A product people
cannot finish a task in
Six sessions watching real users usually finds a different problem than the one in the brief, and it is usually cheaper to fix.
Typical result: task completion you can measure
Build
UI/UX Design
Research, flows, interface design and a component library your engineers can actually build from. Not a beautiful file that has to be reinterpreted, and not a redesign that solves the problem in the brief rather than the one users have.
Typical work
3 to 8 weeks
Starts with
Watching real users
Deliverable
Components, not screens
Accessibility
Designed in, not audited
Handover
Engineers can build it
How it works
Design, build and test are one loop.
The moment design hands a file to engineering and walks away, quality starts leaking. Keeping the loop closed is worth more than any individual screen in it.
What we build
Three things this usually turns out to be.
A product people
Every screen looking
slightly different
A component library with real variants and named tokens, so the twentieth screen costs an hour rather than a day.
Typical result: consistency without policing
An interface for
something that does not exist yet
Flows, states and a prototype real enough to test before anybody writes the expensive version of it.
Typical result: the wrong idea found cheaply
The stack
What we reach for, and why.
The deliverable is a system an engineer can build from without asking questions. Anything that does not serve that is decoration.
Design
FigmaAuto layoutVariablesDesign tokens
Research
Usability testingInterviewsAnalytics reviewSession replay
Systems
Component librariesWCAGResponsive rulesMotion specs
Handover
Dev-ready specsToken exportStorybook
How to buy it
The work is the same. The shape of the deal is not.
Design is bought under any of the three engagements, and most often sits alongside a build rather than ahead of it.
Forward Deployed EngineerOne senior engineer owns it end to end. Best when the solution is not obvious yet.Read more →
Staff AugmentationYou own the plan, we supply the hands. Best when your spec is ready.Read more →
Dedicated TeamsA standing squad with QA and DevOps. Best for a programme of work.Read more →
Honestly
A design that cannot be built is a proposal.
Come to us when
Good fit
- Users cannot complete a task and nobody knows precisely where they stop.
- Every new screen looks slightly different from the last one.
- Engineers are inventing interface decisions because nobody else made them.
- You have a design file and no idea what it costs to build.
Go elsewhere when
Poor fit
- You want a logo and brand identity. Ask for a brand designer.
- You want mockups to sell an idea internally with no build behind it.
- The design is settled and you need it built. Ask for a front end engineer.
Questions
Before you book the call.
Some do, to component level, and it makes handover noticeably smoother. It is not the default, and a designer who codes a little is more useful than one who codes badly.
Yes, and it is usually the better brief. Extending a system you already have costs a fraction of replacing it and keeps everything built so far consistent.
For most product decisions, five or six sessions with real users. Past that the findings repeat. Large research programmes are occasionally justified and more often a way of postponing a decision.
Yes, and they are where most of the real work is. Empty, loading, error, too much data, name too long. The happy path is the easy half and it is the half most portfolios show.
Next step
Show us where people get stuck.
Thirty minutes. If we think the problem is smaller than a redesign, we will say so on the call rather than in month two.