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Janette Sutton

Hello! 

I design digital experiences that make complex systems feel simple. Over 15+ years in UX and design, including 12+ years designing enterprise products, I’ve worked across data-intensive industries: commercial real estate, financial services, national security, and architecture.
 

Most recently at Main Digital, I led UX for a national security contractor of ~3,000 employees, redesigning their enterprise SharePoint intranet. My work spanned information architecture, usability research, stakeholder alignment, developer handoff, and launch planning.
 

Before that, I spent 11 years at CoStar Group as a Senior Product Designer on their flagship SaaS platform, a $1B+ annual revenue product used by 160,000+ daily users globally. I created responsive designs for CoStar’s mobile app when it launched (40% engagement increase in year one), and later was a core designer on the Cosmos design system, which served 40+ applications.

 

What I bring to every engagement:

→ Research-backed design decisions, not guesses

→ Fluency moving between stakeholder alignment and Figma

→ Experience translating complex, data-rich systems into intuitive interfaces

→ A track record of reducing rework by validating before development

 

I'm energized by hard problems, cross-functional teams, and products that shape people's daily work lives.

Sr Product Designer · UX Strategy · Design Systems · SaaS & Enterprise Platforms · SharePoint · Real Estate, Finance, Architecture, & National Security

Janette Sutton, headshot

Professional Experience

Main Digital, McLean, VA
Sr. Specialist (UX & Product Design)

June 2025 – May 2026

Lead UX designer on a year-long client engagement, embedded with a national security contractor of ~3,000 employees to redesign its enterprise SharePoint intranet.
 

  • Redesigned information architecture and content strategy around user tasks rather than org-chart ownership, consolidating navigation paths and improving findability in a high-compliance environment.
     

  • Conducted user research, a UX audit, card sorting, and usability testing to validate design decisions before development, reducing rework and increasing stakeholder confidence before build.
     

  • Built journey maps for individual-contributor and manager personas across onboarding, routine tasks, performance management, learning and growth, and collaboration.
     

  • Facilitated alignment sessions with diverse stakeholder groups (IT, communications, and executive leadership), accelerating approvals and keeping delivery on schedule.
     

  • Authored design system documentation and governance standards (component specifications, accessibility guidelines, and style guides) published to the client's SharePoint site to support long-term governance and multi-team adoption.
     

  • Authored a comprehensive launch plan covering IT migration, redirect strategy, pre-launch communications, and a post-launch survey framework to measure adoption and impact.
     

  • Audited the Power BI reporting environment and delivered recommendations for improvement.

CoStar Group, Washington, DC
Senior Product Designer

April 2013 – October 2024

Lead designer for CoStar Suite, CoStar's flagship SaaS platform ($1B+ annual revenue, 160,000+ daily users), designing across 40+ applications.
 

  • Spearheaded user experience research initiatives that improved client satisfaction scores by 30% through targeted usability studies.
     

  • Reduced design and engineering cycle time by 25% by embedding UX processes into Agile workflows and standardizing patterns and tokenized values through design system infrastructure.
     

  • Core designer on the team that built and scaled Cosmos, a design system serving 40+ product applications: component architecture, design tokens (typography, spacing, color, interaction patterns), documentation standards, and contribution models that let product teams ship consistently at scale.
     

  • Created responsive designs for CoStar’s mobile application, increasing mobile engagement by 40% within the first year of launch.
     

  • Presented product features and enhancements for executive leadership and large investment groups, enhancing stakeholder confidence and support for new initiatives.
     

  • Designed for both sides of multifamily: the Lease Roll feature in CoStar Lender for lenders, and on Apartments.com, helped rebuild the site after CoStar's acquisition and designed the commute-mapping feature for renters. 
     

  • Mentored interns and junior designers through design reviews; created the team's file structures and naming conventions and onboarded every new product hire into those standards.

Independent Creative Consultant
Senior Graphic & UX Designer

June 2012 – April 2013

Delivered user experience and visual design solutions for diverse clients, enhancing usability and visual appeal across mobile and web platforms.
 

  • Delivered high-impact event components under tight deadlines, boosting brand presence by 35% at a major annual event; recognized for creativity, efficiency, and precision, resulting in an increase in client satisfaction.
     

  • Developed branding and print collateral for multiple clients, resulting in increased brand recognition and engagement.

Perkins Eastman
Web Manager

February 2010 – June 2012

Conducted user research and redesigned the website and graphics, increasing user retention by 20%.
 

  • Successfully led the implementation of a new web content platform, including a Content Management System that improved content delivery efficiency by 50%.
     

  • Secured and managed a $20K budget for a website refresh, improving user experience by 45% through strategic planning, optimized information architecture, and enhanced visual design.

Skills & Tools

Figma, FigJam, Sketch, Zeplin, InVision, Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign), SharePoint, Power BI, Microsoft 365 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, Outlook), Confluence, Jira, UXtweak, Claude and Claude Design

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