About
My job is deciding what stays and what gets in the way.
I am Joksan Cruz, AI Experience & Innovation Design Lead. I have spent fifteen years at the intersection of design, business, technology and innovation, based in Mexico City.
I started in 2010 as an art director, running digital campaigns and positioning brands. Over the years I kept landing in the same problem: teams with a product they no longer control, where every department defends its own feature and the home screen ends up trying to be everything at once.
That problem is not solved by drawing better. It is solved by researching until you have enough evidence to say out loud what should go, and then building a structure that holds up for whatever comes next. That is what I do.
I have led teams since 2017. Design, research, UX writing, UI and brand at PROSA. Full product at Turn and at Leal. Today I work where AI meets experience: continuous research, design systems that survive the next feature, and decisions you can defend with data.
I was among the first in Latin America to bring synthetic users into real projects, to speed up discovery without losing the human side of research.
How the synthetic lab worksHow I work
Four things I do not negotiate.
Understand
Watch someone get stuck
Interviews, observation and usability tests before proposing anything. If I have not watched a person fail in the flow, I do not yet know what the problem is.
Sort out
One single mission
Hardly any product needs more features. It needs to know which one is the main one and protect that path from everything else.
Measure
A number behind it
Amplitude, Clarity, Hotjar, CrazyEgg. If the redesign did not move a business or experience metric, the work is not finished.
Leave behind
Something that can grow
Modular systems and DesignOps, so the next feature arrives without breaking what already works.
Career
Where I have been.
- Current
Acid Labs
Product and experience design.
- 2025
2Brains · AI Experience Design Lead
AI applied to design: synthetic users, continuous discovery and experience metrics. I write on their blog.
- 2025
Apex Digital · Pepsi bottler
Design leadership, strategy and vision for the Pepsi Chat app and its loyalty model.
- 2022–2025
Leal · Director of Product Design
Mobile app and Leal 360 platform. Scalable design system, DesignOps, continuous discovery, team leadership and mentoring.
- 2021–2024
Collective Academy · Agility and innovation mentor
Three years supporting teams and students.
- 2021–2022
Turn · Head of UX
Background verification platform, app and website in the United States. Transactional interfaces on blockchain.
- 2020–2022
Cargill · UX Design Specialist
Measurement dashboard for seeds, fats and oils. Service design, behavioural economics and screenless interfaces.
- 2019–2024
Mento · Co-founder and UX consultant
Data-driven marketing consultancy, six years.
- 2019–2021
PROSA · Head of UX & Integral Design
A team covering UX, research, market research, UX writing, UI, visual and brand for the financial sector.
- 2019
Banco Azteca · UX Manager
The disputes section of the 2.0 app and its continuous research plan.
- 2017–2019
Proximate Apps · Head of UX Design
Web and mobile features and interfaces, graphic assets, icons and animations.
- 2017–2019
CreativaKids · Chief of Innovation & Integral Design
Innovation processes, UX/UI, event production and digital marketing through Design Thinking.
- 2014–2016
Nacer Global · UX Designer and Art Director
Experience, information architecture and interfaces. Positioning for Universidad ICEL and its 25th anniversary campaign.
- 2012–2017
Villa Educativa · Head of Integral UX Design
Educational innovation combining Design Thinking, Service Design and Reggio Emilia.
- 2010–2012
Litio · Art Director and Planner
Digital campaigns, brand positioning and event production.
Education
- 2020
Service Design Immersion
Service Design México
- 2014–2016
Master's in Strategic Design
Escuela de Diseño del INBA
- 2014
Interaction Design
Escuela de Diseño del INBA
- 2013
Art Direction
Escuela de Diseño del INBA
- 2011–2012
Specialisation in Organisational Communication
FES Acatlán, UNAM
- 2007–2011
BA in Communication
FES Acatlán, UNAM
Tools
New project