Hi! I’m Jakub Żywuszko,
but you can just call me Jacob.
/ No worries if you can’t read my last name. It’s hard to read for locals too. /
A bit about me
I’ve been designing digital products for eight years, mostly for companies whose products are harder to explain than to build. Hosting, factoring, banking, internal enterprise tools.
The projects I take usually start the same way. The team says the UI needs work. Three weeks in, it turns out the UI is the least of it. The positioning is unresolved, the onboarding assumes knowledge users don’t have, and three departments describe the product in three different ways. That’s the work I’m good at and the work I enjoy.
I also taught interaction design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk for a few years. Students ask “why” about everything, which turned out to be excellent training for stakeholder meetings.
How I approach design
I hold a simple belief. Good design should reduce confusion, not add another layer of complexity.
Many digital products become difficult not because the underlying idea is weak, but because too many decisions remain unresolved. The product says one thing, the interface suggests another, the onboarding assumes too much, and users are left to connect the dots on their own.
My work starts with understanding where complexity comes from. Sometimes it is structural. Sometimes it is strategic. Sometimes it is hidden in language, hierarchy, flow, or expectations. Before moving into polished interfaces, I try to clarify the problem, the journey, and the role the experience should play.
I help teams move from unclear briefs, fragmented journeys, and scattered assumptions into something structured, testable, and easier to build.
Experience
Helping teams design complex digital products and brand-led experiences.
Service design methods applied to participatory and community-led projects
Positioning, acquisition flows, panel UX, and design system foundations. The company won a Forbes Diamond 2025 while this work was in progress.
Designing digital banking products with focus on clarity, trust, and consistency.
Interface and design-system work across digital products and client projects.
Designing digital experiences for Dutch and international brands.
Teaching interaction design, UX, and prototyping at the bachelor’s program.
Interface design and digital communication for start-ups and tech-driven products.
“His biggest strength isn’t any single skill. It’s the way he thinks before he designs. At dhosting, we were dealing with a real comprehension problem, users arriving confused about what they need, offers that overwhelmed instead of guided. Jakub didn’t start with screens. He started with the actual problem, the positioning, the communication logic, the full journey, and then translated that thinking into design that made decisions easier for users at every step. If you’re building a product where clarity, onboarding, and user trust actually matter, Jakub is someone worth reaching out to.”
Outside client work I mess around where design meets code and data.
Dataism
Exploration of creative coding
Kolab Foundation
Service design and UX for social-impact and innovation projects.