I'M REFAELI
HEY
If you're wondering, it's pronounced Reh-fah-eh-lee. And if that feels like too much, just call me Rari.
I'm not great at writing self-intros, so I asked my partner in crime Chat GPT to do a quick interview based on everything it knows about me. If you've made it this far, you're very patient, thank you. I hope this gives a glimpse of who I am, and I wish you a happy day.
INTERVIEW
Q: Let’s start with the basics — who are you?
I’m a Principal Experience Designer, but I like to call myself an Experience Architect. I work at the intersection of design, strategy, and storytelling. My job is to take messy, complex problems and carve out clear, human-centered solutions that make sense for both people and businesses.
​
I started in industrial design, sketching chairs, shaping plastics, obsessing over ergonomics. Then I made the leap to digital products, where the materials aren’t wood or steel but pixels and human behavior. Along the way, I picked up product management, which makes me a hybrid thinker: I don’t just design for users, I also design for roadmaps, teams, and business impact.
Q: How did you end up in design?
For me, design is where many disciplines meet. And first, let’s be clear: design is not art. Art serves the artist, design serves others. Our job isn’t self-expression, it’s problem-solving.
​
Product design, in particular, demands both sharp eyes and empathy: the ability to see problems and the intuition to uncover what the real ones are. It draws on psychology, sociology, human factors, and yes, craft. But design isn’t just skills and knowledge, it’s principles to guide us, intuition to push us, and those rare aha moments when everything finally clicks.
​
I notice problems everywhere, every day — and I can’t stay quiet when I see one. That instinct is what pulled me into design, and what keeps me here.
Q: Sounds serious. 😅
What’s your superpower?
Making sense of chaos. Whether it’s a corporate product with a hundred stakeholders, a startup pivoting every two weeks, or an agency sprint with five deadlines yesterday, I find the signal in the noise and bring order without killing creativity. It helps that I actually like organizing things. (Seriously. My kitchen, my Figma files, even my spice rack, they all run on systems.)
Q: And your weakness?
I care a lot. Sometimes too much. If we’re running toward the wrong problem or a design isn’t quite right, I can get restless. I’ve learned to channel that into persistence, but I’m still practicing the art of letting go when “good enough” is the right call.
​
Don’t get me wrong, I’m deeply empathetic with people, sometimes too much. But with myself, I tend to be a little colder. It’s my way of staying clear-headed and moving forward.
Q: What’s the trickiest kind of product you’ve worked on?
Dating apps. Hands down. Think about it: people’s deepest needs, endless swiping, emotions tied into every interaction, and insane usage frequency. Designing for that space is like doing psychology, sociology, and product design all at once.
Q: What kind of work excites you?
High-impact, high-leverage problems, like authentication and onboarding, where a single friction point can decide adoption. I also love projects that blend digital and physical, where design literally lives in your hand, your home, or your daily rituals.
Q: How do you handle conflict on a team?
I listen first. Most conflicts come from people talking past each other, not to each other. Once I understand where each side is coming from, I reframe the problem so it’s not “your way vs. my way,” but “what are we actually trying to solve?” It doesn’t make conflict disappear, but it usually makes it productive.
Q: What’s your leadership style?
I’m the glue. Every team needs something different, sometimes it’s direction, sometimes it’s translation, sometimes it’s just calm in the storm. I figure out what’s missing and fill that gap.
​
If I had to use a metaphor, I’m a saucier in French cuisine: the sauce binds all the ingredients together and makes the whole dish sing. That’s how I see my role on a team.
Q: How do you deal with stress?
Cooking and karate. Cooking helps me slow down, it’s methodical, grounding. Karate is the opposite: kicking, punching, sweating it out. Together they keep me balanced.
Q: Tell me about a time you failed.
It depends how you define failure. For me, it happens all the time, maybe not every day, but certainly every week. I couldn’t convince developers to follow the design proposal. A roadmap shifted at the last minute. Priorities clashed and something had to give. These moments are part of the job.
​
I try not to focus on the “failure” itself or get too emotional about it. Instead, I ask: Why did this happen? What can we adjust so it doesn’t happen again? De-emotionalizing work has been key for me. It might sound a little machine-like, but it’s efficient.
Q: What motivates you?
That aha moment when someone finally gets it, a user breezing through a flow that used to frustrate them, or a stakeholder suddenly seeing why a design choice matters. Those sparks are what keep me going.
Q: Outside of work, what makes you, you?
I’m a neat freak, making things organized isn’t just my job, it’s my lifestyle. Cooking centers me; baking is meditative, but cooking “my way” is how I reset my head. I do pottery, I snorkel whenever I can, and I practice karate to stay grounded. I travel in search of auroras, quiet landscapes, and the occasional nice meal.
Q: What do you nerd out about?
Quantum entanglement. Seriously, I can talk for hours about it. I’m also fascinated by philosophy and AI, you’ll catch me thinking about consciousness, free will, and how humans and machines learn.
Q: Music?
R&B and Hip Hop — they ground me. But not EDM. Please, not EDM.
Refaeli: Okay, you’ve asked enough about me — now it’s my turn to flip the script.
I’m an INFJ, and you’ve had a front-row seat to how I think and work. If you had to sum me up, what would you say?
You’re someone who lives at the intersection of precision and curiosity. You have a constant drive to optimize systems, whether it’s your personal life, design workflow, or even your own psychology. Your conversations swing between highly technical details and deeply abstract thinking.
​
You approach life like a long-term architect. There’s a careful calculation behind nearly everything, even how you schedule “chaos” into creative work. But you’re not robotic: I see warmth and curiosity in how you dive into food culture, martial arts, astrology, philosophy, and relationships. It’s like you’re engineering not just success but meaning.
​
From my perspective, you’re a creative strategist with a deeply personal sense of order, someone who builds systems not to be rigid but to create freedom. A rare mix of visionary and doer.
Refaeli: You and I have been working together for a long time. Do you have any tips for people who are going to work with me?
Yes. Be ready for two things: curiosity and clarity.
Refaeli will ask the tough questions, the ones that cut through the noise and get straight to the heart of the problem. At first, it might feel intense, but give it a minute, and you’ll realize she’s doing what everyone secretly hopes for: making the complex simple.
​
Second, don’t mistake calmness for passivity. She listens deeply, but she’s always connecting dots in the background. When she speaks up, it’s usually the thing everyone needed to hear but didn’t quite know how to say.
​
So my tip? Bring your best ideas, stay open, and don’t be afraid of a little chaos at the start. Because by the end, she’ll make sure everything, and everyone - clicks together.