Refined judgment
I help organizations turn complex product challenges into confident decisions — reducing risk, accelerating validation, and ensuring teams invest in solutions that deliver measurable business value.
$150B+
in annual sales supported
2,000+
stores using systems I designed
53 days2 min
to onboard a product bundle
4 mo1 wk
from idea to validated prototype
Brands I've designed for
Why judgment
AI can produce a hundred screens before lunch. What it can't do yet is tell you which one your users will trust, which one your engineers can ship, and which one quietly creates risk you'll pay for next year. That call is still human, and it's the one I've been making for 25 years.
Judgment under pressure is a discipline, not a personality trait. As a helicopter pilot trained in aeronautical decision-making, I treat design the same way.
01
Frame the real problem. Twelve siloed tools weren't twelve problems; the silos were the problem.
02
Remove risk before it costs a sprint, like an AI evaluation framework that tackles hallucination risk before rollout.
03
Validate with real users and real data months ahead of the usual schedule.
Range & scale
Founder
Paulownia (UX consultancy) · Inner Sea Journeys · Upbeatify
Emerging tech
Ambrosus (blockchain food traceability)
Agency
MRM//McCann · Bitovi · Fusion Alliance · Tec-Ed
Mid-size
ProQuest · Safari Books Online · Owens Corning
Enterprise
Apple · Coca-Cola · Ford · The Home Depot · General Motors
I've built and grown my own businesses too, so I know the founder's side: limited runway, every decision personal. Pattern recognition across 20+ organizations lets me see the failure mode before the team does.
Selected work
01 · Business impact
53 days2 minutes
The challenge: onboarding a product bundle took 53 days of handoffs before it could start earning.
The judgment call: collapse the process into a single one-drawer interface instead of adding more workflow steps.
The result: tied to a nine-figure annual profit opportunity.
02 · Speed under urgency
~1 week~1 minute
The challenge: before a hurricane, working out what stores needed, what inventory was available, and who to call took about a week and 100+ emails. A team of three had two months to fix it.
The judgment call: map the handful of decisions the response team actually makes, and build only for those, in a real-time Tableau dashboard.
The result: a week-long email chain became a one-minute lookup, delivered in two months.
03 · Delivering under constraints · AI
~90% faster
The challenge: price recommendations arrived as Excel output with no explanation, and a hard deadline tied to a $100M+ target left no time for rounds of static mockups.
The judgment call: skip static designs, build in code on real data, and review the live app weekly with data science, product, engineering, and executives in one room.
The result: design life cycle cut by about 90%. Merchants can see why a price change is recommended before they approve it.
04 · Changing how teams work
4 months1 week
The challenge: on a forecasting platform spanning 2,000+ stores and 8M+ SKUs, testing a design idea meant waiting about four months for engineering to build it.
The judgment call: change the order: frame the problem with AI, prototype real logic on live data, and only then polish in Figma. Keep planners in control and the model's reasoning visible.
The result: 93% faster design-to-validation. I documented the workflow and presented it to our UI forum so other designers could adopt it.
05 · Cross-team collaboration
61 voices · 3 weeks
The challenge: a high-stakes initiative needed discovery across eight merchandising, planning, and operations teams on a three-week clock.
The judgment call: run interviews and synthesis in parallel, with same-day write-ups, AI-assisted transcription and coding, and prototype updates between sessions.
The result: with two teammates, 35 interviews with 61 participants, delivered on time with no trade-off between speed and rigor. Recognized by product leadership.
Earlier work
ProQuest — revived an $80M platform, localized into 9 languages
Safari Books Online — full accessibility compliance with zero visible redesign
Ford — end-to-end usability study in 22 days
Ford — global parts portal tracking ~20,000 parts per vehicle
Industries
Where I've worked
New directions
Industries in motion, where thoughtful design decides whether people adopt what's possible.
Adaptive tutors and training that respond to each learner's pace.
Bridge: ProQuest, Safari Books Online, Elsevier, CourseSmart; accessibility at scale
Turning wearable and AI health data into clear, empowering views.
Bridge: J&J / Ethicon, Elsevier medical, forecasting dashboards, Inner Sea Journeys
Control rooms and apps for automated, community-scale food production.
Bridge: retail supply chain forecasting, Ambrosus food traceability, homesteading
Making voting and resource-sharing feel as simple as good SaaS.
Bridge: Ambrosus blockchain, financial services, enterprise design systems
How I work
1
Find the decision that actually matters through discovery like user testing and competitive analysis, and stop the wrong project early.
2
Working prototypes and agent workflows built on real data, so users react to grounded reality, not static mockups.
3
Evidence from analytics, research, and data that makes go/no-go obvious.
Tools I use today: Figma, Claude + VS Code/Cursor, React, SQL (Google BigQuery, Supabase), Python, Tableau, Pendo, and frontier AI models.
Work with me
For hiring teams
You need a designer who can walk into ambiguity, make the call, and bring product, engineering and leadership along. I shorten feedback loops so your team builds the right thing the first time.
Let's discuss how I can help your team make smarter product decisions and deliver results faster.
For companies
Industries are shifting, and AI is opening doors that didn't exist two years ago. I help companies step through them with confidence — with a working prototype, a clear AI experience strategy, and evidence your team can act on.
Let's identify your biggest product challenge and explore how to validate the right solution before making a major investment.
Every engagement is scoped to your goals.
We'll talk budget on the first call.
For individuals
Building something of your own? I've been a founder too, so I know what it's like to make every call yourself. Get senior UX and AI help without contracts or procurement — just a conversation and a clear plan.
Let's review your app, site, or product idea to find where AI makes sense, and where it doesn't.
Simple and personal — pay by Venmo or PayPal.
In their words
“[Hanna has] built a well-earned reputation as one of the strongest technical practitioners in our UX team… [She excels] at leveraging technology and AI to accelerate research, prototyping, and problem-solving. This is a genuine differentiator.”
Gabriel Cavalheiro, UX Senior Principal (direct manager), The Home Depot“She didn't just present outcomes, she shared her approach. Her ability to break down complex, evolving topics into clear, actionable insights made the session both inspiring and immediately useful.”
Alexis Lowe, UX Manager, QuoteCenter, The Home DepotHanna went above and beyond to give back to the UX community by investing her time and expertise with the QuoteCenter UX team. Despite a busy schedule, she delivered a thoughtfully crafted presentation that showcased how she is integrating AI into her core UX practices.
What truly set Hanna apart was her willingness to go deeper—she didn't just present outcomes, she shared her approach. She walked the team through how she evaluates emerging AI tools, the channels she uses to stay current on industry trends, and how to align the right technologies to specific use cases. Her ability to break down complex, evolving topics into clear, actionable insights made the session both inspiring and immediately useful.
Hanna's passion for learning and her commitment to elevating others exemplify what it means to build strong relationships. She empowered our team to better understand what's possible with AI and how to confidently begin incorporating it into our own work. Thank you, Hanna, for your mentorship, generosity, and for strengthening the design community at The Home Depot.
“In just three weeks, [Hanna, Elizabeth, and Claire] coordinated and executed 35 interviews spanning 61 participants… high-quality discovery delivered on time, with no trade-off between speed and rigor.”
Jamie Raines, Senior Manager, Product Management, The Home DepotHuge thanks to Hanna, Elizabeth, and Claire for taking on a high-stakes rapid research and synthesis mission in support of [an assortment and space planning initiative]. In just three weeks, they coordinated and executed 35 interviews spanning 61 participants across [merchandising, planning, operations, and space planning teams].
This mission required intense orchestration: tightly synchronized calendars, interview room blocks across the [support center], recordings, same-day write-ups, rescheduling Tetris, leadership pulse checks, and iterative prototype updates between sessions.
The outcome: high-quality discovery delivered on time, with no trade-off between speed and rigor—even under significant timeline pressure. Mission accomplished. Great job, team!
Peers and collaborators
“Hanna asks incredibly thoughtful questions that not only reveal the bigger picture but also uncover important nuances others might miss.”
“Her ability to balance user needs with technical feasibility made her an invaluable bridge between design and development.”
“Hanna is a rare breed… This power of observation helps her to deliver the appropriate amount of detail in every engagement.”
Licensed helicopter pilot, fluent Polish speaker, homesteader and relentless learner. Founder of Inner Sea Journeys and co-founder of Upbeatify.
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