placeholder

Meet the team - Harmen

Number four in our interview series is Harmen Struiksma, our medior interaction designer. Today it is his turn to answer some questions.

porter_harmen

Who is Harmen Struiksma

Harmen lives with his wife Suzanne and little daughter Evi in Zaandam. Soon he will become a father for the second time and he will also reach the age of 40. A double celebration :D. Harmen travels a lot by bike, including his customer visits. And if it rains, our clients make sure he gets back to the office dry.

harmen_regenjas

As an Interaction Designer, Harmen is engaged in identifying end-user needs, writing user stories and creating personas. Interaction design plays an important strategic role in making decisions about how a website or App will function and be used. Because of this, his work is usually not tangible, it is more like a blueprint or foundation on which to design and build. To stay on top of design, branding and development, Harmen does keep himself busy in his spare time, designing logos and even building entire websites.

harmen_working

What did last week look like for you?

"On Monday we had a meeting with a client who is in caregiving. They have a program for people who work in long-term care. Despite the often heavy subject matter, they choose to discuss the issues with humor. For that reason, we are going to develop an interactive game full of humor that should make the target group think about their work attitudes and occupational issues.

I have turned the most valuable ideas that emerged during the meeting into a prototype that really brings the idea to life. What you often see is that the client's interests do not match those of the target group and I find it a huge challenge to still look for that overlap."

harmen_bord

What makes working at Unc Inc special?

"I get the confidence from them to bite into new techniques and developments that not only allow me to grow as a professional myself, but that Unc Inc also benefits from this. I now have over ten years of experience as a designer at agencies and I really like the level of professionalism at Unc Inc. We are growing as a company and I am growing with Unc Inc.

Another thing I find powerful about Unc Inc is that we involve our clients in the entire process. They are truly partners and in fact also fully participate in a project. This allows us to put a stamp on the final product together that everyone is completely satisfied with."

What are you proud of?

"I am proud of all the projects I have worked on. One project of interest to me is Hoodhunt. The platform recently went live, but with this our work is not finished. After all, a website is never 'finished' and we are now entering the optimization phase.

For example, I get to dive into the analytics to investigate how people are using the website. It's always interesting to see whether the expectations we had beforehand will come true. With those findings we can improve the platform with the aim of making the end user even happier. And the customer and ourselves in the end as well."

Harmen_meeting_kas

Where do you get your inspiration?

"At my previous employers, I was regularly the only designer on the team, and then you sometimes miss a sparring partner. I then started attending meetups. It really is its own community of professionals with shared passion for our field of work, a kind of 'discussion group' for when you are struggling with challenges within your work. Not too long ago, we organized a UX (User Experience) meetup ourselves to give something back to the community. It was a nice, relaxed and educational evening!"

To whom are you passing the baton and what would you like to ask him/her?

"I pass the baton to Caryn, our visual designer from South Africa. And I would like to know from her what is the most Dutch thing she has done so far."