Product Designer · UX/UI
Building clear, trustworthy digital tools from user research to frontend implementation.
Learned the rules. Practising the exceptions.
Shaped by business, technology, and media.
I am interested in how digital products are structured, how they guide people, and how they create trust. For me, design is not only about the surface, but about clarity, usability, and the small decisions that make an experience feel effortless.
What fascinates me about UX is that good design often goes unnoticed. When it works, people simply understand where they are, what they can do, and what happens next. That is the kind of design I want to create: useful, trustworthy, and calm, but with enough character to feel distinct.
Outside of design, I am drawn to experiences that combine structure, atmosphere, and detail, whether in games, movies, or cooking. I like when many small decisions come together to create something people remember.
Work
Process
Discover
- User interviews
- Heuristic evaluation
- Stakeholder workshops
- Desk research
Notion · Maze
Define
- Personas
- Problem framing
- User flows
- Information architecture
Miro · Trello · Whimsical · FigJam
Develop
- Wireframes
- Visual design
- Prototyping
- Component systems
Figma · Adobe CC · Affinity Suite · Unity
Deliver
- Frontend development
- Prototypes
- Documentation
- Design system handoff
HTML · CSS · JS · TS · Astro · Git
The framework above is the foundation; the reality is iterative.
I use these phases to turn user insights into clean, buildable interfaces.
“Ever since I was young, I wanted to optimize cross-functional communication frameworks and streamline end-to-end user journeys.”
Context
This was my Master’s thesis at TH Brandenburg, completed in early 2026. The work sits at the intersection of behavioural economics, EU regulatory frameworks, and the practical realities of free-to-play game design. My supervisors came from both the digital media programme and consumer-protection research.
Problem
Free-to-play game monetisation is regulated under EU consumer-protection law, particularly the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive. But no practical, designer-friendly method existed to assess whether a specific monetisation flow crosses into unfair territory.
Compliance teams checked legal boxes after the fact. Designers had no shared vocabulary. Dark patterns slipped through because nobody knew what to look for.
Process
I synthesised four research perspectives that rarely meet in one place: behavioural economics on player decision-making, the EU regulatory framework and recent case law, the established dark-pattern taxonomy, and vulnerability research on minors and at-risk players.
From this synthesis I derived an indicator system: 12 questions distributed across 4 risk domains. Each question yields one of three concern levels — minimal, moderate, or elevated. The system is designed to be used by mixed teams: a designer, a product owner, and a legal reviewer can sit at the same table and reach the same assessment.
Solution
A web-based assessment tool. Teams answer the 12 questions about their monetisation flow. The tool surfaces concerns with reasoning, references the relevant regulatory context, and suggests mitigation directions. The interface is deliberately low-key — substance over surface. It is currently live at informatik.th-brandenburg.de/~lenzing/.
Impact
A field that previously relied on intuition or after-the-fact compliance reviews now has a structured screening method that any product team can apply pre-launch. The thesis received a grade of 1.0. The tool is being considered for further development in cooperation with my supervisor.
Reflection
Visual polish was deprioritised against academic substance and research rigour. With the thesis complete, the interface deserves the redesign it never got during research.
The bigger learning was structural: the four risk domains held up well across all the test cases I ran, but the 12 questions are a v1 — they will need iteration as the legal landscape moves with the EU Digital Fairness Act.
Context
This was a second-semester master’s project at TH Brandenburg with an external stakeholder: the Brandenburg State Justice Authority (Brandenburger Justiz). They organised an annual step-counting team challenge across departments — courthouses, prosecution offices, prison administration. The challenge had been running for years. I was the only designer in a team of four; the others handled backend, project coordination, and stakeholder communication.
Problem
Coordination happened via Excel sheets shared by email. Standings were always out of date by the time they reached participants. Team dynamics — the actual point of the challenge — fell flat because nobody knew where they stood until weeks later. Participation was declining year over year. The stakeholder wanted a way to keep the spirit of the challenge but solve the logistics.
Process
I led the research: a stakeholder interview with the challenge coordinator, then three user interviews with previous participants. From those conversations, a clear set of insights — people wanted real-time standings, they wanted small team dynamics rather than one big leaderboard, and they wanted the data to leave their phone as little as possible (a federal employee privacy concern).
From the insights, I drafted personas, mapped the core user flow, and built two rounds of wireframes. The stakeholder reviewed the second round. I then moved into visual design and built a clickable Figma prototype.
Solution
A mobile app for iOS and Android. Step tracking via phone sensors, no external data sharing. Users form small teams of 4 to 8, see live standings within their team, and weekly challenges layer on top of the main competition. A simple commentary feed keeps the social side alive.
Impact
From an Excel-based workflow passed around by email to a real-time mobile app with proper team dynamics. The project received first place in the jury award at the end of the semester. The stakeholder expressed interest in moving toward production, though that was outside the scope of the course.
Reflection
The visual design was conservative. I’d push for stronger contrast and more confident type choices today. The bigger lesson was about scope discipline — we considered adding social features, in-app messaging, and an event calendar, but stripped them out to keep the core experience tight. That decision held up well in the stakeholder review.
Context
This was my Bachelor’s thesis at TH Mittelhessen, completed in 2023. The brief was open: develop both a social-media strategy and a complete corporate identity for a fictional client of my choice. I invented ToolSynergy — a peer-to-peer platform for renting tools between neighbours in urban districts.
Problem
Most academic brand projects deliver one or the other: strategy on paper, or identity on canvas. The interesting work happens when the two have to live in the same brand voice. The challenge was to start from a market position and arrive at content that could ship on the same day — without losing the thread between strategy and execution.
Process
Market analysis came first: I mapped existing sharing-economy platforms in Germany, identified the gap (most platforms focused on cars, accommodation, or services — not physical tools), and developed two buyer personas: Max Schmidt, a thirty-something homeowner who needs a tool twice a year, and Lisa Müller, a young apartment renter who has tools and storage space.
From the personas, a positioning matrix against competitors and a brand voice that sits between practical and neighbourly. The visual system followed: a wrench-based wordmark, a primary palette of utility blue and warm accent orange, a type system of Open Sans paired with Alternate Gothic.
Content design closed the loop. I produced sixteen ready-to-deploy social-media templates across four formats: carousels, squares, landscape, and Pinterest. Each was tied back to one of the personas.
Solution
A complete brand and content blueprint: a 100-page style guide, the wordmark and icon system, two persona documents, a positioning matrix, brand voice guidelines, and sixteen launch-ready content pieces. Everything a small founding team would need to launch the platform in a single sprint.
Impact
A platform concept with no public-facing identity at the start now has every asset it would need to launch — strategy, brand, content. The thesis received a grade of 2.3.
Reflection
The work was thorough but conventional. Three years later, I would push the brand voice further — particularly in the social-media content where I played it safer than the personas allowed for. The brand system itself still holds up; the content layer is where time shows.
Context
This is the second version of my portfolio. The first one shipped in early 2024 as part of an Interface Design course at TH Brandenburg — a dark site with red accents, percent-bars for skills, and a slogan I no longer recognise as mine. It served its purpose for the course. It did not serve me as a working designer.
Problem
The 2024 site reflected what I thought a portfolio should look like — generic dark theme, listed skills with arbitrary percentages, a tagline lifted from design-school stock phrases. It did not show how I actually work or think. By late 2025, every time I sent the link to a recruiter, I winced.
Process
I started with an audit of the old version. What I kept: the V/L wordmark concept, set in Lora Bold, and the underlying idea that the site should feel personal. What I removed: the dark-red theme, the percent bars, the generic copy, and the assumption that scrolling has to be vertical.
The concept work was the longest part — maybe four weeks of iteration on copy, structure, and tone before any code happened. I worked on positioning first, then on the hero statement, then on each section’s individual job.
The build itself took two weeks. Astro for the framework, Lenis for smooth scroll, GSAP with ScrollTrigger for the horizontal sidescroll on desktop. Fonts are self-hosted to stay compliant with EU privacy law.
Solution
This site. Horizontal scrolling on desktop, vertical fallback on mobile, dark editorial type system, and copy written with the same attention I would give to a client product. Built entirely by hand without a no-code builder.
Impact
From a generic 2024 student site to a hand-built editorial showcase with custom interaction logic. The Lighthouse scores are above 95 across all four categories. The site loads in under 200ms.
Reflection
The horizontal scroll is a calculated risk. It works for me as a way to make the unusual feel intentional, and it gives me something to talk about in interviews. I am watching whether it stays useful or starts to be a stylistic crutch — if six months from now I can’t defend it on user-experience grounds, it goes.