Welcome to the next blog in our series of interviews with our fantastic sponsors. We’re grateful all of them for helping us put on UX events in Amsterdam.
About IceMobile
IceMobile believes that they are most able to help retailers built one on one relationships with their consumers at mass scale. They uniquely operate at the magical intersection of design, data and technology to deliver their services and solutions in loyalty and high frequency retail. UX, Strategy, Design and Customer insights are cornerstones of everything that IceMobile does and are crucial to their success.
IceMobile boast an impressive client list that includes KLM, Vodafone, Albert Heijn, Philips, Heineken, Jumbo and ABN Amro.
We spoke with Miika Kossi and Hans Ruitenberg at IceMobile’s Headquarters in Amsterdam. Both Miika and Hans hold the position of Associate Creative Director at IceMobile. Miika has been with the company since 2011 and Hans since 2012.
Tell us a little bit about IceMobile
IceMobile is a leading software development company in loyalty and high frequency retail. We develop digital loyalty solutions for retailers around the world, allowing brands to get to know their customers better and forge stronger relationships. Our roots are within the Netherlands, but we’re extending our global presence with satellite offices in Toronto and Hong Kong. One of the great things about IceMobile is the diversity of people we have working here; over 35 different nationalities all contribute to a very vibrant and international company culture!
What role does UX play in your company?
UX as a discipline is at the core of everything we do. Our UX designers are embedded into our scrum teams and there is a constant dialogue between business, design and development. We have a big team of visual designers and interaction designers. We even have our own UX Lab, where we create and conduct all sorts of UX studies.
What are the main UX Challenges you face?
The digital loyalty landscape is getting more complex, with most of our customers building up their data capabilities and dealing with privacy concerns. This is opening a new landscape of opportunities where is important to remain focused on the user needs. As UX designers we push to keep users in control, engaged and proactive.
As we’re working for more clients around the globe, we also have to increase our understanding of different cultures in order to be able to design for them. With most of our people based in Amsterdam this is quite a challenge, but also an opportunity for some valuable “design excursions”
What are the challenges you envision for the future of UX?
We’re moving more and more towards data informed UX design, creating systems that learn whilst people interact with them. While this is a challenge in itself, we will also have to make sure that technology serves humanity and not the other way around.
Do you have a “dream” customer or project that you’d love to work with?
Whole Foods have a great proposition and would be a very interesting brand to work with. Outside of food retail, Tesla is a company that greatly inspires us. We love working with customers that have the desire, vision and guts to challenge the status quo.
Are you planning to pitch any presentations in the Madness Session? If so what kind of areas will you be focusing on?
At IceMobile we have specific knowledge about UX research, loyalty mechanisms and of course mobile design guidelines. We’ll make sure we bring this knowledge to UXcamp!
What session would you "love" to see presented at UXcamp?
We’re excited about the latest developments in wearables, conversational bots and smart assistants like Amazon Echo and Google Home. It would be very interesting to get more hands-on with designing for these platforms.
What do you hope to get out of sponsoring UXcamp?
We’re always on the lookout for new talent. Besides that, we’re excited to exchange ideas with the UX community and to get inspired!
Thanks to Miika, Hans and IceMobile for their time. They are a company who had the vision and foresight to look at opportunities that Mobile Internet would bring way back in 2002. This vision and forward-thinking persists to this day.
Their customer-base alone demonstrates that their approach and UX focus is providing a winning formula in the Customer Loyalty space.
Pop by and say hello to IceMobile at UXcamp on September 10th. Rumour has it that they have some tasty swag up for grabs! (But you didn’t hear that from me)
