We’re for the brave.

We partner with leaders who put their products and ideas to the test, with real users. This takes guts, because it shows that they are willing to be wrong.

But don’t mistake their bravery for stupidity. They know that what they learn is worth more to their organisations than holding tightly onto their assumptions.

It may sound counter-intuitive but being willing to be wrong is what helps them to be right. It’s this approach that transforms average products (and companies) into great ones.

It also works the other way. Just ask Steve Balmer.

After a decade of designing and building digital experiences, an uncomfortable but important question came up. Were we really living up to our original purpose, to help companies create better relationships with people through technology?

The short answer was not really. When we looked honestly at our practice, we were more user-scented than user-centred. That’s not to say we weren’t good at what we did, we definitely were. It’s just that the user wasn’t always a tangible part of the process.

After comparing notes with a number others in the industry and our closest clients, we realised that this problem wasn’t just ours - it was widespread. Everyone waxed-lyrical about the user but it was rare to see any of them meaningfully included. But why?

Wanting to find out, we interviewed a dozen senior leaders and practitioners in UX & CX. There were many reasons (which we’ll happily share with you over coffee) but a major one was that they didn’t have capability or capacity to do it in a reliable and repeatable way.

So, we’ve completely redesigned our business - moving away from delivering end-to-end solutions - to focus on making it easier for product teams and human-centred design leaders to discover the insights that flow from making their users real.

To make this happen, we’ve built New Zealand’s first world-class UX lab. A place of possibility and exploration where, through participatory usability testing, UX research and product innovation programmes, we’re able to bring teams and users together, to shape better experiences.