I'm Jon Haines, a design leader with over a decade of experience turning complicated, high-stakes systems into products people actually trust.

How I got here

I came to design from journalism. The job there was taking something complicated and making it make sense to someone who wasn't in the room when it got complicated. That turned out to be most of product design, and it's still how I work: find the story, cut whatever doesn't serve it.

I'm comfortable in the language of access control, access reviews, RBAC, least privilege, and controls, because regulated products need to be explainable to the people who have to sign off on them, not just work.

Teaching

That same instinct pulled me toward teaching. I've spent years in the classroom, online, and one on one with individual designers, helping people turn complicated ideas into something they can actually explain to someone else. More than 1,000 hours of it so far.

The craft

I still love the craft itself. I get a kick out of tools like Rive, and finding new ways to make an idea move instead of just sitting there on a page. With AI in the loop, I now build those ideas myself, all the way to working software.

Off the clock

I live in Brooklyn with my wife and our two kids. I play basketball, hike on weekends, love to travel, and have run a handful of marathons over the years.