Experience Thinking is our innovation framework that tackles the reality of designing great experiences. It breaks things down into four connected areas: Brand, Content, Product, and Service experiences. Our tools help you apply this holistic approach, ensuring all touchpoints work together to create seamless user journeys. Each tool addresses specific aspects of the Experience Thinking framework while maintaining the connection between all four quadrants.

Tip: Start with our Experience Thinking framework overview to understand how each tool fits into the bigger picture of connected experiences.

Our persona template captures both customer and user perspectives within the experience lifecycle. Unlike basic templates, ours includes domain experience, confidence levels, and environment contexts. The template helps you understand that the same person plays different roles - as a customer who buys, a user who interacts, and a client who advocates. This reflects Experience Thinking principles where personas evolve through their journey.

Tip: Use the fold-out design feature to keep personas visible on your desk during design sessions.

We recommend starting with user interviews to understand current behaviors, followed by card sorting for content rich products, plus usability testing throughout design iterations. For most tech products, focus on understanding both functional needs and emotional responses. Our research approach emphasizes observing what users do rather than what they say they want - users have a hard time articulating what solutions they want, but their behaviors reveal their true needs.

Tip: Test early and often with low-fidelity prototypes to catch issues before they become expensive to fix.

Start with our free templates and focus on qualitative methods like user interviews and journey mapping. Even interviewing 5-6 users can reveal significant insights. Use remote testing tools to reduce costs, and leverage existing customer touchpoints for research opportunities. Our templates help structure your approach without needing expensive tools or consultants.

Tip: Begin with customer service logs and support tickets - they contain valuable insights about user pain points.

User research focuses on how people actually behave and interact with products, while market research typically examines purchasing decisions, perceptions, willingness to buy and market size. For product development, user research reveals usability issues, workflow problems, and experience gaps that market research might miss. We emphasize understanding the 'why' behind user actions through observational methods rather than only survey data.

Tip: Combine approaches - use both market research for opportunity sizing and user research for product design decisions.

We recommend triangulation - using multiple research methods to confirm findings. Follow qualitative insights with quantitative validation when possible. Test design solutions with additional users before full implementation. Our approach emphasizes iteration throughout the process rather than waiting until the end. Early validation prevents building 'The Homer' - a product that sounds good in theory but fails in practice.

Tip: Create low-fidelity prototypes to test concepts quickly and affordably before investing in development.

Map feedback to specific user personas and journey stages. Often conflicting feedback reveals different user needs or contexts rather than contradictory requirements. Use our persona templates to segment feedback appropriately. Sometimes different user groups need different solutions or entry points to the same underlying functionality. Experience Thinking helps identify where these different paths can converge into unified experiences.

Tip: Document which persona provided which feedback to identify patterns and prioritize based on your primary user segments.

Competitive analysis helps establish industry standards and identify differentiation opportunities, but it shouldn't drive design decisions. We focus more on understanding your specific users' needs and contexts. Sometimes the best solution breaks industry conventions. Our research emphasizes original user insights rather than copying competitor features. Use competitive analysis to understand the landscape, not to determine your design direction.

Tip: Analyze competitors' user flows and information architecture, but validate everything against your own user research findings.

Use our seven design principles to help guide UX work: Support Users' Capabilities, Show Users What They Need, Build on What Users Already Know, Respond to User Actions, Help Users Out of Trouble, Empower Users, and Save Users Time and Effort. These principles ensure experiences are accessible, efficient, and intuitive while reducing cognitive workload and preventing errors.

Tip: Use these principles as heuristics when evaluating existing designs or planning new ones.

Information architecture should reflect how users mentally organize information, not how your organization structures data. We use card sorting and tree testing to understand user mental models. The Experience Thinking approach ensures content structure serves the end-to-end user journey across Brand, Content, Product, and Service touchpoints. Information architecture becomes the content foundation for connected experiences.

Tip: Test your information architecture with tree testing before creating wireframes to avoid costly restructuring later.

Accessibility is built into our design principles from the start. 'Support Users' Capabilities' specifically addresses designing for different abilities. We ensure appropriate color contrast, size targets appropriately, and maintain clear navigation structures. Accessibility considerations are part of every design decision, not an afterthought. This creates better experiences for all users, not just those with specific needs.

Tip: Design with keyboard navigation and screen readers in mind from the beginning - retrofitting accessibility is more difficult and expensive.

Experience Thinking helps align business goals with user needs by focusing on the complete experience lifecycle. Business success comes from satisfied users who become loyal clients and advocates. Our approach finds solutions that serve both business objectives and user goals. Rather than compromise between them, we look for design solutions that advance both simultaneously through better experiences.

Tip: Frame business requirements in terms of user value - this often reveals solutions that serve both needs effectively.

Mobile-first design forces prioritization of essential features and content, in general a good approach. However, we focus more on experience-first design - understanding when and how users access your product across different devices. Some tasks require desktop capabilities while others are perfect for mobile. Our approach ensures consistent experiences across platforms while optimizing for each device's strengths and user contexts.

Tip: Consider task priority and user context rather than just screen size when making mobile design decisions.

Start with low-fidelity wireframes to establish workflows and information architecture. Progress to interactive prototypes for testing complex interactions. For enterprise software, focus on task completion efficiency and error prevention. Use our design principles to ensure the interface supports users' capabilities and reduces cognitive workload. Test with actual user data when possible to reveal real-world complexity.

Tip: Prototype the most complex user scenarios first - if those work well, simpler flows will typically follow naturally.

Design systems should serve the Experience Thinking framework by ensuring consistency across Brand, Content, Product, and Service touchpoints. Focus on pattern libraries that support reusable components while maintaining flexibility for different contexts. The specific tools matter less than the governance and guidelines that ensure consistent application of design principles and user experience standards.

Tip: Start with a small set of core components and expand based on actual project needs rather than trying to anticipate every possible scenario.

Our journey mapping templates capture the end-to-end experience lifecycle, showing how users move from customers to users to clients. The templates include emotional states, pain points, opportunities, and touchpoints across all four Experience Thinking quadrants. This holistic view reveals how Brand, Content, Product, and Service experiences connect to create the complete user journey.

Tip: Map both current state and future state journeys to identify specific improvement opportunities and measure progress.

Customer journey maps typically focus on the purchase and onboarding process, while lifecycle experience maps cover the entire relationship lifecycle, from initial trigger to ongoing usage and renewal. Our templates support both perspectives as often the same person plays different roles throughout their journey. Experience Thinking emphasizes that experiences don't end at purchase - they continue through usage and advocacy phases.

Tip: Start with lifecycle experience maps for the complete picture, then zoom into specific customer journey segments for detailed optimization.

Critical touchpoints are moments that significantly impact user emotions, decision-making, or task completion. Look for high-effort moments, emotional peaks and valleys, and decision points. Our journey mapping approach helps identify these through user research and emotional journey analysis. The Experience Thinking framework ensures you consider touchpoints across Brand, Content, Product, and Service areas.

Tip: Focus first on moments where users are most likely to abandon the journey or develop negative impressions.

B2B journeys often involve multiple personas with different roles, goals, and decision-making authority. Map individual stakeholder journeys first, then identify intersection points and handoffs. Use our persona templates to capture different stakeholder perspectives. The complex B2B journey requires understanding both individual user needs and organizational purchase processes.

Tip: Identify the primary user versus the economic buyer and map their intersecting but different journey stages.

Journey maps focus on the user's perspective, while service blueprints show the operational delivery behind the experience. Our service blueprint template captures front-stage and back-stage actions, support processes, and metrics. Use journey maps to understand user needs, then service blueprints to design operational delivery. Both tools support the Experience Thinking approach to connected experiences.

Tip: Start with journey mapping to understand user needs, then create service blueprints to design how your organization will deliver those experiences.

Validate journey maps through user interviews, observational research, and analytics data. Test assumptions about user motivations, pain points, and emotional states. Our approach emphasizes that journey maps are hypotheses to be tested, not final documentation. Use both qualitative insights and quantitative data to confirm or adjust your understanding of user journeys.

Tip: Combine analytics data with user interviews to understand both what users do and why they do it.

Journey maps should be living documents that evolve with your understanding and your product. Regular user research helps identify changes in behavior, new pain points, or shifting expectations. The Experience Thinking approach recognizes that experiences are dynamic and require ongoing attention across all four quadrants. Update maps quarterly or after major product changes.

Tip: Set up regular user feedback mechanisms to catch journey changes early and update maps proactively rather than reactively.

Content experience is about how information is packaged and consumed across different platforms and channels. The Experience Thinking framework ensures content supports the overall user journey while maintaining consistency with Brand, Product, and Service experiences. Content isn't just words - it includes functionality, data, and media that enhance the complete experience.

Tip: Audit existing content against user journey stages to identify gaps and opportunities for better content integration.

Content hierarchy should match user mental models and task priorities, not organizational structure. We use card sorting and tree testing to understand how users categorize and prioritize information. The goal is creating content structures that support user goals while being discoverable and scannable. Content architecture becomes the foundation for navigation and interaction design.

Tip: Test your content categories with users before building navigation - misaligned content structure causes most findability problems.

Content strategy must consider context of use - mobile users may need different information than desktop users. Our approach emphasizes progressive disclosure and contextual relevance. Content should adapt to user goals, device capabilities, and situational constraints while maintaining consistent voice and messaging. Experience Thinking ensures content works across all touchpoints.

Tip: Map content needs to specific user scenarios and device contexts rather than creating one-size-fits-all content.

Clear, concise content reduces cognitive burden and helps users complete tasks efficiently. Our design principle 'Show Users What They Need' applies directly to content strategy. Eliminate unnecessary words, use familiar terminology, and structure content for scanning. Good content design prevents users from having to interpret or translate information.

Tip: Read content aloud to identify unclear or overly complex passages that could confuse users.

Content consistency requires governance frameworks and style guides that address voice, tone, terminology, and formatting. Our approach creates content systems that support the broader design system. Consistency builds user confidence and reduces learning burden as they move through different product areas. Regular content audits help maintain standards over time.

Tip: Create a shared terminology glossary that all content creators can reference to ensure consistent language across the product.

Balance personalization with cognitive efficiency. Users benefit from personalized content that matches their needs and context, but too much variation can create confusion. Our approach focuses on personalizing content relevance while maintaining consistent patterns and structures. Personalize what matters most to user goals while standardizing interface patterns and interactions.

Tip: Personalize content and data, but keep navigation patterns and interaction models consistent across user segments.

Technical content requires careful attention to user expertise levels and context. Use progressive disclosure to present information at appropriate detail levels. Our approach emphasizes understanding user goals rather than just technical capabilities. Create content that bridges the gap between technical complexity and user understanding through clear explanations and examples.

Tip: Test technical content with actual users in realistic scenarios to identify areas where explanations need simplification or additional detail.

Focus on testing the most critical user flows with 5-6 participants. Remote testing tools reduce costs while maintaining research quality. Our approach emphasizes testing early with low-fidelity prototypes to catch major issues before they become expensive to fix. Even informal testing with colleagues or existing customers provides valuable insights when formal testing isn't possible.

Tip: Test one key user flow thoroughly rather than trying to test everything superficially.

Moderated testing provides deeper insights into user thinking and allows follow-up questions, while unmoderated testing captures more natural behavior and scales better. Our approach often combines both methods - unmoderated testing for behavioral data and moderated sessions for understanding user motivations. Choose based on your research questions and resource constraints.

Tip: Use unmoderated testing for task completion metrics and moderated testing for understanding user mental models and decision-making.

For early concepts, focus on concept testing, card sorting for information architecture, and low-fidelity prototype testing. Paper prototypes and wireframes help test core functionality without getting distracted by visual design. Our Experience Thinking approach emphasizes testing the complete user journey, not just individual features. Early testing prevents building products nobody wants.

Tip: Test concepts with target users before investing in visual design or development to validate core assumptions.

Focus on behavioral observations rather than user opinions. Document task completion rates, error patterns, and points of confusion. Our approach emphasizes actionable insights that directly inform design decisions. Present findings in terms of user impact and business implications. Include video clips to illustrate key findings and build empathy for user experiences.

Tip: Organize findings by severity and impact to help prioritize which issues to address first.

Test at appropriate fidelity levels for your research questions. Low-fidelity prototypes work well for testing workflows and information architecture. High-fidelity prototypes are better for testing detailed interactions and visual design effectiveness. Our approach emphasizes iterative testing throughout the design process rather than waiting for completion. Each fidelity level reveals different types of issues.

Tip: Start with low-fidelity testing to validate core concepts, then increase fidelity to test detailed interactions and visual design.

Multi-touchpoint testing requires understanding the complete user journey and testing realistic scenarios. Use journey mapping to identify critical transition points between touchpoints. Our Experience Thinking approach emphasizes testing connected experiences rather than isolated interactions. Sometimes the biggest issues occur in handoffs between different systems or channels.

Tip: Create realistic scenarios that include multiple touchpoints and test the complete journey, not just individual touchpoints in isolation.

A/B testing validates design decisions with real user behavior at scale. However, it should complement, not replace, qualitative usability testing. A/B tests show what performs better, while usability testing explains why. Our approach uses A/B testing to validate insights from qualitative research and to optimize specific design elements based on actual user behavior.

Tip: Use A/B testing to validate specific design hypotheses rather than randomly testing variations without underlying user research.

We provide free templates for personas, customer journey mapping, service blueprinting, and our seven UX design principles poster. Our workshop facilitation guide helps improve meeting productivity, and we offer whitepapers on various UX topics. These tools reflect our Experience Thinking approach and years of practical application with clients across technology, energy, media, and non-profit sectors.

Tip: Start with our persona template and journey mapping tools to establish user understanding before moving to more advanced methods.

Our courses combine theory with hands-on exercises, covering Introduction to UX Design, Information Architecture, Usability Testing, and UX Research. We offer in-person, live online, and self-paced options. The curriculum reflects our Experience Thinking framework and real-world project experience. Each course includes templates and practical tools you can apply immediately to your work.

Tip: Take the Introduction to UX Design course first to understand the foundational concepts, then specialize in specific areas based on your role and needs.

Our white papers cover conversational search, mobile accessibility, user research methods, mobile audio interfaces, experience types, user feedback integration, and personas. These publications share insights from our research and client work. We also publish regular blog posts on UX topics, design principles, and industry trends. All content reflects our practical experience working with diverse organizations.

Tip: Review our white papers on user research methods to understand which techniques best fit your specific project needs and constraints.

Start with our free templates and training materials to build internal capability. The Experience Thinking framework provides structure for evaluating experiences across Brand, Content, Product, and Service areas. Focus on user research first to understand current experiences, then identify improvement opportunities. Small changes informed by user insights often create significant impact.

Tip: Begin by mapping your current user journey to identify the biggest pain points and opportunities for quick improvements.

Our video library covers UX strategy, research, testing methods, personas, and usability fundamentals. We address practical questions like balancing business and user requirements, determining testing sample sizes, and choosing research methods. Our podcast appearances discuss Experience Thinking, UX design cornerstones, and website interaction psychology. Content targets both beginners and experienced practitioners.

Tip: Watch our videos on research methods and testing approaches to understand practical implementation before starting your first UX project.

We actively participate in UX conferences, publish regular blog posts, and share practical insights from client work. Our team contributes to industry discussions on topics like AI in UX, remote work impacts on design, and emerging interaction patterns. We believe in sharing knowledge to advance the entire UX community rather than keeping insights proprietary.

Tip: Follow our blog for practical insights and case studies that you can apply to your own UX challenges.

Our certification streams for UX Designer and UX Researcher provide structured learning paths with practical application. We emphasize hands-on experience over theoretical knowledge. The programs build on each other to develop both breadth and depth in UX practice. We also offer custom training for organizations wanting to build internal UX capabilities.

Tip: Complete courses within two years to maintain certification and ensure knowledge remains current with evolving UX practices.

AI tools can accelerate research analysis, generate design variations, and personalize user experiences at scale. However, they cannot replace human empathy and understanding that drives good UX. Our approach integrates AI capabilities while maintaining focus on human-centered design principles. AI should enhance, not replace, user research and design thinking. The Experience Thinking framework remains relevant as AI becomes another tool in the UX toolkit.

Tip: Use AI tools to handle repetitive tasks like transcription and initial data analysis, but rely on human insight for interpretation and design decisions.

AI can help analyze large datasets and identify patterns in user behavior, but personas require human insight into motivations and contexts. Our approach uses AI to supplement, not replace, direct user contact. AI can process feedback at scale and identify trends, but understanding the 'why' behind user behavior still requires human empathy and interpretation. Always validate AI insights with real user research.

Tip: Use AI to identify behavioral patterns in your data, then conduct qualitative research to understand the human motivations behind those patterns.

AI interfaces should follow the same UX principles as traditional interfaces - they must be predictable, controllable, and transparent. Users need to understand what the AI can do, how it makes decisions, and how to correct mistakes. Our design principles of 'Show Users What They Need' and 'Help Users Out of Trouble' apply especially to AI interactions. Design for AI capabilities while maintaining human agency.

Tip: Always provide clear feedback about AI decision-making and give users control over AI recommendations rather than forcing automated actions.

Conversational interfaces should feel natural while being clear about their capabilities and limitations. Set appropriate expectations about what the AI can accomplish. Our research shows users appreciate transparency about AI limitations more than overpromisingcapabilities. Design conversation flows that gracefully handle errors and provide alternative paths when AI cannot help. Maintain consistency with your overall brand experience.

Tip: Design clear onboarding that explains what the AI can and cannot do, and always provide an easy path to human assistance when needed.

Testing AI experiences requires evaluating both functional accuracy and user satisfaction. Test with diverse user groups and edge cases to identify where AI might fail. Our testing approach includes evaluating user trust, understanding, and recovery from AI errors. Monitor ongoing performance and user feedback since AI behavior can change over time. Test the complete experience, not just AI functionality in isolation.

Tip: Create test scenarios that include AI failures and mistakes to ensure the overall experience remains positive even when AI doesn't work perfectly.

AI systems should enhance human capability without creating dependency or replacing human judgment in critical decisions. Transparency, privacy, and user control remain paramount. Our Experience Thinking approach emphasizes that AI should improve experiences across Brand, Content, Product, and Service areas while respecting user autonomy. Consider long-term impacts on user behavior and skills, not just immediate convenience.

Tip: Always design AI features with user agency in mind - give people meaningful choices about how AI assists them rather than making decisions for them.

The best AI experiences provide smart defaults while preserving user choice and customization. Our design principle 'Empower Users' applies especially to AI - give users control over automation levels and easy ways to override AI decisions. Progressive disclosure can reveal AI capabilities without overwhelming users. Balance efficiency gains from automation with user autonomy and learning.

Tip: Implement AI features as helpful suggestions rather than automated actions, and always provide clear ways for users to modify or disable AI assistance.