About Me
Hi, I'm Douwe. I've been designing for medium to large sized companies for quite a while now. Mostly on large applications, like a low-code platform, data analytics tool or a huge insurance application.
I'm not really that super fancy designer
Let me explain. I absolutely love design, in every way possible. Web, app, interior, exterior, everything. The insane, immersive websites built with tools like Webflow and Framer these days, it's amazing. But that's not me (although I did design and build some cool websites).
I simply love to work on large and complex applications in long-term projects. Be part of a team, accelerate the development with design. Make impact in organizations. Besides design, my qualities are in my calmness, communication, team-feeling, ambition, strategy and helicopter view. And I think the desire to work in those kind of projects fit those qualities perfectly.
Services
This is what I do and what design can bring, summarized. I'm always open to talk about your ideas and opportunities.
UX UI, Digital or Product Design
Give it a name. My focus is on creating attractive, user-friendly, and efficient interfaces.
I design with the end user in mind, ensuring that products are not only visually appealing but also intuitive and truly meet their needs. I particularly enjoy working on large-scale enterprise projects — for example, modernizing a legacy application using low-code platforms such as OutSystems. Throughout the process, I contribute ideas, develop a style guide, and design screens that help developers work faster.
Accelerate your development process
I help organizations accelerate the development process of large-scale (web) applications.
With my experience in enterprise-level projects, I understand the day-to-day dynamics of large organizations. I enjoy working within one or several development teams, contributing my design expertise while keeping technical feasibility in mind thanks to my frontend background. No unnecessary frills — just solid, well-crafted interfaces that make users happy. And happy users mean happy stakeholders. I’m familiar with agile methodologies and can work effectively both within teams and independently.
Keeping it simple
I like to keep things simple: talking, observing, and above all, listening carefully. No long questionnaires, endless workshops, or extensive research methods unless they’re truly needed. It’s about mapping out requirements, having real conversations, and being part of the team. Getting to know the business and designing from that understanding. It doesn’t have to be rocket science. With this approach, I focus on what matters most — adding real value to teams and projects. In my view, this is when design works best: as an accelerator for development teams. Clear designs, straightforward communication, and less rework.
Path so far
From graphic design, frontend development to UX/UI. I've gone through the whole 'frontend' part of web and app development.
My path started at my study Graphic Design. Here I learned the basics of design in general and also got in touch with tools like Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign. Back in the days also Dreamweaver by the way. Instead of theory, we learned it the practical way. In two internships I came in touch with web design, which I really liked. While I already did some freelance graphic design work besides my study, I shifted more and more to web. The next study was more media, communication and web minded. Next to this, I kept working on freelance basis, but mostly as web designer and developer (Wordpress).
After my study I went to development for a while, but moved back as soon as possible. While I already had some frontend skills and definitely learned a lot about this (Angular, Vue, JS and even some Java), design was my thing. In my first job as (at first) Frontend Developer, I more and more moved to design. We were creating a data-analytics tool for a traffic consultancy company, and this became my first real UX/UI job in the end. It was amazing, and I loved how users reacted to it.
This made me realize this was the right path for me. I kept learning and got my next job at a medium sized consultancy company, where they gave me the responsibility to redesign their whole low-code platform. Using the freshly new tool Adobe XD back then was amazing and knowing they still happily use the platform is great.
After this I got the opportunity to work on a huge application at one of the biggest insurance companies of The Netherlands. From the first sketches and screens to a large styleguide and hundreds of screen designs and flows, which accelerated the development process as every screen was ready for developers before the sprints started. Later on they increasingly found their way into the designs themselves and we created templates they could use. A big responsibility and very good results.
If you're looking to fasten your development process using UX/UI or Product Design, let's talk!