Hey, I’m John Finley.
I’m a user experience designer with deep expertise in scalable systems, user-facing AI, and complex user workflows. I bridge the gap between user needs and organizational goals to craft experiences that are intuitive, engaging, and successful.
Let's make something great, together.
Selected work
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My lens on design
Interpersonal connection, complex systems, and AI have been a through line for most of my projects over the last 15 years, and I’m proud to have advocated for and shipped accessible and inclusive experiences.
My approach to UX design is grounded in user needs and bringing technology into the realm of everyday people. I pride myself on employing cross-functional collaboration and a high quality of craft in my designs and prototypes to get there.
Shopify
2024 – Present
I’m part of the search team supporting experiences for shoppers across individual storefronts and the Shop marketplace. Responsible for the Shopify Search & Discovery app used by nearly 1.75 million merchants.
2015 – 2024
I’ve spent over eight years at Google, working on a variety of projects, like text-to-image creation, the Search Generative Experience, and responsible AI in video conferencing. This work scaled to hundreds of millions of people daily.
The Barbarian Group
2011 – 2015
My time at a digital marketing agency taught me entrepreneurial skills like speed, stakeholder management, and presentation. I was challenged by creative peers who always pushed for new and bigger things.
Basis Technologies (formerly Centro)
2008 – 2011
I began my professional career as a full stack software engineer at an ad tech company. We built planning software for our own sales team, and it was here I dove into user research and design.