a generated character reveal with product storytelling and an email conversion action.
04 / Experimenting With GenUI And AUI

The game created a practical environment for exploring Generative UI and Adaptive User Interface behavior. The concept kept the commerce system stable while allowing bounded content, sequencing, and results to respond to customer input.

01 / Accelerating Delivery With AI

I used an AI-assisted design and development workflow to turn requested changes into smaller, reviewable Shopify updates. AI accelerated theme modification and iteration; creative judgment, responsive review, brand quality, and release decisions remained human-led.

Outcomes

What Changed

  • Created a Shopify storytelling foundationProduct education and conversion clarity became part of the page structure.
  • Extended creative direction into product photographyCampaign concepts, product styling, composition, and Shopify presentation became part of one visual system.
  • Explored generative and adaptive commerce interfacesGenUI and AUI concepts tested how product education and purchase pathways could respond to customer intent while preserving user control.
  • Established a conversion testing systemTone, offer framing, and customer confidence could be tested more deliberately.
  • Accelerated iterative Shopify deliveryAn AI-assisted implementation workflow made requested modifications easier to translate, review, and deploy while keeping final judgment human-led.

Principles I Carry Forward

What I Learned

  • Brand becomes useful when it helps people decide. Memorability matters, but I evaluate brand moments by whether they increase confidence, comprehension, or motivation.
  • Product storytelling should reduce uncertainty, not decorate the page. The best copy, imagery, and sequence help customers understand why the product matters now.
  • AI works best when it supports a specific decision path. I would avoid broad AI novelty and instead use prompts, content, and personalization where they clarify purchase intent.
  • A memorable voice still needs a system behind it. Strong creative direction scales when tone, structure, and conversion logic are repeatable.

About Jose Arocha

Beyond the interface

Over the past 20 years, I've worked across healthcare, enterprise software, consumer products, media, e-commerce, and early-stage startups. I bring experience and knowledge of product strategy, systems thinking, service design, and UX leadership.

I bring discipline when the problem is ambiguous, the organization is growing, and teams need clearer operating models, stronger product judgment, and evidence they can act on. I'm also equally comfortable when an organization’s environment is already well defined and the challenge is helping the product and team scale to the next level.

LinkedIn profile ↗

Where I create impact

Complex operational workflows

Clarifying responsibilities, handoffs, and decisions so teams can act with confidence.

Strategizing in regulated environments

Building trust in sensitive systems where clarity, safety, and compliance shape the experience.

0→1 products and scaling organizations

Creating product foundations before speed, complexity, and team growth start compounding.

Cross-functional alignment

Helping product, engineering, operations, and leadership move towards shared goals.

Product foundations and design systems

Identify and turn repeated themes into systems, patterns, and principles teams can reuse.

How I approach problems

Most critical experience and product challenges go beyond the surface level.

I rarely view problems as UI challenges alone. I look at how people, information, responsibilities, and decisions move through the system.

I try to make the backstage work visible: process, handoffs, risk, constraints, and the decisions a product has to support.

The strongest design work creates meaningful outcomes for people and lasting value for organizations.

Relevant Recent Experience

2025–Present

DeathHydra

Advise on the brand development, ecommerce experience, and creative direction across customer touchpoints.

2022–2024

Hazel Health

Built the in-house UX practice, helping teams make better decisions across patient experiences and clinical care operations.

2020–2022

Ontada / McKesson

Led enterprise healthcare initiatives across oncology, revenue operations, and executive alignment.

2018–2019

Modus (Acquired)

Joined as the first designer and built the product design practice from the company’s earliest stages through scale.

Prior

Microsoft, T-Mobile, and others

Led product initiatives across commerce, telecom, media, travel, and enterprise systems.

Outside of work

I'm always doing
something fun

Outside product work, I spend time with my family and usually have a hands-on project underway: airbrushing, 3D printing, bonsai, cooking, baking, traveling, or enjoying a good video game.

I enjoy making things, whether it's a product, a creative dinner, a business, or an entirely unnecessary 18-inch 3D model.

Contact

Let's connect.

Whether you're building something new, scaling what already works, or looking for experienced product design leadership, I'm always open to a good conversation.