20+ Years in Digital Product Design

Product Design Leader

Design Leadership • Digital Products • Digital Transformation • AI-Powered Experiences

I’m Obai Ibrahim, a Product Design Leader with 20+ years of experience shaping complex digital products, building high-performing design organizations, and transforming user and business needs into scalable experiences. My work spans strategy, research, product definition, design, governance, and AI-assisted product workflows.

GovTech PropTech Telecom EdTech Consumer Products AI-Powered Experiences
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Leadership Scope

Where I create value

The common thread across my career is connecting people, product, technology, and business to turn complex problems into usable digital products and experiences.

Design Leadership

Building design organizations, hiring and coaching teams, setting quality standards, establishing governance, and leading cross-functional delivery.

Experience & Product Strategy

Defining experience strategy, customer journeys, product requirements, information architecture, research direction, and product experience across complex digital ecosystems.

Digital Transformation & AI

Digitizing complex services and applying AI-assisted workflows across research, discovery, product definition, prototyping, accessibility, and design evaluation.

Career

Professional Experience

Leading product and experience work across government, real estate, telecom, education, content, knowledge platforms, and consumer technology.

ADRES · Abu Dhabi, UAE

Senior Design Manager — PropTech / GovTech

Jul 2022 – Present
Lead Product Design across Abu Dhabi’s real-estate digital ecosystem, overseeing design strategy, execution, governance, and team development across complex government and consumer-facing digital products.
  • Built and lead a multidisciplinary design organization of 20+ professionals across Product Design, UX Research, UI Design, UX Writing, and Graphic Design.
  • Led the design and digitization of 200+ complex digital journeys across ADRES, ADREC, Sharjah AQARI, ADGM AccessRP, and TAMM ecosystems.
  • Partner directly with Product, Engineering, Business, and Government stakeholders to define problems, simplify complex services, and translate business and user needs into scalable digital products.
  • Lead research, usability, analytics, and iterative design initiatives to identify friction, simplify workflows, improve task completion, and increase operational efficiency.
  • Apply a consistent research framework across multiple government products, combining analytics, user feedback, usability testing, and iterative design.
  • Designed complex geospatial experiences including interactive maps, zoning layers, plot boundaries, search, and property-related workflows.
  • Established design governance, quality standards, and cross-product practices to improve consistency, scalability, and design quality.
AI-Assisted Product Design & Research
  • Developed and operationalized an AI-assisted UX research workflow that reduced one analysis cycle from approximately four weeks to 30 minutes.
  • Applied the workflow on a recurring monthly basis across three products, with human-in-the-loop validation and structured reporting.
  • Apply AI-assisted workflows across research, discovery, product definition, prototyping, accessibility evaluation, and design evaluation.
Zain · Jordan

UX/UI Expert, Manager

Oct 2020 – Jul 2022
Led UX strategy, product design, and digital experience optimization across telecom customer journeys, self-service, and digital commerce.
  • Led the end-to-end UX and product design of Zain’s new digital store, from discovery and user research through product definition, interface design, stakeholder alignment, launch, and integration.
  • Personally designed the store experience and its core screens while working closely with Product and Business stakeholders.
  • Conducted user interviews to understand customer needs, behaviors, and friction across the digital purchasing journey.
  • Worked with internal and external stakeholders across business, technology, and communications to support launch.
  • Collaborated on integration of the new digital store with the main Zain application.
  • Led UX improvements across onboarding, bill payment, self-service, and digital purchasing journeys.
  • Connected UX decisions to business objectives through behavioral insights, usability research, analytics, and experimentation.
Mawdoo3

UX/UI Manager — Content & Consumer Products

Sep 2019 – Oct 2020
Led UX/UI strategy across Mawdoo3.com and a growing portfolio of consumer, content, education, and emerging digital products.
  • Directed end-to-end UX/UI strategy for Mawdoo3.com, Darsak, and Ujeeb.
  • Worked across a broader portfolio including Wanees, Molhem, Mojaz, and Salma AI.
  • Contributed to the definition, design, and evolution of multiple digital products across consumer, content, education, and emerging AI contexts.
  • Optimized information architecture, content discovery, readability, and overall experience across high-traffic consumer platforms.
  • Worked closely with Product, Business, Content, and Technology stakeholders to translate product opportunities into digital experiences.
eMarefa

UX/UI Manager — EdTech & Knowledge Platforms

May 2012 – Aug 2019
Led product design and digital experience across eMarefa’s academic knowledge ecosystem, working directly with business owners, CEOs, Business Development, and Technology teams.
  • Defined product requirements and translated business opportunities into digital products across academic databases and knowledge platforms.
  • Managed product experience across the core eMarefa platform and multiple connected academic products and databases.
  • Designed complex information-retrieval experiences including advanced search, filters, citation tools, content discovery, and researcher workflows.
  • Worked across research papers, journals, theses, books, reports, and other knowledge resources.
  • Contributed to eMarefa AI and AI-driven academic product experiences.
Yahoo! / Maktoob

Creative Team Lead / UI/UX Designer

2005 – 2012
Joined Maktoob among its first 30 employees and progressed from UI/UX Designer to Creative Team Lead as the company scaled and was later acquired by Yahoo.
  • Led the Creative Team, including hiring, coaching, delegation, and coordination of an international team of designers and web developers.
  • Led design across major digital products including Maktoob Homepage, Maktoob Mail, and Souq.com.
  • Worked across product, design, and technology to translate business and user needs into scalable digital experiences.
  • Collaborated across international teams to deliver digital experiences at scale.
Selected Product Experience

Products, platforms, and experiences

A selection of product work that reflects the breadth of my experience across AI, government, telecom, knowledge, and consumer digital products.

AI / EdTech

Kalimaty

AI-powered learning product with personalized vocabulary, contextual practice, adaptive learning, and conversational AI.

Knowledge Product

Readabic

Digital knowledge product taken from ideation through product definition and launch.

Digital Product

ThinkProp

Conversion-focused experience across discovery, selection, bundles, and purchase.

GovTech / PropTech

Dari / ADRES

Complex government and real-estate services, geospatial experiences, digitized journeys, and cross-product design governance.

Telecom / Commerce

Zain Digital Store

End-to-end digital store experience from discovery and research through product definition, design, launch, and app integration.

Knowledge / EdTech

eMarefa

Academic knowledge ecosystem spanning product requirements, search, filters, citation, discovery, and researcher workflows.

AI in Practice

AI as part of the product and design workflow — not a separate specialty.

I use AI-assisted workflows across research, discovery, product definition, prototyping, accessibility evaluation, and design evaluation, with human validation where judgment matters.

4 weeks → 30 min One AI-assisted UX research analysis cycle, reused monthly across 3 products with human validation.
Writing

Thinking about design, product, and AI

Selected writing on design practice, product thinking, UX quality, and the role of designers in an AI-enabled product world.

Design Was Never About The Tool — Not Even in The Age of AI?

Why strategic problem-solving and human-centered thinking matter more than the tool itself.

Read on Medium →

Why Do Companies Invest Millions in UX… Then Completely Ignore It?

A practical look at research, strategy, stakeholder influence, and why UX often loses its impact.

Read on Medium →

100 Principles That Shape Exceptional Design

A practical design checklist covering usability, clarity, aesthetics, and product thinking.

Read on Medium →

When Good UX Goes Bad: The Hidden Dark Patterns Shaping Your Decisions

Exploring the line between helpful UX guidance and manipulative patterns.

Read on Medium →

Stop Polishing Pixels: Users Don’t Care About Your 2px Shift

Why solving real user problems matters more than chasing cosmetic perfection.

Read on Medium →

What I Look for When Reviewing a UX Case Study as a Hiring Manager

What strong case studies communicate beyond polished screens: clarity, honesty, and outcomes.

Read on Medium →