This is us

Johan Bergman

Partner, lead designer

At Smiling Plants, Johan is the boss when it comes to design, user experience and user interaction. When he is not studying HCI at Uppsala University or worshipping Donald Norman, he likes to see his girlfriend, discuss Sopranos and listen to the Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós. Unlike Magnus, Johan is not very keen on cooking and therefore sees Béchamel as godsend – the lack of inspiration he felt before is now solved.

Johan has discovered that most programmers are egotistical narcissists and thus the secret to getting stuff done from them: Appeal to their ego.

Occasionally, Johan updates his blog Comme-ci, comme-ça with writings about usability in Swedish. You can also find him at Flickr and on Last.fm.

Magnus Nordlander

Partner, lead programmer

Magnus is the other half of Smiling Plants. He has been programming in PHP for over seven years and is getting pretty darn good at it. He has three years of experience with Cocoa, and about one year with Cocoa Touch, and he is learning even more at a steady pace. He also knows the basics of a bunch of other programming languages, the coolest of which is Common Lisp. If you find any bugs in anything from us, it's probably Magnus' fault, but be aware that he might try to blame them on some unexplainable phenomenon, like the code leprechaun or the feature goblin.

Magnus is particularly interested in creating platform-appropriate usable software in order to supply people with the tools they need to go about their daily routine in an even better way. He loves well-polished software and believes that 80 percent of the user experience comes from how well polished the details are.

Magnus lives in Linköping, Sweden, and in his spare time, he enjoys cooking, wine and watching movies. He is also involved in the Östergötland chapter of the Swedish Humanist Youth Organization.