Hi, I’m Anna 💙
I design for people who can't afford confusion: healthcare workers absorbing compliance content between shifts, care patients navigating systems that weren't built with them in mind. My work sits at the intersection of UX, accessibility, and learning experience design, grounded in the belief that good design reduces friction for the people who most need that reduction. I notice what's unclear, what's been assumed, where someone is going to get lost. I design around those gaps deliberately, and I treat accessibility as structural rather than additive. I care about the emotional dimension of a design. A design that works but feels unsafe hasn't done its job.
Good design respects the person on the other side of it.
Portrait photo of Anna Babb, 2021.
Braided Systems Thinking weaves care, clarity, and equity through each phase of design. The three braid together so that emotional, cognitive, and structural needs are all accounted for.
My Approach: Braided Systems Thinking
Design isn't linear, and neither is the way I approach it. I developed Braided Systems Thinking as a framework to guide my design practice. It weaves together three core values that adapt to every stage of a project:
💗 Care - Emotional and cognitive safety at every touchpoint
🔍 Clarity - Visual and structural logic that makes sense
⚖️ Equity - Systems that flex to meet different needs, not flatten them
These values braid through every phase:
Listen & Learn - Understand users, stakeholders, and systems
Clarify & Align - Define goals and ensure everyone's on the same page
Explore & Iterate - Prototype, test, and refine with purpose
Support & Scale - Deliver systems that grow with users over time
I combine frameworks (like UDL, WCAG, and design systems) to fit each challenge, creating solutions that feel right and work.
Making sense of complexity: I do some of my best work at the stage where everything is still tangled. I find the throughline, organize competing information, and make it coherent enough to actually use.
A natural QA lens: I notice what's off. Gaps in logic, inconsistencies in content, assumptions nobody questioned, places where a user will get lost.
Accessibility from the start: Inclusive design decisions are structural to how I work, which means they make the whole thing better.
Works well independently: I write clearly, move work forward without needing a meeting, and document my thinking so others can pick up where I left off.
Purpose-driven: I do my strongest work when I understand why something matters. Clear goals, meaningful context, and work that's connected to something real help me bring more of what I'm capable of.
Quick Facts & Qualifications
Let's get specific 👇
Bachelor's, Graphic Design @ SCAD 🎨
Master's, Graphic & Experience Design @ NC State 🎓
2+ years designing accessible learning experiences for healthcare settings
Skilled in WCAG 2.1, Section 508, UDL, and ADDIE
Tools: Articulate Storyline 360, Rise, Figma, Framer, Adobe Creative Suite
Co-founded an accessibility-focused ERG at Relias, which grew to 100+ members in its first year
Lulu, my creative companion, supervising a video chat. Her presence reminds me that thoughtful design comes as much from small moments of comfort and curiosity as from any tool.
Outside of work, you'll probably find me:
Spoiling my cat Lulu, who has strong opinions about my design decisions 🐱
Reading memoirs, speculative fiction, or fantasy - see my Goodreads 📚
Playing cozy, RPG, or strategy games — I care a lot about narrative design 🎮
Going deep on whatever I'm currently fascinated by: mythology, psychology, video essays. I hyperfixate, which means I tend to know a lot about the things I care about.