TOOLS & SERVICES

We improve your customers' experience by supporting you with UX design and research tools

Gain competitive advantage by knowing what moves your users and how to improve their experience with your products and services. We help you to pick and utilize the best research and design tools from the UCD cycle.

Our portfolio across the development stages

EXPLORE & UNDERSTAND

Are you about to get started and want to know more about your customers and what really moves them? Make sure you have all pieces in place by doing explorative research and fully understand your users needs and goals.

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MEASURE & VALIDATE

If you want to measure your success or are under regulatory requirements, our validated measurement approaches are designed exactly for you.

View measurement tools

DESIGN & ITERATE

Do you want to create a new and innovative service from scratch? Have you already built prototypes and just want to kink out usability flaws? Enter the cycle of ideation, design and testing to iteratively move from your first idea to a test-proven product!

View design & testing tools

MANAGEMENT & STRATEGY

Lift UX to the next level and systematically integrate it into your development process using our tools and experience.

View management tools

EXPLORE & UNDERSTAND

View exploration tools

DESIGN & ITERATE

Do you want to create a new and innovative service from scratch? Or have you already built prototypes and just want to kink out usability flaws? Enter the cycle of ideation, design and testing to iteratively move from your first idea to a test-proven product!

View design & testing tools

MEASURE & VALIDATE

If you want to measure your success or are under regulatory requirements, our validated measurement approaches are designed exactly for you.

View measurement tools

MANAGEMENT & STRATEGY

Lift UX to the next level and systematically integrate it into your development process using our tools and experience.

View management tools

It is tempting to make assumptions about your target groups based on your own experience – especially if you do not create a new product from scratch.

If you do not have any or only outdated sources of information about your customer and the environment they are using your product in, doing user research can keep you from developing the next WiFi-enabled toaster that nobody asked for. Truly knowing your users‘ needs and workflows is essential for developing successfuly products and services.

Our methods:

1-on-1 deep dive user interviews

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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.

Customer segments

Customer segments Customer segments represent a community of target groups that show similar characteristics, behavior patterns or other criteria. They can be identified using segmentation or cluster analysis. During development, customer segments help you to understand what your customers want to get out of your product and to focus on their individual needs, e.g. when defining a value proposition.

Mood boards

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

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 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

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

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

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.

Great products or services do not fall from the sky. They are built on the fundamental belief that the designer is not the user and the optimism that the product becomes better with every iteration.

Together with you, we create prototypes and information architectures using a variety of established UX tools.

Our methods:

Design sprints

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.

User co-creation technique

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.

Wireframing / prototyping

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)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 roadmaps

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 / wireflows

Wireflows combine wireframes and dynamic process flows. They are visualized flowcharts representing the interactions in the product.

Usability issues

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

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

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.

Design suggestions

Highlight videos

Basing on our clients‘ needs to measure their success we became real benchmarking experts. We design custom made UX models, run studies and report results right into dedicated online dashboards.

Our experience is based on numerous benchmarking studies as well as dedicated knowledge in industry specific validation types such as driver distraction testing or human factors validation studies

Our methods:

KPI measurement

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 modelling

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 UX models

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

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 report

Driver distraction testing

SWOT analysis

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 flow & service blueprint

Customer journey map

Customer journey map

Ecosystem or touchpoint maps

Ecosystem or touchpoint maps

Results database

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

If you sometimes think „… maybe we should do a usability test before we launch…“ – then this is not your section.

Successful organizations implement UX into their DNA and processes. We consult you in setting up or aligning these processes. We start from where you are at the moment and embed all relevant stakeholders.

If you work in the heavily regulated medical devices market, we support you in establishing processes and procedures that are compliant with demands of regulatory bodies.

Our methods:

UX & design thinking trainings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

WHAT WE LIKE MOST

Combining different research methods in large multi-country studies - we like the complicated stuff

We regularly do usability tests and focus groups. But what we really love are projects that stimulate both sides of our brains and let us leverage from all the methods we used in 20 years and all the international networks we have built in that time…

See all our work

HOW TO GET IN TOUCH

Enough about us, let's talk about you!

Our preferred contact channels are carrier pigeons and smoke signs. But we believe in listening to client needs, so we have also set up a phone number and an e-mail address!