Simplifying Experience Design
Hostile Sheep believes the responsibilities associated with UX should be distributed among all members of the team; not just an experience designer. Experience design is intended to equip a product design team with the information it needs to produce the best user experience possible. This isn’t a new concept; if you think about the purpose of wireframes, user flows, mental models, or other UX artifacts – they’re all created as guidelines opposed to a customer-facing design. Hostile Sheep has found an easier, more effective way to do this.
Identifying User Needs
It’s often left to uninterested, unqualified, or over-worked employees to understand the business problems motivating an organization to change. Frequently, organizations take-on new initiatives without understanding the desires of the user or its impact on the customer journey.
Hostile Sheep aims to change that. We conduct user research that leads to actionable results, and it’s not expensive or time consuming. We help structure stakeholder interviews to ensure we’re understanding what the organization really wants from it’s customers or users. Hostile Sheep can offer as much or as little support as needed.
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Designing Guidelines
Simply put, we believe design is about making choices. Hostile Sheep has a unique approach to experience design & information architecture that results in design strategy, navigation design, contextual use cases, information architecture, and content governance guidelines. Although, we base our designs on human insights and jobs users want to accomplish, designs ultimately just represent a hypothesis.
It’s hard to know how effective design decisions are, until the product or service is in the market, being interacted with by real users. Hostile Sheep makes it easy to keep your thumb on the pulse of your users.
Learn MoreDoing Less, Quicker
Hostile Sheep spent 6 years refining a revolutionary approach to experience design. We don’t believe in a perfect test or perfect design; Hostile Sheep strives to get in front of real users as quickly as possible. In some cases, as quickly as one week. Our two-step process identifies user needs prior to defining experience design guidelines. Our projects either result in a study or a solution.
Studies
There are several methodologies Hostile Sheep uses to conduct Need Identification Studies. The purpose of each is to identify user, market, or stakeholder needs. Studies that only involve data analysis can be completed as quickly as a single-week, while more complex studies that require research/testing can be completed as quickly as two-weeks. We have expertise in usability testing, interviewing/focus groups, as well as quantitative research.
Solutions
We know products aren’t static, so why do we build information architecture documents (such as wireframes) that focus on the ‘launch state’ of a product? Hostile Sheep believes design patterns can meet user needs and can be easily stitched-together by most product management teams. We focus on identifying and rationalizing a series of experience design guidelines that outline when and why to use various design patterns.
A Partnership without Headaches
Hostile Sheep is incredibly easy to work with. Every project is completed within a time-box and every project is based on a flat-fee. You know exactly how long it’ll take and how much it’ll cost before any work begins. Every study and solution is customized with the content the team needs most, but we always include more than any team needs.
- Connector.Connector.
Direct Partnerships
Are you a product manager? Are you designing, or redesigning a product? It may be a physical product like an automated bank machine, or a virtual product like a website or app; Hostile Sheep can help you design a product your customers will love. Hostile Sheep doesn’t replace a product management team; we equip the project management team with experience design guidelines. Our two-step process identifies user needs before producing experience design guidelines. Learn More
- Connector.Connector.
Agents & Group Projects
It can take a village to bring a product to market; Hostile Sheep works well with large multi-stakeholder teams. Our in-depth studies and experience guidelines equip large teams with the UX expertise they’ll need to take ownership of the UX decisions each member will contribute. Hostile Sheep believes UX isn’t a department or a person, but a responsibility each member of a product team contributes to. Learn More
Hostile Sheep Culture
We take a uniqely Canadian approach to our business philosophy; we work shorter hours in the winter, we bring our pets to work, we never do time-sheets, we wear jeans, and we enjoy everday… because we love what we do. Hostile Sheep was founded on four key principles:
Design is Change
We believe that design is the process of changing a product in order to achieve required objectives.
Do Less, More Frequently
We don’t believe is a perfect test or design; we strive to get in-front of real users as quickly as possible.
Designers are Made
Like chefs, tailors, blacksmiths and electricians; designers are craftsmen who learn best from mentors.
Value isn't Measured by The Hour
Hostile Sheep is hired by the week for a flat-fee. We don’t bill by the hour, we work to achieve objectives.
