Aloha! I'm Tay.
Nice to meet you. 👍🏾

I'm S'meta (see-me-tay), but most people just call me Tay. I'm a UX/Product Designer by trade and a traveler by heart, and honestly the two inform each other more than I expected. The places I've been have shaped how I read people, understand systems, and find the friction worth solving.

My path into design wasn't a straight line, and I wouldn't have it any other way. It started in customer service, which turned out to be one of the best foundations I could have asked for. From there I moved into a Machine Learning Data Analyst role, curating workflows to fit real customer needs and learning firsthand how unpredictable user behavior can be when the system behind it is complex. This role taught me how to design experiences for complex, AI-driven systems where user behavior is unpredictable and outputs are probabilistic. I learned how to balance automation with human control, create fallback and escalation flows, and collaborate closely with engineers to refine ML models.
Today at AWS, I bring this perspective to build data-driven products that help teams make smarter decisions and create better customer experieces.
What I do
I design products that make complex things feel simple. My sweet spot is data-heavy tools where the real design challenge isn't how it looks, it's figuring out what actually needs to be said, to whom, and when. If a user has to stop and think about what a number means, that's a design problem worth losing sleep over.
I'm particularly drawn to the intersection of data, human behavior, and systems thinking. The best work I've done has come from staying curious about why people make the decisions they make, and then building something that meets them there.
how i work
My process is rooted in empathy and shaped by a background that never took the obvious path. I design at the intersection of UX and emerging technology, with a particular interest in how AI systems can expand what humans are capable of rather than replace what makes them human. Research, intuition, and iteration are how I get there. The goal is always the same: experiences that are clear, usable, and built for real people.
Based on the design process framework by Dr. Jakob Nielsen and Dr. Don Norman.
01
Research first
I stay close to users and field teams throughout. Real behavior will sometimes surprises you. It's better to find out early in the process.
02
Iterate fast
I move from rough to refined quickly and bring stakeholders along so nobody is surprised by the final direction.
03
Design for clarity
Especially in data products, clarity is the design problem. If a user has to think about what a number means, I haven't done my job.
04
Stay close to engineering
The best designs survive contact with reality. I work closely with engineers because constraints often lead to better solutions than the original idea.
fun facts about me
Born and raised in Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi.
Gemini sun, Virgo moon, Sagittarius rising.
Paddleboarding, hiking, and rotating art projects.
Studied Justice Administration before making the leap into tech in 2017.
Board member at the Bremerton Community Farmers Market.
I'm a gemini sun, virgo moon and sagittarius rising. 𖤓☾⇡
Now it's your turn to tell me about yourself ☀︎⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
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