About me

I’m Nicole Neuberger, a Human-Centered Design Specialist and Art Therapist based in Bogotá. I’m passionate about facilitating the co-creation of responses to social and environmental challenges with communities and diverse teams through art therapy and participatory design.

nicole neuberger: service & ux designer, trainer, mentor, art therapist, bogota

Design and Creativity

What is Design? Design is creative problem-solving. It’s about identifying challenges, turning them into opportunities, and creating effective solutions. 

Creativity is innate in every human being. Unfortunately, our school and corporate system often make us believe that we are not creative. However, working with art therapy and product/service innovation has taught me that everyone can reconnect with their creativity and inner child.

Design implies change, and change is not easy for us humans. It can be challenging or even scary. That’s why it’s so important to keep human psychology in mind when designing for change.

Design for Impact

I’m passionate about projects dedicated to enhancing public well-being and tackling societal challenges, especially in the realms of health, social innovation and sustainability.

Drawing inspiration from visionaries like Ezio Manzini,  Elizabeth Sanders and Arturo Escobar, I’m enthusiastic about co-creation and participatory design. I see tremendous potential in combining generative research, participatory design, life-centered eco-social design, and art therapy to collaboratively shape a better world.

Design and Art Therapy

Design is about changing the outer world, art therapy is about understanding and changing our inner world. Art Therapy can give us access to our hidden desires, dreams and needs, activate resources and inspire new ideas. In this way, art therapy can ignite the courage and capacity to transform the outer world. 

Together Design and Art Therapy make a great team to support Community Empowerment and Social Innovation.

Beyond Human-Centered Design

In the face of global challenges like climate change and biodiversity loss, design must extend its focus beyond just human needs.

I embrace planet-centered and life-centered design (also: planet-centric design, humanity-centered design, eco-social design, conscious design) to support the well-being of all living systems within our pluriverse.

Again, I think art therapy and arts-based research can be helpful tools for integrating different perspectives into participatory design processes aimed at creating balanced and sustainable solutions.

My Story

After discovering my passion for design during my first internship in 1999, I decided to write my final thesis in Psychology on User-Centered Design (at IBM). After graduating, I was fortunate to get involved as a user researcher in the human-centered design of an online knowledge base for the World Food Programme in Rome. In the years thereafter, I helped companies create people-oriented, easy-to-use products and services in different UX/CX-related roles. 

In 2008 my cousin fell into a coma. During my hospital visits, I realized that human-centered design could contribute much more than creating easy-to-use websites. After moving to Vienna, I secured funding for a pilot project to demonstrate how Human-Centered Service Design could improve migrant health and healthcare access while reducing system costs. The funding enabled me to put together a small but highly diverse team and collaborate closely with both migrant communities and healthcare staff. Despite the enormous potential of human-centered design in healthcare and social innovation, obtaining the necessary financial support and institutional collaboration to implement such initiatives proved to be very difficult.

I then concentrated on assisting people and organizations in successfully integrating and applying Human-Centered Design and Service Design Thinking through consulting and training.

Moreover, I began working on a web app aimed at empowering more women to travel solo. Although this web app promotes sustainable and responsible travel, I realized I could make a greater impact by applying my design skills rather than running a travel startup. During the pandemic, I studied art therapy with a vision of integrating art therapy with participatory design to collaboratively create positive change.

Education

M.Sc. Psychology (Humboldt University Berlin and Philipps University Marburg)

M.A. Interaction Design (Domus Academy Milan)

Certified Art Therapist (Colombian Art Therapy Association)

Skills

Human-Centered Design

Service Design

UX Design

Design Thinking

Creativity

Training

Design/UX Research

Innovation

Mentorship

Psychology 

Art Therapy

Participatory Design

Interests

Planet-Centered Design

Life-Centered Design

Humanity-Centered Design

Social Impact 

Design for Health

Circular Design

Co-Creation

Arts-based Research

Participatory Research 

Tools

Over the course of my career, I have used a variety of tools. In my opinion, tools are really secondary. Nowadays, it has become very easy to learn any tool thanks to established design patterns, Google, YouTube, and ChatGPT. A grain of problem-solving obsession is always useful, too…

I do strongly believe in the wisdom of the hands, though, and love working with pen and paper, especially in the early stages of the design process.

Languages

Spanish, English, German, Italian

Something Personal

I grew up in the shadow of Germany’s largest continuous forest, the “Spessart”, a region rich with legends and stories. It’s where my love for nature, solitary walks and fairytales was born. I’ve been fortunate to live in several beautiful countries and immerse myself in very different cultures. After traveling the world and the seven seas, I arrived in Colombia to find myself in Naguib Mahfouz words: “Home is not where you were born; home is where all your attempts to escape cease.” Apart from nature and traveling, I also like to experiment with mixed media collage and illustrations @inmydreams.art.
Forest Nicole Neuberger

© 2025 nicole neuberger | human-centered design & art therapy, bogotá, colombia