MATHIAS BURTON

/ buttons

Equal-parts maker and director: a hands-on product and design leader who finds the right problem, imagines a bolder possibility, and makes it useful.

/ products + design + people
= useful systems

The Buttons discipline mapFour button holes connect UX research, product design, product management, and team leadership.

FOUR DISCIPLINES / ONE PRACTICE

01 / PRODUCT + DATA
PitchBook

PitchBook

Connect the intelligence.

THE PROBLEM

Market data and editorial insight lived in different mental models. The opportunity was to help customers connect what happened with why it mattered.

THE MOVE

Use research and product thinking to bring data and expert commentary into a more continuous decision-making experience.

MY ROLE

Product and UX leadership, spanning discovery, interaction design, cross-functional direction, and the integration of LCD.

THE THROUGH-LINE / The strongest interface is not always another screen. Sometimes it is the connective tissue that makes existing expertise more useful.

02 / DESIGN SYSTEM
Tyler Technologies

Tyler Forge

Make coherence scalable.

THE PROBLEM

Multiple teams were solving similar interface problems in different ways, creating friction for customers and makers alike.

THE MOVE

Build a shared system of principles, patterns, and components that could carry a family of products without flattening their needs.

MY ROLE

Design system strategy and hands-on direction across the Socrata and Tyler product landscape, aligning people as well as pixels.

THE THROUGH-LINE / A design system succeeds when teams can make better decisions with it—not simply when the library is complete.

03 / EXPERIMENTATION
LOGO

Working Experiments

Turn ambiguity into something testable.

THE QUESTION

How can new AI capabilities become genuinely useful products instead of impressive, disconnected demonstrations?

THE MOVE

Prototype the riskiest idea quickly, put it in context, and use what happens next to sharpen the product direction.

MY ROLE

Independent research, framing, concept development, prototyping, and synthesis—staying close to both possibility and evidence.

THE THROUGH-LINE / The prototype is a question you can touch. Its job is to create evidence and momentum, not merely look finished.

WHAT I MADE
WITH MACHINES.

A working record of the questions, prototypes, systems, and strange little useful things I make with AI and other machines. Less a finished blog than a trail of evidence: what I tried, what changed, and what I want to make next.

VISIT THE BLOG
IMAGE / 01
METHOD

THE PROTOTYPE IS A QUESTION

Notes on turning an ambiguous possibility into something a person can touch, critique, and use.

READ THE EXPERIMENTS →
IMAGE / 02
PRACTICE

MAKE THE NEXT MOVE VISIBLE

Short dispatches from building products, dashboards, games, and systems with a machine as collaborator.

FOLLOW THE THREAD →
IMAGE / 03
FIELD NOTES

WHAT CHANGED BECAUSE I MADE IT?

A running reflection on evidence, judgment, and the difference between an impressive demo and a useful thing.

OPEN THE NOTEBOOK →
IMAGE / 04
CARE PRACTICE

THE HOUSEHOLD IS A SYSTEM

Stay-at-home parenthood makes the invisible work of care visible: decisions, handoffs, routines, interruptions, and recovery.

IN DEVELOPMENT

I change hats.
The thread stays connected.

The role changes with the problem. Research uncovers the model; design makes it tangible; product management turns it into coordinated action; leadership grows the team’s ability to carry it forward.

01

UX research

Find the right problem.

I enter the work where it happens—interviews, contextual inquiry, working-session replays, usability studies, and mixed evidence—then build a grounded model of what people are trying to accomplish.

SKILLS + TOOLS
SKILLSGrounded theoryContextual inquiryInterview designUsability testingJourney mappingResearch operations
TOOLSInterview guidesSession recordingsCard sortsSurveysCoded notesAffinity maps
SEE ALL UX RESEARCH WORK →
02

Product design

Make the possibility tangible.

I translate evidence into flows, information architecture, prototypes, and functional direction—staying close enough to the artifact to keep judgment grounded in the experience.

SKILLS + TOOLS
SKILLSInteraction designInformation architecturePrototypingDesign systemsService blueprintsFacilitation
TOOLSFigmaFigJamWireframesInteractive prototypesDesign librariesHTML + CSS
SEE ALL PRODUCT DESIGN WORK →
03

Product management

Turn evidence into direction.

I connect user value to portfolio strategy, requirements, sequencing, and release planning. TASTE is the operating rhythm that moves research and design through delivery without losing the original signal.

SKILLS + TOOLS
SKILLSProduct strategyRoadmappingPrioritizationRequirementsRelease planningResearch + design operations
TOOLSJiraRoadmapsStory mapsDecision recordsPrioritization framesProduct analytics
SEE ALL PRODUCT MANAGEMENT WORK →
04

Team leadership

Create clarity and momentum.

I use a player-coach model: lead the first pass, make the structure visible, grow ownership, and create the conditions for designers and researchers to carry decisions directly to senior partners.

SKILLS + TOOLS
SKILLSPlayer-coach leadershipTeam developmentHiringCareer frameworksExecutive communicationCross-functional alignment
TOOLS1:1sCritiquesWorkshopsCareer frameworksTeam-health measuresCapacity plans
SEE ALL TEAM LEADERSHIP WORK →

RIPEN Discovery + design flowResearch · Ideation · Prototyping · Evaluation · Needfinding

TASTEProduct + operations flowTriage · Analysis · Synthesis · Tackling · Extraction

  1. RESEARCHRIPEN / DISCOVERY

    Study real work in context and gather the evidence before narrowing the frame.

    SEE IT IN PitchBook / complete-deal inquiry

    TRIAGETASTE / DELIVERY

    Sort urgency, risk, opportunity, and constraints before work enters the system.

    SEE IT IN SCGC / platform gaps

ABOUT / BUTTONS

Mathias BurtonMAKER / DIRECTOR / CONNECTOR
ResearchProduct designSystemsDirection

I’m Mathias Burton—aka / buttons—a product and design leader who is happiest in the space between an unresolved question and a useful thing in the world.

I bring research depth, systems thinking, visual judgment, and organizational leadership to ambiguous zero-to-one work. I can set the direction, build the artifact, and help a team see how the pieces connect.

/ buttons is the shorthand: small points of connection that turn separate pieces into something that works.