Yes, this is my "About me" photo. I love sushi.

Hi, I'm Helen.

I design products around how people actually think — which I learned isn't one thing. It's different for everyone.

The moment it clicked

In college, my immigrant parents got an important file from a family member through iMessage. They asked me to help them forward it to another family member. Simple, right?

It wasn't.

Long-press, the three-dot menu, knowing which tap does what was not obvious to them. It hit me: none of that was intuitive to them. It was familiar to me, to those that were tech-savvy.

That stuck with me. The gestures I take for granted are learned, not universal. When an interface assumes otherwise, it doesn’t fail the person: it fails the design (Apple realized this when they launched Assistive Access in iOS 17).

That gap between how a product expects people to think and how they actually do is what I’ve wanted to close ever since. I design to bridge that gap.

Why UX/product design

Honestly, I'd always been pulled in 2 directions. I loved the psychology of: why do people do what they do? I also loved the aesthetic of it: how things look, feel, and move. For a while those felt like two separate interests.

UX/product design is where it became 1 job: designing for how people actually think and making it beautiful while I'm at it.

How I got here

  1. 2026
    Product Designer • Almostbroke Studio
    Designing end-to-end product experiences for a B2B SaaS freight platform
  2. 2025-2026
    UX Moderator • Apple
    Back to where I started: moderating 50+ research sessions on emerging spatial computing platform.
  3. 2025
    Product Designer • Job Marketplace
    Designed a full onboarding system from scratch.
  4. 2024
    UX/UI Designer • Nkomar
    Designed B2B pharmacy operator tools and a consumer medicine storefront.
  5. 2023
    Lead Product Design Intern • Lookr
    My first time leading a team of interns from 0 to 1 for an AI-inspo photo app! :)
  6. 2023
    UX/UI Student
    350+ hours of hands-on course material, with 1:1 expert mentor oversight, and completion of 2 in-depth portfolio projects.Description
  7. 2022
    User Research Intern • Tech4Good
    Found solutions for barriers to better student internship processes and opportunities between companies and high schools/universities.
  8. COLLEGE
    Cognitive science + psychology, then UX classes
    Classes that connected my 2 loves to an actual career. I leaned into the research side first, I loved thinking about users.

A little more, for the curious

When I'm not designing, I like to research and hyper-focus on these topics:

Fitness

Researching fitness routines based on actual research: tracking lifts, food, and rest times down to a science…

Makeup Techniques

Figuring out how to use makeup placements specifically for my own face shape to bring out my best features and visual balance.

Skincare Formulations

Researching skincare ingredients and formulations to test and find the best products that works for specific skin types and concerns.

Data-driven Styling

Analyzing proportions and color theory to map out the perfect clothing cuts and palettes for specific body types and features.