💼 Senior product designer
🍁 Canadian
💎 Designer
💻 Developer
⚔️ Gamer
Hi there! I'm Josh, a designer who specializes in design systems, user experience, and digital product design. In plain language, that means I help build awesome websites and mobile apps! Solving problems gets me out of bed every morning.
My skills range from startup consultation to front-end development. What I do really boils down to helping great people solve difficult problems.
I value trust, honesty, and integrity in my work. As a designer, I feel responsible for what I put out into the world. If you're curious about what I do, let's chat!
I have over 9 years of digital design experience that ranges from crafting startup strategies to prototyping mobile apps. I've spent some brief time formally studying Psychology and Interdisciplinary Design but my expertise lies in my experience helping real people solve real problems.
Feeling curious? Ambitious? Lost?
You find yourself full of creativity and are bursting to the brim with great ideas and genuine motivation to make the world a better place. You're ready to build something awesome, but things feel daunting and lack clarity. You've found a problem you can't stop thinking about but aren't quite sure what to do about it.
We can collaborate on getting your thoughts, ideas, and problems down on paper into a tangible format that will help you make an efficient next move. We can discuss the core principles and problems behind each of your ideas and perform real-world research by talking with the people who matter most: your potential users.
Interested in chatting?
Feeling excited? Overwhelmed? Indecisive?
You believe you've stumbled upon the next big thing but you're unsure what to do next. You've confirmed that there's a problem that needs some tackling and you're ready to go about testing your idea. You don't have a huge budget, but you need to prove some traction to help get your idea in front of the right eyes.
We can collaborate on solidifying your concept and ensuring things are well tested before you have to decide to invest full-time. We'll build prototypes and get them in the hands of your potential users to make sure their needs are being met and their voices are being heard. Finally, we can prepare technical documentation for your product so we can approach the right developers to get your first iteration built.
Let's make something tangible!
Feeling frustrated? Hopeful? Creative?
You've got a product and it's been serving you well for some time, but things are starting to feel a little stale. You're starting to receive feedback from your users that your product might be falling behind competitors or lacks the visual lustre it once had. You're ready for your product to change but need a hand with the direction.
We can collaborate on learning more about what your users expect from your product over the next little while. We'll dive into competitors' products and talk with your users to understand where value can be brought in, and perhaps where clutter can be carved out. We can work together to polish your product's interface and ensure it not only works well, but feels fantastic.
Let's create some change!
Feeling pressured? Focused? Motivated?
You have a product and you're happy with the way it works, looks, and feels. Your product's launch has come and gone and you now need to prove its success and long term value. You're unsure how to collect the data you need to validate the original goals you started with. You know your product has to evolve over time but have no idea in what ways.
We can collaborate to generate a set of goals and metrics that will showcase your product's success over time. We'll determine what success means to you, followed by some brainstorming around how this success can be effectively measured. We'll look towards the future and prepare a measurement plan to enable you to make informed decisions about your product's next steps.
Want to learn more?
Hydrogen is an open-source CSS tool built from the ground up based on my previous project, Clone. It offers a comprehensive set of utility styles that are accessed using custom data attributes, enabling inline styling right inside your markup and JavaScript. This tool was built specifically to alleviate key digital design problems highlighted by the Government of Canada.
Systems design CSS frameworks Node JS dev Front-end devI currently work as a designer and front-end developer on the GC Digital Talent team. GC Digital Talent is an initiative with the goal of revolutionizing the way hiring tech talent works within the Federal Government of Canada. My time is spent working on front-end systems design within the project and producing clean, accessible user interfaces. I provide advice on project direction and goal setting to ensure ideas evolve from concept to public service.
Product advice Systems design Experience design Front-end devWhile at GC Digital Talent (previously Talent Cloud) I had the opportunity to begin construction on a front-end design framework that would simplify and speed up our user interface build timelines. The design framework is open source and free for anyone to use. This has led to deeper discussions around how the Government of Canada uses design systems and what the future might look like.
Government policy Systems design Experience design Front-end devVideo games are serious business. Content in Final Fantasy XIV can be both intimidating and incredibly challenging, requiring ample preparation and teamwork to succeed. Guide content has always flourished in video format on YouTube, however, as someone who prefers text format guides, I took it upon myself to build and maintain a database of mobile friendly guides that could be accessed on the fly.
Experience design Front-end dev Content publishing AnalyticsI spent 3 years working with the team at Code + Mortar regularly swapping hats to meet the needs of clients. A majority of my time was spent discussing startup opportunities with potential clients, performing user research, wireframing, prototyping, writing technical documentation, and doing front-end development. It was my job to ensure our clients understood their problem and aligned their project goals before they reached our development team.
Business strategy Experience design Documentation Front-end devHow Talent Cloud is making an effort to increase transparency around our design decision making and providing public access to our design methodologies.
Everyone gets excited about a project's solution when it becomes seemingly apparent. Recently however, I've learned that there is a much more effective piece of every project all designers should be far more excited about: the problem. Solutions confirm our beliefs and are something to be proud of, and it is precisely for these reasons that you should let them go.
At a time when I was feeling particularly tied down by client constraints, I decided to explore what makes the design process so difficult to master. This lead to a fantastic discussion with Sohrab Vossoughi of Ziba about the endlessly evolving nature of design.
In an effort to establish a foundation on which to intepret design as a career path, I found myself conflicted with the definitions of the word and how it is perceived in daily life.
Feedback is a powerful tool that is often underused because of a negative misconception. When giving and receiving feedback, a thorough understanding of how that feedback is presented can make a world of difference in ensuring that the feedback is acted upon.
As a team building exercise, leadership had us construct towers out of spaghetti, tape, string and a marshmallow. Despite the chaos that ensued, I discovered something very fundamental about myself.
An opinion on why I believe that the migration towards “flat” design is better suited to the medium of the screen and where this will lead as digital media evolve.
Below are a few great organizations I've worked with who are tackling important problems in their communities.
