Hey, I'm Barbara Michael

Solving problems, designing experiences, making things is what I do.

A little about me

With a background in cognitive science and business management, I have over 9 years of professional experience doing mainly experience design, service design and product management in various industries, including travel, e-commerce, education, and interior design.

I spent most of the past 8 years managing my family's small travel business, mainly being responsible for:

designing & managing the experience users had while browsing, planning itineraries & booking tours on our website.

managing the experience customers had while travelling on tours we organize.

managing the experience employees had, across all our fully remote teams, prioritizing high job satisfaction, efficiency & productivity.

defining product & business strategy, creating & executing the product roadmap, prioritizing & managing experience design projects, as well as managing & optimizing day-to-day operations.

On the side, I've also been a tailor and thread artist, a Swedish death cleaner and home organizer, a furniture designer and installer, and an interior renovation contractor. A seemingly random range of jobs that actually allowed me to flex my skills in identifying client needs, drilling down into their specific problems, and creating custom solutions, in order to complete projects successfully.

Selected Work

Improving the Experience Traveler's Have when Browsing for Information while Planning Holidays Online

Using mental model research and the structured content design workflow to redesign the information architecture and page layouts across the company’s website.

Outcome: Created a much smoother browsing experience, allowing users to seamlessly flow through the process of planning their holidays and coming to the decision to book tours. Resulting in higher user confidence and satisfaction, increased employee productivity and an overall increase in the number of bookings recieved.

Read the case here

Unifying Online & Offline Touchpoints to Create a Seamless Omnichannel Experience

Creating and managing a design system comprehensive enough to meet the needs of all teams across the company, including administration, marketing, sales, and product.

Outcome: Created a design system that has been used in 100% of projects since 2019 and reduced the time taken to start new design projects from hours to mere seconds.