Havana Nguyen Portfolio
Lead UX Designer at Office Depot
Ran a 6-interview generative-discovery process for a pandemic return-to-office dashboard in three weeks — SME sourcing, current-state process mapping, and an Impact/Effort matrix with the actual FigJam sticky-note board shown as proof.
Location
Coordinates unknown. Vibes: international.
Companies
Skills
Notable
- Co-authored "Designing Tables for Reusability" on UX Collective with Ada Rafalowicz (CareerBuilder design-system table component)
- Wrote "An Introduction to Interaction Flows" on UX Planet
- Lead organizer of the Ladies That UX ATL meetup, 2020–2025 (group now at 4,426 members)
- Lead Character Artist on the Kamikaze webcomic since 2011 — 2015 Glyph Award winner for Best Web Comic, covered by The Hollywood Reporter and NPR
What makes it work
A breakdown of the choices that make this portfolio stand out.
Case studies show the mess, not just the polish
The "Generative Discovery for a Pandemic Dashboard" case study includes the raw discovery-interview notes-to-process-map step, actual sticky-note prioritization boards color-coded pink/green for impact vs. effort, and named artifacts ("How Might We" statements pulled straight from the workflow diagram). This is what a hiring manager wants to see instead of a finished screen with no process behind it.
A named co-authored Medium article as proof of design-systems thinking
"Designing Tables for Reusability" on UX Collective is credited "Written by Ada Rafalowicz and Havana Nguyen," describing getting consensus from a 15-person team across ten products at CareerBuilder for one reusable table component. The co-authorship and company are independently verifiable outside her own site.
Career highlights framed as what she had to learn, not a title ladder
Instead of a bare timeline, each employer (CareerBuilder, an aerospace employer, Florence, Office Depot) gets a one-line note on what that job forced her to develop — legacy redesign at CareerBuilder, being UX hire #2 building research ops from scratch at Florence, first consumer-facing A/B testing at her ecommerce role. It reads as self-aware career narrative rather than a resume dump.
A press page that is mostly independent, not self-published
Rather than a testimonials wall alone, the /press page links out to a Hollywood Reporter piece on the Kamikaze webcomic Kickstarter, an NPR interview, a Buzzfeed fan-art roundup, and a HackerNoon illustration credit — third-party sources that corroborate the side of her bio that is not UX at all (Lead Character Artist on Kamikaze, an independently confirmed 2015 Glyph Award winner for Best Web Comic per kamikazeanimated.com/the-creators).
What UX Designers can take from this
Specific, actionable tips to apply to your own portfolio — no generic advice.
Show the ugly middle of the process — raw sticky notes, interview-note-to-map transitions, a visible Impact/Effort matrix — not just the final mockup. It is more convincing than a polished Figma frame with no visible reasoning.
Name your collaborators and company on shared external writing (a Medium/UX Collective article credited to two people, one at a named employer) — a checkable byline is stronger proof than an unattributed portfolio claim.
Frame past roles by what the job forced you to learn (design ops from zero, first consumer A/B testing) instead of a flat title-and-dates list — it reads as reflection, not resume filler.
If you have press or community credibility outside your main discipline, link it — third-party coverage (news outlets, radio, an independent project site crediting you) does more to establish trust than anything written in the first person.
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