Designer. Builder.
Occasional vibe-coder.
I'm Duncan, a Senior Product Designer based in Nairobi, Kenya with 7+ years of experience crafting accessible, data-informed digital experiences across AI/UX, FinTech, and B2B SaaS. I've designed for banks, health platforms, and scrappy startups, and I build what I design when the situation calls for it.
My work spans user research, product strategy, design systems, and conversation design. I'm also increasingly building AI-powered tools inside and outside of Figma, because the best designers right now are the ones who understand what the models can and can't do.
What I bring
UX Research
User interviews, usability testing, heuristic reviews, survey design, and synthesising findings into actionable insights.
Design Systems
Token architecture, component libraries, motion principles, and design-to-dev handoff that teams actually use.
AI-Native Design
Designing for and with AI, conversation flows, prompt engineering, AI plugin builds, and AI-augmented workflows.
Product Strategy
Stakeholder alignment, IA, prioritisation frameworks, and translating ambiguous briefs into clear design directions.
Conversation Design
Chatbot flows, dialogue writing, fallback states, making AI-powered interactions feel natural, not robotic.
Vibe Coding
HTML/CSS/JS, Vue.js, PHP, enough to build functional prototypes, Figma plugins, and ship production-ready UIs.
Tools I work with
Where I've worked
Senior Product Designer
Equity Group Holdings · Nairobi, KenyaLead designer on the Super App redesign, EVA chatbot, and multiple internal tools. Sole senior designer for 14 months before expanding to a team of three.
Product Designer (Contract)
Jireh Health · Nairobi, KenyaLed full redesign of the dashboard, designed Jireh Circles social accountability system, and built the discount code engine, reducing drop-off by 20%.
AI Design Lead (Internal)
Self-initiated · CopyCop AI + IllustraAIDesigned and built two Figma plugins from scratch, CopyCop (AI UX writing validation) and IllustraAI (DALL-E 3 bulk illustration generator). Both in active use by design teams.
Solo Designer + Developer
Ziki Music · Nairobi, KenyaDesigned and built a full-stack music streaming and distribution platform for independent Kenyan artists. +13% retention after first release.
UX Designer (Hackathon)
Covi-Trac · Kenya COVID-19 Virtual HackathonSolo designer on a 3-person team. Built a COVID-19 fund transparency dashboard in 5 days. Placed 2nd out of all competing teams.
My AI-native workflow
I've been integrating AI into my design practice since 2023, not as a gimmick, but as a genuine workflow multiplier. Here's how I actually use it:
🧠 Research Acceleration
Using Claude to stress-test user flows, generate edge cases, and synthesise interview notes at scale. Saved 2+ weeks on the Jireh Circles project alone.
✍️ Microcopy Generation
CopyCop AI, my Figma plugin, validates and generates brand-compliant UX copy against an approved database. 80% faster prototyping, ~98% API cost reduction.
🎨 AI Illustration Pipeline
IllustraAI, my second Figma plugin, queues DALL-E 3 prompts in bulk and delivers consistent 3D illustrations directly onto the canvas. No more tab-switching.
⌨️ Vibe Coding
I use AI as a coding collaborator, prototyping interactions, debugging Vue.js/PHP, and shipping functional tools without needing a dedicated engineer.
What I believe about AI and design
AI doesn't replace the judgment of a good designer. It replaces the mechanical parts, the repetitive microcopy, the bulk illustration generation, the edge case enumeration. What's left is the work that actually matters: the insight, the strategy, the empathy. I'd rather spend my time on that.
The designers who will matter most in the next 5 years aren't the ones who avoid AI, they're the ones who understand its limits well enough to know exactly when not to use it.
A bit more
I'm based in Nairobi, which means I design with the context of mobile-first, low-bandwidth, multi-language, and multi-currency environments baked in by default. That's a feature, not a constraint.
When I'm not designing, I'm usually listening to Kenyan hip-hop, debugging something I probably shouldn't have started building, or thinking about why most AI products still feel like they were designed by someone who's never talked to a real user.
I'm available for full-time remote roles, senior contract work, and select freelance projects globally.