Multiple lenses. One conviction.
I'm Jason Sonderman, Head of UX — a design leader with twenty years of evidence about how UX creates real value for software, and enough practice operating in partial certainty to know the difference between incomplete research and research that's telling you something you haven't asked yet.
More about my approach
At ARCOS, I built a team and a delivery model from the ground up. We move from discovery through design to draft front-end code entirely within the UX function — cutting the kickoff-to-handoff window from two weeks to three days, because the speed the work demanded left no other responsible option.
That approach isn’t something I learned from a methodology. It came from leading teams across India, Poland, Belgium, and the US — and from a faith practice rooted in holding traditions in tension rather than collapsing them. My faith in Jesus Christ is the foundation. In theology and in UX, the practice is the same: hold multiple lenses, and pay attention to what the intersection reveals.
“…Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth, and when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”
— David Bowie
My Values
Featured Case Studies
- Harmony Design System — Arcos, LLC Design Systems & Infrastructure
Harmony: A Design System Built for Machines
What happens to a design system when AI agents are first-class consumers — and how building two prior systems shaped the architecture that finally closes the gap.
What design systems become when AI is a first-class consumer — and what three companies of building them taught me about the architecture that closes the gap between human-readable and machine-executable.
- Arcos, Inc — UX Leadership & AI Delivery Leadership & Culture
From Delivery to Direction
What an AI-assisted delivery model revealed about where design creates its highest value — and why speed without clarity of purpose just accelerates the wrong thing.
When the delivery pipeline started working, the recovered capacity had to go somewhere. This is the story of what the efficiency revealed: that the upstream problem — purpose, data shape, user intent — is harder and more valuable than the downstream one. And what it means when your team's documented ways of working become the training set for an AI agent someone else built.
- Arcos LLC UX Leadership
UX as Organizational Strategy
Arcos had never had formal UX before I arrived. This is the story of how I built the credibility, process, and relationships to make UX a necessary voice in what gets built — not just how it looks.
Arcos had never had formal UX before I arrived. This is the story of how I built the credibility, process, and relationships to make UX a necessary voice in what gets built — not just how it looks.
- TVH Parts Co. Design Systems
Uplift: Fixing the Org Before Fixing the Design System
How moving design system engineers under UX ownership — and co-designing governance with an engineering advocate — turned a neglected component library into shared infrastructure across four brand tech teams.
At TVH, a design system existed in name only — engineers had stopped trusting it and were building their own components. Moving DS engineers under UX and co-designing governance with an engineering advocate stabilized the system and expanded it to four brand tech teams and 15 front-end developers, with a token architecture that would underpin the company's planned international brand consolidation.
- Arcos, Inc
Lighthouse: Embedded Field Research That Reframed a Product
How 2.5 months of embedded research across 14 utility sites reframed a greenfield product from the ground up — and what it took to ship that vision through two rounds of scope cuts.
As Head of UX and Lead Researcher, I conducted field research across 14 AEP operating companies — observing and interviewing 120+ emergency managers and field workers — to reframe Arcos's Lighthouse Platform from UI modernization to a workflow-native system. I developed the "user lenses" product vision using AI-assisted prototyping in Lovable, then held that vision through two descoping rounds to ship the convoy tracking MVP in August 2025.
- BetterCloud
Building Fulcrum: BetterCloud's Internal Design System
How a shared design language cut prototype time by 40% — and what it revealed about cross-functional adoption.
How I led the design of Fulcrum, BetterCloud's internal design system — unifying a fragmented SaaSOps product suite and learning firsthand what it takes to carry a design system across the boundary from design into engineering.
- BetterCloud Secure Platform
BetterCloud Secure: Redesigning Risk Remediation for IT Teams
How a manual audit of 86 remediation actions across 5 apps shaped a design sprint — producing three capabilities that tested well with users and left a design system that outlasted the project itself.
As Lead Product Designer, I led persona research, workshop facilitation, and prototyping to transform BetterCloud's Secure platform from passive monitoring to active risk remediation. Three core capabilities — Quick Actions, Risk Lifecycle Tabs, and Universal Action Properties — tested well before a strategic shift shelved the product. The Figma design system built to support the work outlasted it, becoming platform infrastructure that cut prototype time across the team.
- Athens State Online Degree Microsite
Athens State Online: A Microsite Built for Graduate Enrollment
A content-rich microsite for Athens State's online programs — built with SEO-first IA and journey-mapped landing pages — that drove a 20% increase in graduate enrollments.
Athens State needed more than a website update — it needed a full-funnel marketing microsite that ranked independently on program keywords while looking like the parent institution. I led UX across journey mapping, information architecture, wireframes, and usability testing to build a site that entered prospective students into the admissions nurture pipeline. The launch drove a 20% enrollment increase in struggling graduate programs.
- Peru State Online Degree Program Marketing Pages
Peru State: A Tiered Landing Page System That Beat Conversion Goals
A three-tier landing page system built around the student decision journey — tested iteratively, shipped in 15 pages, and exceeded visitor-to-lead and lead-to-applicant conversion targets.
Peru State's online programs had ad traffic but no landing pages built for conversion. I led UX across journey mapping, IA design, wireframing, and usability testing to create a tiered system — from program-overview pages down to individual degree pages — with a multivariate testing rhythm built in from the start. The 15-page launch exceeded both visitor-to-lead and lead-to-applicant conversion targets.
- The Cerner Learning Journey Portal
Cerner Learning Journey Portal: Designing for EMR Adoption at Scale
Clinicians forced into EMR adoption by the ACA's 'meaningful use' mandate weren't resisting because they lacked information — they were defending professional identity. I helped Cerner redesign their Learning Journey Portal around that insight, replacing transparency with strategic opacity.
Clinicians forced into EMR adoption by the ACA's 'meaningful use' mandate weren't resisting because they lacked information — they were defending professional identity under compulsion. I helped Cerner redesign their Learning Journey Portal around that insight: replacing full-path transparency with strategic opacity, and shipping a platform that reached 253 client implementations with a 48% improvement in measured software competency.
