File 006 · Printable — every claim links to a case file
Shad Abbaslou
Design Lead & UX Engineer · London, United Kingdom
Profile
Ten years designing enterprise software across healthcare, travel, data platforms and AI — hands-on in Figma and in the codebase. I build the systems that keep products coherent: design tokens with governance, research programmes with real Ns, and prototyping pipelines the whole company can use. Every claim below links to a written case file with its evidence attached.
Experience
Now
Design Lead · enterprise AI platform company, London
- Rebuilt the ML platform's frontend language with the frontend team: 3,491 design tokens in a three-layer chain, a six-layer atomic hierarchy, 91 numbered rules — dark mode cost zero component code.
- Built the DS-Brain: an institutional memory of 378 documents and 6,683 cross-links, read by engineers and AI agents alike, with an append-only decisions log.
- Shipped an AI prototyping pipeline — designers and PMs type plain English and get working Storybook prototypes built from production components in ~15 seconds per iteration.
- Taught the whole company atomic design through an interactive class (engineers, PMs, sales).
Case file: withcontexts.com/work/oi-design-system
4+ years
Lead Product Designer · UX Engineer · Astrato, by Vizlib
- Sole designer across two delivery pods (teams of 9 and 20) of a Snowflake-native analytics platform; 40+ features shipped.
- Redesigned the data-modelling join canvas from its backlog ticket down — validated in moderated UserTesting sessions with attention heatmaps; 80% of participants rated the redesigned task easy.
- Designed Astrato Insights, the platform's AI assistant — SQL shown and editable, never hidden.
- Owned the component libraries; specs shipped as designed.
Case file: withcontexts.com/work/astrato
6 months
User Researcher · UI Designer · NHS trust, CAMHS (anonymised)
- Ran discovery to beta for a two-sided youth mental-health service: 19 interviews, 70 survey responses, three co-design workshops, aligned to the GDS Service Standard.
- Designed the privacy model — Gillick competence, parental consent, sharing only by explicit choice — and the clinician dashboard that adds no workload.
- Beta shipped to a live clinic: 3 clinicians, 10 patients, 8 parents over three weeks.
Case file: withcontexts.com/work/safe-space
Under a year
Sole Designer · Villa Plus
- Designed the company's first mobile app from scratch and overhauled the web booking flow, end to end.
- Rebuilt group pricing around trust: a Change Tracker attributing every price movement, honest flight-price badges, a 10-minute price hold.
- All 5 usability-test participants completed the full 15-person group booking unaided.
Case file: withcontexts.com/work/villa-plus
Skills
Design — Figma, FigJam, Storybook, design tokens, WCAG 2.2
Build — HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, Tailwind, GSAP
Evidence — UserTesting, Mixpanel, Amplitude, Hotjar
Design ops — Jira, Miro, agile, AI prototyping pipelines
Build — HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, Tailwind, GSAP
Evidence — UserTesting, Mixpanel, Amplitude, Hotjar
Design ops — Jira, Miro, agile, AI prototyping pipelines
Education
MSc Computer Science — Ravensbourne University London
BA (Hons) Interaction Design — University of the Arts London
BA (Hons) Interaction Design — University of the Arts London