portfolio
Strategic Leadership, Accessible Systems, & Civic Tech.
I lead multi-disciplinary teams across public policy, human-centered UX design, accessibility standards, and front-end engineering. My focus is on high-consequence environments — modernizing federal benefits, advancing web standards, and embedding inclusive co-design into complex organizational cultures.
A Note on Confidentiality & Strategy
Most of my work is sensitive and can’t ever be shown in a portfolio, but I’m always happy to chat about my experiences. Furthermore, much of my current focus centers on high-level organizational strategy, policy advisory, and change management.
Detailed artifacts, extended case studies, and tailored walkthroughs are available upon request.
Subject Matter Expertise
- Accessibility, WCAG
- AI Assurance
- Civic Tech/Design
- Content Design
- Data Analysis
- Data Dense User Interfaces
- Design & Research Operations
- Design Leadership
- Design Systems
- Ethnography
- Digital Modernization
- Heuristics
- Human Centered AI
- Interaction Design
- Progressive Web Applications
- Responsive Design
- Section 508
- Service Design
- Strategy
- Sustainable Web Design
- Usability
- User Experience Design
- User Research
Verticals / Sectors
- Academia
- B2B, B2C
- Defense & Intelligence
- Enterprise
- Federal Government
- Finance
- Fortune 500
- Health
- Insurance
- Local Government
- Marketing / Ad Agencies
- Non-profits
- Publishing
- Small Business
- Start-ups
- State Government
“Jen is the type of Lead Designer that Project Managers hope to partner with on their projects.” – Jim Ruggiero, then at Fidelity now at Nava PBC
Featured Case Studies
Led and conducted strategic user research and rapid prototyping for the IRS Online Account chatbot ecosystem to improve taxpayer self-service.
Focus Areas: Conversational UI | Chatbots | Usability Testing | Rapid Prototyping
Read IRS Chatbot Case
Co-led end-to-end UX design and rapid prototyping for the VA’s digital COVID-19 screening tool across web and mobile platforms. Enabled millions of Veterans, caregivers, and staff to safely access facilities under extreme emergency timelines. 🏆 Recognized with the VHA National HeRO Award and Service to the Citizen Award.
Focus Areas: Chatbots | Rapid Response | Mobile Apps | Emergency Logistics | Accessibility First Mobile Design
Read VA COVID-19 Case
Introduced human-centered design principles and responsive web standards within a traditional agency framework, streamlining critical disaster insurance workflows for citizens.
Focus Areas: Digital Modernization | Ethnography | Archetypes & Personas | Responsive Redesign | USWDS | Player-Coach Leadership
Read Floodsmart.gov Case
Led discovery research and strategic roadmapping for Caregiver Modernization while embedding an agency-wide “Accessibility & Mobile First” standard.
Focus Areas: Caregiver Modernization | Culture Transformation | Inclusive Design
Read Caregiver Case
Delivered a 75% increase in mobile engagement. Architected a custom CSS grid solution that resolved a critical data-dense UI bottleneck, rescuing a project that was over a year behind schedule.
Focus Areas: Digital Modernization | Responsive System Architecture | Rapid Prototyping | Usability | Contextual Inquiry
Read Fidelity.com Case
Wisconsin Public Service Commission & U.S. Digital Response – Internet Discount Finder
Partnered with U.S. Digital Response to build the Internet Discount Finder, delivering accurate broadband availability and pricing data to low-income residents.
Focus Areas: Civic Tech | Equity | Digital Inclusion | Data Accuracy
Read more at USDR
Transformed internal employee systems by mapping complex cross-departmental service blueprints, driving seamless digital workplace workflows.
Focus Areas: Digital Workplace Transformation | Generative User Research | Service Blueprints | Journey Mapping | Ethnography
Read Fidelity Workplace Study
IRS – Design System & USWDS Modernization
Stewarded agency-wide adoption of the U.S. Web Design System (USWDS) as a design systems and digital accessibility subject matter expert.
Focus Areas: Design Systems | USWDS | Accessibility Governance | Federal Standards
In progress
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Business Administration – Pension Optimization Initiative (POI)
Supported procurement and acquisition strategy for a $524M pension application processing transformation utilizing automation and AI.
Focus Areas: Federal Acquisitions | AI & Automation | Benefit Modernization
In progress
Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) Walk-through Rendering from Images of Varying Altitude (WRIVA)
Designed responsive UI for a data-dense geospatial analysis application handling multi-altitude imagery.
Focus Areas: Defense Research | Geospatial Analytics | Complex Data Visualization
In progress
Easy Designs – Google Chrome Showcase Application (WikiHow Survival Kit)
Apprenticed with Microsoft web standards advocate Aaron Gustafson, delivering design and technical debugging to showcase early HTML5/CSS3 capabilities. Now it’s available for purchase.
Focus Areas: Progressive Web Apps | Web Standards | HTML5/CSS3 | Accessibility | Technical Debugging
Sabre Hospitality – Call Center Redesign
Steered a cross-functional team in converting a legacy Windows desktop desktop application into a responsive web experience.
Focus Areas: Legacy Modernization | Enterprise Web Apps | Responsive Redesign | Cross-Functional Leadership | Usability
Fidelity.com – Responsive Security and Lead Generation Components
Led creative direction and facilitated team adoption of responsive best practices across core customer onboarding and security products.
Focus Areas: Design Systems | Security UX | Responsive Components | Component Libraries | Lead Generation
Massachusetts Health Connector
Redesigned B2B and B2C health insurance portals, leading Section 508 compliance and directly implementing responsive design within production code.
Focus Areas: Healthcare UX | Section 508 Compliance | Production Front-End | B2B & B2C Platforms | Web Accessibility
MA Department of Environmental Public Health – Tracking App
Improved public health data access through ADA-compliant mobile optimization, ensuring high performance and usability for field researchers in remote environments.
Focus Areas: Public Health Data | Mobile Optimization | Web Performance | ADA Compliance | Field Research UX
Boston Area Rape Crisis Center – Educational Guides
Created inclusive, accessible designs and custom illustrations for public informative guides and law enforcement training manuals serving diverse, vulnerable populations.
Focus Areas: Inclusive Design | Public Safety & Advocacy | Accessible Publishing | Visual Communication | Vulnerable User Populations
Read Supervisory Guides at barcc.org
Motovy.com Responsive Redesign
$500,000 gain in daily product sales attained by accelerating algorithmic marketing utilizing an incremental responsive retrofit to convert a high-performing desktop program into RWD data backed application.
Radio Bookmark Branding, Website, iPhone App Design
2009–2010
Flatview School Attendance Monitoring Proof-of-Concept
UX team of one for a Louisiana-based startup aiming to improve data and actionability around school attendance.
Business Model Design to Aid Vulnerable DC Citizens
Addressed the financial wellness of DC’s most vulnerable populations.
View Business Case Study [HTML with PDFs]
Punkvision Branding & Website
Logo update, branding, and responsive web portfolio for an award-winning post-production studio.
DMMGF Branding & Website
Identity, design, and development for an international science conference and foundation, Days of Molecular Medicine Global Foundation.
Visit DMMGF.org
Amy Clarkson Online Gallery
Cambridge painter Amy Schuyler Clarkson launched a gallery website featuring her luscious oils, lively watercolors, and layered sepias.
Visit Amy’s Gallery
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Defeat Diarrheal Disease State of the Field Report
Case Study Page In-progress
UX Research, Information Architecture
Akamai Performance Analytics Product Proof-of-Concept
2017
Improved turnaround time by 95% with a customer-centric process, for the world’s largest content delivery network (CDN.
Download Akamai Case Study [1.6MB PDF]
Fidelity Digital Workplace Modernization
Led user research to influence organizational change, foster cross-functional relationships, designed and produced a variety of inclusive, accessible deliverables from blueprints to websites.
Form-a-palooza Physical Prototype for Food Truck Licensing
Redesigned a complex food truck health certificate application process.
Business Model Design to Aid Vulnerable DC Citizens
A 12-week course, collaborating with a business team, exploring questions to develop a human-centered concept to address financial wellness.
Amy Clarkson Business Cards
Using an experimental CMYK +1 spot color letterpress technique, designed these cards as a playful presentation of Amy's range of paintings. Used the spot color for the text to hold legibility, where process would have feathered text edges.
Visit Amy’s website
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Design & Technical Philosophy
1. Culture change is my passion. “Leave No One Behind.”
Modernization is rarely just a technology problem — it is a human problem. True digital transformation requires involving the people we serve directly in the co-design process. By conducting thorough discovery before jumping to technical solutions, we ensure the human element remains at the center of institutional policy and software design.
2. Code as Rapid Sketching
Working directly in semantic HTML, CSS, and JavaScript is one of the fastest ways to validate responsive layouts and accessibility interactions. Code isn't precious — it is a flexible medium for rapid prototyping, direct user observation, and getting functional ideas into real human hands early.
Need more info?
Interested in exploring additional case studies or discussing strategic advisory?
Email me or view my resume.
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