Client work
Four startups
Four founding teams, each taken from raw research to a complete product. We synthesised the research, mapped every flow, built the design system and designed every screen.
Velvet Onion | The House of Better
We make thingsbetterby makingbetter things.
We help you and your team go from research to a finished product faster. Research synthesis, UX, design systems and full product builds, with the repetitive production automated and your people in charge of every decision that matters.
Layer 1 of 4
Hundreds of voices become the few things that matter.
The system sorts. A person decides what’s true.
We see you
You’ve been asked to find efficiency, keep innovating and keep your team together while you do it.
Underneath that brief sit the questions your people won’t ask out loud at the all-hands.
Will this make my work better, or make me unnecessary?
Who decides what gets automated?
Does anyone here actually know how to do this properly?
We know the weight of that brief. Buying the tools is the simple part. Knowing what’s worth automating, building it so it works, and bringing your people through the change takes something else. That’s the work we do with you.
Quick quiz | Six questions
Automate it, assist it, or keep it human?
Here are six everyday tasks. For each one, pick what you’d do with it. We’ll show you our answer and why, and give you your score at the end. It’s the first thing we do with your team in an Untangling Day, in miniature.
We decide what ought to be automated before we decide what can be.
Question 1 of 6
Quiz complete
Score 0/6What would you do with this task?
Rebuilding the Monday report
What we’ve built this year
This is what being the human in the loop looks like.
For clients: four startups taken from raw research to a complete product design.
For ourselves: three products, four websites and three original worlds. Momo & Yeti, Dino Loco and Kith9 are our founder’s own intellectual property, and every character, story and piece of artwork in them was created in house.
The systems did the production. We did the research, the writing, the art, the judgement calls and the checking.
01/ 08
Our product
Faster Zebra app
Our own learning app for iPhone and Android. 787 lessons, a coach that remembers what you’re working on, and every screen, character and line of copy made in house.
Our product
Faster Zebra learning environment
The home of our Faster Zebra kits. A shop, email, print-on-demand books and a paid member community, connected so an order flows from purchase to printed kit to community access on its own.
Our product
Gospel of You
A daily book of wisdom for iPhone and Android. Written, designed and built by one person directing a well-made system.
Our website
Velvet Onion
The house you’re standing in, with AIN’T at the door. Every pixel-art illustration on it is ours.
Original world
Momo & Yeti
Monsters, humans and everyone in between. An original world from our founder, with every character, story and illustration created in house.
Original world
Dino Loco
Life’s absurd. Give it teeth. A cast of dinosaur heroes, created, written and drawn in house.
Original world
Kith9
Beasts, trees, bees and seas. Another original world from our founder, with all of its artwork made in house.
Your people become orchestrators
The soft skills are about to become the hard ones to find.
Once the production is automated, the work that’s left is the work only people can do: understanding a customer, judging what’s good, directing a system so it makes the right thing, and telling the story that brings everyone along.
That’s what an orchestrator does, and it’s the role the best people on your team are about to grow into. We help them make the shift, then help them spend what they gain on innovation, intrapreneurship, creativity and storytelling.
Automation will happily report success and deliver nothing. An orchestrator knows the work well enough to check.
Since 2001
Every wave changed the tools. The job stayed the same.
We started when it was less mobile first and more first mobile. Through every wave since: understand people, then make something that helps them.
WAPWeb 2.0ResponsiveAppsThe cloudAutomation
5
challenger brands for Australia’s largest insurer, four still in market a decade later
6 wks
from design to live customers for ShareCover, with 5,000 sign-ups in its first two
3,800%
growth for OneShift after a complete redesign of its experience
Ways to begin
Every engagement starts with a conversation.
Start here
The Untangling Day
One day with your team, mapping where the hours go.
BuildThe Build
The system built into live work, with your team alongside.
OngoingFractional Experience Lead
Senior involvement that keeps it improving.
ReviewProduct Doctor
A senior review of something that needs attention.
AIN’T | Alex Is Newly Transcendent
> Where does your team’s week disappear?
Pick one and I’ll point you to the right door. A human gets involved whenever you like.
Clients since 2001
American Express University of Queensland CGU Disney Interactive NSW Telco Authority Coles SEEK Asia City of Sydney UNICEF Optus Sydney Dance Company Commonwealth Bank Department of Jobs Fox Sports Woolworths Insurance Australia Group Macquarie University Telstra Customer Service NSW Atlassian Travel Insurance Direct Westpac NSW Department of Education University Admissions Centre National Australia Bank BSkyB