Haven Smith & Company
Haven Smith & Company is my practice and my imprint. Through it I publish books and practical guides, I teach, and I help teams build products that are accessible and worth trusting.
- Books
- Practical guides
- Teaching and training
- Accessibility audits
- AI-native product research and design
- Books
- Practical guides
- Teaching and training
- Accessibility audits
- AI-native product research and design
Hi, I’m Ashley.
I have worked for more than twenty years in accessibility, trust and safety, and product research and design. I helped create many of the systems our day-to-day lives depend on: banking, payments, identity, and fraud protection. One of my roles was vice president of product research at JPMorgan Chase. I hold a master’s degree in human factors and systems engineering, and I am a DHS Certified Trusted Tester.
I write books, teach, and build good products. I also designed and built the chat helper on this site, which answers questions from my book and my Digital Life Management System. Whatever brought you here, I’m glad you came.
Ashley
Read my story20+
years in product research and design
10,000+
people trained
1B+
users of products I helped build
The work behind products people use every day.
Haven Smith & Company
The design language and component library for this site, built AI-native.
See the case studySmith Bank
A concept for AI in mobile banking for business owners.
See the case studySmith IP
The platform a global technology company uses to enforce its intellectual property.
See the case studyHaven Cloud
Onboarding, admin, and billing for a cloud platform.
See the case study
Shuffle the deck and find your next aha moment.
I started designing these cards more than ten years ago to help people find fresh ideas when they need them most. Each card gives you one theme to explore and short exercises you can do at work, at home, or anywhere you need a fresh idea. Every card gives you a fresh perspective.
Play the gameFrom the book
Organizing is loving, preparation is kindness, and if there is nobody in your life to do this for, then do it for yourself, because you count.
Ashley KarrAccounted For
The rules that shape my work.
- Start hereThis is how everything on this site looks, reads, and moves, and why.The design language
- Build with itThis is every component on this site, with its code and the rules for using it.The component library
- Make it work for everyoneThis is what I check, how I test it, and what good looks like.Accessibility guidelinesComing soon
- Design for the AI eraI am bringing the classic interface guidance of Smith and Mosier into the AI era.Interaction design guidelines for the AI eraComing soon
- Ask better questionsThis is how I plan, run, and write up research that moves teams to act.Design researchComing soon
- Speak the same languageThis is a keyword index of the terms I use, with definitions and resources.The reference libraryComing soon
My writing, in one place.
Articles and episodes on accessibility, trust and safety, and AI-native product research and design.
What a screen reader user hears on your checkout page.
I walk through an ordinary checkout the way a blind customer meets it and show the fixes that matter most.
1 of 5
Tell me about your project.
Tell me a little about it on my contact form, and a real person will get back to you soon.
Get in touch