About
Hi, I'm Jon.
I'm Jon Haines, a design leader with over a decade of experience turning complicated, high-stakes systems into products people actually trust. I love design because at its best, it's translation. Taking something complicated and making it make sense to someone who wasn't in the room when it got complicated in the first place. I'm comfortable in the language of access control and access reviews, RBAC, least privilege, controls, because regulated products need to be explainable to the people who have to sign off on them, not just work.
That's the instinct that 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. I still love the craft itself too. I get a kick out of playing with tools like Rive, finding new ways to make an idea move instead of just sit there on a page.
Outside of work, 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.
Diving the Great Barrier Reef
Berlin Marathon
Somewhere far from here
By the numbers
Tools & how I work
A few of the tools I use most. AI is a genuine part of how I work now, not a novelty. I got into AI-assisted design and prototyping early, and I use it every day: pressure-testing a structure before I commit to it, turning a messy idea into something clickable, drafting and cutting copy, building prototypes that used to take a week. I lead the designers I work with to use it the same way, as a faster route to a real decision, not a substitute for making one.