Our portfolio across the development stages

EXPLORE & UNDERSTAND

MEASURE & VALIDATE

DESIGN & ITERATE

MANAGEMENT & STRATEGY

EXPLORE & UNDERSTAND

DESIGN & ITERATE

MEASURE & VALIDATE

MANAGEMENT & STRATEGY
- Explore & understand
Our methods:
1-on-1, deep-dive user interviews
Deep-dive user interviews allow you to understand the big picture behind your user’s behavior and to get a unique perspective on your product or concept. The explorative interviews are conducted within a comfortable atmosphere and without time pressure. This way, we can discover underlying motives, motions, and attitudes that are often hidden by rationalization or hard to verbalize.
Focus groups
Focus groups are an explorative method that approach the research topic in an open way. They allow you to witness users’ opinions, arguments, and feelings toward your product. We combine elements from psychology, sociology, and ethnology to gain maximum insights into your users’ needs and expectations. Plus, with the help of creative techniques (such as LEGO, role plays, Mindmapping, etc.), new ideas or concepts can be created.
Stakeholder workshops & interviews
A successful project starts with one essential task: Align your team and get everybody on board. Stakeholder workshops and interviews engage the different stakeholders who are involved in the project to gather the internal perspectives and visions. Together we identify goals and concerns of the different stakeholders, learn about internal processes and constraints and gather insights about the cultural environment and mindset. Afterwards the project team can define next steps and long-term goals, assign responsibilities and build a roadmap for the development process.
Ethnography
Diary studies & cultural probes
Documentation of the participants’ daily lives, e.g. using digital diaries to understand the complexity of everyday structures and recognize patterns in the longitudinal usage of a product.
Contextual inquiries
Contextual inquiries are explorative interviews that take place in the participant’s home or workplace. This method allows us to gather insights about product usage in its environment. This way we can understand how products and services need to be designed to meet users’ needs and fully reflect the context of use.
Review of secondary data
We help you collect, process, and interpret your existing data from various sources and make it useful for your UX project. Expert knowledge (internal / external), trends and best practices in the market, findings from satisfaction surveys, web analytics, brand perception studies, or other qualitative studies already exist in your company and can provide a first impression about the behavior and needs of your users.
Requirements analysis
The requirement analysis provides a way to determine the needs and requirements of users at an early stage of product development. The aim is to identify user requirements and then structure, classify, and prioritize these requirements to obtain an overview of the relationships between them and determine a ranking.
Segmentation & cluster analysis
Segmentation & cluster analyses are statistical methods for identifying similar structures in (large) data sets. Similarities found by an algorithm are grouped together and summarized in so-called “clusters”. The analysis can include people, objects, or countries and can be used to define customer segments.
Feature prioritization
In order to guide the prioritization and classification of collected requirements, additional quantitative research can help to rank the features by importance and impact. For this we offer internal evaluation methods (e.g. prioritization matrices), as well as, qualitative (KANO, chip game) and quantitative methods (MaxDiff, Conjoint).
KANO analysis helps to cluster possible features into different types of qualities (must-be, attractive, one-dimensional) and let you prioritize the implementation of those features based on empirical data. The results give an indication of what qualities or requirements the user thinks would have the most impact on their satisfaction with the planned product or service.
Conjoint or MaxDiff surveys measures the importance of individual features or topics. Results are calculated using a hierarchical Bayes regression. The results not only allow us to rank the different features and topics according to their importance for the user but also to show the relative distances between the importance of them.
Deliverables & outcomes:
Personas
Personas deliver a detailed understanding of the different user types of a system or product. They represent a specific type of person from your target groups – the techy businessman or the well-organized mother – every user type has their own characteristics, needs, skills, and personal goals. They are created based on quantitative and qualitative research data, e.g. online surveys or contextual inquiries. Using personas helps you designing tailor-made products for the different target audiences of your company.
Mood boards
Mood boards use the power of images to convey ideas and inspirations. Using the collage technique, different images, textures, typographies, color palettes and descriptive words help to communicate certain emotions, visions, characteristics and moods. They can be created online or physically and are an effective communication tool when working with designers as they convey the desired look and feel of screen content.
Scenarios, use cases & user stories
Use cases, scenarios and user stories are ways to clarify and communicate planned or observed user behaviors. They describe aspects of products usage in different levels of abstraction, e.g. interactions between the user and the system from the viewpoint of the user, their motivations and goals (visual or written representation). They are also good tools to organize system requirements and help in guiding further user research.
Task flow & service blueprint
Task flows are conceptual models of interaction paths that a user can follow to reach their goal. They represent workflows that are used by all users in a similar way to complete specific tasks. A commonly used notation for task flows is e. g. BPNM diagrams.
Service blueprinting is a process visualization technique used to describe and optimize a customer ‘s service experience. Blueprinting is a great tool to provide a comprehensive understanding of complex scenarios in which digital touchpoints blend with your services. They help you re-design the complex relations across departments and products to achieve a great user experience.
Customer journey map
The customer journey map is a tool to structure and visualize interactions that users have with the touchpoints across your service. It charts the actions as a cohesive story and uses a high level of synthesis by incorporating lots of different data sources (quantitative & qualitative data). Journey mapping is used to explain the big picture in complex and lengthy interactions in which multiple digital/non-digital touchpoints can be crucial to the experience. It helps you communicate flaws in the current system as well as to visualize your future service vision.
Ecosystem or touchpoint maps
An ecosystem is a term that designers use to describe the complex arrangement of things, services and people in a world where interconnected products and services are part of our everyday life. Instead of focusing on isolated parts of the network, ecosystem thinking evaluates user behavior at the intersection of those instances. Ecosystem or touchpoints maps help you to understand the various pieces of the puzzle (who your users are, with whom or what they interact, what information they need, which channels they use to communicate). They are a useful tool for translating your insights about the system into actionable results and to facilitate a shared vision of the future system.
User requirements
User requirements, often referred to as user needs, describe what users want your product or system to do. They specify what tasks users must be able to perform with your future product or system. User requirements frame the primary input for your new product. Together with you we collect and specify user requirements and then translate them into specifying product requirements.
- Design & iterate
Our methods:
Design sprints
Design thinking workshops or “design sprints” are a great tool to develop new ideas, plan creative processes and create first concept sketches and visualizations. The workshop participants consist of interdisciplinary teams. Different experiences, opinions and perspectives regarding a problem together with the usage of creative techniques support the creative thinking process and lead to outstanding innovations.
Co-creation workshop
In lively and activating creative workshops, we bring clients, consumers & creative/strategic/facilitation experts together to take all the different perspectives on ideas and concepts into consideration. Using creative techniques (such as LEGO role plays, mind-mapping, bodystorming etc.) we facilitate both creative and analytic thinking and open the respondents’ minds for unusual and innovative ideas. Together we discover your concepts’ potential for optimization as well as completely new approaches.
Prototypes / wireframes / wireflows
Prototypes, wireframes and wireflows can be the result of design sprints and co-creation workshops. They enable you to get early feedback from your users and reduce the risk of developing in the wrong direction.
Wireframes are conceptual sketches of a (digital) product. They define the behavior of the interaction elements and the basic interaction principles of the future system. Wireframes most often do not contain any content or visual design. Dynamic wireframes form the preliminary stage of prototyping.
Wireflows combine wireframes and dynamic process flows. They are visualized flowcharts representing the interactions in the product.
Rapid iterative testing (RITE)
RITE is a time-efficient and iterative usability testing method that allows you to continuously optimize the prototype during the test phases. As soon as an issue is discovered the team can iterate on the prototype and quickly test and get feedback on the new solutions and ideas. Therefore, it is possible to immediately control if a change or new idea actually lead to an improvement. In the end, you will have a final, user-centered design prototype as a base for the further development process.
Usability / UX Testing
A Usability / UX test follows a qualitative approach. The suitability and utility on the functional level (usability) as well as soft aspects, such as emotions, joy of use and trust (user experience) are pivotal factors when investigating the entirety of the user experience of a product. Using the combination of observation and interview, interaction problems next to the holistic impact of the product on the user can be identified.
Remote usability testing
An online usability test where individual telephone interviews are conducted with representatives of the target group. Using a screen-sharing program, participants can switch to the test computer and interact with the software – usability problems and barriers can be identified. The project team can follow the interviews by telephone conference and screen sharing. This approach is particularly useful if the target group is spread across large geographies.
Field trial
A field trial aims at uncovering issues with an interface which cannot be detected in lab-based use scenario sessions. It evaluates the product’s long term and real-life usage by collecting user feedback via an online survey. Participants are asked to complete the survey each time they experience an issue with the product. A field trial can last between two weeks to several months and should be conducted with a large sample to get statistically valid results.
Eye tracking
Eye Tracking (stationary or mobile) is used for the measurement of visual attention. By tracking the intensity and the order of gazed elements on the user interface, insights on the users’ attention and perceptional processes are gained. In combination with observational and survey data, eye tracking measurements can support the interpretation of user behavior.
Expert review
Experienced UX specialists examine relevant interface flows on the basis of the uintent usability analysis grid and best-practice solutions. An uintent expert review usually combines the techniques of ‘Cognitive Walkthrough’ and ‘Heuristic Evaluation’:
- Cognitive Walkthrough: Typical use cases are completed from the perspective of a user.
- Heuristic Evaluation: Assessment of the usability based on common usability standards (e.g. ISO 9241-110, 9241-220 and 13407).
Card sorting & Tree testing
The most common problem in website design is an overlapping and confusing information structure. Luckily, there are fast and effective tools that can be used to build an information structure that makes sense to your users.
Card Sorting
Card Sorting is a great method to find patterns and structures in how users would expect to find content or functionalities. Participants are asked to arrange predefined cards into content-related groups that correspond to their mental model. As a result, you get references for the optimal information architecture of your product or service.
Tree testing
Evaluates a proposed menu structure (tree) by asking participants to find items based on the site’s structure and terminology. The tree is displayed in its most basic form without worrying about layout or visual design.
Tree testing is very useful as a follow-up method for card sorting. It should be conducted at an early stage of the design process, in advance of designing final page layouts and navigation menus.
Deliverables & outcomes:
UX/Product roadmap
UX or Product roadmaps help teams to organize and prioritize design-related projects. The roadmap contains a timeline of goals that you want to achieve and tasks that need to be done. It defines how the different team members work together and support the planning process of design sprints.
Prototypes / wireframes / wireflows
Prototypes, wireframes and wireflows can be the result of design sprints and co-creation workshops. They enable you to get early feedback from your users and reduce the risk of developing in the wrong direction.
Wireframes are conceptual sketches of a (digital) product. They define the behavior of the interaction elements and the basic interaction principles of the future system. Wireframes most often do not contain any content or visual design. Dynamic wireframes form the preliminary stage of prototyping.
Wireflows combine wireframes and dynamic process flows. They are visualized flowcharts representing the interactions in the product.
Usability issues
Any problem users have while interacting with an interface leads to an undesirable experience. The different issues identified in an interview session can be classified into different issue severities to guide further decision making.
Usability issue list
Our usability issue list contains all identified usability problems in the interview sessions and comes along with concrete recommendations for improvement. The issues can be grouped by location, category or issue severity.
Heatmaps / Areas of interest
We use eye-tracking (stationary or mobile) to measure visual attention. With the help of eye movement- measurement we can record the order and intensity in which users consider elements of the user interface. The recorded data is analyzed and visualized in heatmaps and areas of interests:
Heatmaps illustrate the distribution of attention and show which elements were regarded more intensely than others.
Areas of interest illustrate the average perception intensity of defined areas of the user interface.
Highlight videos
Sometimes simply presenting UX research results with a PowerPoint deck is not effective enough to transport insights and improvement needs. Highlight videos consist of different video clips representing the key insights of your project. They show participants opinions and expressions, interaction problems or best practices. Highlight videos together with your results deck can create empathy for users and a better understanding of your further development measures.
Highlight videos
Sometimes simply presenting UX research results with a PowerPoint deck is not effective enough to transport insights and improvement needs. Highlight videos consist of different video clips representing the key insights of your project. They show participants opinions and expressions, interaction problems or best practices. Highlight videos together with your results deck can create empathy for users and a better understanding of your further development measures.
- Measure & validate
Our methods:
KPI measurement
UX KPIs translate user behavior, opinions, and feelings into numbers. They help you to communicate your UX strategy more successfully to the relevant stakeholders and guide you and your project team in the right direction.
KPI measurement also allows you to benchmark your product/Service against internal and external sources and to keep track of user satisfaction with your product.
Measurement of behavioral KPIs
Behavioral KPIs measure what your users do by using task metrics like task success rate, time on task and use error rate.
Measurement of attitudinal KPIs
Attitudinal KPIs measure what your users say by using questionnaire metrics like NPS, SUS, customer satisfaction or UX score.
UX modeling
User Experience is defined in ISO 9241-220 as the expectations towards a product, the actual interaction with the product and the processing of the experience after usage. Measuring User Experience for a product or service requires the transformation from theory to an actionable model. Out of the multitude of subjective assessment questionnaires and objective measurement criteria we build an approach that is tailor-made to achieve your UX goals.
Human factors validation testing
In medical device human factors research (according to MDR, IEC 62366, FDA Guidance on applying UE to medical device development, AAMI HE75 and other standards) HF validation testing is an essential part for the final market approval (CE and FDA 510(K)) of your medical device. In the test sessions, we examine if your product can be used safely and effectively by its intended users, in its intended use environments, for its intended purposes.
Including detailed root cause analysis…
We conduct thorough root cause analysis of all observed use errors, close calls, and operational difficulties to determine if a residual use-related risk is acceptable or if additional risk mitigation is necessary. At the end, we deliver an HF validation report formatted according to FDA guidance for easy integration in the overall usability engineering file.
Driver distraction testing
Driver Distraction Testing is a standardized approach to measure driver distraction when interacting with in-vehicle information systems. We use defined test procedures as specified in recognized guidelines (for example, Visual-Manual NHTSA Driver Distraction Guidelines, NHTSA). These include eye glance measurement in a driving simulator or occlusion testing with shutter glasses.
UX benchmarking
UX benchmarking is a highly standardized approach allowing to evaluate how your products / services are progressing over time and how it performs against competitors, industry benchmarks or earlier versions. Using objective and subjective KPIs (behavioral/attitudinal) benchmarking is a great tool in measuring the success of your research practice and in rendering decisions on future development.
UX tracking
Keep track of your users’ satisfaction after product launch. UX tracking continuously measures your customers’ experience. Therefore, you will be able to detect changes in user needs and react quickly.
Private panels
Private panels serve as a constant pool of participants from hard to recruit target groups. Once set up and running they speed up project turnaround times and allow quick omnibus or survey style studies that would not be cost-efferent using an ad hoc approach.
We recruit the users and manage them using professional panel software. We take care of keeping your users motivated and manage panel mortality.
UX Clinics
UX clinics test the holistic user experience of a car in the context of use. Dynamic clinics take place in real traffic situations and thus take environmental influences into account. If a car prototype does not have a street license or must be kept confidential, dynamic clinics can also take on private test tracks.
Static UX clinics are used when the actual driving experience is not relevant for the study goals but a large number of different vehicles shall be tested using a cost-efficient approach.
Occlusion glasses
Occlusion glasses are an alternative approach to eye tracking to measure distraction. It most often used in driver distraction tests according to NHTSA guideline.
The glasses work with shutter-open and shutter-closed times. Thus, the user can only see the interface for defined intervals and time periods. Using this approach, driving simulator are not necessary for distraction testing and it can be applied even to competitor cars.
Deliverables & outcomes:
Custom made UX models and KPIs
We model a scientific approach for your individual needs that prevents you from internal discussions regarding the validity of the chosen approach. After defining the variables to measure we choose the best approaches from numerous validated questionnaires and objective measures and combine them into a coherent UX model.
FDA conform HF validation report
An HF validation report consists of all information that is relevant for a final evaluation if a medical device can be used safely and effectively. This includes all setup relevant aspects and rationales i.e. for selecting the intended user group, use environment, etc. The main component is a detailed analysis of all observed use errors, close calls, and operational difficulties, based on a thorough root cause analysis.
We provide the report in FDA’s recommended format that promises a faster turnaround in reviewing the report as the FDA teams do not need to get used to your format but find the data in a familiar structure.
Driver distraction testing
Driver Distraction Testing is a standardized approach to measure driver distraction when interacting with in-vehicle information systems. We use defined test procedures as specified in recognized guidelines (for example, Visual-Manual NHTSA Driver Distraction Guidelines, NHTSA). These include eye glance measurement in a driving simulator or occlusion testing with shutter glasses.
SWOT analysis
SWOT is way to visualize your product’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. In can be build basing on both, qualitative or quantitative data and gives you clear guidance where to set your priorities in further developing your product.
Task flow & service blueprint
Task flows are conceptual models of interaction paths that a user can follow to reach their goal. They represent workflows that are used by all users in a similar way to complete specific tasks. A commonly used notation for task flows is e. g. BPNM diagrams.
Service blueprinting is a process visualization technique used to describe and optimize a customer ‘s service experience. Blueprinting is a great tool to provide a comprehensive understanding of complex scenarios in which digital touchpoints blend with your services. They help you re-design the complex relations across departments and products to achieve a great user experience.
Customer journey map
The customer journey map is a tool to structure and visualize interactions that users have with the touchpoints across your service. It charts the actions as a cohesive story and uses a high level of synthesis by incorporating lots of different data sources (quantitative & qualitative data). Journey mapping is used to explain the big picture in complex and lengthy interactions in which multiple digital/non-digital touchpoints can be crucial to the experience. It helps you communicate flaws in the current system as well as to visualize your future service vision.
Ecosystem or touchpoint maps
An ecosystem is a term that designers use to describe the complex arrangement of things, services and people in a world where interconnected products and services are part of our everyday life. Instead of focusing on isolated parts of the network, ecosystem thinking evaluates user behavior at the intersection of those instances. Ecosystem or touchpoints maps help you to understand the various pieces of the puzzle (who your users are, with whom or what they interact, what information they need, which channels they use to communicate). They are a useful tool for translating your insights about the system into actionable results and to facilitate a shared vision of the future system.
Results database
A results database (e.g. Wiki, WordPress, PowerBI database with dashboard) allows for a simplified and cross-departmental access to individual study or aggregated benchmark results. Cross-references (tags, categories, etc.) in the database help you to quickly find relevant information and benefit from the results of related studies. Visualizations or integrated videos support the presentation of the results.
User requirements
User requirements, often referred to as user needs, describe what users want your product or system to do. They specify what tasks users must be able to perform with your future product or system. User requirements frame the primary input for your new product. Together with you we collect and specify user requirements and then translate them into specifying product requirements.
- Management & strategy
Our methods:
UX & Design Thinking trainings
What is user-centered design, UX and design thinking?
Putting your end-users, rather than developers at the center of product and service design, is a big change for many companies and employees. UX and Design Thinking are the two essential concepts for user-centric product innovation and development. In our training, we help you to familiarize all team members with these two concepts to ensures that everyone understands their roles and responsibilities and agrees to put the user at the center.
Agile & UX integration
Integrating the in-house UX maturity for a successful future as a user-centered organization requires a lot of resistance to overcome. Department structures need to be adjusted and C-level management convinced of the importance of the topic. We help you to successfully initiate, control and monitor these processes.
UX change management workshops
In our change management workshops, we impart knowledge about the practical implementation of UX change projects, the challenges that come your way and discuss solution strategies.
UX infrastructure
Implementing UX as a key pillar into your organization requires a lot of fundamental infrastructure work. We support you in all aspects of this process, from hiring the right people over-communicating UX into the organization to creating consistent processes over all departments.
UX coordination & management
Managing the integration of UX into your product development processes, managing and educating product owners, deploying dedicated UX experts and managing external suppliers is a huge enterprise. We support by analyzing your status quo and consulting how to set up a most efficient organization.
In addition to that, we provide individualized UX management software – adjusted your individual needs – that gives you oversight over current and past projects, the utilization of your UX experts, your available/planned budget as well as the potential of intended studies.
Deliverables & outcomes:
Team alignment
Team alignment and process optimization workshops help to bring all of your team members to the same page and create a momentum that will drive your organization forward.
Knowledge transfer
We are keen to transfer the knowledge we have into your organization whenever possible. This could be knowledge of processes, methodologies, best practices, etc. We do this because we have learned that well-informed clients emphasize UX in general and seamless collaboration is easier when all stakeholders speak the same language.
Process description
Large organizations with several departments having UX involved in their routines tend to develop varying UX processes from department to department. This very often leads to incompatibility or inefficient processes. We analyze these processes and streamline them in close cooperation with all relevant stakeholders to ensure your organization as a coherent UX framework that allows an easy cooperation between departments.
Compliance with regulations
We support you in making sure that your organization’s UX development is compliant with mandatory laws and regulations, i.e. ISO 62366 (healthcare), AAM or NHTSA guidelines (automotive) or GDPR with a focus on participant data protection. To do so we analyze your current status quo processes and provide recommendations on how to adjust them to meet the required regulations.