Jordan Mak

I design products by thinking like the humans who will use them. My journey into product design began with a realization: the best products don’t just work for us—they understand us. I’ve always been fascinated by how humans interact with technology, especially when those experiences fall short. That curiosity led me to study cognitive science and computer programming, where I learned to break down human behavior and build tools with purpose. Today, I apply an interdisciplinary approach to design products that feel intuitive, solve real problems, and create measurable value. My background in design, business, and technology allows me to connect dots across UX research, design, engineering, and strategy. I see relationships across systems that others might miss, recognizing patterns that help me ask better questions and build more thoughtfully. This allows me to shape solutions that are both meaningful and usable by balancing user insights, design intent, technical constraints, and business goals. I care deeply about how things come across, because how something feels is just as important as how it looks and works. I pay attention to the details most people overlook, believing small decisions can make big impacts. I’m driven to create products that feel intuitive and helpful—designed with a deep understanding of how humans think, feel, and interact.

Projects

Airbnb Flex — Product & Business Strategy (IDSN 525 @ USC)

• Sized a $47B opening in the flexible-workspace market and proposed a P2P Airbnb vertical targeting the underserved suburban demand left stranded by WeWork’s collapse. • Validated the gap against incumbent operators and post-WeWork market dynamics, defining where a P2P model wins against lease-heavy competitors. • Built the full business case (SWOT, Porter’s Five Forces, competitive matrix, segmentation, revenue model, GTM) and modeled a two-phase rollout with financial projections.See More

Spotify Content Discovery Hub — UX Research & Product Design (CSCI 499 @ USC)

• Led a full UX research study on content discovery using heuristic evaluation, a 27-person survey, and moderated user studies to isolate friction in navigation and discovery. • Defined and designed a Content Discovery Hub consolidating AI-driven features into a single destination, cutting discovery time by 45% and increasing content satisfaction by 36%. • Designed and tested daylist tooltips that measurably sharpened how users described their listening habits, with descriptions running twice as long and using 2–3x more descriptors.See More

Work History

Product Designer (Contract)

Shrtlst• Owned Passport from concept to interactive prototype, a 0 → 1 trip itinerary central to Shrtlst’s value proposition that unifies a traveler’s schedule, transportation, lodging, and dining into one view. • Defined the problem, information hierarchy, and core user flow. • Partnered with the product manager and engineers to write requirements, map user journeys, and align on scope and technical feasibility before and during build. • Reworked sign-up and checkout flows and introduced a gated membership model to surface savings earlier in the funnel and drive paid conversion. • Defined how user preferences, behavioral signals, and platforms trends should combine to personalize onboarding and surface relevant content to each user. • Audited 50+ screens and 200+ components, flagging inconsistencies, accessibility gaps, and brand drift, and turned the findings into a prioritized backlog adopted into the design system.

Design Strategist (Contract)

EYMay 2025 - Dec 2025 • 8 mos• Authored a market report on next-generation innovation and collaboration spaces, integrating case studies plus competitor and SWOT analyses to guide client investment decisions. • Ran ethnographic and human-centered research and translated it into differentiation recommendations tied to client business outcomes.

UI/UX Designer

USC Viterbi School of EngineeringAug 2023 - Dec 2025 • 2 yrs 5 mos• Designed a new events calendar integrated with RSS feeds using existing design system as well as new components to drive attendance through easier navigation and discovery. • Led usability testing and accessibility research that fed a system-wide design refresh aligned with WCAG standards. • Produced marketing collateral, brand systems, infographics, and presentations for campus initiatives, events, admissions, and executive leadership at a top engineering school.

Internal Systems Lead

Arris Build GroupJun 2023 - Dec 2025 • 2 yrs 7 mos• Sole owner of an internal operations platform used daily by 20+ people, unifying sales, accounting, HR, and project workflows into one cross-functional source of truth. • Ran discovery with every department, translated their pain points into requirements, and designed the data model, workflows, automations, and views behind them. • Staged the rollout, tested with real users, and iterated on structure and automation before launch to drive adoption across teams.

Education

University of Southern California

Master of Science (M.S.), Integrated Design, Business and TechnologyAug 2024 - Dec 2025

University of Southern California

Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Cognitive Science (Minor in Computer Programming)Aug 2021 - May 2025

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