Menu

Resume

Summary

A seasoned collaborator and leader, I have a consistent, proven record of helping teams of all sizes bring applications to life.

I believe that research, feedback, and iteration are fundamental to great design. And while process is essential, it should remain flexible enough to account for the uniqueness of the individuals involved. Great processes support people and encourage innovation. Coaching and mentoring, therefore are the tools I employ to shape great teams. I love working with designers of all skill-levels to take their work to the next level.

And while I enjoy management, I also enjoy working in a contributor role. Whether it’s polishing the user experience of a particular workflow, improving the visual design of a set of components, fine tuning the JavaScript and CSS of an application, or working with stakeholders to plan and research a particular feature, I love all aspects of product design.

From coaching to design strategy and execution, from initial wireframes to working product, I have the skills to bring applications to life and build exceptional teams in the process.

Skills

  • Seasoned collaborator and leader. Skilled at getting designers and stakeholders to work together for great outcomes.
  • Design strategy and execution. Skilled at working the big picture and focus on creating processes and practices that support the vision.
  • Coaching and mentoring. Skilled at working with designers to level-up their skills and find their place within a larger organization.
  • Recruiting outstanding talent. I have a proven ability to identify, recruit, and train people who are capable of producing high quality results.
  • Broad experience on all aspects of product design. UX, UI, branding, marketing, and frontend.
  • A thoughtful communicator. I blog occasionally and enjoy speaking at conferences and meetups.

Employment history

Design Manager, CloudBees, Inc (July 2017 - October 2018)

  • Grew the team from 3-8 hiring exceptional UX and visual talent in the process.
  • Launched a new version of CloudBees.com with updated branding and messaging. This required coordinating the work of 5 designers and multiple content editors on a tight deadline.
  • Created a Design System in Figma with shared components allowing multiple designers to create hi-fidelity designs with minimal effort that conformed to our style.
  • Formed a strategy to unite the user experience of several products into a single suite through centralized navigation and authentication.
  • Collaborated with designers across multiple product teams to design a workflow for centralized authentication system (log in and sign up).
  • Worked with product and engineering on a new process for dual-track agile discovery, design, and implementation.
  • Provided guidance for developers on our common component system establishing common patterns for CSS.
  • Created an onboarding checklist and series of presentations to make it easy to onboard new designers.

Product Designer, CloudBees, Inc (October 2016 - July 2017)

  • Adapted the Blue Ocean Jenkins interface for use in CloudBees Core.
  • Laid the foundation for the launch of DevOptics - a new analytics product for Jenkins. This included the design of value streams and the run insights report.
  • Collaborated with the other designers at CloudBees to create a Design Critique process for collecting feedback from internal stakeholders.
  • Was promoted to Design Manager in recognition of my leadership ability.

UX Designer, UserVoice, Inc (August 2011 - September 2016)

  • Lead designer on UserVoice’s next generation feedback and support widget. This included everything from wireframes and presentations to executives to HTML prototyping, CSS and JavaScript.
  • Led design efforts on numerous improvements to their ticketing and feedback UIs.
  • Redesigned and updated several of the email campaigns from the application.
  • Instrumental in establishing patterns for Angular architecture. Wrote numerous components that have been a key part of their toolkit.
  • Re-architected CSS to use more modern modular patterns.
  • Created an internal frontend style guide with live code previews to demonstrate patterns and promote reuse of CSS.

Designer and Partner, Recursive Creative, LLC (January 2008 - December 2009)

  • Recursive Creative was a joint venture between myself and Adam Williams (developer). Initially we had plans to develop our own product and do consulting, but we ended up focusing on one client together. The partnership dissolved in 2009.
  • Lead designer on MemberHub.com. Worked closely with founders to determine the initial features of the app and prep design work for development. We used a sophisticated HTML prototyping workflow to prove ideas out before spending time on development. Wrote nearly all of the CSS, HTML, and JavaScript used in the application.

Designer and President, Wiseheart Design (January 2006 - August 2011)

  • Wiseheart Design was my DBA during the years that I freelanced.
  • Worked closely with Terralien, Inc (a Ruby on Rails consultancy) as a contractor on numerous web and mobile apps for other companies.
  • Worked with Bandwidth.com on several interal projects and public facing web sites. Projects included PhoneBooth.com and a redesign of Bandwidth.com (which never launched).
  • Worked with the Pragmatic Programmers, to evolve their identity and redesign PragProg.com. Wrote most of the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for the design.
  • Worked with Logos Technologies to design and develop a sophisticated tracking system for military drones.
  • Created Radiant CMS the first open source content management built with Ruby on Rails. Wrote all of the HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and the backend Ruby on Rails code.
  • Redesigned Ruby-Lang.org, the main website for the Ruby programming language. In the process I also created the logo that is still used today.
© 2019 John W. Long