Designing and building solutions for professionals and domain experts.
Turning your investments in technologies
— ahem, AI — into actual adoption by users and impact for your business.
If you like that sort of outcome, of course.
Four principles shape how I work across all projects.
Focusing on how it works
I work on how things work — the interactions, the structure, the flows, the seams that decide whether the whole thing holds together — not how it looks.
I build on existing design systems and brands;
my energy goes where it changes the outcome:
the less visible logic underneath. That's usually what separates a solution experts adopt from one they quietly drop.
Experimenting
I treat the experiment as the deliverable.
"Strong hypotheses, loosely held," is my motto.
I build (or prototype) to question and challenge my hypotheses and refine the underlying knowledge that supports them. I build with a purpose, not for the sake of building.
I am experimenting with experiments here: thisisnotready.yt.
Designing the practice
How we work shapes what we make — the way a solution is designed and built ends up inside the solution itself. So I also design the design: the methods, the collaboration, the systems behind the work. And because you can rarely just apply a method off the shelf, the real work is picking the right one for the job and adapting it to the context.
Taming AI
AI may be marketed as magic — possibly dark magic — and while it can deliver astounding results, it needs taming more than any other technology to produce what it promises, effectively and efficiently. Forget plug & play (sorry). Building and constantly refining my own system around Claude hasn't just helped me produce new and better work, to the standards I've set — it's also teaching me how to make this technology accessible and useful to people beyond tech roles.
Five complementary steps.
Five places I work — not a fixed sequence; on a given project we might start anywhere. Each is less a stage than a decision: which problem is worth solving, which users, what to build, whether it landed, and how it holds together with the rest.
Understand
I start by understanding the people I'm designing for: who they are, what they need to get done, how they do it today, and the context around them. I collect qualitative and quantitative data — whichever methods fit the situation.
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Frame
Research matters when it changes decisions. I use it to prioritise — which users, which tasks, which variables — and to align everyone on clear goals and credible ways to reach them. The framing isn't fixed: it evolves, so we can course-correct.
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Design & build
Then I design and build the solution — an application, a process, a way of operating. Sometimes on my own, sometimes inside a team; I adapt to the context.
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Evaluate & iterate
No design gets it right the first time — however good the team. If we don't measure how close we are to the goals we set, we're investing blind. So I evaluate, get feedback, and iterate. That's what turns something shipped into something adopted.
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Connect
For strategy to reach everyday work — and for what the work learns to reach strategy — an application alone is rarely enough. I also work on the seams: improving processes, improving practices, aligning stakeholders, so the pieces hold together.
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He is the UX design thinker, the one who needs to understand the context before having any pixels on screen […] Maxime introduced the UX research in the team and created the process attached to it.
He is pragmatic, and perceptive, and is able to balance user concerns, the wider needs of the business, and engineering limitations. A highly skilled, and highly recommended, former colleague.
Maxime is an inspiring team leader, he always tries to improve our processes. He is always the person to count on when production need to be achieved under tight deadlines. HIGHLY recommended!
Fifteen years creating solutions for domain experts
— in tech, fragrance, taste and healthcare.
hvl360°
With AI, I hear people saying that education and formal training don't matter anymore. I beg to differ. You need people who show commitment to know what they are doing. Formal training says you mean business.
This is Service Design Doing