John Pechacek
Senior UX Designer
I design in Figma, then turn those designs into live web prototypes people can test from anywhere. Working prototypes let studies test what clickable mockups can't fake, and let me fix problems between sessions instead of waiting for another round. My design team now tests the same way.
my work
Designing Buck List
Launched Buck List, a system for identifying and tracking individual bucks across trail camera images.
View case study →
Testing Hunt Log
A usability study I pushed for, run on a working coded prototype, to find out whether hunters would actually log their hunts.
View case study →
Designing for Pre-Readers
A suite of Pre-K Spanish reading activities for 3 to 5 year olds, designed with educational experts and tested with a native Spanish-speaking pre-reader.
View case study →
Fixing Pre-K Assessment Data
A short, playful experience that teaches 3 to 5 year olds to use a mouse or tablet before their first assessment, so the assessment measures what they know instead of their mouse skills.
View case study →about me
If there’s a thread through my career, it’s working the seams between disciplines. My background is in animation and motion design, which taught me not just how movement enhances an experience but when it gets in the way. I spent a year as a front-end engineer at Istation, building the kinds of designs I used to hand off, and I’ve never communicated with developers the same way since. The most interesting problems live in those seams, and they don’t get solved by anyone who stays on their own side.
I live in Birmingham, Alabama with my wife, two boys, and a dog. I play video games and tell myself it counts as research.