Karsten van Vooren

I start from user flows and low-fidelity wireframes, then move into visual design once the structure actually works. Everything happens in Figma, with fast iteration so bad ideas get killed early instead of after they're built. The goal is always an interface that reads as obvious, not just one that looks nice.

Typography, color, spacing, and components get defined once, in a shared library, instead of redrawn on every screen. That keeps a product visually consistent as it grows past the first few screens, and makes it much faster to design and build new features later without reinventing decisions that were already made.

Mostly React and Next.js on the frontend. I like being the one who builds what I designed, since it keeps the two honest. On the backend I've worked with Node.js, Express, and MongoDB when a project needs its own API, authentication, or a database, most recently on the KSK Beveren app.

Somewhere between a click-through Figma prototype and a full production build, there's a working version that's real enough to actually test with people. I build that middle step often, since it's usually the fastest way to find out if an idea holds up before committing to a full build.