About Rafael von Schuckmann
I'm a Head of Product Design with 15+ years in digital products and 6+ years leading design at that level. One focus: making design measurably matter to the business.
I started out as a hands-on designer: making screens, running user research, sweating the details. That background matters to me. It's why I can tell the difference between a design that's beautiful and a design that works. And why the designers I lead trust me when I push back on their work.
Over time I realised that individual craft only scales so far. The real leverage is in the system: how a design team is structured, how it gets involved in decisions, how it measures its own impact. That's what I've spent the last six years building.
At HSE, one of Germany's largest e-commerce platforms, I've taken design from a 2-person shared-service function to a 9-person embedded practice. Design has gone from being called in after product decisions were made, to being part of how revenue-critical decisions get made in the first place. The numbers follow.
What I believe
- Design impact is not a coincidence. It comes from embedding designers early, defining success before you build, and measuring what changes, not just what shipped.
- Process follows purpose. The right amount of process for any team is the minimum that keeps quality consistent without slowing down decisions.
- Leadership is mostly about clarity. Teams slow down when they don't know what problem they're solving, who owns what, or how they'll know if they succeeded. My job is to remove that fog.
- Good design management is invisible. When design leadership is working, it looks like confident designers making good decisions independently. If I'm always in the room, something is wrong.
- Research earns its place at the table. Not as a ritual, but as a decision input. The question is always: what do we need to know before we ship this, and what's the cheapest way to find out?
- Someone has to speak for the user. Business priorities and user needs diverge more often than anyone admits. When they do, someone needs to bring the evidence and name the gap. That is not a conflict with the business. It is the job.
Quick facts
Barcelona, Spain