Web Agency Work
2007-2014 | mellowmessage & Fortuna
After an digital all rounder job at the University of Freiberg, I started working for digital agencies. I worked in basically all fields of design and strategy for more than 7 years straight:
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Print & online advertisement
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Website design (B2C & B2B)
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Web application development
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E-commerce shops
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Design processing
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Ideation and pitching
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Consulting
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Project management
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Product Management
Over the years I've learned how to successfully embed UX Design and how to improve my own skills as a designer around usability, accessibility, programming and visual design. I specialized for a while on conversion rate optimization, sign-up forms and store checkout pages.
What I've achieved
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Several awards for my solutions and patterns.
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I successfully established a ux design unit twice in agencies during this time.
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Many specialist trainings and certificates helped me a lot to grow as a ux designer
Semikron - Product Catalogue
Role
UX Design & Stratgie / mellowmessage GmbH
Highlights
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Stewie Industrial Award 2014
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Advanced product search & filter
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Highly modular content system
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Automatic Content Aggregators
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Semikron had a very complex and nested product catalogue. A lot of user testing and rapid prototyping resulted in a new and faster information architecture than our competitors, which also got us several wards down the road.
Goal
The main goal for the website was to generate leads and display an easy to access product catalog on a fully responsive platform. The product search was the key hub and we spent a lot of research and prototyping to get it right.
Challenge
Semikron is an independent manufacturer of power semiconductor components. Their highly diverse and complex product portfolio is a challenge for this type of industry. Competitors like Texas Instruments, Infineon and NXP had similar issues with discoverability and bringing order to their complex portfolio.
Huge bulky filter panels with unresponsive and aged interfaces made it a challenging for customers and sales professionals to find what they were looking for.
 I used Axure for the wireframing and prototyping. We used a fully designed dummy website to discuss all solutions directly with our client. |  Big imagery and much white space stands in contrast to the very granular product palette. The aim was to make it feel lightweight and airy instead of cramming everything into small tables. |
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 The core of the application was an advanced filtering and sorting system. Depending on the persona there are different criteria and ways to find the right product. Our multi-faceted search enables customers find their products in different way. |  A revamped search with dynamic pages grouped results in different categories. |
 We wend with a tag able filter system to keep it simple and responsive. |  Details on demands allowed customers to focus on what is necessary to make a proper decision without losing themselves in clutter. More details are always one hover / click away if needed. |
INFORM Software - B2B Relaunch
Role
UX Design & Stratgie / mellowmessage GmbH
Highlights
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High focus on different customer groups
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User flows were designed based on actual needs
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Content items are linked semantically
Goal
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Provide clear and quick access to all services and outline inter-dependencies without confusing the customers.
About the Project
Inform Software Corporation designs and develops intelligent planning and decision-making software. Its application areas include logistics, aviation resource management, and fraud prevention in payments processing and insurance industries. The relaunch of INFORM's corporate website was a big and very exciting challenge.
We spent much time in preliminary interviews and researching to gather insights about the products and customer expectations. User flows helped us to identify short-cuts and shaped the information architecture on structure and content. When we set up and discussed the sitemap with the client, we figured out that we need a more flexible and scalable approach to maintain the content.
 The interactive map visually displayed all industries and use cases that Inform covers with their solutions. |  Inspired by flight booking and travel planning websites, we developed a quick launch to match solution requests as fast as possible. |
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 To build reputation through references, we embedded many micro interactions to filter for customers that used already certain solutions. So clients can look for reputable brands within their industry. |  Many different problems often have the same solution. An alphabetic problem-solution mapping system increased the discoverability for specific branches. |
VEM Group - B2B Relaunch
Role
UX Design & Project Management / mellowmessage GmbH
Highlights
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The website was nominated for Google Mobile Agency Awards
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Build with lean UX methods
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Short development cycle
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Fully responsive
Goal
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Relaunch of the website for desktop and mobile within a very short time frame - (upcoming convention).
About the Project
VEM, one of the largest manufacturer of electrical machinery in Germany, is a diversified independent supplier to the following sectors: mechanical engineering, plant construction, the chemical, oil and gas industries, energy and environmental engineering, wind power plant construction, transport engineering, steelworks, and rolling mills to name a few.
I was lead in relaunching VEM's fully responsive corporate websitand started working as a Digital Project Manager specialized in usability concepts and digital innovations. We had no dedicated UX Designer and usually, design work was split between the Visual Artists and the Project Manager. The whole development process was also based on a waterfall process.
The client’s highest priority was an upcoming convention which was also the desired launch date of this project. The very tight schedule was not feasible with the old waterfall process. Too many approvals and hand-off loops would block us from just delivering in time.
Instead of separated units with similar specializations (developers, visual designers, content managers, marketing), we grouped all related people in one location. I worked closely with the client, front-fnd developers, and art direction. We limited documentation to a minimum and relied on update logs with several columns for each unit.
Instead of a preconception phase with the entire project documentation, we went straight for development and defined action items and deliverables for each unit. Dependencies were documented on a time graph to make sure we got our focus right. It was a mixture of Kanban and Scrum project management techniques.
Involving the client on multiple layers at the same time helped them to understand the dependencies and often hidden layers of web development.
Selected Websites and Applications
 B2B Website relaunch My role: Prototyping & Pitch Strategy |  Conference planning portal incl. SignUps and post convention management. My role: Design & Development |
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 This project won the national innovation and next generation award of Germany. This complex project was designed and developed by myself. The digital archive let's users enter historical memories about the city of Coburg incl. location and time based entries. Memories can be accessed via list, map or time lines for a better contextual experience. |  As a project manager and product designer I was responsible for maintaining and expanding the Behrs Online Store. |
 UX Design & Prototyping for a new glasses online store. |