Welcome to my new personal website. After several iterations, this site has now become my online resume, portfolio and portal page for my projects I am or was involved in.
As an engineer with more than seven years of experience in developing (web) applications using reliable and modern technologies, I like the challenge and the excitement of experimenting with new frameworks, programming languages and concepts.
I believe that software and tools should be designed after the customers' needs. However, determining those needs is not always that simple, since many customers have more a vague idea than a set concept. Finding the right choice in software and tools is a process which needs to happen for each customer individually.
If a work group has established a workflow that they like and that is efficient, software should support it. But what happens, if after an audit of an external consultant it turns out that things are not running as smoothly as assumed? In this case the focus should be finding solutions which foster the mind shift and help realizing new ways to work.
No matter which software is suitable for a customer, usability and user experience is vital to success. If software is not flexible or customizable it is not good software. It is that simple.
We want our colleagues to be reliable, why should the software we use be different? It might be acceptable in a personal setting, but in a professional environment, rigorous testing is a must.
Software should make peoples lives easier, not more complicated. If a tool is too complicated, users will get frustrated soon. Frustration leads to decrease of work efficiency (because the users will have to take more time to figure it out) or in worst case to denial of using a tool. Good software is intuitive and more complex usage scenarios have to be explained well (video tutorials, etc) so that people can produce results and feel satisfaction.
Code snippets, little scripts and ideas I tried out can be found on my development page (German).
Currently, I am engaged in several projects (see my resume page for details) and in Playspace LLC, a Chicago-based company which I co-founded and where I am involved as lead programmer.