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dave tianxiang cai

dave cai

Product Designer

B2C + B2B

Designing at trofimo

hi.

i’m dave

hi.

i’m dave

Mobile, spatial, and in-person • plus a serious ☕️ cortado

I design complex product systems and stay close enough to the build that they ship intact.

Currently leading product design for Dynery at Trofimo.

I design complex product systems and stay close enough to the build that they ship intact.

Currently leading product design for Dynery at Trofimo.

Resume

Designing the Dining Loop

Dynery · Live B2C + B2B

Onboarding, rebuilt twice

Dynery · Activation ×3

Working Overtime

AI-directed · Team tool

Worked with

Case Studies

Phones, storefronts, and living rooms

Three Dynery app screens showing restaurant discovery, group event planning, and order checkout

Designing the Dining Loop

Live B2C + B2B

350+

Components
& states

3,000+

Users

I led Dynery, an AI-powered dining app from 0→1 into a multi-sided platform connecting diners, restaurants, and event organizers, then stayed through design QA in production.

Dynery onboarding screens shown alongside design system components and annotation layers

Complete redesign of the onboarding flow that new users love to engage

Shipped 2025 → Rebuilt 2026

I rebuilt Dynery’s onboarding flow twice, overturned my own design. Activation tripled versus launch.

SonySphere app screens for choosing an immersive mode and preparing the room, with live concert imagery

Transforming living space to an immersive live concert.

Master’s Capstone · AR + IoT

300+

Survey
responses

User & expert
interviews

An AR projector and IoT system that turns a living room into a concert space. I designed the spatial interaction and hardware states first — the phone is only the remote.

SquadUp game pieces and McDonaldland character cards on a phone, next to an in-store ordering kiosk

Crafting delightful and emotional experience with McDonald’s classic IPs in a global campaign

tms 2023 Internship · Kiosk + Mobile

Surfaces
designed

Continents
in concept

A McDonald’s Gen-Z campaign across in-store kiosks, mobile, and packaging. Picked over the competing intern concept, it went on to inform the Collector’s Meal launch.

A McDonald’s self-order kiosk running the SquadUp game

tms 2023 Internship · Kiosk + Mobile

Surfaces
designed

Continents
in concept

A McDonald’s Gen-Z campaign across in-store kiosks, mobile, and packaging. Picked over the competing intern concept, it went on to inform the Collector’s Meal launch.

AI Exploration

I use AI to build faster

while owning the constraints, trade-offs, testing, and what ships.

Working Overtime: a live AI-directed relay race command center shown on desktop and phone at a night checkpoint

Working Overtime desktop shift board with the 24-hour runner timeline

AI-DIRECTED BUILD · LIVE TEAM TOOL

Working Overtime

I directed AI to build a live race-day command center for ten runners—turning contradictory preferences into a schedule the team could actually trust.

AI-DIRECTED BUILD · LIVE TEAM TOOL

Working Overtime

I directed AI to build a live race-day command center for ten runners—turning contradictory preferences into a schedule the team could actually trust.

AI-DIRECTED BUILD · LIVE TEAM TOOL

Working Overtime

I directed AI to build a live race-day command center for ten runners—turning contradictory preferences into a schedule the team could actually trust.

Human-centered
experience explorations

Hardware, wearables & human factors — the work that doesn’t live on a screen

A person wearing the Cicerone headset, annotated with its LiDAR sensor, camera, haptic engine, and bone conduction audio

Cicerone Wayfinder

A wearable that lets visually impaired travelers navigate as a group — and arrive without a sighted guide.

Accessibility

Co-design

Physical Prototyping

Sensor + Haptics

Lime shared e-bikes and scooters lined up side by side

Micro-mobility electric vehicle usability study

Field study across the vehicle’s physical controls and its companion app — two interfaces the rider uses in the same three seconds.

Human-factor Engineer

Usability Study

Mobile app

User Research

Content Creation

I shoot and cut my own — including for Tesla

Professional Content PRODUCTION

Tesla

Official Video Production

Official videos and motion graphics, produced end to end

Learn More

Professional Content PRODUCTION

Tesla

Official Video Production

Official videos and motion graphics, produced end to end

Learn More

Personal Photography

Ten years behind a camera

2016 - Present

Landscape, portrait, & street photography (film & digital)

Learn More

Personal Photography

Ten years behind a camera

2016 - Present

Landscape, portrait, & street photography (film & digital)

Learn More

Skills

A designer does more than draw pretty rounded rectangles

Product management
Where Design Meets Strategy
Develop and present go-forward recommendations with key stakeholders.
Align cross-functional teams to deliver on a clear, strategic product roadmap.
Run A/B tests to quickly improve key metrics and validate major product decisions.
Experience with Jira, Trello, Confluence, Azure DevOps, SmartSheet, Product Plan.
Illustrated by Atlassian
User research
Data-driven Research for Informed Design
User Interviews
User Journey Mapping
Co-Design
Concept Tests
Usability Tests
Turning research insights into design directions
Coding
Smoother Hand-off & Communication with Engineers
Vibe Coding & Deployment
Front-end developing
Javascript
Python
Arduino
WCAG Standards & Accessibility
prototyping
Turning ideas into Reality
Multi-modal Prototyping
Wireframe to High-fidelity Prototyping
Rapid prototyping
Physical Prototyping (Handcrafting, Arduino, Wizard-of-Oz, etc.,)
Prototyping Spatial Experience (VR, AR, MR, Unity)
business strategy
Driving Business Performance
Digital Marketing
Campaign Coordinating
Understanding Data Analytics
Go-To-Market Strategy
Stakeholder Relationship
Investor Pitch