Jennifer Crakow

User Experience Design, Product Strategy & Research

Who?

Jennifer Crakow is an award-winning User Experience Director, Interaction Designer, and Researcher. She has led the design of innovative products and services for startups and multinational organisations since the early 1990s.

Jennifer studied Art & Technology and Painting & Drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She received a joint MA degree in World Heritage and Cultural Projects for Sustainable Development from L’ Università di Torino and the Politecnico di Torino. Jennifer lived and worked in San Francisco for 16 years before moving to Europe in 2008.

Since then Jennifer has worked in London, Milan, Shanghai, Turin, and Stuttgart. She co-founded amplify in 2010 and has been based in Berlin for 10 years.

Services

Startup Advising

When a new firm begins, everyone must be involved in building the initial product. As a startup transitions into a fully operational business, it is often helpful to define processes, and how multi-disciplines collaborate within them.

Role definition, responsibility and accountability provide a structure for employees to understand both their contributions and what is expected of them.

Conceptual thinking, expertise and career development are often an overlooked, yet important aspect of a designer's experience. Ongoing goal-directed training and mentoring can provide a lot of value in progress, and greatly influence performance.

Design Management

In various situations, Jennifer has provided design management services to numerous types of clients. The specifics are tailored to their context and goals.

Workshop Facilitation

Whether design thinking, ideation, team alignment or prioritisation sessions, it's helpful to have an outside perspective and facilitator.

Moreover, effective facilitation enables executives and teams to progress quickly, with less friction and more alignment.

Interaction Design Consultation & Critiques

With over twenty years of deep experience in the interaction design of a variety of products and systems, Jennifer offers an expert opinion on the design of systems. She joins team critiques, executive and client presentations to provide a broader perspective in framing work.

User Research & Usability

Jennifer has utilised and facilitated a number of methods in qualitative user research, as well as traditional usability studies. These include rapid ethnographic research, participatory design, contextual inquiry, journaling, lab-based usability, and heuristic evaluations.

Clients

jcrakow@gmail.com +49 (0)175 4009498

Lead photo courtesy of Ettore De Maio