Matmatch GmbH
Matmatch is a materials data platform that helps engineers and product designers find, evaluate, and source materials, connecting them with the right suppliers through the world’s largest free materials database.
When the product wasn’t selling, our researchers and I made the case for a pivot. I brought the user evidence to management and led the five design sprints that rebuilt the platform around how engineers actually evaluate materials.
1Problem
Engineers couldn't reliably find material data, suppliers got too few qualified leads, and renewals were under pressure. The company kept improving the UI instead of questioning the proposition.
2Approach
I put user research in front of leadership to win buy-in. Then five design sprints rebuilt search around how engineers actually evaluate materials, backed by a design system built for the dev team.
3Result
About six months after the pivot, the platform reached 10,000+ daily visitors and nearly 2 million recorded sessions. That volume let us build supplier-facing tools from real data.
Section 1 · The Problem
A materials platform engineers couldn't use to find materials, and suppliers couldn't use to find leads.
Matmatch aimed to be the definitive material discovery and sourcing platform for engineers, but struggled to deliver on that vision.
The main problem: engineers found limited value in the experience — they could not reliably find relevant material data. Commercially, the consequences were direct: too few qualified leads for suppliers and growing pressure on renewals, threatening the platform's growth and long-term viability.
Section 2 · UI Limits
Fixing the UI restored baseline trust, but not the business.
I initially focused on stabilizing the platform, reducing the maintenance burden, and eliminating design debt to simplify workflows.
While these incremental UI improvements restored baseline trust, they failed to solve the core business problem: engineers still couldn’t find materials, and the platform was not generating critical supplier leads.
Section 3 · Research
To change a strategy nobody questioned, I put user research directly in front of the people who owned it.
Facing a twelve-month mandate to pivot the platform, we dismantled organizational resistance by injecting user research directly into stakeholder workflows. And I assembled a cross-functional team across data science, marketing, and sales, introducing UX frameworks to build a user-first culture:
Framework 1 of 4
Visualized user mindsets across departments to align internal teams.
Framework 2 of 4
Identifying where Matmatch could differentiate by serving underserved needs instead of competing in crowded segments.
Framework 3 of 4
Exposed end-to-end friction points and lost opportunity zones to leadership.
Framework 4 of 4
Lacking data for traditional journey maps, mind maps synthesized early interviews, exposing users’ non-linear search habits and isolating the exact touchpoints where the platform could deliver immediate, tangible value.
Section 4 · Validation
Quick prototypes, real engineers, one question per sprint.
With management support secured, I drove rapid prototyping to test and validate how engineers actually evaluate materials:
Rapid prototypes
Validate first, build second.
Each sprint tested an idea with engineers before development invested in it. What shipped is in Section 6.
Sprint 1 of 5
For engineers, trustworthy data beats a beautiful interface.
Users appreciated the cleaner design and layout, but it proved that users demand efficiency, logic, and data control over visual aesthetics. These are decisions where a wrong material can bring down a bridge.
Sprint 2 of 5
Users couldn’t verify where the data came from, so they double-checked it elsewhere.
Technical constraints forced an architectural pivot from a guided interface to step-based navigation. While this improved transparency, it exposed a critical trust gap: users immediately questioned result accuracy, forcing an urgent validation of the underlying data sources.
Sprint 3 of 5
One evidence-based view of the customer.
I set up a team to cross-reference fragmented knowledge across sales and marketing to create a unified, evidence-based view of the customer.
Sprint 4 of 5Breakthrough
Results structured around the engineer’s mental model.
The breakthrough came by redefining results to match engineer mental models. I replaced open-ended keyword search with a step-based flow, returning results in a structured comparison view where specifications could be read across candidates at a glance.
Sprint 5 of 5
Numbers engineers can share with purchasing and management.
The final phase put to the test a capability that was underutilized yet held great potential. Interviews had revealed that engineers relied heavily on numerical data but struggled to communicate it visually to non-technical stakeholders in purchasing or management.
What the sprints produced
45+ user interviewsuser interviews
By the end of the sprints, our discovery and validation work had produced tangible outcomes, and the evidence that turned management’s support into commitment.
From the usability reports
‘Engineers’ turned out to be many different users, each with their own materials, roles and questions.
Materials in daily use, job titles, and audience by profession — from our usability reports.
Section 5 · Design System
Matched to what the development team could actually deliver.
To accelerate engineering implementation, I authored and deployed a comprehensive design system tailored to the development team’s capabilities.
The redesigned search engine became the platform’s centerpiece, prioritizing meaningful control, clear navigation, and performance resilience under data-heavy mobile workflows. I built it in Figma directly from the new component library: first the structure and architecture, with placeholder content, then more fidelity with every round of user feedback.
Guided searchFour steps — industry, application, materials, properties — the step-based flow the sprints validated, now designed.
New search engineWe prioritized every feature release by impact and feasibility to deliver immediate value while laying the groundwork for long-term scalability.
Section 6 · Launch
We shipped a more powerful search, and user feedback showed exactly where execution fell short.
Time constraints and technical dependencies required difficult trade-offs. We delivered a more powerful search experience, but user feedback revealed where execution fell short.
Where the journey startsIn the first version, getting started took some figuring out. This time the first fold is direct: what the platform is for, the actions you can take, and the information you can reach.
A/B testWe tested two material pages against each other with live traffic. The right-hand version won: clearer hierarchy, comparison charts and an obvious way to contact the supplier.
Material pageThe winning material page, in full. Charts made comparison possible at a glance, data sheets downloaded as PDF or XLSX straight into engineers’ own databases, and contacting the supplier became one clear step. More negative space and better margins made it easier to read, while staying technical, close to the reference books our users already trusted.
Owned trade-offs
Four gaps between the tested prototypes and the release.
| Gap | What users experienced | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Visual clarity | Partial implementation of the new UI left the release without adequate spacing and hierarchy, making key actions harder to identify at a glance. | On the roadmap |
| Change blindness | Micro-interactions and transitions were deprioritized for speed, so users couldn't always tell when actions were processing, creating a perception of latency. | On the roadmap |
| Colour and accessibility | In pursuing a clean, schematic look, excessive blue tones reduced contrast for key actions, affecting visibility for colour-blind users. | On the roadmap |
| Use of language | Calls to action were not descriptive enough, mismatching users' mental models. | On the roadmap |
Continuous improvement roadmapWe mapped each issue, prioritized by user impact and business value, and integrated them into a continuous improvement roadmap.
Each iteration brought new functionalities, improving usability and trust, and the evidence showed that the changes were not merely visual but materially affected how users perceived and used the product.
IterationIntroducing high-contrast accessibility controls and expanding the catalog to include polymer applications and material properties rebuilt user trust. These updates demonstrated that Matmatch was actively evolving beyond a static database into an indispensable tool for material research and supplier discovery.
Section 7 · Growth
Once usage grew, the data finally let us build for suppliers too.
Each iteration recovered commercial confidence in the platform. About six months after the pivot, the platform had reached over 10,000 daily visitors and nearly 2 million recorded sessions.
Six months after the pivotFrom a report by our sales, marketing and customer success teams: where Matmatch’s audience came from as the platform kept growing.
That volume finally gave us the quality and quantity of interactions needed to formalize our understanding of the audience — moving from assumptions to data-driven insights.
Personas & journey mapBuilt from real platform data and interviews, the personas and journey map gave us a shared profile of who our users were, what they came to do, and where the experience still let them down.
Each iteration brought Matmatch closer to its core vision: connecting engineers directly with material suppliers. As high-quality users joining the platform, we leveraged this rich activity data to create dedicated supplier-facing tools, empowering suppliers with actionable insights. As before, we started with an MVP.
Supplier dashboard MVPclearer information architecture and intuitive dashboard workflows restored commercial trust—equipping suppliers with actionable insights to monitor leads, analyze demand, and convert high-value buyers.
As the data kept growing, it became something suppliers could act on. For the first time, they could answer three questions:
Who is looking at my materials?
Real leads, from registered engineers.
What are they comparing us with?
Competing materials, side by side.
Where is the demand?
Interest by country, over time.
Suppliers used it to steer their marketing and sales decisions with evidence instead of guesswork. The next iteration added fidelity and depth.
Supplier dashboard · IterationA selection of the views, among them performance, material details, comparisons and visibility by country. Every table was downloadable, so suppliers could take the data into their own reporting.
Section 8 · Impact
From a search tool the market was rejecting to a decision-support platform engineers came back to.
Value proposition realignment
From search tool to decision-support platform
The new proposition was built around technical evaluation, and the engineers who came back to the platform were clearly happy with the results
Used research evidence and Blue Ocean analysis to show the platform was underserving its users, then reframed the offer around how engineers actually evaluate materials
Organizational buy-in
Leadership saw where value was being lost
Leadership could see the end-to-end experience and where value was being lost — the precondition for the pivot
Made research visible through empathy maps, service blueprints, and mind maps; built a cross-functional team spanning data science, marketing, and sales
De-risked product direction
Direction confirmed before development investment
Decisive evidence unlocked management commitment. Direction confirmed before development investment, avoiding a build based on assumption
Five design sprints, 45+ user interviews, 100+ exploratory wireframes; validated the new search experience against the legacy one by A/B test
Platform growth
10,000+ daily visitors, ~2M recorded sessions
Reached about six months after the pivot. Enough interaction volume to build personas and journey maps from data rather than assumption
Rebuilt the search experience around engineers' actual mental models — structured, schematic, efficient
Delivery efficiency
Less design-to-dev friction
Reduced design-to-dev friction and established long-term UI consistency across the platform
Built and documented a design system and UI guidelines matched to the development team's capabilities
Post-release rigour
Shortfalls turned into a roadmap
A continuous improvement roadmap instead of a defensive post-mortem. Execution shortfalls converted into a prioritized backlog
Mapped every gap between tested prototype and shipped release, prioritized by user impact and business value
Reflection
What a pivot in a change-resistant industry taught me.
Organizational readiness decides.
Being part of Matmatch's transformation taught me that building a great product is not only about usability, design systems, or validated concepts — it's about organizational readiness to adapt and evolve.
Follow the audience you have, not only the one you planned.
As traffic grew, a large share of the new audience turned out to be students and researchers: highly engaged, but outside the target strategy. The data pointed to real opportunities in education and research, but the company chose to stay its original course. The lesson I carry: when the evidence shows you a different market, take it seriously before you dismiss it.
Even rigid markets can move.
In retrospect, product success depends as much on organizational alignment and openness to change as on design or technology. The materials industry remains one of the most traditional and change-resistant fields, yet this experience reinforced my belief that even in rigid markets, user-centered innovation can reveal entirely new paths forward.
Matmatch may not have capitalized on that potential, but the journey strengthened my ability to bridge product strategy, design, and business goals. It was a pleasure to work with them; every involved person gave their best — an experience that continues to shape how I work with product teams today.
