Welcome. On this page you'll find a catalog of ideas — about design — that drive me. I've collected them during the past twelve years of working on real-world products. I’ve encountered dozens of case studies, situations, problems and contradictions. Collaborating with me means you can utilize those experiences. You can wander through the numbered list ad hoc. Have fun.

Keeping the actual human beings — or users — front and center ensures that wrong decisions don’t get pushed through because of personal opinions of the business stakeholders, or, worse, the assumptions of the designer. To put the attention on the user, I start every project with the following questions:

Who is it for (the audience)?

Why will they use it (the goal)?
How will they use it (the context of use)?

Putting the user first doesn’t require anything other than the dedication to do so. We don’t need a whole lot of fancy processes to walk a mile in our user’s shoes. We just need to listen more, and talk less. Be curious. And ask smart questions. The only way to solve problems that have a real impact is to talk with the very real people who are going to interact with our designs.

So, let’s face it, technology and software have taken over our world. We log more screen time than we do sleeping. All these new apps and subscriptions… they’ve got us hooked. And guess what? They were designed with that intention.

Modern companies seem to love this. Establishing a compulsive relationship between humans and products through the use of deceptive patterns results in revenue. And while some are quite harmless, like a “subscribe to newsletter” checkbox that is selected by default, others — like ads designed to appear as regular news articles — are potentially very dangerous.

Since there is no ethics code in design, we have to rely on each individual designer to make the right moral decision. Deliberately hiding true costs, trick people into decisions, or misrepresent information, no thanks. That’s the main reason that I do not work for clients that actively harm the environment (like big oil), human beings (like pharma), or society as a whole (like large social media platforms that contribute to the spread of fake news).

Any product any designer creates is first and foremost measured by the effectiveness of its usability. In other words, how well a user can use that particular design in order to achieve their intended goal.

Now I’m not going to disregard the importance of usability. That would be crazy, right? Right?

One thing to keep in mind though, is that people love pretty things. And for that reason we tend to judge usability based on aesthetics, instead on how usable a product actually is.

It’s a phenomenon that has been observed and confirmed in many studies, coined as the aesthetic-usability effect. In other words, we are biased to believe that beautiful products work better, even if they don’t.

This doesn’t mean we can focus on only making things beautiful and call it a day. Our willingness to forgive does have its limits. That’s why I focus on both, making beautiful things with high usability standards.

Usability focuses on the ease of use, efficiency, and satisfaction with which users interact with your product. And while it can contribute to the overall perceived value of a product (by making it more accessible and enjoyable to use), the concept of value is much broader. Nail the basics of usability but don’t get caught up in purism and endless usability testing!

Good UX copy is an extremely important part of the user experience. It’s meant to evoke emotion, while simultaneously removing all ambiguity. Without the right words, the entire user experience crumbles.

Good copy for digital design should be as digestible and conversational as possible.

Open up any website or app that was made in the past ten years and you’ll see they almost all look the same. This bland Bauhaus-era of UX design is easy to replicate, doesn’t require a whole lot of skill, and has no personality. Swap out the logo on any of these minimalist websites and try to guess which company it is. Good luck.

The good thing is that when everything looks the same, we can grab attention by simply being different. That’s why I prefer to work with companies that like to stand out. Make things that deliberately draw attention. 

There is a place for ornate design and maximalism in UX. But when it comes to complicated tasks or processes, less is more. If we strip away all the unnecessary and reduce the operational and cognitive costs, we greatly improve the design’s usability and are left with the bare minimum required to make complicated interactions easier.

If users don't see or understand the value of a web page within ten seconds, they'll leave. That's because users know that they will easily be able to find whatever it is that they need somewhere else. Ten seconds is all we get to make a first impression and convince people to stay.

Great design not only gets people to trust you, it's what makes them want to stick around. So before we open the door, let's make sure our house is in order, we have our best outfit on, and there's nothing between our teeth, and welcome people with a smile.

In the 1970s German industrial designer Dieter Rams developed the often quoted “10 Principles of Good Design”.

• Is innovative

• Makes a product useful

• Is aesthetic

• Makes a product understandable

• Is unobtrusive

• Is honest

• Is long lasting

• Is thorough down to the last detail

• Is environmentally friendly

• Involves as little design as possible

In the context of UX design, I tend to agree with this list.

Accessibility in UX is usability for people who interact with products in a different way, like people who are blind or who have mobility, hearing or learning difficulties.

Unfortunately only 2 percent of the most widely used websites meet accessibility standards. With no regulations forcing companies to ensure their products are accessible, it’s often not even a consideration.

Lucky that is going to change. The European Accessibility Act will be the first standardized directive applies specifically to the private sector in Europe. This means in 2025 all companies with ten people or more (or whose annual sheet exceeds 2 million euros) have to comply!

The term “learnability” in UX design refers to how easy it is to interact with a new product and the degree of effort required to learn to perform new tasks.

The goal for any complex product is to minimize the effort required to become an experienced user. Don’t worry if the initial usability of a new encountered feature isn’t high from the start. Instead, focus on designing a system that allows users to easily learn it while interacting with it.

Designers tend to focus on first-time users, and hours and hours are spent on designing the perfect onboarding experience. But that’s only half the work.

What happens when users become expert at using the product? They don’t need us to hold their hands. They need faster speed and greater control; like keyboard shortcuts, batch editing, and control panels. 

It’s important to keep in mind that those power user features should always be an alternative way to use the interface — not the primary way.

When it comes to designing interfaces, it’s extremely important to not overwhelm people with a bunch of unimportant options and represent them with only the choices that matter (Hick’s law).

UX designers are responsible for organizing content in such a way that users are left with only the choices that actually matter.

Design is run by white men. To be exact, 76 percent of people who design digital products are white, and 58 percent of them are men. That obviously is not representative of our society and leads to bias issues.

As UX designers, we are shaping what the digital world looks like. Let’s keep our biases in check and question our own assumptions. If we make sure that what we release into the world is more representative and respectful of our shared diversity, everyone wins.

When, where, why, and how we access digital products needs to be considered well before we actually start designing anything, because when it comes to designing for multiple devices, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. 

When a system is designed for context of use rather than screen size, there is a higher chance that the interface will be more appropriate and feel more comfortable.

As designers we have a choice. We can either design meaningful, productive experiences that persuade users to achieve their goal, or we can choose to deliberately mislead, deceive, and coerce users for monetary gain.

It’s our responsibility to help educate and propose alternatives to coercive practices. Most of the time these companies just want to hit their targets or KPIs and don’t really know of any other way to do it.

UX designers are not — and will never be — the expert on the business of their clients. What we are experts on though, is moving them through a design process that will benefit their customers, which in turn will help their business.

In order to do that, we first need to dig into what the client is trying to solve. Immerse ourselves in their domain. For example: ask them about the roles of the people in their company, what they can tell about their target audience, what they think about their competitors, where they need to do better, what they would love to have if time and money weren’t issues.

Make people feel comfortable, ask the rights questions, and read between the lines. These soft skills ultimately help ensure we end up with a design that solves the right problem.

One of the most effective ways to get feedback from your customers is to simply release your product. Put it out there! Real world usage is much more valuable and reliable than (e.g.) studio set-up concept testing.

In order to speed up your release-cycles it’s crucial to figure out which features are must-haves and which are nice to have, but not crucial. That’s the true value of a MVP.

The user research that most companies sell is not in any way scientific, and therefore should not be treated as a way to obtain objective insights/truths. Some companies (especially SaaS start-ups with too many product managers) fixate on user interviews, ‘Aha moments’, anekdotes and other research related results.

This fixation on objectivity narrows the perspective. It makes us less free, less open-minded and ultimately less creative. Now I’m not saying don’t do research — but let’s not give it greater importance than intuition and experience-based design decisions. Do just enough research.

One of the most common UX myths is that people don’t scroll. I’ve had to convince clients that we don’t need to jam everything above the fold a dozen times. Ridiculous, especially since there’s usability research from the UIE going back as far as 1998 that shows people didn’t mind scrolling back even back in the ‘90s. 

Scrolling means “I am interested in more”.