Product Design Leadership · San Francisco
Carina Ngai

I shape systems
before products
take form.

I help organizations navigate moments where technology, behavior, and meaning haven't aligned yet.

Editorial portrait of Carina Ngai in a studio with systems-thinking artifacts

Systems thinking, artifacts, and questions behind the work.

01 / Selected Work
01
Roblox
Identity became the engine of participation.

Helped shape the systems behind discovery, avatars, and social participation at Roblox during its pre-IPO growth — recognizing that kids weren’t just choosing what to play, but deciding how they wanted to be seen.

Identity Systems Social Participation Design Leadership
Roblox avatar hallway case study hero image
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02
Front Row
When K-pop fandom stopped behaving like a marketplace.

What began as an NFT marketplace modeled after NBA Top Shot became something else entirely: a participation system built around fan expression, collective rituals, and closeness between idols and their communities.

Fan Communities Platform Strategy Behavior Design
Front Row case study hero image
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03
Blippar
Before AR became a product, it had to become understandable.

Defined the product vision and creation framework for BlippBuilder — shifting augmented reality from novelty and visual effects into a learnable medium people could actually author.

Emerging Technology Product Vision Creation Tools
Blippar museum case study hero image
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04
Everyone Goes to Heaven
Death as a cultural experience shaped through design.

Translated themes of death, memory, and community into an immersive participatory experience — treating mortality not as a private ending, but as something shaped through ritual, reflection, and collective presence.

Experience Strategy Audience Journey Cultural Experience
Everyone Goes to Heaven case study hero image
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Approach
Where meaning
becomes direction.
Find the question underneath the brief
I look for the human experience behind the assignment, especially when teams are moving toward a solution before they understand what people are really navigating.
Design the conditions for participation
The strongest products are not just usable. They help people feel safe, motivated, and able to take part in something that matters to them.
Make systems visible before they harden
I map the behaviors, incentives, rituals, and assumptions shaping an experience so teams can make better decisions before those structures become expensive to undo.
About
The product
isn't the only thing
taking shape.
I work on challenges where people are still figuring out what something means.

Most teams start with a product. The work I enjoy begins earlier.

Often the real challenge isn't designing the solution. It's understanding the opportunity underneath it.

I help organizations understand what they're building before they decide how to build it.

Across gaming, emerging technology, fan culture, identity systems, and immersive experiences, I uncover the systems shaping participation, behavior, and meaning before those assumptions become products.

Meaning before mechanics.
Participation before features.
Systems before surfaces.

The hardest design problems usually aren't design problems yet. They begin with ambiguity.

Selected experience: Roblox · MetaLab · Blippar · Google · Adobe · Netflix · Samsung.
Let's Talk

I work with teams building products, platforms, and experiences where the real challenge is still being defined. When technology, behavior, and meaning have not aligned yet, that is usually where the work begins.

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