“If a picture is worth 1,000 words, a prototype is worth 1,000 meetings.”

— Tom & David Kelley

WE PICK UP WHERE YOU LEFT OFF

Relish is all about Design Thinking—defining problems, brainstorming solutions and prototyping ideas to test and refine them. Whether your idea is brand new and vague or mature and focused, we’ll help you flesh it out and turn it into a prototype that keeps you moving in the right direction.

WE ARE YOUR RESULTS-DRIVEN SUPPORT NETWORK

We draw on over 12 years of research and development, technology commercialization and digital management experience to help companies, researchers and institutions create digital products that find success in the real world:

Software / Automated systems / Database solutions / Cloud solutions / Web applications
Mobile apps / Augmented & virtual reality / Machine learning

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Our Process

To de-risk your ideas, we test and refine the key value propositions of your concept with basic prototyping before you leap into product development. Our proven process lowers costs and delivers exceptional digital products to the market more quickly.

Think

Users are at the heart of every product. We begin our Design Thinking by focusing on details like who your users are, how and when they will use your product, how often, and why. These questions and others help us refine your idea and determine what prototype(s) we can design to reach your end goal.

Design Thinking Workshops, Digital Strategy

Design

Once we have a deep understanding of your idea and your users’ needs, it’s time to give you a visual perspective. We design a prototype — a sample version of your final product that you can see, and even use hands on. Prototypes come in various forms, ranging from simple paper drawings to near-ready interactive mockups. See Types of Prototypes.

Wireframing, Digital Prototyping, UX Design, UI Design, Interaction Design, Visual Design, Branding

Validate

Now that you have a prototype, it’s time to test and refine it. We test the prototype by watching real users work with it and gathering their direct feedback so that we can eliminate any flaws and bring only your best ideas to life.

User Testing, Focus Groups, User Research, Usability Testing, UX Audit, Procurment Documents

Develop

Once your final prototype has been validated, Relish can help you launch it into the real world. We build beautiful digital products with a focus on robustness, scalability and security.

Frontend and Backend Web Development, Web Application Development, Landing Page Development, APIs, Mobile App Development, AR, AI and VR Development

Types of Prototypes

As part of our Design Thinking, we recommend a prototype(s) that will best serve your
needs as you evolve your product from idea to reality.

Our recommendation is based on the nature of your product, where you are at in the
design process, and what it is that you need to learn along the way.

TEST, REFINE, REPEAT

We complete numerous rounds of testing and refinement.

Pro.to Lab – Low Fidelity

Low Fidelity


It’s important to see the big picture early on, without being distracted by graphic design and text. We create a simple wireframe, mapping out each web page (or screen) on paper so that you can see how your content is organized and how your audience will transition from one page to the next. Because the wireframe focuses on structure, not looks, it’s a quick and inexpensive way to reveal what flows, what’s missing, and what is redundant or inefficient. We can easily move, add or eliminate pages, making large changes early on and avoiding costly changes in the future.


Gaining Buy-in / Beyond serving as a planning document, your wireframe is a valuable communications tool that will help you explain and build stakeholders’ confidence in your idea.

Pro.to Lab – Medium Fidelity

Medium Fidelity


We want to ensure that what looks good on paper indeed works well online. We turn your bare-bones wireframe into clickable web pages (or screens) with limited text and visuals, and test it on real users to determine how well it functions. Does it feel intuitive? Can users find their way around? What do they click on? Where do they get lost? How do different solutions compare? These are just a few of the many key questions we ask as we test and refine the prototype to address usability issues. Your clickable prototype is more detailed than your wireframe, but it is still rough, which makes this stage ideal for experimenting. Changes remain quick and easy as we challenge our assumptions and try different design approaches.

Giving Stakeholders Hands-on Experience / A digital experience can be hard to convey in words. Clickable web pages take you from talking about what you’re going to build to actually showing your stakeholders how it works. The hands-on experience is invaluable as it boosts comfort levels and helps ensure that all stakeholders are fully informed.

Pro.to Lab – High Fidelity

High Fidelity


Your high fidelity prototype is the most polished and accurate version of your product, with near-ready text, images, graphic design, and functional interactive elements. Because it is so close to real, the prototype generates a new depth of feedback and performance data, such as how users feel when using it; what, if anything, they ignore; or how long it takes to complete a specific task. This stage is ideal for fine-tuning writing and design, discussing complex parts of the prototype, testing specific functions, and prioritizing which special features—like interactive maps or timelines—you want to immediately invest in, and which you will abandon or develop in the future.

Your Development Budget

Your high-fidelity prototype provides us with the information necessary to accurately budget for final development. We can provide you with technical specifications and itemized costs.

Securing Sign Off/ By now, there is little left to the imagination. Your stakeholders will have a clear understanding of what your real product will look like, say, and do, and how users will respond to it. This puts you in a strong position to rationalize development costs and prepare your team for launch.

Benefits of Prototyping

Ensure Clarity

While ideas can be hard to imagine and difficult to explain, prototypes are visual and compelling. By nature, they reduce misunderstandings and spark focused, in-depth discussions that put your entire team and stakeholders on the same page. Projects run smoothly when everyone is clear on what you are creating, why you are creating it and who you are creating it for.

Gain Money-Saving Feedback

It’s easier to change a prototype than a real product. Prototyping lets you quickly collect feedback and make major but cost-effective changes early on, steering your product in the right direction bit-by-bit and avoiding major changes in development, which can have a costly domino effect. Additionally, prototyping prevents you from investing time and money into building unnecessary functions and features.

Sell Your Ideas

Prototyping gives you something to show stakeholders—from a tangible hands-on experience to test results that demonstrate the product’s exciting potential. This makes it easier for you to secure their initial buy-in and ongoing support.

Exercise Due Diligence

Prototyping is a trial-and-error process that produces multiple iterations of your product and multiple opportunities to discuss them. The iterative process helps you gain surety that, in development, you will be building a product that actually meets stakeholders’ expectations and users’ needs.

Create Valuable Products

Prototyping builds better products. When you give users the opportunity to react to your unfinished product, you gain invaluable insights into what they actually want and need. Testing uncovers any gaps, flaws or usability issues, and tells you what you can improve upon to create the best possible user experience.

Avoid Scope Creep

Prototypes force you to think your product through. By the time you reach the late stage, you have clearly defined the scope of work required to develop the final version and manage and maintain it in the future.

Case Studies

Who We’ve Helped