Our Services in short

Stroomt follows the best practices in User Experience Design assuring usability and success. Our processes are development method independent, so whether you have agile, waterfall or your own variation in between, we fit our deliverables to fit your schedule.

Our process is also dedicated to quick and rapid visualizations. We believe in prototyping quickly and often throughout the process so no one gets entangled in mountains of paper, or misunderstandings. Our quick visualization techniques empower our clients not only to visualize their requirements but also enable them to interactively prototype their ideas.

Our process includes the following iterative steps:

1. Strategy
2. Requirements gathering
3. 5:3:1 Conceptual Design
4. IDEA Iterative Design and Evaluate Alternatives
5. Implementation coaching

Strategy

Often many projects feel the need to go ahead and make something without first making the necessary step of agreeing about the strategic importance of the project. Projects here there are competing visions, competing interpretations of functionality and what the goals are symptoms that thee is not a shared strategic vision of the project. Stroomt believes in first making a definition quickly and efficiently sot his phase is quick but effective.

Our exclusive use of what we call strategic grids are an extremely effective method for quickly identifying your strategy and expressing it in wireframe proofs of concepts.

Activities:

• Mission Statement
• The Grid
• Strategy Workshops
• SMART Goals
• Business Case

Requirements gathering

Software is implemented based on five often unarticulated competing and mostly contradictory requirement types. Far from addressing these requirements head on, many designers brush these contradictions under the table.

The Stroomt approach to User Experience Design is different, we embrace these contradictions. These contradictions are not only made transparent but they actually lead to the ideal design solution. In the phase we try to map out these requirements from their various sources. The competing requirements come from 5 main sources:

1. Business – the needs of the business or organization to run profitable or at least sustainable (if a non-profit)
2. Organization – the needs of the informal and formal business processes and culturally determined requirements (both the culture of a given country and business and organization)
3. Technical – the technical limitations (platform, development tools, development time, manpower and other resources) to implement something
4. Functional – the required functionality, what a user must do to achieve their work successfully
5. End-user – the end user of course has their own needs as determined by the context of work and their own personal user type/profile. All too often the above requirements do not take these needs into consideration and this is the source for much (but by no means all) of the contradictory requirements.

Activities:

• User Research observation
• User Research interviews
• Workshops, requirements gathering from all stakeholders

5:3:1 Conceptual Design

Another aspect that separates Stroomt from other design bureaus is our 5:3:1 design process. Most designers develop a single design and iterate that design until it is developed. We call this a rat-hole design; there is no way to know if the design is optimal for the contradictory requirements.

Stroomt will offer 3-5 different concepts each one accentuating different requirement prioritizations based on your strategic vision. These concepts in turn are synthesized into 2-3 directions. After these directions are thoroughly discussed with your stakeholders, a single concept is then synthesized from these and a conceptual design will result assuring that the resulting detailed design will follow a unified and strategically sounds concept.

Activities:

• Step 1: presentation of 3-5 conceptual sketches
• Step 3: 2-3 synthesized directions
• Step 3: Selection of a single conceptual choice

IDEA Iterative Design and Evaluate Alternatives

If conceptual soundness and fidelity to the Company goals were the focus up until now, with our IDEA phase usability, improving and refining the user experience of your product and service takes center stage. Iteratively combining user research and rapid prototyping, we can quickly come up with a design that not only meets your goals but also the goals of your end users.

Activities:

• Design iteration I: Wireframe requirements
• Design iteration II: Create the interactive wireframes
• Design iteration III through V: Refine the wireframes

Implementation coaching

Stroomt does not just design and throw their work over the wall to be developed. Stroomt remains engaged throughout the development process, though on a much reduced intensity, giving often once a week or twice a month.

Activities:

• Design documentation
• Initial workshop meeting face to face with development team
• Weekly check-ins with development
• Unit Test and Acceptance test reviews and refinements