About Me
Hello! I’m Dan Dougherty, a UX Designer passionate about crafting intuitive and accessible digital experiences. With a background in customer service, I bring a deep understanding of user needs, blending empathy with user-centered design principles to tackle complex problems. My expertise spans user research, usability testing, and interaction design, with a commitment to staying at the forefront of UX trends. Outside of design, you’ll find me working on automotive projects—applying the same attention to detail and problem-solving skills to every challenge I take on.
Case Studies
Reinventing IIDP's Digital Presence
Led the UX design, WordPress development, and content creation for IIDP, transforming their outdated Wix site into a fully functional, mobile-responsive platform that increases donations and program visibility.
Building an Impactful Website in 48 Hours
Led the UX design for a nonprofit’s website during a 48-hour volunteer event, collaborating with a cross-functional team to deliver a responsive and user-friendly site.
Revitalizing Butcher's Union Online Presence
Led a comprehensive UX redesign for Butcher's Union, enhancing user experience and aligning the online presence with the restaurant's vibrant atmosphere.
Crafting a Professional Portfolio
Designed and developed a modern, responsive portfolio website to effectively showcase my UX design and front-end development projects.
Development & Design Showcases
West Michigan Web
Built a marketing website for my freelance business, West Michigan Web, using Astro. I optimized performance by generating responsive hero-image variants, lazy-loading below-the-fold assets, and preloading critical fonts; implemented semantic HTML and high-contrast styling for accessibility; configured SEO-friendly meta tags, canonical URLs, and social-preview metadata; and set up Netlify Forms to capture local small-business leads.
Dan & Laura’s Baby Shower
Designed and launched a multipage baby-shower site in just 24 hours with Astro. Features include a live countdown ticker to the event, an RSVP form powered by Netlify Forms + Zapier with duplicate-submission filtering, custom SVG icons, and thoughtful UX touches—like hover and focus states on buttons and cards and semantic markup for accessibility.
Work Experience
Freelance UX Designer
West Michigan Web
Redesigned Butcher’s Union website to boost engagement through user research, wireframing, and high-fidelity prototyping; partnered with clients to refine brand voice and usability via iterative design in Adobe XD and Creative Suite; and built & maintain my own freelance marketing site, West Michigan Web, using Astro—optimizing performance, accessibility, and SEO to showcase services and capture local leads.
Lead UX/UI Designer & WordPress Developer (Volunteer)
48in48 Website Sprint – International Institute of Diplomacy for PROMISES (IIDP)
In a 48-hour volunteer sprint, I led a rapid kickoff workshop with IIDP’s founder to define objectives and map user flows for students, professionals, and donors; sketched hand-drawn wireframes for layout and hierarchy; refined and supplemented copy to ensure a cohesive narrative; then built eight mobile-first pages in WordPress using Beaver Builder with a WCAG 2.1 AA–ready design system and integrated donation & volunteer-signup modules.
Lead UX/UI Designer & Project Lead
48in48 Non-Profit Website Build – All In Together
Led the design and development of a responsive, accessible website within 48 hours for a nonprofit. Drafted a streamlined project brief, aligning the team on goals and skipping traditional wireframes due to time constraints. Collaborated with the founder to reflect the mission, directing WordPress development and content strategy with Beaver Builder for smooth navigation and accessibility.
General Manager
129 Hub
Oversaw daily operations, enhancing efficiency and customer satisfaction through streamlined workflows and strategic leadership. Managed staff development, fostering a collaborative environment, and drove business growth by refining service strategies.
- Created brand-consistent merchandise with Adobe Illustrator.
- Trained and mentored a team of 10, promoting a high-performance culture.
Education
CareerFoundry - UX Design Program
Certificate in UX Design
Completed an intensive UX program emphasizing user research, usability testing, wireframing, and prototyping. Developed HTML, CSS, and JavaScript skills, bridging design and development with a focus on accessibility and design thinking.
Grandville High School
High School Diploma
Actively involved in Student Council and AV Club, where I developed strong collaboration and technical skills. Achieved All-American honors in diving and competed at the state level for two consecutive years.
Certifications
Frontend Development for Designers - CareerFoundry
Prompt Engineering for Everyone - IBM Skills Network