Our Approach to Design

At Firstwater. we have a point of view and principles that guide us. We view design as a profession and we believe that professionals should profess something. So here is what guides us when we design great experiences:

  1. We are methodology-agnostic. Methods are tools and we think it is crazy to limit ourselves to one process. We are comfortable with classic waterfall design methodologies, and fast-iteration Agile processes too. And since we are constantly improving we adopt and adapt new methods wherever we find them. We’re not going to cram our clients into a “5-step proprietary methodology” just so we can look smart.
  2. We love our pencils. Computers are great tools, but sometimes they can get in the way of fast creative thinking. So we start out with pencil, paper and whiteboards and we’re not afraid to show our work. Design is a collaborative process and involving our clients is part of the fun. Viva l’pencil!
  3. We hate credenza-ware. We believe deliverables should be as useful and concise as our designs. If a deliverable is so complicated that we have to have a meeting to “go through it,” then we’ve somehow failed. You should be able to pass one of our deliverables up to your boss and they should be able to understand it without a meeting.
  4. We love plain old English. We know that if we want to really sound smart, we’ll talk to you in plain, easy to understand English and not in consultant-ese. We’ll never “leverage your optimization paradigm,” when we could simply “meet your goals.”
  5. The best digital experiences “fit” into the lives of those who love them. Novelty and coolness is…well cool, but relevance trumps cool every time. Just ask Craig and the millions who use his now-famous list. Coolness is great but relevance is for life.
  6. We draw inspiration and tools from all areas of human life: architecture, art, science, religion, mythology, history. We think of ourselves as professional learners who use what we learn to solve problems. Though many would like to reduce UX design to a science, the best digital experiences are art.