JenniferAdams

Software Engineer · Design Systems & UX

Jennifer Adams

Hi, I'm Jennifer.

I'm a software engineer who designs. Before moving into engineering, I spent over a decade as a photographer and college instructor teaching digital photography and Photoshop. That background still shapes how I think about visual hierarchy, clarity, usability, and how people learn an interface.

My work often sits at the intersection of engineering and design. I take product features from early ideas and UX decisions through Figma, user testing, frontend implementation, and, when needed, backend and data work. I also build design systems and reusable components that help teams create consistent, accessible experiences without reinventing the same patterns.

When I'm not coding, you'll find me hanging out with my family, puttering in the garden, or slowly converting my lawn into a native plant haven.

Skills & Technologies

  • Design: Figma, design systems, component libraries, Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom), user flows, wireframing, prototyping, usability testing, interaction design, data visualization
  • Frontend: Vue, Nuxt, TypeScript, JavaScript, Tailwind CSS, HTML/CSS, reusable component architecture, accessibility (WCAG), performance, React (personal projects)
  • Backend & Data: C#, SQL, ColdFusion, REST APIs, Sanity CMS
  • Tooling & Workflow: Git, Playwright, CI/CD, PostHog, Google Analytics, technical SEO, AI-assisted development (Claude, Codex), coding-agent component guidelines

Work Projects

New eLearning Experience

  • Challenge

    The legacy eLearning experience had accumulated interface inconsistencies over time and was constrained by an older architecture. The modernization effort created an opportunity to rethink navigation, content presentation, reusable UI patterns, and the overall learner experience while building a more scalable foundation for future product development.

  • Actions

    I audited the legacy application, documented existing UI patterns and inconsistencies, and researched other eLearning products to explore approaches to navigation, learner progress, content presentation, and interaction design. I organized findings and recommendations in Figma, presented concepts to stakeholders, and refined the experience through feedback and user testing. I then designed layouts, components, and interaction patterns in Figma and translated them into reusable Vue components, while also working across backend services, CMS data structures, application logic, and integrations needed to deliver complete features end to end.

  • Impact

    Established a more consistent and scalable foundation for the new eLearning experience, with reusable interface patterns that can support future lessons and product features. The research and testing process helped validate UX decisions before they were repeated throughout the platform, while the shared design and development patterns improved consistency, maintainability, and the team's ability to build new experiences efficiently.

Design System and Component Library

  • Challenge

    As new product experiences were modernized, the team needed shared interface standards that could scale across features instead of relying on page-specific styling and one-off components. Without a common system, visual patterns and interaction behavior could drift over time and create unnecessary maintenance work.

  • Actions

    Co-created design standards in Figma and translated them into reusable Vue and Tailwind patterns, including color and typography tokens, buttons, form controls, toggles, modals, icons, interaction states, and dark-mode variants. I built a living style.vue reference that renders the actual components and their supported states directly in code, creating a practical implementation guide alongside the Figma system. I also added AGENTS.md guidance directing AI coding tools to consult the existing style library before introducing new components or patterns.

  • Impact

    Created a shared source of truth between design and implementation, making established patterns easier to discover and reuse across new work. The system improved consistency, accessibility, and maintainability while reducing one-off components and helping both developers and AI-assisted workflows build new interfaces more efficiently.

Reports Home — Project Tracking Software

  • Challenge

    The legacy reporting experience was difficult to navigate and lacked basic tools for finding and managing a growing collection of reports. Users had limited options for searching, organizing, and quickly returning to the reports they used most often.

  • Actions

    Owned the redesign and implementation from UX/UI through full-stack development. Designed the new experience in Figma, then built the Vue/Nuxt interface and integrated it with existing ColdFusion services and SQL data. Added search, filtering, sorting, pinning, pagination, permission-aware behavior, and a clearer information architecture.

  • Impact

    Replaced a cumbersome legacy experience with a more useful reporting workspace that makes reports easier to find, organize, and manage while establishing a more modern foundation for future reporting features.

Dynamic Landing Page System

  • Challenge

    Marketing needed a faster way to publish targeted landing pages for campaigns, long-tail search topics, gated resources, and audience-specific offers without requiring a new development project for every page.

  • Actions

    Designed and built a Vue/Nuxt and Sanity page system around reusable CMS-driven components, including hero sections, FAQs, comparison tables, CTAs, testimonials, forms, and gated downloads. Created a dynamic routing model and integrated form submissions with internal workflows and Salesforce.

  • Impact

    Turned one-off landing-page development into a reusable system, allowing marketing to launch and update targeted pages more independently while preserving design consistency, accessibility, SEO foundations, and lead-capture requirements.

Custom Client Portals

  • Challenge

    Legacy ColdFusion portals and an outdated purchasing flow required significant custom development for each client, making new launches repetitive, slow, and difficult to maintain.

  • Actions

    Helped rebuild the portal experience using Vue/Nuxt with modern authentication and purchasing flows, backend and database integrations, and Sanity-powered configuration for branding, pricing, and product selection. Reusable configuration replaced much of the client-specific implementation that previously had to be repeated.

  • Impact

    Created a more scalable portal system for enterprise clients and reduced the setup required for new portals from days of development work to minutes of configuration.

ISSISSIPPI Microsite

  • Challenge

    A long-running April Fools microsite had become broken and difficult to maintain in its legacy ColdFusion implementation, but its intentionally strange personality was still worth preserving.

  • Actions

    Rebuilt the experience end to end in a modern frontend stack, recreating its interactive gadgets and playful content while redesigning the interface and replacing outdated implementation patterns. Worked within a short turnaround to get the entire experience functioning again.

  • Impact

    Preserved a distinctive piece of brand personality while making the site functional, maintainable, responsive, and much easier to update.