UX Design

What Training My Golden Retriever Taught Me About UX Design

Hanne Moller

Hanne Moller

Hanne Moller is a Senior UX Designer and Partner at Boitano, working on complex digital platforms within logistics and energy. She specialises in bringing structure to messy workflows and designing tools that help teams operate with clarity in high-stakes environments. In her work, she is particularly interested in how system design influences behaviour — and how small changes in structure, feedback and clarity can dramatically improve user experience.

Outside of work, she continues exploring these principles while training her enthusiastic golden retriever.

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When my golden retriever started body-slamming guests and spiralling into overstimulated chaos, I thought I had a behaviour problem.

I didn’t. I had a systems problem.

In this talk, I explore the surprising parallels between dog training and UX design, and why behaviour is almost always a product of environment, feedback loops, and cognitive load.

Through real-world examples from industrial product design, I’ll show how:

  • Overstimulation mirrors cognitive overload in digital systems
  • Clear, consistent feedback changes behaviour instantly
  • Environment design beats better instructions
  • Calm systems create confident users

This is not a cute dog talk. It’s a practical session about behavioural design, systems thinking, and why “bad users” are usually a symptom of unclear structure.

If you work with products, platforms or digital services and have ever thought, “Why don’t users just…?” — this talk is for you.

Expect stories, humour, and concrete design principles you can apply immediately.