Akendi cx tools and ux design ideas

Your destination
for everything UX

We're passionate about learning and experimenting, and we aren't shy about sharing our knowledge and findings with the UX community. Here, you'll find ux tools, whitepapers,
news, and insights from the Akendi team. Be sure to check back often!

News & Events
News Image
Announcement
New partnership for Akendi UK

Jul 1, 2023 We are pleased to announce that on 1st July Akendi UK Ltd is entering into a new and exciting partnership with Keen Design of The Netherlands. Together we have formed a new company, Keen Design Ltd which will leverage the strengths of both companies to provide User Experience Design services to a wider range of clients in the UK. Akendi UK Ltd will continue to operate within its established markets, offering UX services with domain knowledge in semiconductors, healthcare and telecommunications in the UK and abroad.

News Image
Online Event
Trash Talkin': How QualUX can be QuantUX's best friend

Jun 15, 2023 Join Jennifer Fraser and Akendi's Scott Plewes at 9am EST to push the boundaries of Quant and QualUX. We all know the expression “garbage in, garbage out”. But how do you systematically and rigorously avoid the garbage in? While we don't know the universal answer to that, we have identified 3 common areas where QuantUX might be at risk of getting off on the wrong foot, and where a little QualUX, and some systems thinking, could work with QuantUX to avoid the problem: 1. One of these things is not like the other: Combining distinct sets (and we don't mean from different databases); we mean sets like from your second year probability course (reinforcing the model you have eg: medical data sets based on men being applied to women ie: sports helmets; ADHD) 2. Sorry, that's not my table: Data generated for one process, used to evaluate a different process (or system) 3. Uh, over here, you forgot about me!: Ignoring contextual data in building your math or stats model We'll go through these situations with examples, and show you how to avoid these trap, making sure all that math will be worth it!

News Image
Announcement
Akendi opens New York office!

Apr 28, 2023 Akendi, a global user experience research, design, and strategy team, is proud to announce the opening of our New York City office in celebration of our 15th anniversary. This opening marks an exciting time for Akendi as we expand our presence and continue to deliver exceptional user research, strategy and UX design services to a wide range of clients, including in the AI, fintech and healthcare sectors.

News Image
Online Event
Why isn't your UX Approach going Viral?: A Mathematical Model

Mar 28, 2023 Join our CSO Scott Plewes who will take a look at how UX propagates within organizations using a viral model (a modified SIR model to be more precise). He'll look at such questions as: Does it simply need more time? Is the transmission rate/function the problem? Is part of the organization effectively “inoculated” against UX? And how, when and where to track progress while getting UX into an organization isn't as simple as solving a set of differential equations, he hopes to show you that doing just that might be a useful step in getting insights into what might work and what might not.

News Image
Event
Solving Problems Beautifully and Practically with Human Centered Design

Nov 29, 2022 Join Akendi's Tedde van Gelderen who will participate in an in-person panel discussion organized by TPMA and TorCHI. The partnership between product and design is more important than ever solving rewarding business challenges for users such as data rich problem spaces and complex interactivities. Let's explore how product management and user experience practitioners work best together solving problems with a human centered approach. We'll take a look at experiences within firms and those servicing firms as well as from the different disciplines perspectives. All delivering satisfying impactful experiences.

News Image
Online event
Crossing the Glass Bridge: What Squid Games can Teach us about Systems Thinking, Data Science & UX

Jun 8, 2022 Fans of the critically acclaimed Netflix series Squid Games perhaps didn't see the correlation between the challenges and User Experience, but Akendi's Chief Strategy Officer did! You can hear Scott Plewes' unique view with Jennifer Fraser from Macadamian at the Quant UX Con 2022 in Sunnyvale, California. Together they are presenting Crossing the Glass Bridge: What Squid Games can Teach us about Systems Thinking, Data Science & UX. QUXCON22 (June 8-9) is the first unconference dedicated to Quantitative UX Research and will be a hybrid of live and virtual sessions.

News Image
Webinar
Data and Design

Oct 20, 2021 Data Science can be instrumental in understanding where and how products and services can further business and customer goals. But with all the big data out there, how do you know where to look? How to categorize the data? Or what's most likely relevant? Join Scott Plewes, Chief Strategy Officer at Akendi in this talk where he will share how UX practices can help inform data science, and how data science can return the favour.

News Image
Online event
Where are you Emmy Noether? Looking for Connections in Data Science and Interaction Design

Sep 28, 2021 Join Akendi's Scott Plewes and Jennifer Fraser from Macadamian in a talk on physics and mathematics that are so connected that sometimes it's not obvious they are completely different disciplines. The history of math and physics has a few Emmy Noethers who made a fundamental connection between the two disciplines. Where is that connection between Data Science/math and Interaction Design? It is inevitable that Data Science, AI and other math heavy approaches find their way more and more into Interaction Design. This transformation is coming. In this talk we will explore ways to connect Data Science and Interaction Design using Systems Thinking. This approach makes them partners instead of feuding neighbours, and has some pragmatic and clear consequences for Interaction Design deliverables and processes.

News Image
Online event
More intelligent, or less artificial? The UX choice for AI-human interaction

Sep 7, 2021 Akendi's Leo Poll chairs an online event hosted by Cambridge Wireless on how to effectively apply AI in User Experiences. The event's speakers from @BBC and @University of the Arts London answering questions such as 'What impact do the apparent human qualities have on our expectations?' and ‘What shape or form might the interaction take to improve communication between the AI and the human?’

If you’re interested, you can join as Leo Poll's guest with code SIGCHAMPGUEST

News & Events
News Image
Announcement
New partnership for Akendi UK

Jul 1, 2023 We are pleased to announce that on 1st July Akendi UK Ltd is entering into a new and exciting partnership with Keen Design of The Netherlands. Together we have formed a new company, Keen Design Ltd which will leverage the strengths of both companies to provide User Experience Design services to a wider range of clients in the UK. Akendi UK Ltd will continue to operate within its established markets, offering UX services with domain knowledge in semiconductors, healthcare and telecommunications in the UK and abroad.

News Image
Online Event
Trash Talkin': How QualUX can be QuantUX's best friend

Jun 15, 2023 Join Jennifer Fraser and Akendi's Scott Plewes at 9am EST to push the boundaries of Quant and QualUX. We all know the expression “garbage in, garbage out”. But how do you systematically and rigorously avoid the garbage in? While we don't know the universal answer to that, we have identified 3 common areas where QuantUX might be at risk of getting off on the wrong foot, and where a little QualUX, and some systems thinking, could work with QuantUX to avoid the problem: 1. One of these things is not like the other: Combining distinct sets (and we don't mean from different databases); we mean sets like from your second year probability course (reinforcing the model you have eg: medical data sets based on men being applied to women ie: sports helmets; ADHD) 2. Sorry, that's not my table: Data generated for one process, used to evaluate a different process (or system) 3. Uh, over here, you forgot about me!: Ignoring contextual data in building your math or stats model We'll go through these situations with examples, and show you how to avoid these trap, making sure all that math will be worth it!

News Image
Announcement
Akendi opens New York office!

Apr 28, 2023 Akendi, a global user experience research, design, and strategy team, is proud to announce the opening of our New York City office in celebration of our 15th anniversary. This opening marks an exciting time for Akendi as we expand our presence and continue to deliver exceptional user research, strategy and UX design services to a wide range of clients, including in the AI, fintech and healthcare sectors.

News Image
Online Event
Why isn't your UX Approach going Viral?: A Mathematical Model

Mar 28, 2023 Join our CSO Scott Plewes who will take a look at how UX propagates within organizations using a viral model (a modified SIR model to be more precise). He'll look at such questions as: Does it simply need more time? Is the transmission rate/function the problem? Is part of the organization effectively “inoculated” against UX? And how, when and where to track progress while getting UX into an organization isn't as simple as solving a set of differential equations, he hopes to show you that doing just that might be a useful step in getting insights into what might work and what might not.

News Image
Event
Solving Problems Beautifully and Practically with Human Centered Design

Nov 29, 2022 Join Akendi's Tedde van Gelderen who will participate in an in-person panel discussion organized by TPMA and TorCHI. The partnership between product and design is more important than ever solving rewarding business challenges for users such as data rich problem spaces and complex interactivities. Let's explore how product management and user experience practitioners work best together solving problems with a human centered approach. We'll take a look at experiences within firms and those servicing firms as well as from the different disciplines perspectives. All delivering satisfying impactful experiences.

News Image
Online event
Crossing the Glass Bridge: What Squid Games can Teach us about Systems Thinking, Data Science & UX

Jun 8, 2022 Fans of the critically acclaimed Netflix series Squid Games perhaps didn't see the correlation between the challenges and User Experience, but Akendi's Chief Strategy Officer did! You can hear Scott Plewes' unique view with Jennifer Fraser from Macadamian at the Quant UX Con 2022 in Sunnyvale, California. Together they are presenting Crossing the Glass Bridge: What Squid Games can Teach us about Systems Thinking, Data Science & UX. QUXCON22 (June 8-9) is the first unconference dedicated to Quantitative UX Research and will be a hybrid of live and virtual sessions.

News Image
Webinar
Data and Design

Oct 20, 2021 Data Science can be instrumental in understanding where and how products and services can further business and customer goals. But with all the big data out there, how do you know where to look? How to categorize the data? Or what's most likely relevant? Join Scott Plewes, Chief Strategy Officer at Akendi in this talk where he will share how UX practices can help inform data science, and how data science can return the favour.

News Image
Online event
Where are you Emmy Noether? Looking for Connections in Data Science and Interaction Design

Sep 28, 2021 Join Akendi's Scott Plewes and Jennifer Fraser from Macadamian in a talk on physics and mathematics that are so connected that sometimes it's not obvious they are completely different disciplines. The history of math and physics has a few Emmy Noethers who made a fundamental connection between the two disciplines. Where is that connection between Data Science/math and Interaction Design? It is inevitable that Data Science, AI and other math heavy approaches find their way more and more into Interaction Design. This transformation is coming. In this talk we will explore ways to connect Data Science and Interaction Design using Systems Thinking. This approach makes them partners instead of feuding neighbours, and has some pragmatic and clear consequences for Interaction Design deliverables and processes.

News Image
Online event
More intelligent, or less artificial? The UX choice for AI-human interaction

Sep 7, 2021 Akendi's Leo Poll chairs an online event hosted by Cambridge Wireless on how to effectively apply AI in User Experiences. The event's speakers from @BBC and @University of the Arts London answering questions such as 'What impact do the apparent human qualities have on our expectations?' and ‘What shape or form might the interaction take to improve communication between the AI and the human?’

If you’re interested, you can join as Leo Poll's guest with code SIGCHAMPGUEST

Freebies
When it comes to your customers and users, we want you to be as well-informed and equipped as possible. Here you can download handy reference tools to improve your knowledge of the UX research and design process.

Journey Mapping Template

Whenever you are thinking of capturing customer journeys, user journeys and end-to-end experience maps, use our template to get going.

Download

Customer and User Persona Template

Capture your initial customer and user personas with this handy template. Then validate with further research.

Download

Service Blueprint Template

To begin a service blueprint can be daunting, let us help you to get started.

Download

Akendi's 7 UX Design Principles Poster

At Akendi, we follow these seven ux principles whenever we create ux designs, conduct heuristic reviews, or analyze the results of a usability test.

Download

ViewHide our tools library
Whitepapers
Offering insight and opinion on both foundational and cutting-edge user experience topics, our whitepapers are free to download. Take a deep dive into UX research and usability testing, mobile design, user personas, and more.

You talking to me?
The pros and cons of AI conversational search

In this first issue of Future Insights, we explore the positive and negative implications of conversational search, a technology that has transformed how we interact with search engines.

By Dan Iaboniauthor image

Download

UX research & testing techniques

There are many methods for conducting user research, each of which bring distinctive value to the table at different stages in the UX design process. Learn how to find the right technique for the job.

By Fatima Kanjiauthor image

Download

Making the inaccessible accessible

Examining the current state of mobile accessibility and the implications for users with physical impairments. Is there a "universal solution" to make mobile devices accessible for users of all levels of mobility?

By Jen Henningsauthor image

Download

Four traps UX practitioners
should know

There is a wealth of knowledge and research from psychology to economics that will teach UX practitioners how to conduct research, how research will be received, and above all about traps to avoid.

By Michelle Brownauthor image

Download

7 reasons audio will save mobile user experience design

In the early days of the internet, hardware limitations made it impossible to depend on audio to deliver critical information. Mobile audio has changed the game and just might save your next interface design.

By Patrick Noonanauthor image

Download

End-to-end experience
lifecycle strategies

While most organizations are familiar with concepts such as "user experience" and "brand experience", few realize that there are in fact six different types of experience to consider.

By Tedde van Gelderenauthor image

Download

Managing user involvement in product development

Before you can successfully incorporate user feedback into the product development cycle, you need to understand why user feedback is often poorly gathered in the first place.

By Tedde van Gelderenauthor image

Download

User personas research explained

Learn about personas, which are stand-ins or proxies for unique groups of people who share common goals and needs with respect to the use of a product or service.

By Tedde van Gelderenauthor image

Download

ViewHide our whitepapers library
Short Videos
Browse through our expert videos on UX strategy, research, testing, and more. These short videos will get you up to speed on the latest user experience technology, topics, and trends.
poster

01:29

Business Requirements

How do you balance business requirements and user/customer requirements?

Watch the video
poster

00:51

What is usability

What is Usability? Watch this video for a definition.

Watch the video
poster

01:17

Measuring usability

When in the design process do I measure usability?

Watch the video
poster

01:58

User personas explained

What are user personas? How do we research and develop them?

Watch the video
poster

01:58

Customer Personas

What is the difference between user segments, market segments and customer personas and why does it matter?

Watch the video
poster

01:04

How many users?

How many users do you perform usability testing with? How many different user types or user profiles do you test?

Watch the video
poster

01:56

Expert vs. User Based?

What about the difference between an expert based usability review and usability testing with end users?

Watch the video
poster

01:37

What happens in
ux / usability testing?

What happens in a typical usability testing session?

Watch the video
poster

01:29

Self reported
vs. Observed

Find out the difference between self reported ratings and actual observed behaviour.

Watch the video
poster

01:00

Hardware & mobile usability tests?

Can the usability tests performed on software, mobile apps, and web sites also be applied to hardware and physical spaces?

Watch the video
poster

01:54

Usability testing in
the lab?

What is the difference between usability testing in a controlled lab vs. outside of the lab?

Watch the video
poster

03:02

Seeing trends
in behaviour

How many participants are necessary in usability testing to see trends in behaviour?

Watch the video

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Talks
Watch our experts discuss the UX trends and methods shaping the industry. Here, we share our insights, knowledge, and opinions on the most important UX matters.
poster

35:46

Importance of
Experience Design

Tedde van Gelderen, President of Akendi, at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada.

Watch the video

ViewHide our talks library
Podcasts
Listen to analyses of key UX topics from top Akendi experts. Our podcasts feature in-depth discussions of topical issues impacting the customer and user experience.
poster

20:02

UX Cornerstones

Janet Bewell, Senior Experience Architect talks about the cornerstones of UX design with Ian Rutter on 'Business Matters'

Listen to podcast
poster

28:24

Web Psychology

Tedde van Gelderen, President of Akendi talks about The Psychology of Website Interaction with Marie Wiese on her 'Common Sense Marketer Podcast'

Listen to podcast

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Let’s Chat

About Akendi

Akendi is a human experience design firm, leveraging equal parts experience research and creative design excellence. We provide strategic insights and analysis about customer and user behaviour and combine this knowledge with inspired design. The results enable organizations to improve effectiveness, engage users and provide remarkable customer experiences to their audiences.

× Experience Thinking: Creating Connected Experiences by Tedde Van Gelderen

What if there was a better way to create remarkable experiences?

Learn how to delight customers from Akendi’s President, Tedde Van Gelderen.

Buy now