Product design leader / Software products / Cleveland, OH
Crafting *clarity* from *complexity.*
I'm David Haney. I help teams create and modernize software through product strategy, research, design leadership, and thoughtful execution.
01 / Portfolio
Software products,
made clearer.
Insights First
An AI co-pilot that turns a wall of dashboards into a few clear decisions. Read the case study ↗
Ernst & Young License Manager
Helped LCvista land EY, its largest client. Read the case study ↗
Wagestream at Frontline
Getting substitute teachers paid sooner, and a 2023 EdTech Breakthrough Award. Read the case study ↗
Disney Rewards Card at Chase
Making a Disney rewards card easy to service for Chase call centers. Read the case study ↗
02 / Philosophy
I've spent my career helping people understand complicated things.
My journey began as an illustrator creating storyboards for New York advertising agencies before evolving into creative direction, UX leadership, and enterprise product design.
Although the medium has changed, the goal has remained the same: create experiences that communicate clearly, solve meaningful problems, and continue helping people long after the work is finished.
Twelve things shouting at once.
This is what I do all day: twelve things competing for one person's attention, sorted into one clear path. Drag the dial.
03 / Design with and for AI
AI changes how we design. Not why.
I use AI throughout my own process, and I treat what it produces as a starting point to question, not an answer. I help teams in two ways.
Designing with AI
Using AI in how your team designs: making sense of research, exploring directions, and prototyping sooner, with the habits and guardrails that keep quality high.
Designing for AI
Designing the AI inside your product: setting expectations, earning trust, handling mistakes gracefully, and keeping people in control.
Workshops / Team playbooks / Embedded design leadership
Talk about AI for your team ↗The designer stays in the loop
- 01Frame
Define the problem and the people before touching a tool.
- 02Explore
Use AI to widen the field: directions, variants, and prototypes, quickly.
- 03Judge
Bring craft, research, and taste. This is the part no tool does for you.
- 04Ship
Refine, test with real users, and hand off something engineers can build.
04 / Beyond the screen
Before pixels, there was ink.
Pencil to color Pencil
A portrait of my son Luke, from the first pencil lines to the finished painting. Scroll, or drag the line.
I thought the idea was terrible. I was wrong.
Working alongside comic book legend Ken Bald, I helped land and bring the original Aflac Duck campaign to life. It taught me a lesson that’s shaped my career ever since: great creative work isn’t always about having the best idea. It’s about keeping an open mind, trusting the process, and helping an unexpected idea become something extraordinary.
