10+ years as a design contributor and manager for SaaS companies in the streaming TV, ecommerce fulfillment and property tech space.
I’m Jon, a product design lead with 10+ years experience. As a technically-minded first-hire designer, I function as both a contributor and manager to research and design products for SaaS companies.
Recruiters
- 15 years experience as a product and UX designer
- 7 years as a player/coach design manager and leader
- Managed teams up to 7 product designers
- 2024: lead IC designer for multi-device trivia game with a 70% conversion rate for sign up
- US citizen, permission to work, no visa necessary (you always ask)
Where I thrive: I do best in early-stage companies as a first-hire designer. I love being in the craft, creating customer discovery habits, documenting new SOPs, and working directly with engineering, product, sales, support and more.
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Recommendations
Michael Ludden • 1st
I worked with Jon at Atmosphere TV. He is humble, driven, and has a real knack for going beyond the surface.
His research methods are both sound and dig deeper than what any individual stakeholder group might be looking for internally. This led to understanding by groups across the org in a holistic way that I am yet to see from other designers and researchers, leading to truly transformative results.
John Smolen • 1st
What impressed me about Jon was that he obviously is great at conducting thorough research, structuring the right format, questions, etc. but he wowed me with his ability to succinctly sum up and pull out insights that were useful.
Principles
Safety First
Psychological safety
Teams have to be cultivated. For the health of a design practice, for retention, and for happy, productive designers. Safety isn't just a top-down embrace of feedback. It means teaching the team what productive feedback sounds like. And teaching individuals how to receive and process critique.
No walls
Remove silos
Conway's Law says that a product will reflect the structure of the team that built it: chasms in the team creates holes in the product. I counteract 'silo drift' by facilitating CX vision workshops between design, engineering, product mgmt, sales, marketing, customer success and more.
Growth Mindset
Individual attention
Part of being a leader is making sure that the work of individuals gets the visibility that it deserves. Behind this is an effort to see the work of the team, and understand where each member needs to perform in order for the team to function as a cohesive whole.
Responsibles
Accountability
Accountability is essential to team growth. It starts with fostering a culture of open communication and feedback where everyone knows the etiquette of critique. This equips individuals with the skills to own their role, contribute meaningfully, and grow within the team's shared vision.
Writing
Structuring a winning team
How to build a winning design team
Whether you’re in a period of turnaround, startup or accelerated growth, there are things you can do to make sure you create a successful and sustaining design practice.
Learning
Speak
Official SXSW Conference
Part of the official SXSW conference, speaking to an audience of 120+ designers about customer journey mapping in conjunction with a Journey Mapping course I was teaching at General Assembly
Teach
General Assembly
I spent 2 years teaching evening courses at General Assembly, most notably a 10-week intro to UX course and 1-time customer journey mapping sessions
Grow
Executive coaching
Over the years I've engaged numerous executive coaches, most recently a 6-month engagement with Adaptive Path founder and renowned author Jesse James Garrett
Engineering
If you’re browsing on a desktop device, you’ll be able to see a menu at the left – that’s a dynamic sidebar menu that I created as a Wordpress plugin. I coded it in php and vanilla js with an assist from chatGPT on some elements that were new to me (like a debounce function). GPT also was a huge help in debugging. Since this functionality involves positioning elements around the viewport, you can bet there was plenty debugging – indeed, it was most of time spent writing this small plugin.
If you’re interested to learn more, you can find it on the waypoint826 Github.