With an academic background in cognitive psychology + human-technology interaction as well as 8 years of industry experience in designing complex technology, I can bring the depth your next ux project needs.
Most projects start with a massive amount of unstructured data. I will help you to find patterns and visualize them.
This way we make the invisible visible, align our team and produce results early on.
There is no one size fits all approach to workshops.
I take from design thinking, design sprints, lego serious play, gamestorming and others to curate the right workshop for you.
In the last 8 years, I designed and shipped complex pieces of software with more than a million users.
I know how to handle Figma, Sketch and Webflow. I can set up and maintain design systems.
There is the famous saying: "Software eats the world". Let's make sure it is designed for people.
With my background in psychology I am not a classic designer. I know that much of what drives good solutions is not visual.
I focus on how components of a system can be orchestrated to make a functioning whole.
Hi, I am Erik. Psychologist with top of class degrees in human-technology interaction, cognitive psychology and design thinking. Self taught designer, now 8 years experience in Sketch & Figma. Built UX for multiple products in B2C and B2B from concept to launch, now several 100k users. Grew product teams as early founding member. Methodologically well equipped to sort ideas, make them tangible, and then test them. Really like good workshops. In my spare time, I offer a Lego class for kids in a school.
Check CV on LinkedIn
Ordinary UX design focusses on the product here and now. This can create swallow and wrong results.
I am convinced that the design of good technology needs a systemic perspective. I use journey building to see what users experience through time. My background in human factors engineering lets me see how technology is embedded in the respective human-technology system.
Both methods provide me with a deeper understanding of how technology can meet people and process needs. They help me to design in context.
A health care device is then understood as part of a medical procedure, a light switch is a building block of a home and a ticket vending machine an element of a longer travel.
My team developed a scalable hardware interface that is applied by Viessmann to next gen heat pump and battery generations. It is now used on several hundred thousand devices throughout the world.
Product site "Vitocharge - Batteriespeicher neuester Generation" (Youtube)
I took the ux lead position for Viessmann’s new IoT platform and introduced new interfaces for energy monitoring throughout all central B2B and B2C products. Our solutions run on every new Viessmann device.
Product site "Besser gemeinsam" (Youtube)
My team received a scholarship by the Federal ministry for economic affairs to develop an IoT solution to revive sustainable retail in city centres. We got invited to startup hub Tel Aviv, were finalist of ICT smart spaces initiative and the federal ministry selected us as startup of the month.
Project description
I led the relaunch of Viessmann’s central B2B platform ViGuide. ViGuide was the first app to be based on a design system and acted as lighthouse for B2B design in Viessmann. It is now a 4+ stars app in stores and on desktop.
Demo PlayStore AppStore "Das digitale Ökosystem" (Youtube)
For Dräger and the UCL Interaction centre London I did ethnographic research in operation theatres to understand technology use by medical staff. My findings fed into numerous publications.
Study 1 Study 2 Study 3
I was co-leading the UX/UI team for Viessmann’s smart home eco system. In close cooperation with the product owners we brought the app from 2.5 to 4.5 stars and implemented numerous new features. Today, ViCare is one of Germany’s most successful climate tech apps.
Product site AppStore PlayStore Tink - "Smartes Heizsystem" (Youtube)
My team developed the first iteration of a full fledged B2B journey, which we showcases on ISH 2017 to explain Viessmann's digital products. We team provided animated content for central screens. The stand received recognition from the German Design award.
Fair stand Mockup journey / Fair impressionErik Berndt has made significant contributions to our B2B and B2C ecosystem. He was our go-to person for ux/service related topics. I can highly recommend him for any challenging ux/service related position.
I can only recommend having a Neapolitan pizza with Erik while talking about the future of work and creativity in German Mittelstand. I had plenty and will surely have more. Erik's extensive experience and knowledge about Strategic UX, mixed with his background in psychology, definitely qualifies him as one biggest experts I personally have a pleasure to know.
Erik is an exceptionally talented product/service designer. With his hybrid background of psychology and design he critically thinks beyond the screen. His concepts and solutions are simple and elegant yet never the status quo. With this unique ability he pushes complete organisations forward. It is not an exaggeration to label him as thought leader.
Erik has a curiosity and ability to wonder that I find deeply inspiring. I got to know him as a person who is best described as a hands-on visionary - someone who encourages new and mindful ideas, yet also takes the measures to bring them to fruition. His work features a thorough understanding of the human perspective and a profound sense of empathy.
In my very close work with Erik I got to experience a rare combination of talent, dedication and ambition. I would recommend him to anyone looking for a super sharp product person in their team.
Erik embraces complexity and never stops before results actually do „work“. I am more than grateful for his help to set up our inhouse design team from scratch. We then made this new department collaborate, digging deep into new processes within the +12k employee organisation.
Challenging IoT project with smart hardware and embedded UIs. Apps had several hundred thousand users already, which meant we needed to introduce changes carefully. Multi-site, international team. See how I work on B2C challenges. Now more than 1mio users.
View case
Lighthouse project for Viessmann. Niche customer group and no (Google) analytics in place, so a lot of user research was needed. I worked in a large team with changing product owners. Target was to build a "Gmail-like" web app for installers. We came close: Vitoguide is fast, usable and lightweight.
Project that cemented my passion for complex human-machine questions and taught me to observe carefully. I got the chance to work with renowned researchers at Europe's largest interaction institute at UCL London and at manufacturer Dräger.
View case
I like to start things and build teams around it. After uni I founded the startup Flag, which was awarded startup of the month by BMWi, gained an EXIST grant and was finalist of the ICT smart spaces track. In Viessmann I was one of the initiators of Werkraum, the internal design unit that grew from 1 to 25 designers in three years. These stories do not fit in case studies, but if you are interested and you also to think about the people around tech teams, let's have a coffee together :).