People don't want to learn your interface. They want their interface to learn them.
I've spent 25 years designing products that close the gap between what technology can do and what people actually need.
The Person Behind TurphDesigns
I'm Tom Murphy.
Product Designer
I've been the first designer in the room at a startup that became a billion-dollar program, and I've led design for products that millions of people rely on to manage their financial lives. The through line is always the same: make the complex feel simple, and make the simple feel human.
TurphDesigns is where that experience lives outside the walls of any single company — through consulting, teaching, and building what's next.
Where I've Built
Two chapters, one thread:
designing at the edge of what's possible.
Amazon
ProductAds
I was the only designer on a team of fewer than 20, building something no one had built before. Every merchant dashboard, every customer touchpoint, every pixel of the ad platform came through my hands. The team grew to 200+. Revenue went from zero to $250M. That foundation became a billion-dollar business.
Fidelity Investments
Personal Investing
People trust Fidelity with their life savings. That trust shapes every design decision I make — from how someone opens their first account to how an AI assistant helps them understand a market swing. The stakes are real, the regulations are strict, and the opportunity to genuinely help people is enormous.
Go Deeper
Don't take my word for it.
Ask me yourself.
This AI assistant knows my work, my thinking, and my experience. Ask it anything — about a project, a point of view, or whether I'm the right fit for yours.
Try asking about my time at Amazon, how I think about AI in financial services, or what it's like designing for high-stakes decisions.
Let's talk.
If anything here resonated — or if you're working on something where this kind of thinking could help — I'd genuinely enjoy the conversation.
“We spent decades teaching people how to use computers. The next era is teaching computers how to understand people.”
How I Work
Three principles I bring
to every problem.
Start with the outcome, not the screen
Before I sketch a single wireframe, I ask: what does this person actually need to accomplish? Most interfaces are organized around what the system can do. I organize around what the user is trying to do — and then figure out the shortest path to get them there.
Earn trust at every step
When someone is moving money, reviewing their portfolio, or talking to an AI about their retirement, they need to feel confident — not confused. I design for clarity in high-stakes moments: showing the right information at the right time, and never hiding what matters behind a clever interaction.
Ship it, then sharpen it
Great design isn't precious — it's practical. I believe in getting thoughtful work into people's hands quickly, learning from how they actually use it, and iterating with real signal instead of assumptions. The best products I've built were shaped as much by their users as by their designers.
