About

How I work

Koen van Polanen

My job is to make a complicated decision feel like an obvious one. Sometimes that decision belongs to a specialist who works inside a system every day; sometimes it belongs to someone comparing two options on a website, once. The interface is rarely the hard part. What matters is what a system asks, in what order, and what it can safely leave alone.

At the European Investment Fund, the previous digital attempt had failed because it took control away from the analysts who needed it. The fix was not a better screen, it was a different sequence of decisions.

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Watch first, ask second.

Structure before screens.

Hide, don’t remove.

Defensible over decorative.

Sitting with people while they work surfaces habits interviews never do.

Decide what a system should ask, and in what order, before deciding how it looks.

Complexity that’s tucked away should be one click from coming back.

Every choice should hold up when the people who build it question it.

I am Dutch, based near Gouda, and work in English and Dutch. My CV is here, and I am reachable at and on LinkedIn.