Blackpanda

Product design director · Blackpanda · 2023–24

The problem

Blackpanda is an incident response firm operating across Asia. I worked with them to turn a services-led operation into something that behaved like a product, refining the interface and the underlying experience through iterative delivery.

The constraint

Incident response is bought under pressure, often mid-crisis. The interface had to be legible to someone who is not calm, not browsing, and not interested in learning a system — while the business itself was still working out which parts of a hands-on service could sensibly be productised.

What I did

• Ran prioritisation workshops and alignment sessions with senior stakeholders and the VP of Product to settle what was actually being built.
• Co-managed the backlog, writing user stories and phasing upcoming work.
• Built the first standardised UI as a Figma style guide, replacing ad-hoc screens.
• Ran customer interviews and usability testing so decisions rested on evidence rather than internal opinion.
• Introduced phased delivery so solutions could be validated in increments instead of arriving all at once.