What we do

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Usability / Human Factors

Products must be usable. Words have to be legible. Things have to make sense. All products eventually fall into the lives of regular people, and those regular people have to find them useful. They have to find that the products improve their lives somehow.

It may seem obvious, but too often, these simple facts get lost beneath schedules, budgets and requirements documents.

It is common for designers to be called in at the end, to make products “look pretty”. This is unfortunate, because it reduces the power of design to its most superficial use.

If you want the best out of your products, get Designers involved at the beginning of the project.

We want to engage in the process when requirements are first being defined. We will consider aspects and ask questions that Business Analysts will not. We play different, but complimentary roles. While they’re writing documents which outline the business requirements for the development of a product, we’ll be thinking about the end user of that product, taking note of the lighting conditions of their office and thinking about how tired their eyes are going to be by 3 pm.

We have an intense interest in the humanity that we’re designing for. Violet offers usability assessments for clients; reviewing products during development and offering recommendations for improvements or refinements to better serve the human needs of people they are intended for.

Form Design & Grid Explanation

Following a usability assessment, Violet worked with an IT client to create templates for them to use when developing online data entry forms. We created the templates and an accompanying document with diagrams which break down the structure of the underlying grid, explaining the thinking behind the design and how a developer should use it on his or her own.
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