About Paul

With over a decade of experience, Paul van Oijen has been a steadfast advocate for design that genuinely cares about the human experience. His journey has been marked by exciting collaborations with industry giants like Unity, GetYourGuide, Shopify, Coinbase, and many others, imparting invaluable insights that not only elevate his own design, but also empower and elevate designers of all levels to create meaningful experiences that truly resonate with users.

Improving Design

Design fundamentally encompasses only two things: the user, and the experience. Modern product design however, is all too eager to abstract this user, this human being, into a persona; A reduction that attempts to take the complexity of the human experience and shove it into a box that meets our business metrics.

Paul believes there's more to product design than that. He encourages us to take a step back, to reflect on what it actually means to design and who our ultimate beneficiaries are. Are we designing for the human, for the authentic user experience, or are we merely chasing elusive business metrics, treating users as mere ghosts in the machine?

Speaking

Paul has been fortunate enough to be able to share his thoughts and ideas with audiences around the world, including conferences and meetups such as:

• 🇿🇦 PixelUp
• 🇿🇦 UX South Africa
• 🇬🇧 MobileUX
• 🇵🇱 Halo Design
• 🇩🇪 Product Design Berlin