/DESIGN
DECLAN WEBSTER

DECLAN WEBSTERSENIOR UX DESIGNER

Senior Product Designer specialising in complex, regulated software.

I turn difficult systems into clear, intuitive experiences through research, systems thinking and thoughtful interaction design.

Focused on usability, accessibility and designing products people can understand and trust.

Solving complex problems

I believe complex doesn’t have to mean complicated. I enjoy getting into the messy parts of a problem, understanding how a process really works, where users struggle and where business or technical constraints come into play, then using research, systems thinking and interaction design to make the experience feel clear and intuitive.

Usability by design

I’m particularly passionate about usability and accessibility, and I see both as fundamental parts of good product design rather than something to address at the end. I stay hands-on throughout the process, from early discovery and problem definition through to prototyping, testing and detailed interaction design.

Working together

Alongside individual design work, I’ve led distributed design teams and collaborated closely with product, engineering and stakeholders across the wider business. My earlier experience in software implementation also gives me a useful perspective on what happens after a design ships, from configuration and rollout to adoption and everyday use.

Beyond UI

My earlier experience in software implementation gives me a practical understanding of what happens after a design ships, from configuration and rollout to adoption and everyday use. I’m also naturally curious about new tools and technologies, and I enjoy experimenting with anything that helps me explore ideas, communicate more clearly or prototype faster.

/CASE STUDIES

/DESIGNS & CONCEPTS

/DESIGN
New MUSIC DISTRIBUTION PLATFORM design

MUSIC DISTRIBUTION WEB-SERVICE

RE-DESIGN CONCEPT
/OVERVIEW
A redesign concept for a music distribution and management dashboard, bringing releases, performance and account activity into a clearer, more focused experience. As a user of this platform myself, there are a few frustrations and sticking points that I have with the current web platform including but not limited to issues with the visibility of my content, the details and the progress of support and submissions. With the redesign I didn't want to erase their current brand identity and instead refine and reinforce it. I've kept their current branding colours but standardised their UI with consistent button styles and iconography. As for functionality, I also chose to bring visibility to existing features and services instead of trying to reinvent the wheel.
/DESIGN
MUSIC DISTRIBUTION PLATFORM

MUSIC DISTRIBUTION WEB-SERVICE

RE-DESIGN CONCEPT
/DASHBOARD
In the current system, after log in you are greeted with a Dashboard. Pretty typical stuff, but unfortunately the dashboard doesn't actually display much of anything outside of a few links to existing areas of the system and some external links to services. I wanted to bring the dashboard to life by introducing some snapshots of useful information for the artist like their most recent releases and a view of their current analytics.
/DESIGN
New MUSIC DISTRIBUTION PLATFORM design

MUSIC DISTRIBUTION WEB-SERVICE

RE-DESIGN CONCEPT
/MANAGING RELEASES
Improving the sorting, filtering and organising of music releases In the existing system, each music release is displayed as a large thumbnail. While I didn't want to remove this, I noticed that this display can become quite cumbersome when managing larger amounts of releases. I also wanted to offer users the ability to better sort and filter their releases.
/DESIGN
CENTRALISED APP

CENTRALISED APP

CONCEPT
/NOTIFICATIONS
The way the product suite for Ideagen was set up meant that each product felt like a disparate experience, even though a single user may need to use multiple to fulfil their role. With this concept I wanted to create a single application that would act as a hub for the different products, allowing all notifications to be funnelled through a single experience.
/DESIGN
CENTRALISED APP

CENTRALISED APP

CONCEPT
/QUICK ACTIONS
When it comes to responding to the notifications I wanted to ensure that all key information for the tasks and records involved were also displayed within this centralised application, reducing friction. This includes showing the current progress of tasks, the team and key stakeholders involved in the related projects along with key descriptors of the project itself. Whether handling corrective actions raised from audits, to on-site inspections, risk assessments, document approvals and more. Due to the complex nature of the potential tasks involved however, we can still re-direct users to the individual application as and when needed.
/DESIGN
CENTRALISED APP

CENTRALISED APP

CONCEPT
/MORE
In addition to notifications and task management, I also wanted to flesh out the concept further with a product switcher and a simple homepage giving an overview of tasks, notifications and calendar events, all pulling from the individual products and bringing them together into a more complete and holistic experience.
/DESIGN
MY PORTFOLIO

MY PORTFOLIO

DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT
/OVERVIEW
For a while now I’ve wanted to create a place that can act as a central hub for all my creative pursuits. Something that could not only act as a professional portfolio of my product design work, but also as a place for me to showcase my drawings, videos and more. I know that I have instagram, youtube, itch.io, bandcamp etc etc, and I know that I can group them all together in a linktree (I have) but, I want something bespoke. Something that could not only act as a professional portfolio of my product design work, but also as a place for me to showcase all my creative endevours, curated and tailor made. I wanted something that felt like me (on a good day ;) ) and captured my creative style, as varied as that can be.
/DESIGN
MY PORTFOLIO

MY PORTFOLIO

DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT
/DESIGN
Due to this being a project for me I didn’t work as non-destructively as I usually would and instead iterated on the same file until I landed on a design I was happy with. This still led to further iteration during development but it gave me a great place to start working with. I designed the general template for the pages and modals alongside drafting and collecting all of the content that would sit within it. This allowed me to hone in on a design that suited the needs for each of my creative outlets, with only design requiring the more complex pages for case studies and design overviews. One aspect that I wanted to keep throughout my portfolio was a sense of fun. This manifested in a few different ways such as the colour coding for each section, integrating myself into the landing page artwork and keeping the text relatively casual and conversational. Playing on the idea that with my many pursuits I ‘wear many different hats’ I came up with the idea of changing the colour of my hat in my profile image for each section. Eventually expanding on this idea further by designing bespoke avatars for each section, all using the same original photograph.
FIGMA FINAL DESIGN FILE >
/DESIGN
MY PORTFOLIO

MY PORTFOLIO

DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT
/DEVELOPMENT
My coding skills are limited, but I'm a resourceful googler. I've built several web-based projects that way before. With AI, I could quickly translate my Figma prototype into working code, testing and iterating much faster than I otherwise would have. It also opened the door to more complex transitions and interactions. Drawing inspiration from CodePen and combining that with my Figma prototyping skills, feeding it all into AI felt like a natural next step. Using MCP, I linked my Figma directly to my ChatGPT account, then connected ChatGPT's Codex to my Visual Studio Code project. This created a smooth pipeline that allowed AI to read my designs and translate them into deployable code.
/DESIGN
MY PORTFOLIO

MY PORTFOLIO

DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT
/TESTING & DEPLOYMENT
Once the code was created, backed up in my GitHub repo and tested on my local machine, I initially deployed to Netlify, allowing me to review and test my portfolio on a range of devices, as well as send out links to trusted peers who could read and review the content, providing valuable feedback and highlighting some minor issues with accessibility and responsiveness. Working again with the AI agent I was able to rectify these issues, further improve and iterate on my portfolio designs until I was ready to publish to my custom URL through Cloudflare. And that leads us to here, where you are on this site now, reading this content. Wait, who’s that behind you? Kidding.

/GET IN TOUCH

CONTACT ME