Designing great products that are truly a joy to use is not an exact science, but it’s not magic either. What we have is a clear mindset of how the work should be done, some guiding principles and working methods to help us during the journey from idea to finished product.
Designing for User Experience
When we take on a project we always look at it from a UX (User Experience) perspective. Why, for what, how, when and where will the user use this? The answers to these questions are formulated as UX Goals and it’s these goals that guide us through the entire design process, helping us to make the right decisions.
We also look at the UX life-cycle of the product/service; from the user’s very first notion of the product/service until the day when it’s time to replace it with something new.
The UX life-cycle analysis also gives us a clear picture about how to approach the design of the product/service. It shows us which parts that are easy to sell and market, which features that are absolutely essential and which type of usage that will grow on the user, even change her behavior and in the end create true loyalty.
Our approach to design
All people are different – we design for them all. To make things (a product, technology or service) work for a specific target user is what we’re really great at achieving. Blue sky projects are always nice, but it’s designing for a specific platform/service, for real usage by real real people in real situations that we’re simply put: the best at.
Our design approach is simple; visual design, interaction design and motion graphic design always have to be done in harmony. It is when these three elements come together as one that you truly can create new, innovative and usable products, applications and services.
Our design process
When we work we like to have an open iterative design process. In order to get a good result in the end you have to be flexible and have an open mind. You can’t be afraid to go back and fix things that may have seemed as a good idea at the time, but in the end didn’t really work. Kill your darlings!
Stakeholders should also have their say and input from the different parts of the organization is vital to reaching the goal.
With this said, we don’t believe in “design by committee” which is what happens when everyone turns into a designer. We believe in having a strong design lead and art direction, keep the end user and the UX goal in the very center of the process to create the wanted result.