Charbel Jamous
[ 001 / Identity ]

Portrait of Charbel Jamous

A product designer with twenty years of digital and bilingual design, now focused on AI products: conversational and voice interfaces, and AI native design to code workflows. I prototype in code with Claude Code and Figma AI. Currently at MediaRadar.

Now
MediaRadar
Field
AI · Product
Since
2003
[ 002 ]

The story

I was born and raised in Lebanon. I studied computer engineering with an emphasis on what was then called multimedia. Digital media, in the language of 1998, when the web was still primitive and nobody quite knew what it would become.

Photoshop struck me first. Then the web itself: building page layouts, experimenting with HTML, animating things in Flash back when that felt like magic. During university I was lucky enough to work part time in graphic design studios in Beirut, where AUB students, the best in the country, taught me the fundamentals. I never stopped experimenting.

That curiosity carried me up through the agency world, eventually to creative director, the face who pitched the ideas and the concepts. But the web was always my dearest thing. When the terms “UI” and “UX” began to surface, I found I had quietly been doing that work for years. I fit there naturally, and I started to enjoy building experiences even more than building images.

In 2016 I earned my NN/g certification and went out on my own. Then Lebanon turned upside down, and my wife and I began a new chapter in Canada with our two boys, where I joined MediaRadar and grew into product design.

The last two years changed how I work. I now design AI products: conversational and voice interfaces, and the small decisions that decide whether people trust them. How an answer shows its sources. How a system says it is listening, thinking, or unsure. I prototype directly in code with Claude Code and Figma AI, so a design decision and a working screen sit one step apart. The craft is the same. The loop got faster.

Twenty some years in, the thing that keeps me going is simple. I love when something looks right, and behaves right, on every screen. That’s still the part I chase.

20+
Years designing
3
Languages
8
Countries
Top 3%
Toptal designers
[ 003 ]

Experience.

  1. 01Sept 2024 — present
    User Experience Designer
    MediaRadar · Canada
    Leading UX for an advertising intelligence platform and building its new platform with AI native design: a token based Figma system wired to Claude Code through MCP, ideas prototyped in code, accessibility tested against WCAG 2.1 AA.
  2. 022024 — present
    Independent AI Product Designer
    Freelance · Canada · UAE · KSA
    Designing AI and conversational products end to end for enterprise and startup clients, from problem framing to coded prototype. Voice interfaces, source transparency, and visible system states.
  3. 032016 — 2024
    User Experience & Product Designer
    Toptal · Independent
    Top 3% Toptal designer delivering UX for startups and enterprises worldwide. User research, multilingual design, prototyping, and multi step enterprise workflows for banks and financial platforms.
  4. 042012 — 2019
    Co-founder & Product Designer
    Lebtivity.com
    Set product vision and design for Lebanon's go to event discovery platform.
  5. 052013 — 2016
    Design Director
    Webedia Arabia · UAE
    Led digital experiences for Arabic publications and high profile clients including L'Oréal and Nestlé.
  6. 062011 — 2013
    Design Director
    Ethos Interactive · KSA
    Directed digital campaigns and user journeys for Gulf region clients.
  7. 072010 — 2011
    Design Director
    Webedia Arabia · Lebanon
    Led a multidisciplinary team delivering digital marketing initiatives.
  8. 082007 — 2010
    Design Director
    Tribal DDB · Lebanon
    Managed the creative process end to end for regional digital campaigns.
  9. 092000 — 2007
    Earlier roles
    Right Click · Outwalk · Netways (Beirut)
    Where I learned the craft, from junior web designer to senior.
Teaching
  • Part time Instructor
    Notre Dame University, Lebanon
    2016 — 2019
    UI/UX curriculum.
  • Part time Instructor
    Antonine University, Lebanon
    2020 — 2021
    UI/UX design.
[ 004 ]

Selected work.

A handful of engagements I led over the years, from bilingual institutional platforms to recent AI products. Most of this work lives inside enterprise systems and isn’t public, so descriptions stay brief out of respect for client confidentiality.

  • 01
    AI knowledge assistant (UAE)
    Redesign of a conversational assistant with live voice: listening, real time transcription, sources, and usage credits.
  • 02
    AI simulation platform
    Product experience lead on an early stage AI simulation product, with the next concepts prototyped in code.
  • 03
    Cortex
    An AI assisted design and prototyping practice run directly in the codebase.
  • 04
    Qatar National Library
    UX for the institution's bilingual digital experience.
  • 05
    SAB Bank (Riyadh)
    Personal finance management product for retail banking customers.
  • 06
    UAE Cyber Security Council
    Bilingual web platform for the federal authority.
  • 07
    Bluering
    Enterprise software UX for financial and credit workflows.
[ 005 ]

Details.

AI practice
Conversational and voice interfaces, source and reasoning transparency, designing for AI uncertainty and failure. Prototyping in code with Claude Code, Figma AI and MCP, Next.js, React, Tailwind, and Framer Motion.
Certification
NN/g UX Certification (UXC #1012951), 2016
Education
BE in Multimedia Engineering, Université Antonine, Lebanon (1998 — 2003)
Languages
Arabic (mother tongue), English & French (fluent)
Speaking
Guest speaker, American University of Beirut (2017 — 2018); UX mentor, Google Beirut Design Sprint (2015); speaker, Coworking 961 Beirut (2014).