Design Point of View
Yuki is a product design leader with a background in cognitive science and economics, driven by a deep curiosity about how people think, decide, and act. Her work is grounded in understanding human behavior and helping teams translate that understanding into clear product directions and meaningful outcomes.
She coaches teams to solve complex problems through data-informed hypothesis-driven design, using research and decision science to reduce ambiguity and focus effort where it matters most. By translating business challenges into design opportunities, Yuki leads UX work across cross-functional teams to build alignment, strengthen decision-making, and deliver user experiences that support both users and the business.
Yuki believes design leaders are translators. They help organizations speak a shared language across business, technology, and human needs while embracing the reality that everyone designs. With that comes a responsibility: to guide decisions with clarity, empathy, and intent, especially as complexity and convergence accelerate.
“Convergence is happening faster than we can imagine, it’s the greatest time to be a designer because we can connect the bottom of the pyramid all the way to the top, to help build organizational capabilities to define the future.”
— Paul Neeley
How I Work
Design decisions are rarely about aesthetics alone, they’re about making informed choices under uncertainty. Yuki’s approach is grounded in hypothesis-driven design, which involves forming clear assumptions, testing them through research and data, and refining direction based on the evidence revealed.
This process helps teams move beyond opinions and intuition, creating shared clarity around why a solution exists, not just what it looks like. It’s how strategy becomes actionable, and how design earns trust as a decision-making partner.
Beyond the Work
When Yuki isn’t tethered to a desk, you’ll find her training in dance studios, playing board games with her kids, experimenting with new soup recipes, or reading about behavioral economics.
These moments outside of work aren’t separate from her design practice—they sharpen it. Curiosity, pattern recognition, and empathy are built through lived experience, not just professional ones.
“I’m deeply curious about how people make decisions. When we understand their context, constraints, and motivations, we can design experiences that feel easier, clearer, and more human to say yes to.”