My Services While you focus on technology, I take care of the user's needs.
Together we build an application that is a pleasure to work with!

digital strategy.

Where do you want to go?
Let's discover your product vision! No matter if you are an established company or just started a new business: my wide product development knowledge will help you to define s.m.a.r.t. goals, create an actionable roadmap, and fill the communication gap. Together with your team I will bring your mission to life by integrating ux into your development process, creating a design system (aka styleguide), and sharing best practices. Ask me to support your team with scrum/agile/lean methods for software development, sprint planning with user story mapping, and balancing business and user goals with a persona matrix. I also (re)define the product backlog in JIRA to build the MVP.

Requirements.

Research user's needs
How to create a product that fits all users? Being able to listen deeply and observe enough people is crucial to distinguish between indivdual and general statements, understanding your customers better, identifying behavioral patterns and discovering motivations. My toolset comprises surveys, interviews and contextual inquiries. In combination with requirement engineering and business analysis you can expect deep insights. Personas and scenarios, task flows and customer journeys are perfect to communicate research results visually. To internalize your customer's domain knowledge best, perform explorative activities before development started!

Collaborative Design.

Work better - together
Bringing people from different disciplines together is the best chance to come up with innovative solutions! Invite your stakeholders (business managers, sales and marketing, product owners, developers and customers) and book me as a workshop facilitator! I do moderate 2 hrs business model canvas sessions as well as 5 day GOOGLE Design Sprints. I guide any team that builds digital products or services through the design process, time-boxed but exciting and playful, e.g. create an interactive paper prototype. Hire me for individual trainings to implement a design thinking mindset in your company, or as a personal mentor and ux coach for career change, portfolio and CV review.

concept & content.

Hypothesis based prototyping
My goal is to enable every user to get their tasks done - effectively and effortless. Backed up on insights from user research and market analysis I create screen flows along the business process. Doing so ensures that all content is in a logical order. I create scribbles, sitemaps, low-fi wireframes, high-fi interactive click dummies and test things regularly with real people from the target group. This leads to consistent ux design, using familiar icons and interaction patterns. To keep the dialog between the system and the user smooth, I design your brand voice with a people centric approach in mind. As a ux writer I can easily define the style, wording and content for any user interface.

It's Testing Time.

Validating assumptions
Design decisions should be based on data, not personal preferences. To see if our ideas follow the expectations of your users, are understood and accepted, we need to test them. Applying an iterative approach means to quickly evaluate and implement feedback. Using AXURE and FIGMA, both industry standard prototyping tools, allows to easily validate hypothesis driven design. Regular testing ensures continious improvement and makes a product user friendly, with an intuitive navigation and interaction design. As remote and moderated user testing, card-sorting and tree-testing involve real people, I collaborate with recruting agencies such as Testingtime to find suitable probands.

expert review.

Get actionable insights
A/B testing is great if you run a website with hugh traffic. But how to get valuable feedback on an app or digital tool? If you are uncertain about usability, having navigation issues, or suffer bad customer ratings, ask me to systematically analyse your product. While doing a cognitive walkthrough for a specific persona and scenario I will proof the design against usability heuristics, common standards and brand guidelines. What you get is a detailed report with priotized feedback on ux, ui and usability issues, including recommendations and proposals to improve conceptual ideas, (micro) interaction design, restructure content and create concise ui copy and messages.

Tip:

To see how I can help you, download my services sketch book (PDF)

About Me I'm a multiple person with many interests

Hello, I'm Susanne

I am a digital expert from southern Germany with focus on user centered design. My wide experiences in many disciplines, job roles and companies made me a t-shaped person who loves to work in interdisciplinary teams.

I help start-ups and international players to transform good ideas into better products. To understand which concepts and designs work best, I validate them with help of user testing. If you run a social or non-profit organization, I am happy to support you in between projects.

New to UX & prototyping? No worries, I train any team in human centered design! To individuals, I offer accompanying career coaching, mentoring, and best practices to integrate agile and user-centered methods in a seamless product development process.

When not sitting in front of my computer, you can find me in the great outdoors with my sea kayak or motorcycle, or getting my hands dirty with organic gardening. I love decorating my home and sharing traditional crafts cross-cultural. To strengthen my body and mind, I practice Iyengar yoga, study Buddhist psychology, and join Zen Coaching classes.

Susanne Kreuz

My Skills What makes me special:

Passionate indivdualist with an analytical mind
Desire to help and connect with empathy
Commited idealist following my heart
Test things out to learn, grow and make a difference

Tip: Discover my personality type INFJ Advocate

"Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Judging. They tend to approach life with deep thoughtfulness and imagination. Their inner vision, personal values, and a quiet, principled version of humanism guide them in all things."

Education What I have learned so far:

User Experience Design

Design Thinking, agile and scrum had a big impact on my work since starting with digital projects 20 years ago. A five month online training, covering the whole UX process, enabled me to design my first app. My personal mentor sharpened my ability to focus on the audience, asking the right questions, and listen deeply. To keep myself up to date in human centered design, I regularly visit international conferences and attend and lead workshops.

Prototyping and testing is the core to create a user friendly app and improve the design.

Information Design

For many years I created software manuals, user guides and wikis. Those information products addressed different target groups and helped consultants, developers and key users to implement, enhance and operate complex business applications. I studied Funktionsdesign (c) at the Technical Academy Esslingen (TAE) and learned to apply DITA and XML techniques to handle complex information of extensive websites, intranets, and online portals.

To structure and standardize content, I define modular templates, create ux/ui pattern libraries and design guidelines.

Marketing & PR

Voluntary services in publishing companies connected me with the media business. I learned to publish books and understand layout and typography. To promote products and events, I created press releases and spread the news to journalists. Later I changed the page and worked as an editor, doing interviews and writing success stories and advertorials. Today I still like to blog, especially about ux related topics such as Personas am Leben halten for TestingTime.

My ability to communicate complex and even unpopular topics can help balance stakeholders interests.

Art History & Psychology, M.A.

Being fascinated by art and design, my university studies followed that path. Analyzing paintings and sculptures made me understand the effects of colors, shapes and style. My search for what makes us individuals resulted in studying cognitive and developmental psychology. I love to analyze people, explore new technologies and their impact on our life. My interest in cultures led to European Ethnology and intercultural communication.

Life has many different colors - let's worship diversity to find creative solutions that matter.

My WorkSelected projects as an employee and freelancer:

`

Looking for my cv and a detailed portfolio? Please contact me!

My Blog Find out about ux related topics and events:

UX360° - Certified UX & Usability Expert

Back @school

By Susanne / June 28, 2018

Want to dive deeper into ux and usability? Join me for a training and learn a plenty of useful human centered design methods - it's fun!

Insanity

How to implement UX?

By Susanne / July 16, 2018

This is the winner in my hitlist of ux related FAQ! In my projects of the last 5 years I found 10 general, enlighting answers I want to share with you.

Talk UX Taipei

Looking for Ladies that UX!

By Susanne / January 10, 2018

Wanted: Ladies in user experience design to start a meetup in Zurich. If you are a female ux designer based in Switzerland you are welcome to join.

CoHappy 2018!

CoHappy New Year!

By Susanne / January 6, 2018

2017 has been full of inspiring people, locations, and events! My personal highlights: Working Products in Hamburg, Tallinn’s 11th Design Festival, and the Talk UX conference in Taipei.

Paper Prototyping

Let's get offline!

By Susanne / August 12, 2017

I was invited to the user love barcamp for a workshop in paper prototyping and testing. Let me explain the process so that you can benefit, too.

Usability in Germany: Connecting the dots!

Re-Design your conference!

By Susanne / March 29, 2016

Last week I participated in the annual conference Usability in Germany in Mannheim. This made me think about how to optimize the event and get most out of the big variety of interesting topics.

HDK Zurich

What is information architecture?!

By Susanne / March 1, 2016

On February 20, 2016, this year's World Information Architecture Day (WIAD) was celebrated in 57 locations in 28 countries. But what is IA about?!

Let' get visual

Let's get visual :o)

By Susanne / Feb 8, 2016

Don't be afraid to sketch your ideas, visualising isn't that hard. I'd love to share a little story how sketching can enrich also everyday life.

Break the rules

Are you a work@holi?

By Susanne / Jan 12, 2016

"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life." If you are not hat lucky, think about working as a volunteer in your vacation.

Your dream job does not exist. You must create.

Your dream job does not exist.

By Susanne / January 10, 2016

Nearly a year ago that I decided to quit my job as a senior information developer. What made me run away, and what kind of challenge am I looking for?

Cindy Lauper: True Colors

What´s your true color?

By Susanne / January 2, 2016

Growing up in the 80s brings back Cindy Lauper`s love song True Colors. Actually, this post is about boxes psychologist and recruiters want to lock us in. Check out if they are right!

UX Design Certificate

Congratulation ;-)

By Susanne / May 23, 2015

Proud to post that I am finally done with my course, a challenging but rewarding journey along the whole ux design process!

UX barcamp Zurich

What is a barcamp?

By Susanne / May 12, 2015

"Unlike a traditional conference, a BarCamp is an event which is shaped by the attendees." Sounds interesting? Learn more about barcamps and unconferences.

UX Lisbon

Meet me at UX LX

By Susanne / April 10, 2015

From 3 to 5 June 2015 you can find me in Lisbon, Portugal, attending the User Experience Design Conference. Looking forward to meet you!

Contact Me Let's talk UX!

Please check the data protection policy before you drop me a line:

email