Our multi-disciplinary team works out of five offices: New York, USA, Toronto & Ottawa, Canada, and Cambridge & London, UK. We are a focused crew who thrive on collaboration and are eternally optimistic for a well-designed world.
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Tedde infuses Akendi, its services and methodology with his drive to make customer and user experiences go beyond a singular product or service. Experience Thinking starts with the holistic experience customers and users have with an organisation over time, then guides the enabling technologies and content to create intentional experiences. In his view, Experience Thinking should become deeply rooted in an organisation's creation processes.
Athena believes that function and beauty are not mutually exclusive. A principled and creative leader whose biggest passion is finding solutions to client problems, Athena strives to build teams that intelligently integrate UX processes and best practices with product development. Her long and winding journey from the United States to Canada has given her a unique combination of strategic design skills and broad industry experience.
Over the past twenty-five years, Scott has worked in the areas of business strategy, product design and development in the high tech sector with a specialization in experience design. He has extensive cross-sector expertise and experience working with clients in complex regulated industries such as aviation, telecom, health, and finance. His primary area of focus over the last several years has been in product and service strategy and the integration of multi-disciplinary teams and methods.
Siobhan strives to make a positive impact on people’s lives through thoughtful design. Since 2000, she has leveraged her artistic abilities and strategic thinking to create designs that truly connect. In addition to working with numerous B2B, telecom, government, healthcare, and finance organizations, she counts festivals, galleries and fashion companies among her many clients.
Since 2009, Dan has dedicated his career to creating website and interface designs that lead to exceptional experiences between users, their environment, and their tools. In fact, one of Dan's biggest joys is seeing the software he designed in use in airports around the world. An exceptional listener who is open to new ideas, Dan's clients marvel at his calm, patient nature and ability to explain complex topics in an accessible way.
Technically everything is possible, making it work for people is where the real challenges are. Addressing these challenges from an end-user perspective in a way that makes business sense is what has driven Leo throughout his career. With more than 20 years of experience he is able to bring an ability of strong lateral thinking combined with very broad domain knowledge of applications/markets and technical enablers.
Prioritize evidence of outcomes: case studies with measurable impact, senior team involvement, and a repeatable methodology that spans research, design, and validation. Tip: Ask for pre/post metrics from two similar projects to verify outcome consistency.
Compare who actually did the work, decision cadence, research rigor, and how findings drove design changes. Tip: Request a sample research-to-design trace showing how one key insight led to a shipped change.
Look for open communication, facilitation skill, and transparent risk management. Tip: Run a 60–90 minute workshop pilot to test collaboration before you commit.
Sector knowledge helps, but the ability to transfer UX patterns matters more. Tip: Ask for 3 examples of cross-domain pattern reuse that saved time or reduced risk.
Senior leads make sharper scoping choices, faster synthesis, and clearer stakeholder alignment. Tip: Insist on named senior leads with defined hours and participation at key milestones.
Choose based on access to users, time zone overlap, and governance. Tip: Map your research windows and stand-ups; ensure the partner’s core team overlaps at those moments.
Three is ideal: one similar scope, one similar culture, one stretch complexity. Tip: Ask each reference what they would change if restarting the project.
Before/after metrics, reduced rework, adoption, and decision velocity. Tip: Ask for a single slide summarizing problem, intervention, and measured impact.
Probe the research backbone and validation rigor behind polished visuals. Tip: Request two unpolished artifacts (e.g., synthesis wall, test script) from a completed project.
Boutiques can be faster and senior-heavy; large firms scale well and add breadth. Tip: Match complexity and speed needs to the staffing model actually proposed.
Confirm named individuals, roles, weekly hours, and responsibilities. Tip: Ask for a RACI showing who drives research, design decisions, and stakeholder alignment.
Clear rituals: research readouts, design crits, decision logs, and developer handoffs. Tip: Request a sample cadence calendar and example decision log.
Complexity rises with unknowns; increase senior research and strategy time. Tip: Ask for a risk-adjusted staffing plan tied to uncertainty reduction milestones.
Use living docs, decision logs, recorded readouts, and paired handovers. Tip: Require a continuity plan with owner, artifacts list, and backup roles.
Practitioner-educators tend to articulate rationale clearly and coach stakeholders. Tip: Ask for one recent deck or article illustrating their thinking.
Through joint discovery, design/dev pairing, and acceptance criteria aligned to test insights. Tip: Pilot a design-dev spike to validate the working model.
We create and evolve systems with tokens, accessibility, and governance. Tip: Request a sample contribution model and audit report of a past system.
Yes—service blueprints align backstage operations to frontstage experiences. Tip: Ask for a sample blueprint that drove measurable operational change.
Use layered recruitment, mixed methods, and ethical incentives. Tip: Review a previous recruitment plan for a similarly constrained cohort.
We support multilingual research and global time zones with local moderators. Tip: Validate moderator bios and localization plans for key markets.
Align on outcomes → plan research → synthesize insights → co-create concepts → iterate design → validate → hand off → measure. Tip: Ask for a one-page process map with sample artifacts per phase.
We reduce breadth, not rigor—fewer journeys, same depth of research and validation. Tip: Demand an explicit trade-off table for any scope change.
Aligned goals, risks, user segments, and a research plan with success metrics. Tip: Gate the project: continue only after a discovery readout and sign-off.
Expect weekly or bi-weekly touchpoints with demoable artifacts. Tip: Schedule fixed readouts in the contract to protect visibility and momentum.
Evidence-led decisions with a named decision owner and criteria set in advance. Tip: Require a decision charter and stick to it.
We co-define constraints with engineering and prototype within real limits. Tip: Include engineering in concept reviews from week one.
Annotated flows, acceptance criteria, tokens, component specs, and accessibility notes. Tip: Ask for a sample handoff package from a shipped project.
We link insights to requirements, patterns, and final UI decisions. Tip: Review a traceability matrix for one previous feature.
Commonly Figma, Miro, secure repositories, and your PM stack. Tip: Align tool access and permissions during kickoff to avoid delays.
Through enablement sessions, playbacks, and a 30–60–90 day measurement plan. Tip: Make enablement a contracted deliverable with attendance targets.
Interviews, field studies, usability tests, surveys, analytics, and diary studies—selected based on decision needs. Tip: Ask for a method-to-decision map for your brief.
IRB-informed practices, informed consent, data minimization, and secure storage. Tip: Request the consent template and data retention policy.
WCAG-driven acceptance criteria, semantic structure, keyboard flows, and contrast checks. Tip: Require an accessibility checklist per screen or component.
Yes—screen readers, magnification, voice control, and switch devices as appropriate. Tip: Include at least one session with AT users per critical flow.
Start lean (5–8 per segment) and iterate; expand for riskier flows. Tip: Budget for two rounds rather than one large test.
Absolutely—we triangulate quant and qual to target high-impact issues. Tip: Provide baseline funnels and VOC themes before discovery.
Define leading indicators (task success, errors) and lagging ones (conversion, retention). Tip: Agree on 3–5 KPIs with thresholds before design begins.
Test coverage review, accessibility audit, heuristic pass, and stakeholder sign-off. Tip: Make a go/no-go checklist part of the SOW.
Compliance-ready protocols, anonymization, and sector-specific consent. Tip: Ask for a redacted protocol from a regulated study.
Yes—continuous discovery and periodic health checks feed the roadmap. Tip: Schedule quarterly UX health reviews tied to product OKRs.
Discovery uncertainty favors T&M; well-defined build phases suit fixed price. Tip: Use hybrid: T&M for discovery, fixed for well-bounded sprints.
Bottom-up tasking, historical velocity, and risk-adjusted reserves. Tip: Ask for a three-scenario estimate (base, stretch, lean) with assumptions.
Documented change requests, impact analysis, and client approval gates. Tip: Add a no-surprises clause: changes surfaced within 48 hours of discovery.
Clients typically own IP and anonymized data; we retain process know-how. Tip: Clarify IP, raw files, and derivative rights in the MSA and SOW.
NDAs, least-privilege access, encrypted storage, and vetted vendors. Tip: Request a brief security checklist and tool inventory.
Recruitment feasibility, dependency timing, and decision bottlenecks. Tip: Include a living risk log with owners and mitigations.
Billing aligns to phase gates and accepted deliverables. Tip: Link payments to mutually defined acceptance criteria.
Weekly dashboards show percent complete, risks, and budget burn. Tip: Require a sample dashboard in the proposal.
We disclose, vet, and integrate subs with the same standards and NDAs. Tip: Ask for named subs and their bios before kickoff.
Short termination windows, knowledge transfer, and asset packaging. Tip: Ensure the contract specifies a structured wind-down plan.
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