Faces of Foleon

Fabian de Bakker

Product and Engineering teams are often the unseen heroes in SaaS.

We believe they should be in the spotlight because where would the Foleon platform be without them?

Faces of Foleon is an interview series that showcases the amazing people behind our content platform, celebrating their hard work and dedication.

Fabian de Bakker joined the #FoleonFam back in 2017 as a Designer and later became a Senior Product Designer because of his passion for the product.

A jack of many trades, he not only helps design a top-notch Foleon experience, but he's also the mastermind behind some of the videos you've seen on our socials.

Our Marketing department is, to this date, trying to convince him to join their side. 😉 Maybe one day!

Without further ado, meet Fabian. 👋

Hi, Fabian!

To start, tell us a bit about your role at Foleon.

I'm a Senior Product Designer, part of the Product Design team at Foleon, and responsible for the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) for our platform. My expertise and focus are more on the UI design part.

In addition to this, I also sometimes do design work for marketing purposes, such as visuals or videos. Within Foleon, most people will know or remember me from the Photoshop trolls. 😉

"The Foleon Academy launch video is one of my most recent collaborations with the Marketing department."

What feature have you worked on that you’re most proud of and why?

It is not a specific feature, but the Foleon Editor and Doc format in general. Over the years, I have been able to work on this with many great and talented people. That is what I am most proud of.

If you had to pick one product feature you believe is a game-changer, which one would it be?

I think personalization. Currently, we are working on the first milestone for this feature. The first user tests are already promising, and we received a lot of positive feedback.

I believe that when we release the complete feature with all the possibilities we have in mind, it will be one of the most used functionalities within the Foleon platform.

What do you find exciting when thinking of the future of Foleon?

Artificial intelligence is, of course, a hot topic at the moment. I’d love to spend more time on it and see whether we can make the process of content creation faster and easier by using AI, where a user can create some pretty amazing designs with just a few commands. Besides that, I've been hoping for a while that VR/MR will become accepted and more accessible by a wider audience. Hopefully, with the arrival of Apple's Vision Pro next year, this will gain momentum. I believe this, in combination with our platform, will bring a totally new content experience to our users and their readers.

What sweet tunes do you listen to when working to get in the zone?

It could be anything, depending on what mood I'm in, but the music styles I listen to the most are progressive metal and jazz. But it is even better to play these tunes yourself. 😉

I've played drums in metal bands for many years, and that's what I get the most inspiration from for the work I do. My drum kit and guitar are close to my computer, so by playing for a few minutes, I quickly get back into the zone. 🤘

Ok, this last question is from Claire, who nominated you for this interview. 😉

Could you tell us more about the process behind creating a new product feature, from idea to possible design?

Sure thing! It all starts with the product vision or needs of our customers based on data and feedback. As soon as it is clear which feature we are going to pick up, we start with a brainstorming session with a team of experts from several departments related to that specific topic.

After that, we plan a research phase where we try to get as much information as we can. Then, raw sketches and wireframes will be made and presented to our stakeholders, and together, we will work towards a first concept. Based on the first concept, we make prototypes and run user tests with several people.

The feedback we receive allows us to determine whether we are on the right track and proceed with further iterations. We repeat this process until there is a steady feature. Kick-off meetings will be planned with the development team(s), where the feature will be introduced and presented by a designer and product owner. From here, the feature is ready for development. 🚀

Thanks for chatting with us!

Who should we talk to next? Nominate a team member and add a question you'd want them to answer.

I nominate Barry Tielkes. I think people sometimes wonder what Barry does when he's not writing code.

I remember back in the day, lots of packages were being delivered for him almost every day at the office, and you always saw a big smile when that happened, which made you think, what does that guy do in his spare time?

Meet more of our Product & Engineering Fam

Daniel Knoppers, Foleon Product Manager

Daniel joined the Product #FoleonFam back in 2016, and he's the mastermind behind the OG Drag & Drop Editor, features like Undo / Redo, and many more exciting updates.

Meet Daniel here.

Stijn Dijkers, Foleon Product Manager & Product Owner

Stijn joined the Product #FoleonFam in 2021 as a Product Manager & Owner. He's the mastermind behind Review Mode, which allows you to collaborate with stakeholders directly in Foleon, Single Sign-On (SSO), Shared Templates, and many more exciting updates.

Meet Stijn here.

Claire Mulkens-Schouten, Foleon QA Lead

Claire joined the #FoleonFam back in 2018 as a Customer Support Hero.

She now combines her passion for helping customers with her love of tech as a QA Lead. The quality of our platform wouldn't be the same without her.