Yeonhee Rho

About

Designer by tradeco-founder by choiceowner of everything but the code.

I'm Yeonhee Rho, Yenny to most people: a senior product designer in the San Francisco Bay Area. For 15+ years at Samsung and Amazon I designed systems and AI-enabled products that simplify complex technology into intuitive, inclusive experiences, built to scale across platforms and global markets.

Portrait of Yeonhee Rho

Now

Since 2024 I have co-run DNNR Tech, a two-person studio with 20+ consumer apps live on iOS and Android. My co-founder builds them; I do the rest: vision and product strategy, UX and interaction design, brand, App Store and Google Play presence, content and social, and the feedback loop with real users. The case DNNR Tech: everything but the code describes how that works day to day.

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Before

Amazon (2022–2023). Product designer on the Amazon Shopping app. I redesigned the first-time flow of View in Your Room, the AR feature, from 11 steps to 6, and refreshed the mobile design system after the move from Sketch to Figma.

Samsung Electronics (2006–2022). Sixteen years of system-level UX for global consumer products across mobile, wearable, TV, and VR, as a lead senior UX/UI designer who mentored a team while designing core experiences myself. Two of the stories are here: the Gear VR setup and multi-device UX that cut setup from 13 steps to 5 ahead of a launch that sold 7M units in its first quarter, and the Tizen OS design system and core apps across four device categories.

What I'm known for

  • System-level product thinking. Operating systems, design systems, and the review practice that keeps them whole.
  • Cross-platform and multi-device UX. Phone, watch, TV, headset, appliance; the handoffs between them.
  • Founder-level ownership and execution. Twenty-plus live products with my name on every listing.

Education and recognition

  • MS, Technology Innovation (HCI equivalent), University of Washington.
  • MS, Cognitive Science, Yonsei University. BE, Computer Science, Sogang University.
  • iF Design Award, Gold, 2012, for the XGEO GC80 digital X-ray medical device.
  • Patents: ten families, 60+ citations, including US9760239B2 (control device and controlling method), US10311503B2 (user terminal for an electronic shopping service), and US10157191B2 (metadata tagging and gesture-based image search).
  • Publications: Demonstration of a low-cost EEG system providing communication for patients, IEEE GHTC 2021 · Methods of identifying touched areas have been wiped properly, ACM PETRA 2021.
  • Volunteer: redesigned the SimpleSteps career platform for immigrant women; active usage rose 120%.

Outside work

Mentoring designers, building products with real users, and taking the long view on what is worth making.

Contact

Email hello@dnnr.us or find me on LinkedIn.