About
Jonathan Heavner
Product & Systems Designer · Kansas City
I’m a product and systems designer with 15+ years of experience across enterprise software, financial services, government, and operational platforms.
My work connects business processes, user needs, and technology. I specialize in understanding complicated workflows and translating them into clear, usable software.
01
Perspective
The real complexity is rarely on the screen. It lives in approval chains, dependencies, edge cases, and the workarounds people invent when software stops matching their job.
So I start with how the work actually happens: who touches it, what they’re accountable for, where it breaks down, and what depends on what. The interface is where that understanding becomes software people can use.
How I work
- 01
Understand the work first.
The work always happens before the interface does. If I don't understand it first, I'm just decorating someone else's confusion.
- 02
Move between the whole and the detail.
Strategy that never touches a screen is just an opinion. I stay close enough to the execution to find out if the idea was actually right.
- 03
Prototype to find out, not to demo.
A slide deck can win a meeting. Only a working prototype tells you if the idea actually holds up.
- 04
Design with engineering, not for a handoff.
The best ideas I've had were never mine alone. They came out of a conversation with the person actually building the thing.
Selected experience
- JendayFounder & Principal Product DesignerCase study: Jenday
- Hudson Insurance GroupProduct Designer (Contract)Case study: Hudson Insurance
- Auto WaresSenior Product Designer (Contract)Case study: CounterWorks
- Object PartnersSenior Product Designer (Contract)Case study: Zappos at Work
- Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas CitySenior UX DesignerCase study: Do Not Pay
The complete history is in my résumé (opens in a new tab).
Beyond work
Outside of design, I ride a motorcycle, play retro games, and spend most weekends behind a camera or with two Yorkies who have never cared about my opinion on information architecture. I’m happiest taking something apart to see how it works, then putting it back together better than I found it.
