I make complexproducts feel clear.
20+ years shaping digital experiences across enterprise, government, and global brands. Research, systems thinking, and hands-on design—from the first question to the final interaction.
Open to Senior and Staff Product Design roles · Ottawa, Canada
01 / Selected work
Clarity, in practice.
Five projects at the intersection of people, systems, and complex decisions.
A systems thinker.
A hands-on designer.
I connect the details people interact with to the systems and teams behind them.
My career spans agencies, enterprise products, public services, and games. I’ve led designers and researchers, worked alongside product and engineering teams, and stayed close to the craft: flows, prototypes, interaction design, and the details that make a product usable.
Outside design: illustration, basketball coaching, books, and a house with plenty of cats.
Find the right problem
Research, workshops, and service mapping to understand user needs and the constraints shaping the product.
Make complexity usable
Clear workflows, accessible interfaces, and design systems that bring consistency to complex products.
Bring the team with you
Prototypes, design rationale, and delivery documentation that help product, engineering, and stakeholders move forward together.
Complex product.
Clearer experience.
I’m exploring Senior and Staff Product Designer opportunities with teams building useful, ambitious products.
Let’s talk about your teamSelected work
Five projects at the intersection of people, systems, and complex decisions.
Product design forthings that have to work.
I’m a senior product designer and UX lead based in Ottawa, Canada, with more than 20 years of experience across enterprise products, public services, and global brands.
My work today focuses on complex, high-stakes products: government services, regulated platforms, data tools, and enterprise software. I’ve led UX for organizations including Government of Alberta, Transport Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat, FCAC, and ESPN / MLB on Google Looker.
Earlier in my career I worked in brand and digital campaigns for Nike, Jordan Brand, HP, and Mercedes-Benz, and in games. That background still shapes how I think about craft, motion, and detail.
I connect the details people interact with to the systems and teams behind them. I’ve led designers and researchers, worked alongside product and engineering teams, and stayed close to the craft: flows, prototypes, interaction design, and the details that make a product usable.
I start with the people and the policy or business constraint behind a product, map the service end to end, then prototype early and test with real users. I build accessibility in from the start (WCAG 2.1 AA), keep design systems consistent across teams, and work closely with developers through sprint standards and clear definitions of done.
Illustration, basketball coaching, books, and a house with plenty of cats.
Complex product.
Clearer experience.
I’m exploring Senior and Staff Product Designer opportunities with teams building useful, ambitious products.
Let’s talk about your teamLet’s talk
Tell me aboutyour team.
hello@jasondoherty.comWhat I’m looking for
Senior and Staff Product Designer roles with teams building useful, ambitious products.
What to include
A short note on the product, the team, and where design fits in. A link to the role helps. A short CV is available to download, and a full résumé is available on request.
Where I am
Ottawa, Canada.
Making essential communications easier to manage.
Designing the services that help provincial staff and licensed child care operators communicate, manage access, and stay informed.
Platform Team Lead / Design System Team
Messaging · Access · Service design
Service design · Platform UX
Led the design team for Team Platform, set design standards across child care programs, and presented to directors and ministers to inform policy updates adopted across the province.
Since April 2025, Alberta child care operators have worked under a $15/day flat-fee model, registering children and submitting monthly claims digitally. This is public background, not a project outcome.
The challenge
Child care communications relied on emails, notices, and disconnected tools. Operators needed a reliable way to find important updates; staff needed a more consistent way to publish and manage them. The work extended beyond individual screens to the roles, permissions, and processes behind the service.
My contribution
As part of Team Platform, I led service design and UX/UI work across communications, messaging, staff access, and related operator portal workflows. I worked with product owners, developers, and stakeholders to connect service needs to design decisions and delivery requirements.
Impact
A shared approach to messaging, bulletins and staff access across the operator portal, with reusable patterns and documented acceptance criteria that supported Agile delivery.
Design approach
Design around the communication lifecycle
I used research, journey mapping, and service blueprints to connect publishing, receiving, and acting on information. This helped frame messaging and bulletins as parts of one service.
Make access part of the experience
Role-based access shaped what users could see and do. I worked on staff access management, recipient roles, and clear permission-related language so the interface reflected the responsibilities behind it.
Build patterns that teams can reuse
I developed modular, responsive patterns and Figma prototypes aligned with Alberta’s digital standards, then documented behaviour and acceptance criteria for implementation.
01Getting to a message
The path an operator follows from an email notification to a message in the Child Care Licensing Portal.
02Working across messages and programs
Once signed in, operators can move between messages, switch programs, search, and open any message in full.
What I delivered
The design work established a shared approach to messaging, bulletins, staff access, and operator workflows. Prototypes, flow diagrams, and component documentation supported Agile delivery and consistency across the platform.
The design lesson
A communications platform needs clear ownership and access rules as much as clear screens. Designing both together helped connect the operator experience with the staff processes supporting it.