Design Lead UI / UX &
Creative Direction
Designing experiences with a focus on usability
Design
— a toolkit of methods to explore and address user needs & problems.
Technology
— the constraints but also the material from which to build an exciting solution.
Product Thinking
— my approach of building products based on user needs & measured impact.
Hello — I’m Lukas
Design Lead & creative technologist
I love solving problems by combining technology with the aesthetics & human-centered psychology that is UI/UX design.
GitHub
Staff systems designer working on design tokens, components, tooling and Figma strategy for Primer.
Deutsche Telekom
Leading Scale — the Telekom design system, implementing a new multi-platform design system strategy including theming and working on the future of eCommerce at Deutsche Telekom.
Bertelsmann / RTL
Invisioning the future digital media platform with a focus on personalised relevance. Building the RTL Design System from the ground up & leading the design team.
Daimler innovation lab
Building out major innovation topics for the future of mobility for Daimler AG. Helping the design team grow & develop.
Download resumé (PDF)LAB1886
Design lead at Daimler Incubator
- Implementing processes & tools
- Shaping the design culture
- Hiring & mentoring designers
- Leading design on multiple projects
- Defining design strategy
- Leading workshops
- Usability testing & user research
- Managing stakeholders
Role
As a design lead at Lab1886 — the incubator of Daimler AG I split my time between hands-on project work from ideation to shipping a final product and the more organisational aspects. This includes mentoring and hiring designers, defining and implementing the processes and tools we use and shaping the design culture.
How I work
I believe in designing in the open, involving all stakeholders early in the process and making them partners and advocates of my vision. Within the design team I find it most important to trust & empower designers to make their own decision with the support and safety net they need. As a lead, it is essential to live the change you want to see in your team, to always stay curious and eager to learn and grow.
Impact
We have a great team of designers working on different projects. I introduced a show & tell format to ensure we have a good design culture where we critique each others work and help each other grow. I also started a presentation format to strengthen the role of design in the company and worked together with the other disciplines to improve our processes and tooling.
- Year
- 2017 — 2020
- Duration
-
BOSCH
Bringing biking into the future
- Defining design direction
- UI/UX design
- Building the design system
- Leading design team
- Defining feature concepts
- Leading workshops
- Usability testing & user research
- Prototyping
Challenge
The digital products for the Bosch eBike had huge inconsistencies in their user experience. My research showed that especially new and occasional users had difficulties using them. My goal was to improve usability & consistency without negatively impacting power users.
Solution
In order to start shipping improvements quickly & iteratively I built a design system. This allowed to improve the user experience one element at a time. It also allowed to develop new features faster and with fewer bugs. Before implementing new features & changes I built prototypes to test with users. I then applied the learnings to my designs, before handing them to the developers.
Results
I successfully built a design system and developed new features with it. Additionally I refreshed all products with the design system, making them visually consistent and easy to use. This resulted in a 30% increase of weekly recurring web logins and a 2 star rating increase in the app stores.
- Year
- 2015 — 2017
- Duration
-
COPRA SYSTEMS
Rebranding digital patient management
- Creative direction
- Corporate identity & branding
- UI & UX design
- Building the design system
- Prototyping
- Usability testing & user research
- Leading workshop
- Stakeholder management
Challenge
Both the brand and the patient management software that Copra Software GmbH develops were in dire need of design attention. I was asked to refresh the corporate identity & website to better communicate their values without alienating existing customers.
Solution
After working closely together with the stakeholders from Copra to define the brand values & personality, I developed a new brand experience transforming the brand to be a state-of-the-art, honest & professional health software company. With this done I developed a design system to bring the new brand into the software as well.
Results
I successfully relaunch the brand with both, existing customers and potential clients, unanimously describing the new design as modern, friendly, reliable & professional. The implementation of the design systems improve the usability and user experience of the software and resulted in faster development cycles and a more coherent visual language.
- Year
- 2014 — 2016
- Duration
-
Figma workflow plugin
Design Tokens
- Concept
- Design
- Development
Problem
If you are building a modern design system in Figma you probably use design tokens. External design token solutions add complexity as they don’t sync well with Figma. Using an external tool & Figma to specify tokens means you have two sources of truth — not the idea behind design tokens.
Solution
To solve this problem I developed the Figma Design Tokens plugin. It allows you to export styles and specific token elements as a json file. You can transform the file for any platform (mobile, web, etc.) using amazon style dictionary. To further improve your workflow the plugin can directly publish the tokens to a github. It comes with a template that automatically transforms tokens using github action. Your development team can use the token repository as a dependency. This creates a perfect sync between design and development — making sure the dev team always has the latest tokens. You can read more about this approach in my article on building a better design token pipeline.
- Year
- 2020
- Duration
-