Andreas Johann — About
I design enterprise products and AI interactions at SAP, turning complex workflows into experiences people can understand and use. Research, interaction design and delivery are at the centre of my work. DesignOps extends that practice to the conditions that help teams deliver better products.
The through-line is the same: make complexity understandable enough to act on.
Background
My path into design did not begin with screens. It began with systems.
Mechanical Engineering taught me to understand interacting parts, constraints and the consequences of a decision elsewhere in the system. Human Factors brought people into the centre of that view: cognition, behaviour, trust and decisions under real conditions.
Product design brings those perspectives together. I have designed public services for citizens and caseworkers, enterprise workflows and interactions with AI. Across that work, I connect research with journeys, interaction models, prototypes and validation — making complex systems usable in the details as well as the overall experience.
DesignOps extends the same responsibility to the team around the product. Shared visibility, coordination and capability building help designers work through dependencies and make informed decisions. I work with design leads and management on these conditions while keeping their effect on product quality in view.
Product design is the foundation. I move between interaction, product systems and organisational conditions wherever that helps create a better experience for the people using the product.
Design at three scales
An experience depends on more than its individual screens. I work across three connected scales to understand what people need, how the product behaves and what enables the team to deliver it well.
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How does a person understand, decide and act?
I design how people understand a situation, make a decision and move forward. That means clear flows, useful feedback, visible states and ways to recover when something goes wrong. Interviews, usability studies and prototypes help me test the interaction model and refine the details.
02 / 03
How do workflows, rules, actors and intelligent behaviour fit together?
I connect user journeys with process rules, roles and system behaviour. In AI experiences, that includes how people express intent, inspect results and intervene. In enterprise workflows, it means making complex logic usable and working with engineering to turn it into an implementable experience.
03 / 03
What enables many teams to make good design decisions consistently?
DesignOps adds a team-level perspective to my product work. I design shared visibility, coordination routines, quality reviews and learning programs that help teams work more effectively. The purpose is practical: better product decisions, clearer collaboration and stronger design capabilities.
How I work
I start by understanding the people, the task and the constraints: through qualitative and quantitative research, available evidence and conversations with product and engineering. I turn that understanding into journeys, interaction models and prototypes, test the decisions that matter and refine the design with the team.
AI is part of my practice in two ways. I design how people work with intelligent systems, including how they guide, inspect and correct them. I also use AI for analysis, exploration, research planning and implementation, checking the outputs against user evidence and technical constraints. In Par for Each, this approach connected customer research and interaction design with a reviewed implementation using Claude Code.
I stay involved as the design becomes a product, reviewing usability, consistency and accessibility with engineering. When recurring problems span teams, I apply the same approach through DesignOps: making dependencies visible, supporting shared decisions and building practices teams can keep using.
Ground decisions in evidence
Use research and observation to understand needs and constraints, then test the assumptions that shape the experience.
Make behaviour understandable
Make states, feedback and consequences clear, especially when automation or AI makes the outcome less predictable.
Carry the design into delivery
Work with engineering to preserve the intent through implementation and review usability, consistency and accessibility.
Help good work repeat
Use DesignOps to strengthen collaboration and capabilities, and judge that work by how it supports product decisions and quality.
External perspective
Written assessments from my work at SAP and ]init[. The excerpts below come from SAP’s interim reference.
“He combines comprehensive analytical and conceptual skill with a strong understanding of the business context — solving even the most difficult tasks with skill and competence.”
“He applies his communication skills with outstanding persuasiveness — across customers, teams, and presentations — and consistently promotes collaboration.”
Outside design
The things I do outside work tend to reinforce the same qualities I value inside it: attention, rhythm, curiosity and a willingness to keep practising.
Music
I have played guitar for more than 20 years, and spent many of them writing songs, singing and performing live. Music taught me that timing, structure and emotion shape an experience long before anyone explains why.
Thinking
Psychology, philosophy and long conversations about how people interpret the world keep feeding the questions I bring back into design.
Movement
Training gives me a useful counterweight to abstract work: repetition, resilience and immediate feedback.
And somewhere between all of that, I am also a very dedicated cat dad.
Professional evolution
My background connects engineering, research and product design. Each role added a perspective I still use today — including the ability to improve how teams work together.
2025 — Present
At SAP, I work on research, interaction design and delivery for enterprise workflows, including SAP Build Process Automation, and on experiences for working with AI. In Joule Studio, my responsibilities also include DesignOps: shared visibility of design work, AI enablement, quality practices and coordination across squads with design leads and management.
2021 — 2025
Designed public-sector services and regulated workflows for citizens and caseworkers, translating policy, administrative logic and user needs into workable digital products.
Cognitive Psychology & Cognitive Ergonomics
Conducted human-factors research on autonomous driving and safety-critical warning systems, studying how people interpret automation and information under realistic conditions.
TU Berlin · Formula Student
Engineering education and interdisciplinary race-car development established the systems perspective underneath my later design work: constraints, interfaces, dependencies and the consequences of local decisions.
Let's talk
Tell me what people need to achieve and where the experience gets difficult. I can help with research, interaction design and the systems or ways of working that shape the product.
