Herb Harden
Senior AI Product Designer
Great enterprise UX makes difficult work easier.
Throughout my career, I've found that the greatest opportunities for innovation exist within complexity. My philosophy is to understand how people work, identify where challenges exists, and design thoughtful solutions that make complex systems more intuitive, efficient, and effective. Whether through enterprise UX or AI-powered experiences, my goal is always the same: improve the way people work.
Where Strategy Meets Intelligent Design
My career has been shaped by a passion for solving complex business problems through thoughtful product design. I believe the most successful technology is defined by how effectively it improves the way people work while helping organizations achieve their goals.
Throughout my career, I have had the opportunity to evolve alongside three major eras of digital product design: building the web, designing enterprise user experiences, and now shaping AI-powered products. That progression has given me a unique perspective on how technology is built, how businesses operate, and how thoughtful design can bridge the gap.
I began my career in web design and front-end development, which gave me a strong technical foundation and an appreciation for creating solutions that were user-centered, technically sound, and aligned with business objectives. That experience continues to shape how I collaborate with engineering teams today.
As technology evolved, so did my focus. I transitioned into enterprise UX, partnering with organizations to design software and business-critical applications. My role extended beyond improving usability. It meant understanding how people work, identifying opportunities to simplify complex workflows, and designing solutions that balanced user needs with operational realities. Whether improving adoption, reducing friction, or creating consistency through scalable design systems, every decision was grounded in human behavior and business strategy.
The rise of AI became the natural next step. Today, I design AI-powered products and intelligent experiences that help businesses work more efficiently. From conversational AI and agentic workflows to enterprise AI platforms, I collaborate with cross-functional teams to identify where AI can create meaningful value. My focus is on applying AI thoughtfully to solve problems and improve user experience.
My unique background across development, UX, and AI allows me to bridge strategy, design, and engineering. I understand how products are built, how technical teams think, and how thoughtful design creates alignment across disciplines. That perspective enables me to develop solutions that are practical, scalable, and focused on improving both business outcomes and the everyday experiences of the people who use them.
Portfolio
JAI (Jaggaer AI) Enterprise Conversational AI Platform: Shifting an Enterprise Ecosystem to Conversational AI
Building a production-ready conversational platform from scratch—from core UI components and state machines to end-to-end user journeys.
This project details the end-to-end design, architecture, and production launch of JAI, a foundational enterprise AI assistant built completely from the ground up. Responsibilities included establishing the core conversational UI framework, mapping out comprehensive user journeys, and designing strict component state machines to ensure predictable AI behavior. The platform successfully replaced legacy manual forms with an "Intent > Insight > Action" model that handles complex data retrieval, synthesizes information into dense, scannable layouts, and manages high-stakes workflows like human-in-the-loop support escalations. By delivering developer-ready micro-specifications, the project established a scalable, deterministic conversational design system utilized across the entire product ecosystem.
JAGGAER Direct: From Traditional UI Component to AI Behavioral Contract
Defining a scalable component design framework that explicitly scopes, bounds, and governs AI behavior within enterprise user interfaces.
Engineered a pioneering component specification methodology to bridge the critical gap between traditional visual UI specs and non-deterministic AI behavior. Using a button component as the foundational pilot, transformed standard visual components into explicit, testable behavioral contracts that mandate an unyielding control hierarchy (User > System > AI). By hard-coding confidence-tier UI mappings, deterministic state machine transitions, and explicit reversibility rules directly into the developer handoff documentation, this framework successfully eliminated engineering interpretation drift and established a predictable, secure conversational pattern across the entire product component library.
JAGGAER Direct: Supplier Audit Management Platform
Transforming fragmented enterprise compliance into a centralized, end-to-end digital audit workflow.
Designed a multi-role Quality Management MVP to streamline complex enterprise supplier audits. Developed comprehensive user journeys, interactive high-fidelity prototypes, and extensive annotated UI specifications to bridge the gap between compliance requirements and technical execution, establishing a transparent system for tracking supplier corrective actions to resolution.
JAGGAER Direct: Cost Breakdown Structure (CBD) Framework Upgrade
Modernizing enterprise procurement infrastructure by transforming a legacy financial framework into a high-performance, interactive component system.
Led the user experience modernization of a legacy enterprise Cost Breakdown Structure (CBD) framework to transition it to a modern technology stack. Leveraging rapid design loops with Claude, created high-fidelity interactive prototypes and custom RFQ workflow mockups to align product management, product owners, and engineering teams around modernized data visualization, tabular editing patterns, and technical execution.
JAGGAER Direct: Bill of Materials (BOM) & Scenario Management Modernization
Re-architecting legacy enterprise manufacturing logistics and procurement analysis into a high-density, interactive system for complex multi-scenario cost modeling.
Designed a multi-role Quality Management MVP to streamline complex enterprise supplier audits. Developed comprehensive user journeys, interactive high-fidelity prototypes, and extensive annotated UI specifications to bridge the gap between compliance requirements and technical execution, establishing a transparent system for tracking supplier corrective actions to resolution.
References
I had the pleasure of working alongside Herb for some time and, most recently, as his manager. Herb was the lead UX designer for an extensive, direct procurement platform. He consistently championed the user's needs, always pushing the solution forward toward greater usability and consistency.
As his manager, three things stood out about Herb beyond his skill as a designer: communication, organization, and willingness to learn. Herb is a candid and willing communicator who always kept me abreast of all things on his plate. He maintained a meticulous list of his tasks and their status, giving me complete visibility at all times. Herb was always learning and staying on top of the latest trends. When AI took center stage, as a tool and design topic, Herb took the initiative to get himself up to speed, providing valuable support to emerging initiatives.
Herb has the breadth of experience and the capacity to grow that makes him an incredible addition to any team.
Douglas Fellner, Senior Manager, UX, JAGGAER
Services & Skills
-
Discovery & Product Alignment
-
System Design
-
User Flow Mapping
-
Interaction Design and Prototyping
-
Design Systems
-
Engineering Specifications
-
Usability Testing
Core Values Award
Recognized for exceptional initiative, collaboration, and leadership during a critical product launch at Nebraska Book Company. Honored for stepping beyond the role to improve product quality, advocate for users, strengthen team communication, and help guide the organization through a high-pressure release.
Education
BA, Bellevue University
GenAI Course for UX Designers
AI Automation with Claude, Anthropic
Conversation Design Fundamentals, Google
Build Intelligent Agents Using OpenAI & N8N
About Me
As a Myers-Briggs INTP, I bring a unique combination of technical understanding, systems thinking, and human-centered design. My approach begins with understanding a business's goals, challenges, and opportunities before exploring how technology can solve complex business challenges.
I focus on solving the right problems through thoughtful strategy, intuitive experiences, and intelligent systems that deliver value for both organizations and the people they serve.
Outside of work, I enjoy spending time with my family and staying connected to Omaha's local music scene. I appreciate the creativity, craftsmanship, and sense of community that music and art bring. Some of my best ideas come from stepping away from the screen and experiencing something new or from a different perspective.