Hi,
And welcome to my online portfolio. My name is Markus and I am currently working as a freelance creative Technologist from my home in Southern Germany.
I have 10+ years of cumulative experience as a senior interaction designer, educator, and HCI researcher. On this page, you can read about selected works, my background and skills, and about my interests as a professional and private person.
Selected Works
Here, I highlight three projects from the main areas I work in: design, research, and teaching.
Design
I currently work for Vancouver based startup, HealthQb. With them, I am working on a digital health product which combines cutting edge research on heart rate variability (HRV) with wearable technologies. We are developing a system with which we can assess a persons wellbeing across various areas and effectively improve their wellbeing by offering a personalized roadmap with practices and coaching.
Teaching
I worked several years as a Sessional Instructor at Emily Carr University of Arts & Design (ECUAD) in Vancouver BC, Canada. My primary obligations were the research, preparation, coordination, delivery, grading, evaluation, and supervision or curriculum course content.
Research
My most recent original research is my MA thesis. In it, I explored the intricate interplay between a designer and her prototypes. Using annotated portfolios as a base, I developed an analytical tool called the focus framework.
With it, we can better understand how both, intended and unintended design attributes that emerge during a design process, shape the final product. The framework thus reveals and makes visible the trajectory of central design attributes of the final design but also unexplored alternatives.
Education and Skills
Design Education
I did my BA in Interaction Design at the University of Design (HfG) in Schwäbisch Gmünd. HfG is well known for its practical, scientific, and thorough design education influenced by the Ulm School of Design.
In 2016 I graduated with an MA in design research from Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Vancouver BC, Canada. SFU has a much more open ended approach to design due to its research oriented environment. Design was suddenly not only a tool to solve a user centric problem with, but a means to be explorative and ask questions rather than ansering them.
Skills
While being an undergradute student at HfG, I started working as a freelancer for a design consultancy as well as a research assistant. Since then, I worked in different professional creative environments and have steadily extended my repertoire of tools, methods, and skills. Although I am very experienced in the whole design process, as well as teaching and design research, I consider my strongpoints to be the development of concepts, building prototypes, user testing, and providing support with development.
Interests
And outside of design?
Outside of design I pursue other creative outlets such as photography and I recently started to play the acoustic guitar. I am also a very active and outdoorsy person who enjoys spending time in the mountains bouldering / climbing, trail running, skiing, or hiking.
