About
Jinsoo An
Product Design Lead & Researcher
Jinsoo designs digital products by piecing together consumers' changing behaviors, emerging cultures and converging technologies.
Experience in diverse products
For over 13 years, he has designed software experiences for a wide range of products. They include mobile and IoT devices, wearables, smart TVs, games consoles, connected vehicles, and personal wellness products. With product and UX design at his core, he has led a team of big and small in revamping, diversifying, scaling and positioning of the products in over 20 industries.
Hands-on & result-driven
He is actively driven to exceed industry standards—whether it involves articulating a design rational through research or creating a "pixel-perfect" design. Through this passion and relentless craftsmanship, his design helped NFL increase user engagement as much as 500% for its 100M+ user base and improve its app rating from 2 to 5 stars.
Expert in design & innovation process
He has supported a myriad of teams to overcome tough road blocks. With tailored design process and workshops that unpave new paths, he helps guide and navigate teams through their jouney. This approach has been vetted through a culmination of hands-on experience and learning from high-tech companies in Silicon Valley, top consulting firms, design institutions and thought leaders from around the globe.
Rooted in systematic thinking
He solves the unsolvable by understanding the deeper, often overlooked relationship between users, tools and environments. By combining this systems thinking with iterative approach, he is able to rapidly maneuver through product development cycle and provide supportive evidence, strategic thinking and design blueprint that are mission critical for successful product launch.
Areas of Focus
Product
Product Design
UX & Interaction Design
Concept Development
Design Leadership & Process
Product Management
Insight & Analysis
User Testing & Usability
Ethnographic Research
Risk Assessment
Planning & Strategy
Growth Strategy
Platform Integration
Foresight
Profiled On
Experience at a Glance
Years of Experience
Completed Projects
Fortune 500 Companies
Talks Given Worldwide
Industries
Honors & Awards
Notable Clients
Selected Honors & Awards
1st Place Winner & Team Lead
Hololens Hackathon, Microsoft, 2016
1st Place Winner & Team Lead
Extreme Wearables Designathon, Intel & ArtCenter College of Design, 2014
Best Brand Experience, Volkswagen VW.com
UX Awards, 2014
Mobile of the Day, Volkswagen SmileDrive App
FWA, 2013
Nominee, Pop Secret Poptopia & Pop Dongle
The Webby Awards, 2014
Professional Involvements
- Product Owner, Supply Chain Management
Food Lab Accelerator at Google (FLAG), 2019-2020 - Local Group Organizer of Los Angeles
Interaction Design Association (IxDA), 2011-2012 - Member, System Dynamic Society
- Member, EPIC
Bio
Prior to immigrating to California in 1995, Jinsoo was raised on a small family-owned farm in South Korea, just a few miles away from the DMZ.
He grew up tending fields and tinkering with home-brew software and gadget teardowns. There, he dreamed that one day he will use design and science to make the world a happier place.
Decades later, his roles gradually expanded to crafting tools and services across 20 industries such as wellness, food, gaming, sports, consumer electronics, automotive and finance—reaching hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
After having received a myriad of global support and recognitions, he is constantly pushing himself to develop new solutions for the global crisis.
Values
Interest & Passion
He is interested in finding effective means of facilitating social interaction and emotion that offer purpose, meaning and sustainability. By continuously building this knowledge, he hopes to enhance human relations with a net-positive impact on society.
During his spare time, he loves inspiring people of all ages by speaking to them and educating them about the human condition of today and tomorrow. Some of reoccuring themes include food design, commensality, play, fandom, social isolation, aging, community reintegration and behavioral economics.
Periodically, he engages with local and global communities to strengthen public–private partnership to improve the role of technology in people’s lives.
He enjoys playing indie games and watching nostalgic films and TV commercials on YouTube. He sometimes dabbles with novel, antiquated cameras and audio gears.
Favorite Reads
Process
In order to achieve the best possible outcome for products and teams, Jinsoo leverages methods used by IDEO, Google and McKinsey as well as foundations developed by Ann Pendleton-Jullian, David Rose, Anthony Dunne, Steve Swink, Garry Crawford and Anthony Ulwick.
Based on these perspectives, a Swiss Army knife for design methods was created to help teams gain more leverage through clarity, insight and positioning. Best of all, this toolkit can be applied to nearly all consumer use cases regardless of demographics, medium or industry.
Below are some methods and approaches that have been leveraged in past projects on top of product and UX design foundation. The list goes from broad to narrow.
- Systems Thinking
- Design Thinking
- Lean Thinking
- Human-Centered Design
- Service Design
- Speculative / Critical Design
- Game Design
- Transgenerational Design
- Spatial Design
- Evidence-Based Design
- Agile / Scrum
- Cogntive Behaviorial Therapy
- Conditional Design
- Risk Management Plan
- PEST Analysis
- Value Opportunity Analysis
- Growth–Share Matrix
- Ishikawa Diagram