Who

Photograph of James looking coyly at the camera, he’s wearing a light grey hoodie, a purple Oakland Athletics baseball cap and matching 1/2 inch gauge tunnels. His beard is well groomed and grey and white.

James Mathias

Designer/Developer, he/him

I love designing systems & processes that get people from idea to product faster. A design/developer hybrid who specializes in systemizing design processes and interfaces.

My path Permalink

tl;dr: Before the web I fixed cars. I’m much happier now.

ls;l: In the mid-nineties I was rotating tires, repairing flats, and fixing cars.

I was miserable.

I went into the auto industry by way of an insatiable desire to learn. Cars had a lot of history and interesting things to teach me, but as I quickly discovered, it was a finite reservoir.

In early 1994 I met the web.

In 1998 I got my first computer, since then I’ve been in a constant state of learning. Within two years I turned my “hobby” into a full-time job. For the last twenty-three years, I’ve worked on a variety of projects with scales from millions of users to a just handful. Each project offering me a new learning experience and challenge.

My work truly sparks joy.

Photograph of a younger James doing work by street light, the screen is vivid but dark. A bright street light illuminates James typing on a laptop while sitting in an office chair outside surrounded by greenery
“Midnight Oil” – ©2009

Currently, I’m working with Augmentir to improve their Design game.

Previously, I worked with Mozilla, RiteAid/Elixir, and AutoZone® on their Enterprise Design Systems; EllisLab improving content management; Amazon in the Books Org; A start up or two; An amazing agency in Nashville; And I even ran a tiny studio for seven years.

Specifically Permalink

I’m a “Principal Designer” for the Augmentir development team, working on building the design systems for the “runtime” and “IDE” applications. Which means I spend a lot of time and effort on thinking about, organizing, explaining, and cataloging design and development decisions into easy to implement and use documentation and artifacts.

Design System work is the building of bridges across silos, where each silo thinks they are/should be the source of truth, but what we are building is a complex mesh of shared responsibility and that requires cross-functional community.

Source @artisticoutlaw

The rest of my work is designing/building screens, and consulting on user experience outcomes.

Process & Approach Permalink

I draw a lot of rectangles, write a lot of notes in the margins, and I explain and defend every decision. In all seriousness, learn about my process.

Other hats & interests? Permalink

A dedicated and practicing father of four, and husband of one.

I paint miniatures, it’s my favorite thing.

I love yo-yos. If you want I can show you a trick or two.

A lifelong gamer. I collect and enjoy playing a variety of games. I’m an omni-gamer from consoles to table-top, role-playing, and more. And yes, I love other types of entertainment media as well.

I love to draw, and write fiction. Both as integral to my identity as my Social Security Number and last name.