User-Centered Design as a Source of Value Creation
Apple unveiled its new foldable iPhone this week and the predictable reactions followed quickly. One camp will call Apple an innovation leader, creating…
Yesterday it finally happened: a physical station for the cultural platform Kreuz-Rad-Löwe, which I designed with SCHUMACHER for the state of Rheinland-Pfalz, …
A website does not become less outdated because the market is uncertain. Yet that is exactly what happens in many companies right now: a relaunch is postponed,…
Europe's supposed weakness could become its competitive advantage in the long run
Europe seems to have lost the innovation race to the US and China. At least for now. But Europe may still hold an advantage that the US technology system…
The best AI tools in 2026: what to use for websites, design, images, video, and knowledge
When people ask me which AI tool they should use, I always answer with a question of my own: for which task, exactly? There is no single best AI tool. There…
I've just come back from the Forward Festival and I think design may be having an identity crisis
Our discipline seems to bring together two sides that have less in common than ever: One is design as a way of thinking: user-centred methods, service design…
If I Started a Company Today, I Wouldn't Buy Half the Software I Used to Recommend
If I started a company today, I would spend my first €20 on a server, not €400 on software subscriptions before a single feature shipped. Ten years ago, fou…
Vibe Coding for Designers: The Real Risk Nobody Talks About
I Vibe Coded more pet projects in 3 months than I built in the year before. And it made me more convinced than ever that not everyone should. I hear it…
A European approach to designs against silicon valley enshittification
Many designers are feeling a deep fracture right now. Our professional identity was always built on a simple promise: make the world better through design and…
Designers ship code, developers ship interfaces, and AI is dissolving the wall between two crafts that spent decades apart. It all started a few years ago with…
We professionals need to leverage the democratization of production
A hobbyist just built a working MANPAD guided missile prototype for €96. I scrolled past this story and couldn't shake the feeling: part alarm, part f…
The Three Designer Archetypes That Our Clients Need Right Now
Anthropic's Head of Design declared the design process dead. The three archetypes she's naming now show up in every brief we see. A designer archetype is a…
This one is for the workshop and planning enthusiasts
I built a free, privacy-first workshop planner because the existing tools asked for accounts I didn't need. Over the past few weeks, I've been tinkering with a…
Vibe Coding: Using AI to Turn an Idea Into a working App?
I paid for a fitness app for years and barely used it. So I Vibe Coded my own — and shipped it to the Android app store in three months. All the off-the-shelf a…
Stop Wasting Money on Unused Digital Products: with Purpose and Testing
Most digital products look fancy but nobody ever uses them. The fix isn't more features. It's purpose and early usability testing. 🎯 Purpose A digital product is…
"Wouldn't it be more efficient to specialize in one industry?" That's a question we hear quite often at my design agency. 💡 Our answer: No. Quite the op…
The AI bubble might burst — but that’s not the real story. 💭
Hundreds of billions are flowing into AI infrastructure, and the shape of the curve already rhymes with 1999. At the turn of the millennium, we witnessed the…
Optimize Your Website for Generative AI: 15 Proven Tips for GAIO
Search engine optimization used to be the whole game. That's changing fast. Today, a growing share of information requests never reaches a search results page…
The role of designers is changing rapidly in the AI era
As AI generates copy, code, and interfaces, the designer's role is shifting from execution to strategic judgment and curation. 🤝 Our (new) job? Empower, not ju…
About the Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz (Accessibility Strengthening Act)
Germany's Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz kicks in next week – and accessibility just became the new normal for digital products. At the Berlin Product De…
Three talks at this year's see Conference in Wiesbaden shifted how I think about design, democracy, and what AI still can't do. Some takeaways from a packed…
Why I'll never get tired of facilitating innovation
Innovation is mostly a facilitation problem, not a creativity problem. A Service Design Jam is a time-boxed, community-run event where cross-functional teams…
Most product failures don't die in a lab. They die in the gap between what teams believe and what users actually do. That's why usability testing matters: it…
Today, I went to a Berlin design meetup once again and came back cautiously optimistic, something I haven't managed to say in two years. Events I used to enjoy…
Starting in October, I step into SCHUMACHER's management team as Executive Director, alongside leading the UX & Strategy Unit. This is the next step in a…
A green-tech festival where the first thing you see is huge cars, energy companies, and hydrogen-powered aircraft. The fine line between genuine change,…
An award honoring the transformation we are going through
A black-tie award ceremony in Berlin, an unfamiliar category, and a name called out that I genuinely did not expect to hear. That is how SCHUMACHER's UX &…
When I posted my Master's thesis on sustainable urban mobility online for free in early 2020, I didn't expect 350 readers to work through 8,000 pages of it.…
Antifragile by Design: How Megatrends Turn Crises Into Innovation Fuel
The first months of 2020 felt like watching a slow-motion car crash in fast-forward. One by one, countries shut down. Supply chains snapped. In Germany alone,…