Hi! My Name is Maria Noack.
In truth the way I got into Design and Art is a story as old as time, so I won’t torture you with the boring bits.
I studied Interactive Media Design, working on applications, software, physical objects, rooms and even spaces.
During my studies I developed my skills: Imagining the Impossible and creating feasible ideas out of it, creating a concept out of those ideas and prototyping a few solutions to tackle the problem. Through it all I’ve found that certain parts of the process were more fun and interesting than others, which is why I specialized as a concept and UX designer.
I’m a people-watcher. I love seeing how they act and react, what they do, listening to what they want and learning from them. My motivation isn’t to move mountains, but just making some people’s lives at least a little bit easier.
Professional Competence
Focus
My focus is set on creating functional, usable and enjoyable user experiences. Part of that means transforming those ideas and concepts with a firm understanding of design. Documenting the findings and output of those disciplines accordingly guarantees a cohesive user experience and design language in the future.
Skills
Basic User Research
Researching users and competitors
Persona & User Journey
Visualizing users and consolidating user groups
Site & Information Mapping
Structuring important information and content
Storyboards
Visualizing non-interface and physical interaction
Wireframing & Prototyping
Creating interactive low-fidelity prototypes
Basic Usability Testing
Testing interactions, reactions and needs
Interface & Product Design
Designing interfaces and interactive products
Basic Asset Creation
Creating basic icons, illustrations and media
Tools
UX & Design
Figma, Omnigraffle, Sketch and Invision
Adobe XD, Photoshop and Illustrator
Miro, whiteboard, pen and paper
Various digital drawing and painting tools
Project Management & Documentation
Microsoft Office, LibreOffice und G Suite
Trello, Jira, Confluence and Notion
Operating Systems & Devices
Windows, Apple and Android
Desktop and Mobile
Career History
UX Designer IBM iX Berlin
Oct. 2021 — Now
Current Workplace
UX/ UI Designer 8com
Oct. 2020 — Sept. 2021
I joined the internal agile developement team of 8com GmbH as a UX/ UI Designer to help improve their learning tools. The improvement process included interviewing internal and external users during the user research phase, enabling the team to evaluate and synthesise insights and using the outcomes to design an improved, optimized concept. In order to deliver the best learning experience I started a course in learning design as well.
Based on the concept I designed a new interface and started building a design system for our different learning tools and platforms. I paired closely with the developers to create cohesive components from start to finish; including them in the design process and getting included in the implementation process in turn. This was a great learning experience, especially since I got hands-on experience coding with html and css. To make that feasable we worked in a shifted sprint model, where the design sprint, usually including short research, design and testing phases, prepared the next few tickets for the technical implementation a few sprints in advance.
UI/ UX Designer Solutiance
Oct. 2018 — Sept. 2020
As part of the design team I helped create a cohesive design structure and redesigned the web application, from user research over basic prototyping to a finished interface design. I took design responsibility for the product Operator Responsibility. Together with product management I prepared the designs and specifications for hand off to the developers. I worked closely together with the developers to optimize the application while still maintaining the design language and user experience. To unify the company wide corporate design I also designed print and assets for presentation material.
UX Designer Practical Placement D&B Interactive
Oct. 2017 — Apr. 2018
During my practical semester as a UX Designer I mainly worked on the website redesign for Techem. I performed basic user research and restructured the site map. In a later project phase I took on the main responsibility of creating and managing the wireframes and prototype for the concept. For other clients I also provided visual and functional QA. Additionally I helped create concepts, wireframes, UX materials and presentation material for various other projects.
Bachelor of Arts Interactive Media Design
Oct. 2014 — Aug. 2018
Interactive Media Design is an interdisciplinary bachelor course focused on project and practice based learning. It combines design, media computer science and management. I finished my degree with the main emphasis on design and computer science. My bachelor project was centered on communication with augmented reality in the opera.
Designer Minijob Schutzhütte Schwedt
Sep. 2013 — Sep. 2014
As a designer on a part-time/ voluntary basis I evaluated the previous Corporate Design and redesigned it and the web presence according to recent internal culture changes. I set up a new social media presence and also supported members of other internal teams with the planning and execution of events.