Frequently asked questions

What is Jakob Ehe Studio?

Jakob Ehe Studio is an independent product design studio based in Munich, Germany, led by product and interaction designer Jakob Ehe. The studio designs products and builds functional prototypes for teams making important product decisions. Jakob works with founders and product teams directly, bringing in trusted specialists when the problem calls for them, and has over ten years in product design.

What is a functional prototype, and how is it different from a mockup?

A mockup shows what a product would look like. A functional prototype behaves like the product: real interactions, real logic, real data, in something your team and your users can actually use. That difference is the whole point. A picture collects opinions, because everyone fills in the missing behaviour themselves. Something people can actually operate collects evidence, because it either works for them or it doesn’t.

How does the studio work — what are Decide, Validate, Launch and Evolve?

Four ways in, depending on where a product already is. Decide is a Decision Session: one critical product question, one focused day, €1,250 at a fixed price. Validate (one to two weeks) turns a direction into something real enough to test before you commit to building it. Launch (typically four to eight weeks) turns a validated direction into a production-ready product experience. Evolve (ongoing) improves a product that is already live: the experience, new features, and the design systems a team needs to scale. Validate, Launch and Evolve are scoped per project. Most engagements start where it hurts most rather than at step one.

Who does Jakob Ehe Studio work with?

The studio is the right fit for complex B2B and enterprise products, AI workflows, copilots and decision-heavy interfaces, products whose logic or workflow complexity is still unclear, and design systems that need behaviour rather than just components. It’s a less good fit for pure visual refreshes, generic marketing websites, execution-only UI production, and projects with no access to users, stakeholders or product decisions.

Does the studio design AI products?

Yes, and it’s a large part of the work. Recent projects include an AI research platform that turns scattered company knowledge into traceable investigations, an AI-native creative production tool, an AI energy advisor that recommends actions rather than showing dashboards, and an enterprise AI document review workflow for PwC. The recurring problem in all of them is verification: people won’t rely on an answer they can’t check, so the design links every AI claim back to its source, makes uncertainty visible and actionable, and feeds corrections back into the system.

Which companies and industries has Jakob Ehe worked with?

Selected work spans scientific research, professional services and automotive. For CERN’s Business Computing group he built a design system now used by teams across the organisation. For PwC Document Intelligence he designed TRACE, a review workflow that links every AI-extracted value to its evidence in the source document. For Mercedes-Benz he studied the MBUX companion app — whether familiarity should come from the platform or the product — as a master’s thesis in collaboration with Mercedes-Benz. CERN and PwC were employment rather than studio clients.

Where is Jakob Ehe Studio based, and do you work remotely?

The studio is based in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, and works with product teams worldwide — remote or on-site. Recent work includes CERN in Geneva. Jakob works in both English and German.

How long does a project take, and what do we get at the end?

A Decision Session is a single day, a validation sprint one to two weeks, launch work is scoped per project, and ongoing work is ongoing. What you get is the prototype and the evidence from putting it in front of the people who would use it, plus the product logic, requirements and design decisions to build from. The prototype isn’t really the deliverable — the decision it lets you make is.

How do we start working together?

The first step is a free 30-minute intro call with Jakob Ehe. Its aim is to make the decision tangible before it gets expensive to change. No pitch deck needed. You can also email mail@jakobehe.com with a few lines about what you’re building, where the product is now, and what needs deciding; Jakob replies within two working days. The first paid engagement is usually a Decision Session — one focused day against one critical question, at a fixed €1,250.