About me

I am a designer, writer, team leader, and a UX consultant. I was born in Finland, but I’ve spent the last 22 years in Sweden. I reside in a charming old house in the countryside with my girlfriend and our dog Taylor.

My approach to design

I genuinely believe that good design and intuitive user interfaces and interactions are necessary for any successful digital product. This core understanding has allowed me to help teams come together and support businesses to thrive over the past 25 years (that did not feel great writing).

My background in design and business puts me in a unique position to help your business decide on the right, sensible solutions for your digital products. Now, I’m not here to make your product just look pretty - I’m here to make it work. Happy users result in profitable businesses!

I have always been a firm believer in the human element of design and knowing your audience. Your user wants a great experience with your brand. I can help you make that happen.

Esther Williams said, “wisdom is a useless gift unless you share it” and I couldn’t agree more. I like to share what I have discovered about creating amazing user experiences, embracing creativity, and sustaining a successful freelancing career. In 2016, I published my first book, ‘User Experiences that Matter’ followed by ‘Mastering Freelance’ the next year. I agree with Esther, what is knowledge if you don’t share it?

I'd like to work with

There's a ton of talented people I've been fortunate to work with and even more than I'm hoping I'll work with some day!

Sara Souiedan

Globally recognized expert on web accessibility

“I’ve learned a lot just watching Anton do his thing, and his insightful remarks and discussions always manage to both direct and inspire creativity and practicality. He strikes a great balance between being a great designer, director, and a friend. He cares about the health and success of his teammates just as much as he cares about the health and success of the project. I’d leap on a chance to collaborate with him on a project again.”

Ask me anything

What are your thoughts on the Design Subscription Service model and how does it differ from the traditional agency and freelance models?

I'm always a bit intrigued when I come across, I don't want to say disruptive, but, at least alternative ways of charging. I don't think there's a perfect way to charge to be completely honest, hourly, fixed or subscription service (which to be honest, is a fixed retainer rate). I think the subscription service terminology makes it seem less... intimidating than a fixed retainer fee. As much as I've voiced my concerns around hourly rating, I still tend to fall back to it (or, what I'm trying more now, a weekly rate which ironically, is a bit like a subscription service lol).

What's that watch you wear on the picture?

It's a Dior Chiffre Rouge. I got it for my 30th birthday so it's been with me for some time although I switch between it and an Apple Watch nowadays.

How would you describe the differences in roles between a UX and Product designer?

First of all, sorry for the late reply. I'm just returning from three weeks of barely any screens.

It's interesting that you're asking, it's literally the topic of my next blog post! But since I haven't written it yet, I'll give you a condensed reply here. I think a UX designer works on the user experience (duh); flows, features etc while a Product designer needs to have a more holistic view on how to create a great product; this includes UX but could also include things tech stack, growth tactics and generally a much broader POV. More on this later!

With a heavy technical Cloud Consulting background, I would like to make a shift to UX Design. Where should I start, to make sure I begin in the right direction?

First of, I'd ask myself; do I want to start fresh, or do I want to leverage my background in technical cloud consulting in my UX career? Obviously the former is harder but doesn't choose a niche for you, while the latter gives you a headstart but chooses a niche for you (sort of anyway). As for courses or bootcamps, I'm not really sure which one to recommend. I have written about how to get started with UX a while back. Hopefully this helps!

What are best practices for user interviewing?

Similar to talking to stakeholders, one key aspect is asking open-ended questions while still trying to keep the question/topic specific. This way the interviewee sticks to the topic but can't answer it with yes/no.

How can I stay focussed when working in the office again?

Tough one. I'm blessed not having to return to an office (although I miss the social aspects). Perhaps think about what specific scenarios in an office is it that makes you unfocused? What specifically made you more focused at home? Was it because you worked during certain hours? Lack of interference from others? Your favorite music? I think looking at what specifically used to work that doesn't work anymore might give you a way to approach the situation.

How do you measure success of a project?

Happy client, happy users! I think it all depends on what the project is - some projects are also better suited for measuring success (defining clear KPIs) whereas with other projects it's just a little bit more vague. Realising now this is a vague question but the truth is that it all depends on the project.

I have two questions: a) what would be your dream job? and b) what would be your alternative job? and why

Thank you! So, not really sure what my dream job would be. I do know that I'm proud and happy of how I've managed to make a career on my terms and how I'm able to do my work, i.e. run my own business, work from home etc. As for what my alternative job would be, I do love all animals so I'd love to work with animals - perhaps as a veterinarian?!

Great reading on your site. Do you have any initial tips for a designer who wants to become better at branding oneself? As you succesfully do by sharing content. Any thoughts of starting points and insights from your experience?

I think there are multiple paths to pursue in branding oneself but all of them boil down to one crucial point - it has to be honest and something that comes natural to you. Honest I guess is pretty selfexplanatory because anything else will eventually shine through (like it does for any brand). I do think it's important to pick something that comes naturally to you too because you'll grow tired of it otherwise pretty quickly. Writing blog posts can be tiresome but I do honestly enjoy sharing the content and I don't think of it as a marketing or branding strategy (although I do admit it has helped!).

I love your work and industry knowlegbase. After 20+ years in IT- would love to transition into UX and eventually move to Product Design. How can I realistically accomplish this?

Hello! First of all, impostor syndrome is unfortunately something many of us struggle with, juniors and seniors. I think it's great that you enrolled in a UX program to better see if it's a great fit. As you're writing to me now, I'm assuming that it was/is a good fit! Because UX is a fairly new field (and because we've been bad at improving the process), hiring processes can be... well, not great. I've tried to highlight what I think are useful questions for a recruiter to ask, maybe they can help you think about this process a bit differently? Feel free to email me if you want me to give more input or help in any other way.

Congrats on being back freelancing again. What happened at Product Inc? Ignore if sensitive.

Unfortunately (well, fortunately really) it's all very undramatic. First of, I think me going full-time was always a gamble after consulting for nearly 12 years. So while the work and culture was flexible, it obviously wasn't as flexible as being freelance. And secondly, the work tended to skew more towards marketing stuff and I'm deep down a product guy. We're still great friends and I'll even continue to freelance for them on some of the projects I've enjoyed the most!

How does this form work, technically?

The form submission is a Netlify form. Once that gets submitted it tells Zapier to notify me via email and Slack. I then manually update this page with the new question and answer and push a new commit to Github (which Netlify uses to build a new site).

I've just been emailed by my first client asking for some consulting, what's the first thing I should do?

Short answer; reply! Jokes aside, congratulations! Getting your first client is a milestone so first take some time to celebrate the win! Secondly I'd suggest you start by finding out more about what kind of consulting the client wants (if it's a skill you can help them with) and what their budget and timeline is (can you deliver within their timeframe and are you comfortable with the budget). Go get them!

What is your BAU process for continual analysis and monitoring the effective of a project you have worked once it's published (e.g. data studio dashboards, heatmaps, recordings, user testing, etc...)?

Solid question! First of all, I have to admit I had to google what BAU stands for (my best result seems to be Business as Usual). Now to answer your question, the honest truth is that most (all) projects I work on tend to be really crappy at continous research. In some cases, we've done a fair bit of customer interviews which always tend to be really helpful. I don't know why, but I'm generally sceptic to what things like heatmaps actually tell you.

Love your site. What CMS do you use?

Thanks! No CMS at all, I edit markdown files (mostly) and then use Gatsby to build a static site. I publish everything through Github that pushes to Netlify.

Are you keen on mentoring?

Of course! I do coaching sessions but if you're a student and the price is out of budget (or more likely, there is no budget) I'm happy to mentor students as much as time permits! Email me.

What are you doing?

Great question. I'm doing my best to stay strong, stay positive and keep growing. But this year has been such a challenge on so many levels. I'm exhausted but I'm still standing.

How should one who has few experience with UX design improve his/her ability at work? (as a junior ux designer)

By definition everyone who is just starting out has little experience. The way to get more experienced is simply by doing more. Think of how to improve some of the products and features that you interact with on a daily basis. Use yourself as the audience and describe that process of improvement. And enjoy the time of being more junior (less responsibility, more freedom etc), one day it'll be gone.

Light mode vs dark mode

Whatever you prefer.

Does this work?

I guess so.

How should one position him/herself when they are skilled in several dimensions like graphic design, logo design, business and brand strategy and photography?

Just like that! I don't feel like one has to position themselves as a niche creator but instead one should focus on their skills. So if you're a niche Javascript developer, great. If you're a designer that understands brand identity, strategy and photography (visual composition) - that's awesome too!

What are your thoughts on designers learning to code (HTML CSS)

I think this depends a lot on what kind of designer you want to be. If you want to be able to build products then obviously coding - or atleast the ability to understand code is going to be beneficial. If you're in an organisation and want to make sure that your designs actually get built, I think learning how to write and speak business is far more important.

If you could go back in time, which website trend will you pinch at the stem so it doesn't propagate?

I love this question. Well back in the days, there were a lot of Flash sites that did stuff that necessarily wasn't user-friendly. But more recently, I'm not a big fan of brutalist websites.

What are some of the common mistakes you think designers are doing?

I think many designers would benefit from focusing more on their presentation and communication skills instead of chasing the latest Dribbble trend.

Do you have any colorful clothes?

I have a red Liverpool jersey. Does that count?

If you had to tattoo your arm with a message to yourself, what would you write?

I have 'You'll never walk alone', 'Accept' and 'Change' tattooed on my arms so I feel like this is obvious. They are all messages to myself.

What's a Growth Product Designer?

Titles in this industry are a bit of a mess so this is just my (somewhat) qualified guess. A Growth Product Designer is a person designing features for a product with the end goal of growth (normally more users). Growth is a common goal especially with VC-funded companies whereas most other companies use sales as a goal.

If you could choose the manner of your death, what would it be?

Contempt and with friends and family by my side.

Where is your starting point for benchmarking? Is there a place, product, or site you find yourself returning to when looking for inspiration?

For visual inspiration I tend to turn to Siteinspire and I like getting emails from Sidebar, The UX Collective and HeyDesigner. As cliché as it may sound though, the best inspiration is getting away from the computer and doing something completely different (taking a walk, exercising, watching a show, playing a game etc).

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