Johan Strömqvist
Product design craft lead
Principal-level ·Malmö, Sweden ·strmqv@gmail.com ·+46709545025
I’m an interaction designer with a design technologist flavour, leading design direction and builder enablement at large scale.
For seven years at Shopify, I was a craft lead for interaction, motion, and performance within the Polaris design system, enabling thousands of designers and developers to build cohesive, high-quality products used by millions of businesses. I work deeply across both human and technical domains, combining knowledge of perception and cognition with a practical understanding of web technology to design systems that work for people and the platforms that serve them.
Core strengths
- Design leadership: product strategy, mentorship, unblocking/reframing, crafter empowerment
- Interaction design/HCI: functional visual design, concept clarity, motion, tactility, progressive disclosure
- Performance UX: responsiveness, feedback, continuity, optimism, loading/revalidation, retained attention
- Design systems: design language, UX patterns, guidelines, enablement
- Design technologist: prototypes that unblock teams and build conviction
Timeline
Apr 2018–Dec 2025
- Led UX for admin view transitions between pages: faster, smoother navigation that improves continuity, focus, and productivity.
- Drove a new page-loading paradigm: clearer progress, stability, and perceived performance ("performance is UX").
- Set a high interaction quality bar through prototypes, short videos, and hands-on pairing with engineers.
- Shaped motion and interaction guidance for Polaris and product teams; documented reusable patterns and principles.
- Delivered under extreme timelines when needed (e.g., defining a theme animation system ready for build in ~2 weeks).
Oct 2015–Feb 2018
- Built web-first interactive work with JavaScript + SVG; performance-minded animation and data-driven motion.
- Creative coding: recognized with 3 projects in CodePen Top 100 (2018).
Sep 2014–May 2015
Prototyped emerging-tech concepts for clients; bridged physical + digital; strong storytelling in decks.
Oct 2013–Apr 2014
Nov 2012–Jul 2013
2011–2013
2011–
Ongoing
May 2009–Sep 2010
2007–2011
2006–2007