Paul Middelkoop

Product Designer

paul.middelkoop@gmail.com

Product & Service Design

Design Strategy

Problem Discovery

Workshop facilitation

Rapid Prototyping

User research

UI / UX Design

Hello there

As a designer, I help develop user-friendly and effective products and services. Based on Design Thinking, I facilitate workshops, map customer journeys, and design concepts to quickly validate the riskiest assumptions. I also design flows, interaction patterns, and interfaces so that we succeed based on value and not fail on execution.

Experience

@Port of Rotterdam

Port Call Management

2026 – present

Mission-critical tool for the Harbourmaster to ensure a safe, efficient, sustainable and resilient port

Strategy — Shaping product principles together with the other principal designer, product owner and stakeholders.
User Research — Introducing clarity on who we are designing for by producing personas fit for a complex enterprise environment.
Prototyping — Exploring UI modifications that improve efficiency and reduce user errors.
Design System — Making our Design System MCP-ready for use with an internal LLM, and establishing solid interaction principles to ensure consistency across products.

Fairway Planning

2026

Decision tool for the Harbourmaster

View case study

Service Design — Using Service Blueprinting to identify the opportunities and challenges of combining data from the weather, traffic, emergency services and vessel planning to improve the port's safety and efficiency.
Technical Prototyping — Initiated technical prototyping to stress-test designs on real data and user needs, by vibe-coding.
Product Ownership — Outlining work packages, research questions and a preliminary roadmap to enable a solid hand-off to the implementation team.
Technical Research — Talk to domain experts about the possibilities and limits of statistical models and AI models in predicting port planning.

Routescanner acquired

2022 – 2025

Google Maps for Global Container Shipping. Internal startup, acquired by Royal Dirk Zwager in 2026.

View case study Go to website

Product Design — Redesigned the main search and results interface for better usability, responsiveness, and accessibility.
User Journey Mapping — Initiated and facilitated user journey mapping sessions to improve onboarding.
AI Prototyping — Initiated discovery and prototyping for an LLM integration to enable complex search queries and port/route comparisons using a canvas-based approach that adapts to user needs.
Brand Update — Led the brand update to attract a better defined target audience through updated visuals and content.
User Interviews — Conducted user interviews to refine interaction patterns.
Quantitative Analysis — Used PostHog for quantitative analysis and opportunity spotting.

Port Alert

2022 – 2024

Alerting system for truckers & terminals

View case study Go to website

Riskiest Assumptions — Introduced the Riskiest Assumptions method as a working model within the team.
Stakeholder Management — Monthly roadmap and design updates presented to stakeholders.
Product Design — Designed 1) native app for drivers with map functionality, 2) desktop dashboard for transporters, and 3) alert tool for port terminals.
Qualitative Interviews — Interviews with drivers, terminals, and planners leading to major roadmap improvements.

Lab / Innovation / Incubation Teams

2022 – 2024

Contributed to various projects, including:

Bridge Height — Facilitated problem analysis and quick wins for inland shipping efficiency.
GeoFluxus — Introduced a Start-Up on Circular Waste, and facilitated identifying the targets and users for the pilot.
PLATO — UX advice to make a data science tool (rShiny) for dredging operations accessible.
Innovation Radar — Interface design for innovation mapping tool.