When we think of design, we mainly think of tangible things such as interiors, clothing and buildings. But flowers, plants and trees are also design. Designed by nature and redesigned by people. It is important that a design is functional and at first sight simple. This is true in nature, but also for other things, such as the new customer environment that we are developing.

We also call this customer environment the Customer portal and it is the environment behind the login screen. In recent weeks, I had meetings with design agencies for the development of this environment. I kept thinking back to flowers and plants: complex on the inside, but functional and elegant on the outside. This also applies to software development. Because where many of us once used clunky websites, the usability of an iPhone is now the benchmark.

We consulted many customers when designing our online tools and they have been improved based on your feedback. The challenge is and remains to design products and services that are easy to use and understand, even when there is complexity ‘under the hood’. We can learn a lot from plants, flowers and trees.

We will give the design of our new customer environment as much attention as you give your plants, flowers or trees.