About Me
About Me
About Me
I’m Harleen, a product designer with a background in journalism, which shapes how I think about clarity and communication in design.
Lately I've been reaching for AI more and more while I work. Not because I have it all figured out, but because it helps me think through things I'd otherwise get stuck on. I'm getting the hang of it.
I’m Harleen, a product designer with a background in journalism, which shapes how I think about clarity and communication in design.
Lately I've been reaching for AI more and more while I work. Not because I have it all figured out, but because it helps me think through things I'd otherwise get stuck on. I'm getting the hang of it.
I’m Harleen, a product designer with a background in journalism, which shapes how I think about clarity and communication in design.
Lately I've been reaching for AI more and more while I work. Not because I have it all figured out, but because it helps me think through things I'd otherwise get stuck on. I'm getting the hang of it.
Experience
Experience
Shyftlabs · Product Designer
2024 — Present
SaaS across healthcare and out-of-home advertising. Designed a CMS and booking management system for hospitals. Worked on a DOOH platform focused on edge cases and failure states. Collaborated with engineers throughout.
Shyftlabs · Product Designer
2024 — Present
SaaS across healthcare and out-of-home advertising. Designed a CMS and booking management system for hospitals. Worked on a DOOH platform focused on edge cases and failure states. Collaborated with engineers throughout.
Studio Lama · Product Designer
2023 — 2024
Early-stage products and brand-led experiences. Worked directly with founders, moved fast, and learned to care about what actually ships.
Studio Lama · Product Designer
2023 — 2024
Early-stage products and brand-led experiences. Worked directly with founders, moved fast, and learned to care about what actually ships.
Experience
Shyftlabs · Product Designer
2024 — Present
SaaS across healthcare and out-of-home advertising. Designed a CMS and booking management system for hospitals. Worked on a DOOH platform focused on edge cases and failure states. Collaborated with engineers throughout.
Studio Lama · Product Designer
2023 — 2024
Early-stage products and brand-led experiences. Worked directly with founders, moved fast, and learned to care about what actually ships.
What I work on
At Shyftlabs, I work on system-heavy products:
DOOH platform where errors show up on public screens
Configuration tools that map backend data to booking flows
Internal products where decisions rely more on system logic than user access
What I work on
At Shyftlabs, I work on system-heavy products:
DOOH platform where errors show up on public screens
Configuration tools that map backend data to booking flows
Internal products where decisions rely more on system logic than user access
What I work on
At Shyftlabs, I work on system-heavy products:
DOOH platform where errors show up on public screens
Configuration tools that map backend data to booking flows
Internal products where decisions rely more on system logic than user access
How I think
I start by understanding the industry before I understand the problem. Who uses this, what pressures they're under, what they can't afford to get wrong. The design comes after that.
How I think
I start by understanding the industry before I understand the problem. Who uses this, what pressures they're under, what they can't afford to get wrong. The design comes after that.
How I think
I start by understanding the industry before I understand the problem. Who uses this, what pressures they're under, what they can't afford to get wrong. The design comes after that.
How I learn
Mostly from the people around me. I watch how colleagues research, how they break down a problem, how they present a decision. I pick things up by being around people who are better at things than I am.
How I learn
Mostly from the people around me. I watch how colleagues research, how they break down a problem, how they present a decision. I pick things up by being around people who are better at things than I am.
How I learn
Mostly from the people around me. I watch how colleagues research, how they break down a problem, how they present a decision. I pick things up by being around people who are better at things than I am.
How I think
(and how AI fits into it)
How I think
(and how AI fits into it)
How I think
(and how AI fits into it)
01. I make sense of incomplete information
We rarely get a clean brief. Most of the time it's a dump of ideas and I have to figure out what the actual problem is before anything else.
01. I don’t start with answers
Most of the time I’m just trying to understand what’s actually going on beneath the surface. I’ll use AI to explore directions or break things down, but I don’t take it at face value — I still need it to make sense to me.
01. I don’t start with answers
Most of the time I’m just trying to understand what’s actually going on beneath the surface. I’ll use AI to explore directions or break things down, but I don’t take it at face value — I still need it to make sense to me.
02. I ask until I understand
Configuration and scheduling logic didn't click for me immediately. I had to ask a lot of questions — to engineers, to managers — until the system makes sense. That's still how I work.
02. I don’t start with answers
Most of the time I’m just trying to understand what’s actually going on beneath the surface. I’ll use AI to explore directions or break things down, but I don’t take it at face value — I still need it to make sense to me.
02. I don’t start with answers
Most of the time I’m just trying to understand what’s actually going on beneath the surface. I’ll use AI to explore directions or break things down, but I don’t take it at face value — I still need it to make sense to me.
03. I understand how development works
Not because I code, but because I've spent enough time around engineers to know what's buildable, what's painful to implement, and where my designs might create problems later.
03. I don’t start with answers
Most of the time I’m just trying to understand what’s actually going on beneath the surface. I’ll use AI to explore directions or break things down, but I don’t take it at face value — I still need it to make sense to me.
03. I don’t start with answers
Most of the time I’m just trying to understand what’s actually going on beneath the surface. I’ll use AI to explore directions or break things down, but I don’t take it at face value — I still need it to make sense to me.
04. I validate before I commit
When I'm not sure about a direction, I bring it to my team or manager early. Better to pressure-test an idea at the start than to go far down the wrong path.
04. I don’t start with answers
Most of the time I’m just trying to understand what’s actually going on beneath the surface. I’ll use AI to explore directions or break things down, but I don’t take it at face value — I still need it to make sense to me.
04. I don’t start with answers
Most of the time I’m just trying to understand what’s actually going on beneath the surface. I’ll use AI to explore directions or break things down, but I don’t take it at face value — I still need it to make sense to me.