About
I'm Can Zhao
I’m a Senior Product Designer at Microsoft Azure. I visualize complexity, distill signal from noise, and simplify complex cloud workflows into clear, confident decisions.
My Background
I transitioned from comparative literature several years ago and proudly graduated from MHCI+D. Given my academic background in critical theories and literary criticism, I'm most motivated by understanding and solving complex problems.
I believe context matters.
Adding any button needs a thorough audit of the existing information architecture. Developing any new feature requires a deep understanding of the product's vision, how it's been used by current customers, and history (including tech debts).
As a designer, I'm devoted to understanding user's pain points, aligning stakeholders' understandings of context, and planning towards the best customer experience.
My Career
My Skills
- UX & Interaction Design
- I turn requirements into user journeys and goals that every stakeholder can contribute to and agree on.
- I read JSON payloads and technical documentation so my information architecture is accurate before I start on flows.
- I design whole workflows, not single screens. That means end-to-end flows that cover every use case, with behavior notes documented for engineers.
- I refine designs by combining diverse, sometimes conflicting input from cross-functional partners, and I keep the team aligned on what we're delivering.
- UI & Design Systems
- I build on the existing design system, turn repeated elements into components so patterns behave consistently, and use auto layout for almost everything in Figma.
- When the product needs a new pattern, I design it and work with designers on other teams so it can be used across the organization.
- I hand off detailed UI specs to engineers, including class names and spacing.
- AI-Assisted Prototyping
- I build prototypes that work like the real product. For example, I rebuilt Azure Center for SAP Solutions on the Azure Portal SDK so it matches the live portal. It includes overviews with drill-downs, configuration heatmaps, an enrollment wizard and Advisor recommendations.
- I sweat the details. Filters persist, navigation stays in place and charts line up.
- I iterate quickly, often shipping several refinements in a day.
- I make the work repeatable with clear design rules and one-step deployment, so stakeholders always have a live link to the latest version.
- User Research
- I walk customers through early concepts and use what I learn to set the project's initial goals.
- I plan and run usability tests with customers, then turn the results into design insights the team can act on.
- Project Management
- I record decisions and the reasons behind them during design meetings so the team can trace them later.
- I gather UI-related action items into tickets and tag the right people.
- I help the team revisit and refine goals as we reach milestones.
- Front-End Quality
- I inspect the HTML/CSS in builds and work with engineers to fix anything that doesn't match the design.
- (Microsoft Azure)
- (Microsoft Azure)
- Visual Flow Authoring 22.03(Oracle, Sep 2019 - Current)
- Conversation to SQL 22.03(Oracle, Aug 2021 - Current)
- Utterance Tester 21.06, 21.08(Oracle, Dec 2020 - Aug 2021)
- Conversation Tester 21.06(Oracle, Apr 2021 - Jun 2021)
- Redwood Design System Uptake 21.06(Oracle, Feb 2021 - Jun 2021)
- Notification System 20.10, 21.04, 21.08(Oracle, Jul 2020 - Aug 2021)
- Data Manufacturing 20.08, 21.04, 21.06, 21.08(Oracle, Apr 2020 - Aug 2021)
- (Schema Design, Oct 2018 - Feb 2019)