Context
Germany-based Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe is one of the largest
banking groups in the world. Its decentralised structure is one of its main characteristics. Each of the 403 savings banks is independent, locally managed and focuses its activities on
customers in the region in which it is situated. In addition to classic banking services, many savings banks offer their customers value-added current accounts which include participation in exclusive discounts programs. Across the finance group S-Markt & Mehrwert acts as main service provider for the management of the savings bank‘s value-added services. Incremental public roll-out starts in July 2019.

Problem
Over the years, S-Markt & Mehrwert has developed many individual solutions for many different savings banks. As a result, the cost of maintenance for the numerous fragmented services has continued to grow rapidly.

Solution
To reduce costs and effort S-Markt & Mehrwert decided to bundle all value-added programs in one single white label solution (the value added ecosystem) with a mobile application at its core. I developed a concept that meets the business requirements such as extensive modularity and flexibility on the one hand and takes into account the needs of the users such as consistency and usability on the other.

Working mode
Geographically distributed team, mixed shares from linear and agile methods (including Scum).

UX Design (deliverables)

• Overarching UX Strategy
• Information Architecture
• Wireframes

UI Design (deliverables)

• Visual Design
• Asset Production

Context
Peripheral artery disease (PAD) is the third most prevalent cardiovascular disease worldwide and has become a serious public health issue. The TeGeCoach trial, coordinated by the Federal German Innovation Fund, was designed to determine
the clinical effectiveness and cost advantage of health coaching intervention for PAD patients based on telemonitoring measures. Philips, being one of the world‘s biggest health technology companies, played the role of the solution provider. In Oktober 2017 Philips acquired VitalHealth, a leading provider of cloud-based population health management solutions for the delivery of personalized care outside of the hospital. As a consequence the short-term decision was made to build the TeGeCoach telemonitoring application on top of the VitalHealth platform. Launch: April 2018 (trial will continue until 2020).

Mission
The TeGeCoach application had to be (a) compliant with the medical and functional guidelines of the trial, (b) compliant with the Philips design guidelines and (c) aligned with the specific structural requirements of the VitalHealth software architecture.

Working mode
The conceptual basis was worked through in a linear process. The implementation was carried out within a geographically distributed Scrum team.

UX Design (deliverables)

• Requirement Analysis and Documentation
• Workflow Design
• User Flows
• Wireframes

UI Design (deliverables)

• Screen design for (a) mobile patient
• application and (b) web application
• interface for medical staff

Problem

Changing customer expectations, new entrants to the market, and fragmentation of traditional services are all contributing to put traditional banks under pressure.

Solution
Fintech startups all over the world have recognised that data analytics can leverage market opportunity and are working on added-service banking account models. Picking up on the same idea Postbank Ideenlabor, an in-house startup incubator program at Deutsche Postbank, in 2017 startet to conceptualize a personalized addedservice account model. Private beta: 2017-2019 (incrementally).

Mission
In order to carry out user tests, the preliminary concept had to be translated into a suitable user interface. In a modular way I worked out several design variants to show the possible degrees of emphasis on value-added features in combination with classic banking features within a compelling user interface.

Project trajectory
The service is still in alpha phase and only being tested within a closed user group. Regulatory conditions and the surrounding ecosystem are not yet mature enough for a public market launch.

Working mode

• Co-located team + linear process approach (waterfall)

UI Design deliverables

• Overarching UI concept
• High fidelity layouts & assets

Problem
Due to XING‘s horizontal organizational company structure, the different company units are capable of acting autonomously to a certain extent and by that increase speed and efficiently. The downside of this system becomes apparent in the fragmented design of XING applications. As each unit contributes its own UI elements, inconsistency in regards of the user interface has been the consequence in many cases. Facing this problem, XING decided to align the deviating UI patterns within the application by starting with the fragmented search function.

Solution
The task of designing a consistent search function is not a major
challenge in itself. The actual problem was the company structure and the resulting information silos. Thus, as preliminary groundwork I began with establishing communication between the different company units in order to achieve shared understanding and commitment to the requirements of search function and what it should actually render. This was the key to solving the problem and a solid foundation for the design of today‘s easy-to-use cross-content search function. Public release: August 2017.

Working mode

• Co-located team + agile process approach (including Rapid
  Prototyping, user testing & Scrum)

UX Design (deliverables)

• Overarching UX Concept
• Information Architecture
• Process Flows
• Wireframes
• Click Dummies
• User Testing (preparation an conduct of user tests at the in-house user testing lab)

UI Design (deliverables)

• Visual Design
• Asset Production

Context
In addition to the traditional car business, Audi is constantly expanding its range of digital services. With myAudi, the company aims to create a consistent entry into the brand’s digital world and establish a platform for a wide range of online services, which will be open also for third-party providers to offer services. One of the core services within myAudi is the navigation system, based on HERE maps (formerly developed by NOKIA). Public go-live: 2017-2018 (incrementally).

Mission
The navigational services integrated within the simultaneously developed myAudi mobile app had to be evaluated in regard to their use for the web-enabled version of myAudi and translated into a web interface.

Solution
The solution brings full leverage on the potential of HERE maps APIs and seamlessly ties together inherited and newly developed myAudi features to a coherent responsive user interface.

Working mode

• Co-located team + linear process approach (waterfall)

UX Design (deliverables)

• Story Maps
• Process Flows
• Wireframes
• Prototypes
• Documentation

Context

During the annual hackathon event in 2016, a group of gutefrage.net employees developed the business idea for a web platform for paid legal advice, which was supposed to complement Holtzbrinck‘s Q&A sites portfolio. MVP release: May 2016.

Mission
The management subsequently gave order to build up a small task force of specialists to quickly build up a working prototype in order to test the potential of the business case “paid legal advice” on the German market.

Project Trajectory
By consequently applying the Lean Startup methodology to the product development, the team was able to test the first MVP after 3 weeks and managed to get the service up and running within 3 months. The service, named Expermondo, went through several iterations for another 3 months in order to gather enough data to draw conclusions. Over time it became apparent that on the customer side the service attracted a sufficient amount of users but on the business side the expenses for legal professionals did not move in any meaningful frame. Eventually the management took the decision to discontinue the service for precisely these cost reasons.

Working mode

• Co-located team + agile process approach (including Rapid
  Prototyping, User Testing & Scrum)

Product Design (deliverables)

• User Research
• Need Analysis
• Design Sprint Facilitation
• Feature Set Definition

UX Design (deliverables)

• Information Architecture
• User Test Facilitation

UI Design (deliverables)

• Visual Design
• Styleguide Development

Problem
The management of Costa Cruises was facing the problem of a diminishing overview of increasingly large in-house data volumes, especially regarding P&L reports on the level of vessels. Aside from the fragmented technical infrastructure, this was attributable to the nonstandardized methods of data preparation for users. By way of response, the project team examined the underlying processes ahead of time in the course of an introductory project phase aimed at achieving understanding.

Solution
As a result of the research together as a team we identified a tabletoptimized web-based application as the best solution for the problem. The final product bundles both finance-related and numerous operational KPIs and allows both their detailed analysis (drill down) and long-term trend monitoring. The option of tracking specific KPIs and setting individual alerts now allows the management to identify negative developments in a timely manner. MVP release: November 2015.

Working mode

• Co-located team + agile process approach (including User Testing and Scum)

Product design deliverables

• User Research
• Need Analysis
• Feature Definition

UX Design deliverables

• Information Architecture
• User Test Facilitation

UI Design deliverables

• Chart Design
• Tablet Optimized Screen Design

Context
In June 2013, ProSiebenSat.1 launched the music-streaming service AMPYA (pronounced “empire”). With a data bank of over 20 million music tracks, AMPYA was well-equipped to take on its main competitor Spotify. Especially as AMPYA was also able to offer further features: exclusive contracts with bands and musicians, 57,000 music videos, 100,000 radio stations, and a news portal with the latest daily news from the world of music. However, AMPYA couldn‘t stand against its competitors. After several business pivots ProSiebenSat.1 announced to close down the service in February 2017. Public go-live: June 2013.

Mission
At the time when I joined the project the basic principles of the product had already been specified and the desktop client was already in the works. Based on the existing groundwork a concept for a mobile application had to be worked out. The project was characterized by a large number of stakeholders and the main challenge was to synchronize the heterogeneous requirements form different sources. Despite the complex project circumstances the team managed to launch the service with it‘s full feature set from day one.

Working mode

• Co-located team + linear process approach (waterfall)

UX Design deliverables

• Information Architecture
• Process Flows
• Wireframes

Problem
In 2011, Mecedes-Benz was one of the last automotive brands left without a mobile optimized brand portal in place. Building up a new (responsive) brand website was not an option as the project team had only the mandate to extend on the existing solution and not to replace it. Further restrictions grew out of the given technical conditions of the website backend which at that time didn‘t provide structured APIs. Thus the ability to display the right content for the right device was substantially limited.

Solution
In order to be able to fully leverage the opportunities inherent in the respective device category, the project team purposely developed customized solutions for each individual device category instead of focusing upon a generalized solution. Three mobile website variants for smartphones, tables and the propietary in-car Comand System thus emerged, each distinct in its user experience yet based upon the same content source (single point of content). Public go-live: February 2012 – in over 40 markets. Awards: Smarties “Global Gold” Award for the “Best Mobile Site.

Working mode

• Co-located team + linear process approach (waterfall)

Product Design deliverables

• Competitor Analysis
• Content Strategy
• Multi-Device Strategy

UX Design deliverables

• General UX strategy
• Information Architecture

UI Design deliverables

• Art Direction/Supervision
• Visual Design
• Styleguide Development