UX Research & Design
1. We use research to solve business problems
Learning about customers’ needs to design products and services.
Gaining an understanding of customers’ experience across touch points to identify pain points and opportunities.
Evaluating a product to optimize sales and ease of use.
Auditing a product against best practises to identify use and conversion barriers.
Our ‘Toolbox’ Includes:
Strategy
Prototype & concept testing
Workshop facilitation
Persona development
Journey mapping
Participatory design
UX Research
Customer & user interviews
Usability testing
Diary studies
Card sorting
UX Design
Heuristic evaluations
Wireframing & prototyping
2. Working together
Our approach to working with clients is to treat it as a partnership: you know the ins and outs of your business, and we provide an outsider’s perspective and research insights to support you and your customers.
We believe in being transparent and collaborative. This means explaining our recommended approach and any trade-offs or assumptions we’re making. It means encouraging anyone in your company with an interest in the work to ask questions and provide feedback. It means creating a project brief together based on a discussion of the objectives and budget constraints.
3. Cost & timing
Projects are priced according to the scope of work - the methodology, who is involved, whether it is remote or in-person, the nature of the deliverables, and a few other factors. We’ll work with you to design the project and discuss tradeoffs and best practises.
We’ll work together to align the deliverables to your organization’s timelines. Most projects run 6 to 12 weeks from kickoff to delivery and depend on a number of factors, like the number of participants and the complexity of the recruit.
4. Happy clients do the talking
Blue Umbrella has been invaluable in helping my team incorporate design thinking and qualitative research into our product design in 2018. Their work lead to some great insights which were presented promptly. The information they provide is easy to read and understand, contains many excellent references we can go back to again and again and share with our other stakeholders.
Director of Product, Intact
“Blue Umbrella walked us through each step of the project, provided thoughtful advice, and involved the team in the decision-making process. Staff who attended the research sessions were impressed by their ability as a facilitator. After implementing the changes, we heard directly from students that the application was easier to navigate and new phrasing was more clearly understood.”
Senior Policy Advisor, Government of Ontario
“Blue Umbrella is a delight to work with. Knowledgeable and thoughtful, you can count on them to dig deep into the core of a problem before providing recommendations. They have an ability to take something complex and make it simple.”
Creative Director, MDNA Creative