I help businesses improve their software design and business strategy.

Contact me
A white square with a small black arrow in the bottom right corner.
A smiling man with short dark hair and a beard, wearing a black T-shirt, sitting in an indoor setting with a blurred background.

I’m Jesse 👋🏻 — a Product Designer & Mentor.

For the past 10 years I’ve been designing complex interfaces for humans. I love collaborating with cross functional teammates and advocating for user centered design.

What I can do for you

UX Strategy

I will generate a smart strategy that meets your business needs and usability requirements. The goal is for your final product to be user-friendly and feasible to build.

UX/UI Design

I make eye-catching designs while creating an engaging user experience. I can create your brand identity from scratch or stay within branding guidelines. I always aim to be WCAG 2.1 AA compliant.

Discovery

In order to gain insight from your customers, I will perform user interviews, build personas, and perform user testing. I will work with you to determine pain points and recommend a test that will maximize your budget.

Featured work

View Work

Experience

I have worked professionally as a UX/UI Designer for more than 8 years. My experience ranges from non-profits to Fortune 100 corporations. I’ve worked on freelance projects for start-ups, B2B, and e-commerce websites.

My specialty:

  • Continuous Product Discovery

  • User Experience Design

  • User Interface Design

  • Information Architecture

  • Usability Testing

I also have familiarity with building and contributing to multiple design systems.

If you have any questions about my work experience please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Education

M.S. UX Design

For 2 years I was immersed in UX design disciplines including Information Architecture, Usability, Content Strategy, Interaction Design and more. I completed the UX Design Masters program with a 4.0 GPA.

B.S. Marketing

My marketing degree gave me insights into business and consumer behavior. This is where I fell in love with the psychology around understanding customers wants and needs.

B.S. Information Systems

Information Systems gave me insight into the inner workings of databases and the organization of software platforms.

Process

1. Understand

Before you can design a solution, you first must understand the problem. This can be done by asking the subject matter experts, observing behavior, experience mapping and defining the desired end result. The goal here is to define the desired business outcome.

2. Sketch

I start on paper, then move to medium to high fidelity wireframes. If the client has an existing design system with available design assets, I would utilize them whenever possible. Either way, I like to give the client multiple options to choose from and then flesh out the rest of the design from there.

3. Evaluate

Once a direction is decided, I will create the primary flow of the product. These could be the primary pages for a website or a “happy path” for an app.

4. Prototype

Prototyping can be done using wireframes or a fully fleshed out user interface. This step allows the team to evaluate their designs holistically. These prototypes can then be used for user testing or developed and then tested.

5. Test

Usability testing should be done with real users. This is the best way to ensure that the design meets the business and user goals. Depending on the project, I will recommend a usability testing technique.

Testimonials

“Jesse is incredible to work with! I own a wedding business that specializes in airbrush makeup and hairstyling. I thought the Photobiz template that I used was working just fine, but Jesse had a vision for how it could be so much more. He created a beautiful website that was extremely impactful for my customers, while still user-friendly and easy to update. He was able to capture the feel of my business, take our unique style, and bring it to life on our site. My side panels went away from the Photobiz, and with Squarespace, Jesse put together a new website that felt so much more open, bright, fresh, and modern. Not to mention how many more inquires we now get from our website!”

— Kelly Farrell, Small Business Owner

“Jesse is a talented UX designer and a pleasure to work with. He is composed, collaborative, and considerate with all of his teammates and clients. When I worked at Duke Energy, Jesse took the lead on an information architecture site mapping initiative, developing standards for the authenticated and public areas of the site.”

— Sarah Auvil, User Experience Designer

“Jesse is a brilliant designer. He addresses problems by always thinking of the customer and their experience in the application. His attention to detail and ability to display complex information in a simple manner is outstanding.”

James Perez, Stoke Co-Founder

Book cover for 'Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days' by Jake Knapp, with John Zeratsky and Braden Kowitz, published by Google Ventures.

Jesse’s top 20 books 🏆

Cover of a book titled "Orchestrating Experiences" featuring an abstract colorful geometric design on a light blue background.
Book cover titled 'Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love', by Marty Cagan, published by Wiley.
An abstract illustration of a person standing on a winding, colorful pathway surrounded by curving, layered shapes in shades of red, pink, purple, green, and blue.
Book cover titled "The Lean Startup" by Eric Ries with a blue background and white and black text.
Cover of the book 'The Making of a Manager' by Julie Zhuo, featuring a light blue background with a graphic of flying paper airplanes, one red and the rest white. The title and author's name are prominently displayed.
Book cover titled 'Continuous Discovery Habits' by Teresa Torres, with additional text 'Discover Products That Create Customer Value and Business Value'.
The cover of a book titled 'The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever' by Michael Bungay Stanier, with a bright blue and yellow design.
Book titled 'Expressive Design Systems' by Yessenia Perez-Cruz, part of the 'A Book Apart' series, with a black circle at the top right indicating the number 31.
Cover of the book titled 'Practical Design Discovery' by Dan Brown, part of the A Book Apart series, with a brown background and a black circle featuring the number 22.
Book cover titled 'Empowered' by Marty Cagan and Chris Jones, published by Wiley, with subtitle 'Product Leadership Lessons from the World's Top Tech Companies'.
Cover of a book titled 'Accessibility for Everyone' by Laura Kalbag, part of the 'A Book Apart' series, issue number 23, with a green and white design.
Book cover titled "UX Strategy" by Jaime Levy, with a wolf illustration on the cover.
Cover of the book titled 'LEAN UX: Designing Great Products with Agile Teams' by Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden, published by O'Reilly, with a yellow banner indicating 'Key Takeaways'.
Cover of a book titled 'Information Architecture for the Web and Beyond' featuring a polar bear illustration and authored by Louis Rosenfeld, Peter Morville, and Jorge Arango.
Book cover titled "Org Design for Design Orgs" by Peter Merholz and Kristin Skinner, showing illustrations of three colorful fish.
Book cover titled 'The Design Thinking Toolbox' with illustrations of a toolbox opening up to reveal various creative tools and ideas, including books, scissors, and abstract shapes, set against a black background.
Book cover titled "Don’t Make Me Think Revisited" by Steve Krug, featuring a stylized illustration of a person's head with hair in a pompadour style, on a red background.
Book cover for 'Measure What Matters' by John Doerr, featuring red and black text on a white background, with a red circle indicating over a million copies sold.
Cover of a book titled 'User Story Mapping' by Jeff Patton, featuring a colorful illustration of a bird with pink, blue, and green feathers on a white background with purple accents.

Contact me

Phone:
(301) 648-4204

Email:
jacunningham54@gmail.com