Services

Product Design

Whilst we have the in-house capabilities to take products all the way through to synthesis. Some companies opt only for product analysis and concept definition.

Often with as little as the core value theory, we are able to distill a set of strategic problems which we then evolve into a number of objectives through research-backed ideation.

Release Planning

Although not a standalone service, release planning is, nevertheless, integral to our ability to deliver successful projects.

We can plan either time-focused, or feature-focused releases. Release plans not only generate key delivery dates, they also act as scoping vessels through which we can offer a fixed development cost, providing greater budgetary control.

Market Research

Data is central to everything we do. In order to validate concepts and inform decision-making. We are able to conduct both secondary research and small-scale primary research through user testing workshops and focus groups.

In the past, we've run user testing workshops with blue-collar workers, young professionals and even children. These workshops are an incredibly valuable tool for refining UI design and providing general business intelligence.

Customer Needs Analysis

We have a robust framework for gathering the necessary customer feedback to plot features against our customer satisfaction framework. This enables us to accurately classify and rank features according to their value to users which can be combined with other metrics (e.g. risk and cost) to formulate development priorities going forward.

Our approach to classifying customer satisfaction is based heavily on The Kano Model. For more information see here.

Interactive Prototyping

Low-fidelity prototyping is an efficient way to scaffold interfaces and test user interaction. Our prototyping is an experimental, emergent process that allows us to rapidly test, discuss and refine our low-level requirements.

User flows & Service diagrams

User flows and service diagrams act as anchor points for ideation and knowledge distribution. They provide a clear, visual, high-level product overview and are fantastic aids for "big picture" thinking and discussion.

User Interface Design

More than just creating visually pleasing interfaces we consider how to best leverage available technology to further enhance the usability created during prototyping.

A hybrid of experiential and functional perspectives, our process focuses on creating a coherent design language for all UI elements and interactions within the product.

Branding & Logo Design

Branding is a broad area. We typically focus on brand identity; taking it further than just a logo, colour scheme and typography to find ways to expose the brand through the product UI and interactions.

We always pay particular attention to how it should "feel" to interact with all products within the brand.

Software Development Services

Our Manchester-based development team comprises a core team of 6, each with varying specialisms. We predominantly work with JavaScript, however, many of the team are also proficient in PHP and Java.

The entire team can be, and usually is, brought to bear on a single project. Our competent management and excellent team synergy allow us to deliver complex, large-scale builds in surprisingly short periods of time without cutting corners or compromising quality.

Codebase auditing and Documentation

Often, software built by individuals or smaller teams will harbour a lot of technical debt and/or be poorly documented. As a result they may be highly challenging for other teams to work on effectively.

We are able to forensically analyse existing codebases and outline any remediatory steps that are needed in addition to producing crucial documentation that may be missing.

Quality Assurance and Testing

In addition to automated testing, every feature we develop goes through a manual internal quality check.

Whilst assessing a feature functionally passes its acceptance criteria, we also audit the look and feel and other "softer" attributes of a feature to ensure it fits with the overall vision for the product.

Deployment & Infrastructure

In addition to major releases, we are strong advocates of continuous integration/delivery. Our in-house ops team is proficient at scripting automated builds, deployments and testing.

We are also well-versed in public cloud services such as AWS and are capable of architecting, configuring and supporting complex infrastructures.