About — Qinglan Zheng
qinglan.zheng
Work About Get in touch

Hi, I'm Qinglan — an architect turned product designer.

Ten years of multidisciplinary design experience. Armed with a Master of Landscape Architecture and a GIS & Spatial Analysis Certificate from the University of Pennsylvania, I specialize in data-driven design, user research, and product strategy.

LinkedIn ↗ Dribbble ↗ GitHub ↗ Medium ↗
How I work

At this level the job isn't producing screens — it's deciding which problems are worth solving, proving it with evidence I generate myself, and making the resulting change stick in the product and the process.

01 · FIND THE PROBLEM
Generate my own evidence

I write the SQL, read the support tickets, and run the interviews rather than waiting on a request queue — so problems surface before anyone assigns them.

02 · SIZE IT
Attach a number to the pain

Qualitative tells me why; funnel data tells me where and how much. A theme only becomes a priority when I can express it as revenue or conversion at a specific step.

03 · WIN THE BET
Pitch, don't request

I write the pitch — problem, evidence, appetite, solution, risks — and defend it at the betting table. Insights that stay in a report change nothing.

04 · DESIGN THE SYSTEM
Solve the class, not the case

Work within the design system and extend it where it's thin — so the fix holds across states, locales, partners, and the screens nobody demoed.

05 · DE-RISK & SHIP
Validate, then ship it myself

User testing and legal/risk review up front; feature flags and A/B plans on the way out. Low-risk UI changes I ship as draft PRs instead of tickets.

06 · MAKE IT COMPOUND
Leave the practice better

Track the metric after launch, feed what I learn back into the research pipeline, and turn one-off workflows into something the next designer can reuse.

What others say

"She was the lead author on several Shape Up pitches, with multiple … becoming funded initiatives. That was a significant shift in expectations from her role and one that she embraced well."

— COO

"What impressed me most wasn't any single design she produced, but how much broader her impact has become. … Her biggest accomplishment was continuing to evolve into the voice of the customer across the organization."

— COO

"I've really enjoyed the process you've set up using FigJam for discovery, brainstorming, and prioritization. The work you've done on the UX metrics has been very insightful — I've personally made a bunch of changes to campaign timings and set up based on the details you've discovered."

— Marketing lead

"Peers consistently noted how easy you are to work with and how much output you deliver, which is particularly impressive given you have been operating as a team of 1."

— VP, Head of Product

"Honestly, been really impressed by how you've been tackling this. You've constantly gone above and beyond — both effort and in learning new skills — to build a better understanding of our users."

— Data analyst

"She made a massive amount of changes to our extremely complex autogenerated description algorithm and has ZERO bugs. Super impressive and thorough work!"

— Engineering lead

"You excel at explaining the 'so what' behind your work, tailoring your communication to different audiences and helping teams move from insight to decision efficiently."

— VP, Head of Product

"Shout out to Qinglan who did fantastic work in a short time for our reviews project — as well as really leaned into shipping iteratively. I was honestly very impressed!"

— VP of Engineering
Experience
Fig Financial · Toronto
Senior product designer · 2023–present
CareGuide · Toronto
Product designer · 2021–2023
Freelance · Toronto
UX / UI / web designer · 2019–2021
GLS · San Francisco
Design professional · 2018–2019
AECOM · San Francisco
Design professional · 2014–2018
Education
University of Pennsylvania, School of Design
Master of Landscape Architecture · GIS & Spatial Analysis Certificate
South China University of Technology
Bachelor of Architecture
Coursera
UX Research and Design Specialization
Udemy
Product design in AI · Web Developer Bootcamp Certificate
Tools & skills
Design & build

Interaction design, persona creation, ideation, wireframing, prototyping, design systems.

Figma · Figma MCP · Storybook · Webflow
AI in my workflow

Thematic analysis at scale, shipping UI as draft PRs, and prototyping flows before engineering time is committed. Decks, research reports and documentation get built as code too — the artifact is a design surface, not a template.

Claude · Claude Code · Cursor · v0 · Lovable
Research & data

Data insight, interviews, competitor analysis, journey mapping, usability testing.

SQL · Metabase · Sisense · Dovetail · Hotjar · PostHog
Front end

Enough code to ship real UI changes as draft PRs, and to QA specs myself.

HTML · CSS · JavaScript · React · Git · Dev tools
Planning & comms

Roadmapping, engineering stories, documentation, async project updates.

Notion · Asana · Confluence · Slack · Loom · Zoom
A bit about me
FAVOURITE DESIGNER
Steve Jobs

"Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."

FAVOURITE BOOKS
Hooked — Nir Eyal

"Our brains are adapted to seek rewards that make us feel accepted, attractive, important, and included."

Hacking Growth — Sean Ellis

"Love creates growth, not the other way around."

OFF THE CLOCK

Traveling, meeting people, learning new things — and planning the team socials nobody else volunteers for.