Hi, I'm Nancy Miller

Remove friction before adding features

The most impactful design decisions I've made were subtractive. I start every brief by asking what the user has to do that they shouldn't. The Yahoo Ads Tables redesign removed 6 data columns before adding a single new one. The metrics proved the edit.

Trust is the most important design surface

Especially in AI products. Users don't need a perfect output - they need to understand and control it. I've rejected technically-superior features because they removed user agency. Confidence builds retention. Control builds confidence.

Research grounds every decision

Not as a formality - as a discipline. When I run 14 user interviews and find that high time-on-screen is friction, not engagement, that insight reframes the entire project. I don't design from assumptions. I design from what I observe, then I measure whether I was right.

Design leadership means owning the hard calls

I've delayed launches, cut well-built features, and pushed back on product scope - when the evidence supported it. Leadership isn't consensus. It's making a specific call, documenting why, and standing by it through the numbers. Then updating when the numbers say you were wrong.

Ship to learn - but only when it's ready

Velocity matters. But shipping something that damages trust costs more than the delay you avoided. The bar isn't perfection - it's confidence that the user's experience of the edge cases won't undo everything the core experience built. I hold that bar and protect it.

"Design thinking isn't a phase you complete. It's a practice you sustain. Every user conversation, every failed prototype, every metric after launch is part of the same continuous loop. AI has compressed that loop in ways I find genuinely exciting - but the discipline that makes it valuable hasn't changed: understand the human problem before reaching for the tool."

Let's build something together

I'm a Product Design Lead with 12+ years of experience, currently open to senior IC and lead roles in product, AI, or platform design. I bring research depth, AI design expertise, and a track record of shipping features that move metrics.