Gus Watkins
Web Development, UX, Digital Transformation
for SaaS, Dashboards & E-Commerce
I'm a multi-disciplinary product director, UX designer, developer, and musician with a strong creative foundation. I specialize in building holistic, user-centered systems that connect big-picture strategy with small-scale decision-making.
From designing and developing B2C, B2B, SaaS, and e-commerce platforms to implementing ERP solutions, I’ve helped brands like Target and Chase Bank, as well as smaller organizations, scale effectively while improving quality. I excel at taking ownership and transforming complex challenges into streamlined, intuitive solutions that drive real results for your business and customers.
Case Studies
Children's Menu
Transforming school lunch ordering
Children’s Menu provides fresh, hot school lunches to private school children, delivered daily based on parents' selections.
As the sole developer and UX designer, I transformed an inefficient, rigid Shopify-based system into a custom-built platform designed from the ground up with accessibility and future-proofing in mind.
Vices VIP Dashboard
Robust project and client management for corporate gifting
I architected, designed, and built a custom dashboard that elegantly handles both customer relations and project management duties with flexibility, style, and efficiency. This dashboard supports Vices VIP, a company that focuses on white-glove B2B bespoke gifting.
The dashboard powered over $1M in orders in its first year while being praised for its usability and ability to scale without adding additional staff.
Vices Gifting
Revolutionary e-commerce gifting experience
Vices Gifting is a bespoke gifting platform which allows shoppers to send gifts to multiple shipping addresses in a single shopping and checkout flow.
I worked closely with sales, operations, IT, and design teams to craft a user experience that would delight shoppers, resulting in tens of thousands of dollars in revenue in a short time.
Vices Checkout
A straightforward, accessible checkout form
Vices Checkout is a streamlined, database-driven, accessible checkout form optimized for fast conversions, designed to support any type of sales funnel with minimal setup. The new checkout flow enabled Vices to launch entire new sales funnels in days rather than weeks, with significantly reduced costs. The redesign led to a 50% increase in conversions and a reduction in cart abandonment.
Featured Projects
Chase Ultimate Rewards
The world's first accessible travel website
Target redperks Website
High-performing mobile-first landing page
Crew Quarters
Visionary scheduling and compliance for rural EMS operators
Hand-Coded Emails
About
UX & Product Philosophy
Your Website is Your Product is Your Brand
For many digital platforms, the experience your users have with your website and application comprises of 100% of their interaction with your brand. With digital products, everything your customers learn and intuit about your company, its offerings, value propositions, culture, and purpose is derived from the time they spend using your platform or app. For SaaS and SaaS business, UX is also a form of branding and marketing. This is why it’s imperative to have a well thought-out holistic approach to your online presence, and consistently use it as a tool for communicating your values.
Reduce Friction For Users
Your customers aren’t actually on your platform to experience it, they’re there to do something. They want results. I think it’s important to honor their time by providing consistently excellent experiences across your entire ecosystem of apps. They’re not typically using SaaS apps for the experience, but for the results. It’s a subtle distinction, but this having this forefront in my mind helps me remember the humanity in all my users. I see myself creating goodwill between brands and users by being a conduit for good things to happen in their actual lives, which generates loyalty and goodwill for your business.
Prioritize by Greatest Need
Understanding the highest priority items for both your business and your customers is vital. I always start by creating a hierarchy of needs for a system. The details always matter, but it’s important to focus on the key drivers for both your business and your users and solve challenges in a strategic way. This applies to both the user experience itself, as well as feature planning.
Web Development Experience
Since the early 2000s, I have helped clients launch web applications, stores, promotional websites, and email campaigns. I code by hand, happily employing industry-standard tools like CodeIgniter, Bootstrap, and even Wordpress. I've led and taught accessibility initiatives on high profile websites.
I can design, develop — and communicate about — fully responsive, consistent, and fun experiences. I know how to hand-code HTML, CSS, PHP, Javascript and jQuery to bring them to life. I’ve also worked in Angular, React, Ruby, and .Net. As a veteran freelancer, I’m comfortable communicating across technical and business teams.
I can also hand-code beautiful, pixel-perfect emails.
- First Product Launched
- 2005 (Still in Production)
- Roles Filled
- UX Developer, Product Director, Architect, Web Developer, "Web Guy," Front-End Developer, Interactive Developer, Designer, Web Designer, Email Developer
- Specialties
- Dashboards, SaaS, Digital Products, E-Commerce, Digital Transformation
- Wireframe Tools
- Sketch, Figma, XD, Illustrator, Pen & Paper
- Technical Skills
- Responsive Design, Accessibility/WCAG/ARIA/508, Version Control, Mac, Linux, Windows, SOAP, REST, XML, Internationalization, Agile Development
- Programming Languages
- PHP, HTML 5, SCSS, CSS3, Javascript (including React, jQuery, Angular), MySQL
Contact
Gus Watkins
UX, Digital Products, Digital Transformation
for SaaS, Dashboards & E-Commerce
- gus@guswatkins.com
- Phone
- (+1) 323 529 5110
- Online
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