{"id":2853,"date":"2016-09-02T10:33:19","date_gmt":"2016-09-02T09:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marvel7077.wpengine.com\/?p=2853"},"modified":"2020-08-12T18:10:06","modified_gmt":"2020-08-12T17:10:06","slug":"spotlight-clever-little-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marvelapp.com\/blog\/spotlight-clever-little-design\/","title":{"rendered":"CLD: Working Collaboratively for Instinctive Products"},"content":{"rendered":"

You don\u2019t have to be a big company to make a big impact on product. CLD<\/a> is a digital agency of 15 people, made up of web developers, UX designers and digital marketers. The business is led by founder Steve Boyce alongside Digital Marketing Director Gareth Cartman and Creative Director Rob Tobias. Their close-knit team spoke to us about their passion for a streamlined and tailored design experience for each of their clients.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\"You don\u2019t have to be a big company to make a big impact on product.\"<\/p><\/span><\/blockquote>\n

From Information Architecture to Web Development and Digital Marketing, CLD is a key partner to companies such as IBM and Microsoft Partners as well as major international corporations such as Johnson & Johnson. Major clients like this can take time to nurture, but result in interesting projects like building websites for Johnson & Johnson\u2019s Animas, who manufacture insulin pumps for people with type 1 diabetes.<\/p>\n

\"Design\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So, what is it like working with an agency to design and build apps and websites for these companies? We went to visit their fantastic design team and their giant office dog, to find out more about CLD. Joined by their Creative Director, Rob Tobias, Senior UX Designer, Tom Law and Junior Designer, James Pearce-Kelly, we covered how they approach design as a team and how they use Marvel to accelerate that process.<\/p>\n

The design team work closely and collaboratively across a range of clients. For each new project, one or two of the team will be involved in the initial product meetings to get a feel for what the client wants. Following that, they appropriate who will work on what but also brainstorm together on the initial style and collaborate on the UX aspect.<\/p>\n

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\"You don\u2019t want people to have to relearn how to use a product \u2013 it should be instinctive.\u201d<\/p><\/span><\/blockquote>\n

From the outset, they keep the development team involved, which Rob explains is key to ensuring they\u2019re not designing something that cannot be built.<\/p>\n\n

After being at CLD for five years, Rob tells us that back in the day prototyping was done the old fashioned way, using creative designs in Photoshop and static images to demonstrate how a product was going to be used by clients. Believing in better and following a developer\u2019s suggestion, the team adopted Marvel into their everyday work. Fast forward a year and a half and Marvel is used for nearly every CLD project and is a significant part of their design process.<\/p>\n

As well as using Marvel to keep the business involved and up to date with prototype statuses, the team regularly present prototypes to stakeholders.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe sometimes have to educate our clients as to what a prototype is\u201d, Rob explains. \u201cOnce they understand that it isn\u2019t a fully built functional thing, you can show user flow via hotspots and transitions and demonstrate things like a \u2018sticky\u2019 menu \u2013 which may have not been understood if described in earlier methods. It\u2019s much easier to run through a complex journey with an interactive prototype.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Tom who is currently working on an e-pharmacy project, essentially an e-commerce website for a leading skincare company, explains that making fully fledged prototypes for their clients which are collaborative and shareable is vital.<\/p>\n

Some of CLD\u2019s clients are overseas, which means they can\u2019t always come in for demo meetings, so the process is made simple by using Skype to call in, share their screen holding the Marvel prototype and talking them through the demo.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only has our business grown in numbers but there\u2019s been a lot of advances in software as well. We\u2019re the masters of what we\u2019re doing and the simplicity of Marvel streamlines the workload.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n