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nnresume.com — Niels Nielsen

Niels NielsenUX/UI designer

I design interfaces and experiences that are beautiful, intuitive and accessible — blending research-led UX, precise UI craft and an artist's eye for form.

View use cases My toolkit

01 — About me

Half designer.
Half artist.

I'm Niels Nielsen, the designer behind nnresume.com. I move between strategy and sketchbook — mapping user needs, then shaping interfaces with the care of a studio piece. Every project is designed to meet WCAG standards, because great design should work for everyone.

  • UX thinking

    Research, journeys and flows that solve real problems for real people.

  • UI craft

    Type, color, grids and motion tuned to the pixel.

  • Art practice

    Illustration and visual art that give every product its own voice.

02 — Resume & toolkit

How I work,
tool by tool.

Pick a phase of my process to see the tools behind it and exactly how I use them.

The core toolkit

  • Figma

    Interface design, component libraries and design systems built with variables, auto layout and shared tokens.

  • Adobe Illustrator

    Vector illustration, iconography and identity work drawn with precise curves and scalable forms.

  • Adobe Photoshop

    Image compositing, digital painting and art direction for campaigns, covers and interface visuals.

  • Adobe After Effects

    Motion design and animated prototypes that show how an interface should move before it is built.

The full stack, by discipline

  • Design & prototyping

    Where ideas become interfaces, components and specifications.

    • Figma
    • Design tokens
    • Sketch
    • Adobe Creative Cloud
    • Storybook
    • Wireframes & prototypes
    • Interaction specifications

  • AI design tools

    AI used to explore faster, then refined by hand to the system's standards.

    • Figma Make
    • Adobe Firefly
    • Midjourney
    • Uizard
    • Google Stitch
    • ChatGPT & Claude
    • v0

  • Research & evaluation

    Evidence for every decision, from flows to usability checks.

    • User flows & evaluation
    • Miro
    • Usability testing
    • Accessibility audits

  • Engineering context

    Enough front-end fluency to hand off designs developers can build.

    • HTML5 / CSS3 / JS
    • React / TSX awareness
    • Drupal
    • AEM
    • Salesforce Lightning
    • Kibana / Elasticsearch
    • Responsive breakpoints
    • Design-to-dev handoff

  • Standards

    The rules every project is measured against.

    • USWDS
    • Section 508
    • WCAG 2.2 AA
Years of
UX/UI craft

Every year follows the same loop: discover, define, design, validate. Scroll to watch the ruler fill.

15 years of experience as a UX/UI designer.

  • Design

    Figma

    Wireframes, high-fidelity UI and scalable design systems with tokens and auto layout.

  • Design

    Adobe Illustrator

    Vector illustration, icon sets and brand marks drawn to scale.

  • Design

    Adobe Photoshop

    Compositing, digital painting and art direction for visuals and brand assets.

  • Design systems
  • Illustration
  • Inclusive design

Experience

Craft meets
systems thinking.

Senior UX/UI and product design across government digital services, accessible interaction patterns, and design systems that bridge design and engineering.

Download resume

Professional experience

  1. Jun 2026 – Present

    Alpha Omega

    UX/UI Designer

    • Design federal digital interfaces, including TA Center directory discovery, page architecture, and search/filter interaction patterns.
    • Design Figma component states for guided search, multi-select filtering, event/webinar cards, and accessible 360–1400px layouts.
    • Translate requirements into low- and high-fidelity concepts, responsive specifications, and documented interaction states.

  2. 2022–2024

    SeKON LLC / SAMHSA + CDC

    Lead UI/UX Designer

    • Led UX/UI design for SAMHSA and CDC digital experiences, developing responsive patterns aligned with USWDS and Section 508 / WCAG requirements.
    • Produced reusable Figma components, design-system patterns, and developer handoff guidance for Drupal-based federal websites.
    • Developed wireframes, accessible interactions, and desktop-to-mobile content experiences in collaboration with federal stakeholders and engineers.

  3. 2019–2020

    Paradigm / Arizona Public Service

    Lead UI/UX Designer

    • Designed responsive customer-facing interfaces for APS.com, including reusable content patterns and energy-estimation tools.
    • Delivered detailed UX/UI specifications and front-end design guidance to distributed engineering teams.

  4. 2019–2020

    Cool Events LLC

    Lead UI/UX Designer · Contract

    • Designed Salesforce Lightning-based interfaces and coordinated implementation of multiple branded event experiences.

Earlier professional roles

  1. 2017–2019

    CDC / Federal consulting project

    Lead UI/UX Designer

    • Designed operational application flows, role-based dashboards, and responsive interfaces for a nationwide facilities context.
    • Explored data visualization and maintenance-management interactions with Kibana / Elasticsearch.

  2. 2016–2017

    Grupo Gallegos

    Senior UI/UX Designer

    • Designed and developed responsive experiences across Drupal/Pantheon properties, including English/Spanish sites for Hass Avocados.
    • Supported automotive and e-commerce UI projects, including a Mazda comparison experience.

  3. 2015–2016

    Cadient

    Senior UI/UX Designer / Front-End Engineer

    • Created responsive digital experiences and front-end prototypes for enterprise and commercial clients.

  4. 2014–2016

    Google / Contract

    Senior UI/UX Designer / Front-End Engineer

    • Supported internal digital initiatives and interactive marketing experiences through interface design, prototypes, and front-end development.

Additional — Apoorva / Stem Match (2014) • Genesis Auctions (2013–2014) • Blabwire Media (2013) • Ciber (2012–2013) • IntraSee (2011–2012)

Education

California State University, Fullerton

B.A., Computer Science

Working principles

Accessible by design. Systematic in execution. Clear in documentation.

Representative design strengths

  • Federal UX and government content architecture
  • Design systems, component libraries, and state documentation
  • Accessible interaction design and responsive behavior
  • Search/filter flows, data display, event and calendar patterns
  • High-fidelity UI craft and practical engineer collaboration

03 — Disciplines

Systems, components
and mobile.

  1. Design system creation

    Token-driven systems for color, type, spacing and motion, documented so design and engineering ship from one source of truth.

    • Design tokens and theming
    • Governance and documentation
    • Accessibility built into the foundation
    • Figma libraries aligned with code

  2. Component design

    From buttons to complex data patterns, every component is designed with its states, variants and keyboard behavior defined up front.

    • States, variants and responsive rules
    • Keyboard and screen-reader behavior
    • Usage guidance with do and don't examples
    • Handoff-ready specifications

  3. Mobile application design and development

    Mobile products designed for thumbs, small screens and real-world use, with hands-on collaboration through development.

    • Native iOS and Android patterns
    • Gesture and motion prototypes
    • Touch targets and dynamic type support
    • Working alongside developers through the build

04 — Government work

Years as a UX/UI designer

Government-grade design,
built on USWDS.

I design government websites with the U.S. Web Design System as the standard, creating design systems and components that stay consistent, accessible and trustworthy across large public-facing sites. That includes work on SAMHSA.gov and CDC.gov, backed by 15 years of experience as a UX/UI designer.

  • High-level design systems built on the U.S. Web Design System (USWDS)
  • Component design that follows USWDS standards for government websites
  • Accessible, WCAG-aligned interfaces for every member of the public
  • Public health websites designed for national audiences

Inside the design system

Component governance

Every component is documented with its purpose, variants, states and accessibility behavior, then governed so teams adopt it instead of rebuilding it.

  • Clear usage guidance: when to use and when not to
  • Variants, states and responsive behavior defined
  • Contribution and review process for changes
  • Accessibility criteria checked before release
USWDS component library

05 — Use cases

Selected work

Manage case studies

Loading selected work…

Project index

The breadth
behind the craft.

Websites and historical projects from my career. These name the organizations I worked with, not necessarily the preserved designs; some older destinations may no longer be active.

Federal & public services

  • SAMHSA.gov
  • Technical Assistance Center
  • CDC.gov
  • Arizona Public Service
  • Alpha Omega
  • SeKON · historic employer

Retail, commerce & lifestyle

  • Discovery Channel
  • GUESS
  • True Religion
  • JCPenney
  • Kohl's
  • Macy's
  • Buckle
  • Volcom
  • Aston Martin
  • Mazda
  • Audi
  • Kaiser Permanente
  • Allstate

Agency, platforms & historical sites

  • Grupo Gallegos / GALLEGOS United
  • Hass Avocado Board
  • 1WorldSync
  • ZapTravel · historical
  • Blabwire · historical
  • 1WorldSync · archived sample
  • Google
  • Lexus

06 — Contact

Let's build
something bold.

Have a product, interface or brand that deserves more? Tell me about it and I'll reply within a few days.

niels@nielsn.com