Better systems
create better lives.
Every day, people rely on services they didn’t choose.
I help organisations redesign services, products and processes so they work better for the people who depend on them.
Hero illustration: coming soon
Hand-drawn systems ecosystem map
About
I’m a human-centred service and systems designer.
Over 15 years I’ve moved from graphic design, through web, into senior product design, picking up service design and systems thinking along the way. In the web years I was at Rentalcars.com, designing and building A/B tests, which is where I learned to expect a design decision to be measured. If there’s a thread through all of it, it’s that I can’t leave a complex process alone. I have to understand why it’s confusing, and then I want to fix it.
My work usually ends up spanning teams, touchpoints and organisational boundaries, because that’s where things break. I look past the screen to the wider system: where a handoff gets lost, where complexity gets quietly handed to a person instead of being designed away, and where a bit of structure would make everyone’s day easier.
None of this is abstract to me. I’m a parent to two children with SEND, and I know first-hand what that means in practice: because the systems around you don’t talk to each other, the person with parental responsibility ends up being the project manager, chasing every service and holding the whole picture together. I bring that same instinct to my work: build the joined-up system, so nobody has to become the project manager just to get through their day.
“I want the systems people depend on to actually work for them, not against them.”
“Jade approaches design with thoughtfulness and precision, particularly across projects that demand structure and data awareness. She played a key role in shaping major initiatives including our ShadCN migration, Campaign Manager redesign, and early reporting improvements. Her documentation and communication with engineering were always clear and dependable, which helped move complex work forward smoothly.”
Capabilities
How I Work
Start with what exists
Auditing how a service actually works, including the workarounds and handoffs, before jumping into sketching.
Work across the gap
Sitting between teams, tools and departments to fix the handoff, not just the screen.
Make the case, not just the mockup
Framing decisions in terms leadership can act on: risk, time and outcome, not just usability.
Selected Work
Research & Service Design · 2014 to 2017
Turning a debt enquiry into something people could act on
Designed a debt diagnostic and a personalised report for people working out how to repay what they owed, researched by listening to the calls, then defined the template every debt brand after it was built from.
Data & Service Design · 2024 to 2025
Turning disconnected data into clearer decisions
Audited reporting scattered across spreadsheets, standalone dashboards and two disconnected systems, then rebuilt it all into a single hub, cutting reporting time by over 50% and giving teams a shared, trusted view for decisions.
Enterprise Product & Rebrand · 2018 to 2022
Making a legacy platform simple, accessible and built to scale
Took full ownership of an outdated enterprise platform end-to-end, cutting process creation time by over 40%. Carried it through a rebrand across UK and French teams, then white-labelled it for La-Z-Boy and an IKEA bid, while advocating for WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility.
Where I Can Help
Public Sector
Councils, departments, agencies and arm’s-length bodies.
NHS & Healthcare
Trusts, ICSs, and the national bodies behind them.
Education
Schools, colleges, trusts and education technology providers.
Product & Platform Teams
Complex digital products, data-heavy workflows and design systems.
Charities & NFPs
Charities, cultural organisations and not-for-profits.
What I’m Noticing
The hard part of adopting ShadCN wasn’t technical.
It looks like something you’d need to code to have a say in. You don’t.
3 min read
Most “complex” systems are just undocumented ones.
Most systems aren’t complex. They’re full of sensible decisions nobody ever wrote down.
3 min read
Nobody wants the new feature. They just want the old one to work.
The four pressures that quietly wear a product down, and how to make the case for fixing the foundations first.
6 min read
What Claude and Lovable leave for a designer to do.
Notes from using both, and what each one still needs a person for.
Coming soon
Let’s improve something together.
Based in Lytham St Annes. Local work across Blackpool and the Fylde, remote anywhere else.