What We Do

We design award-winning experiences. From consumer electronics to non-profits, from medicine to science, we help our clients build the future.

As a small team or as individuals, we research how things work today, combine that with what's on the horizon, all to build a more productive and humane world.

What‘s intutive, delightful, and genuinely useful to your people?

Let's find out and build it together!

How We Do It

We are a human-centered design studio; we listen to your users to discover what they want and why. When that's not possible, we use our years of experience and industry best practices.

Discovering what to build might involve some antrhopology, lots of sketching, rapid prototyping, or experimenting with completely new ideas. Sometimes, the right solution doesn't even involve a screen.

What's it like working with us?

We can help with any part of the design process, but we recommend bringing us in early in the process, perhaps even when the product roadmap is being created, to ensure you're spending time and money on building the right thing.

Planning: First we work with you to identify a project’s goals, then discuss what tools we can bring to bear on a project. We scale to make the most of time, budget, and available resources.

Research: Depending on how well you know your target audience, we may recommend quick and dirty research to confirm assumptions, or more foundational research to identify patterns and insights.

Design: We can help prioritize and build a roadmap centered around value to your users. We often lead collaborative design sketching and whiteboarding sessions, and then move towards canned or functional prototypes before creating detailed designs.

Support: We work with your engineers to iterate and solve problems within the agile framework. We recommend a phased approach of design waterfall to agile implementation.

Get in touch and let's figure out how to solve your challenging problems togther!

Bryan Wu

User Experience Design Director

I help our clients see the future and build it

I love working with novel technologies and solving difficult problems.

Over decades of design work, I've come to realize a few things:

• Pen and paper are faster than programming. (cheaper, too)
• Context is the key to understanding a problem. Do your research.
• All of us is better than one of us. What do the outliers say and why?

My programming background keeps solutions feasible, while my deep and wide design experience lets me cross-pollinate from other industries.

My favorite tools are a new Sharpie and a big, blank sheet of paper (or now, an iPad Pro and Pencil).

Useful facts: 20+ years design experience, iOS programmer, 2 patents, Computer Engineering degree. Artist on the side.

Fun facts: I love making quirky phone apps and adventures in my Subaru.

LinkedIn

Side Projects

Thy Tran

Design Researcher, Strategist

I enjoy learning about people:
How they do things and — most importantly — why?

I am a full-stack (with lots of maple syrup) researcher and strategist.

Nuance and craft are important to me. With insights gained from a diversity of research techniques, I help our clients shape relevant and meaningful experiences for their customers.

My background in ethnographic research, cultural analysis, social justice, and educational programming informs my recommendations.

Some of my favorite tools are made of cast-iron: a Kelsey tabletop letterpress, a set of Griswold skillets, and a Vietnamese whelk pick.

LinkedIn

Wandering Spoon

Every project is unique.

Help us help you by thinking through a few things:

• What are you trying to make, do, or have happen?
• Who is your audience?
• How do you measure success?
• What do you still need to find out?
• Timeline, budget, resources?
• Digital, analog, both?

Let’s start the conversation.

Email us at .

We look forward to hearing from you!