Neil McKay

Product designer. I make complex operational systems simple.

Fifteen years designing enterprise and government software, from hands-on craft to leading design at [24]7.ai. Lately I've been the operator myself, and I build my own tools with AI every day.

Selected work

  1. Public meetings, twenty years apart

    Granicus → Govinity · Govtech · 2007 and 2025–2026

    Tools for the people running live public meetings: touchscreen voting at Granicus, and a keyboard-first clerk console, prototyped with AI, for Govinity.

  2. Running a property portfolio like a product

    Operations tooling · AI · 2019–present

    An operating system for a multi-owner real estate portfolio: automated intake from four property managers, a maintenance and asset register, and decision tools for non-technical owners.

  3. Safe changes for the people who build AI

    [24]7.ai · Enterprise AI tooling · 2017–2018

    Tools for teams building, testing and deploying chatbots for major brands, including a preview of each change's impact before it goes live.

  4. From weeks to days: a design system for chat deployments

    [24]7.ai · Design systems · 2014–2016

    A standard for configuring chat for major brands: a short list of options, templates and training that cut design time to about three days.

  5. Words that change whether people chat

    [24]7.ai · Content strategy and experiments · 2015–2017

    Contextual chat invitations tested against generic ones, with measured lifts in acceptance for Hilton, Sears and others.

Writing

  1. Model before pixels

    Essay

    Why mapping what users believe a system does is the fastest way to design it well.

  2. Prototype to decide

    Essay

    Paper, Figma or working code: use whatever gets a real answer fastest.

  3. Story mapping, beyond agile

    Essay

    How a wall of sticky notes gets a team to agree what it is building.

  4. Restraint

    Essay

    The simplest interface that does the job, and why every extra element has to earn its place.