UX Audits · Fractional Design Leadership · Product Advisory
Get your product field-ready.
Field Prep helps product teams find what’s not working, decide what matters most, and make it better, through expert UX audits, fractional design leadership, and ongoing product design support. Built on 20+ years of product design leadership, with a decade of deep healthcare experience where the stakes are highest.
The signs you're ready for Field Prep.
You don't always need more design. Sometimes you need clearer direction.
Maybe the product works, but it's harder to use than it should be. Maybe your team is shipping quickly, but inconsistency and design debt are piling up. Or maybe you have talented people doing the work, but no senior design leader connecting product, engineering, users, and the business.
That's where Field Prep comes in.
Something feels off.
Users are getting through the product, but friction, inconsistency, and accumulated design debt are starting to show.
You don't know what to fix first.
There are plenty of ideas and opinions. What's missing is a clear, evidence-based set of priorities.
Your team needs senior design leadership.
You have people who can execute. You need someone who can establish direction, raise the quality bar, and connect the decisions.
You're not ready for another full-time hire.
Get the judgment and leadership of an experienced design executive at the level—and for the length of time—you actually need.
Start with an audit. Grow from there.
Clear scope. Predictable pricing.
A focused, fixed-price diagnostic.
Find the problems. Prioritize what matters. Leave with a roadmap.
Leadership-level ownership
Get senior design leadership embedded in your team without adding a full-time executive. Hiring, design system ownership, cross-functional strategy, stakeholder alignment & more.
Ongoing senior judgment, without a full-time hire.
Keep a senior design leader in your corner for reviews, roadmap decisions, systems and ongoing product work.
Need accessibility remediation, a design system, DesignOps, or hands-on product work? We scope those within the engagement.
How it goes
ProcessBusiness context, product, users, pain points, urgency, and who actually decides.
Audit, strategy, design support, fractional leadership — or the combination that fits.
Outcomes, scope, timeline, deliverables, and a fixed fee. No hourly guessing.
Quickly, visibly, collaboratively — with your team in the room, not waiting on a reveal.
Findings become strategy, design, fractional leadership, or a standing advisory retainer.
Trusted inside complex products
Two decades of work across regulated healthcare, national media, and large consumer marketplaces.
Engagements delivered as part of in-house leadership roles and consulting partnerships.
Hi, I'm Chris Villano.
I’ve spent more than 20 years leading product design, including the past decade in healthcare at organizations like CVS Health, HIMSS, and Everyday Health. I’ve designed and led the teams behind clinical tools, patient experiences, and design systems built for complex, regulated environments.
I started Field Prep after seeing the same challenge again and again: talented teams moving quickly, but without the senior design leadership needed to connect user needs, product strategy, engineering realities, and business goals. Field Prep brings that experience to teams when they need it, whether that means a focused UX audit, hands-on product design support, or fractional design leadership, for the scope and length of time that actually makes sense.
Connect on LinkedIn →Frequently asked questions
That's exactly what the audit is for. A fixed, contained scope that gives you a real roadmap, with no obligation to go further until you're ready.
Most audit and advisory work doesn't require access to sensitive data at all. Where it does — PHI included — we execute a BAA before touching anything.
Yes, even though I've spent the majority of the last 10 years in Healthcare, that's not where it stops. If your product is complex, high-stakes, or hard to use, the same readiness discipline applies.
Most agencies are generalists who've never worked inside a regulated, high-stakes workflow. This practice is built around that gap and informed by a decade actually doing it.