Using audits to drive change, Mechanics Bank launched with a new CMS and an improved design that follows web best practices. Find out how.
Design
Driving user goals through sharp design and thoughtful pathways: experience design with decades of experience.
Your site is built on design.
There’s one thing at the heart of every process, every product, and every website: design.
At Blend, design leads the customer experience process. We design so the people who visit your site can reach their goals — and yours.
We believe design is more than just colors and graphics. Design is how we communicate meaning through shape and form. Design is function. Design is empathy.
Design is identity. Design is wayfinding. Design is storytelling.
Our design services.
When we talk about design at Blend, we talk about the process of creating function and meaning, and the tasks we take to get there, including:
- User experience research and flows
- Archetype-driven experience design
- Graphic design and branding
- Prototyping and wireframe testing
- Front-end development
Our award-winning design team helps move you from ideation to fully implemented design. The germ of an idea is turned into the front page of your entire organization’s experience, in a way that’s usable, useful, and beautiful.
Working with your team.
Blend believes that design is at the heart of every project — even if that design isn’t created by us. In these cases, we work together to ensure that the proposed design matches our needs for front-end development and beyond, including:
- Wireframe and design viability
- Design and accessibility auditing
- Technical scoping
- Smooth handoff for front-end development
Related work.
Check out some of the work we’ve done in the field of design.
A Design System for Increased Clarity
A company like Icertis, which provides a contract lifecycle management solution used by some of the world's largest enterprises, needs to appeal to a wide range of potential customers. Blend built a design system to allow for better clarity and easier communication.
Partnering Toward a Fresh New Credit Union Design
Relationships matter, especially in the world of federal credit unions. Thankfully, partnerships are what we specialize in at Blend — and it was a partnership with SELCO that led to a fresh, beautiful new site.
Resources on the design process.
We’ve written at length, both here and beyond, on design.
Episode 24: Maintain and Improve (w/ David Hobbs) Off-site link
Corey and Deane discuss the people and rules that help run a website after launch. Then, David Hobbs, author of Website Product Management: Keeping Focused During Change, joins to talk about transferring a site from a project to a product — what that means to keep the site going after launch, where it most often fails, and how to streamline requests and set reasonable expectations for the future of the site.
Episode 19: Implement the Design (w/ Ethan Marcotte) Off-site link
Corey and Deane talk about how front-end development has evolved past the early days. Then, Ethan Marcotte, author of Responsive Web Design and Partner at Autogram, joins to discuss front-end development and how the world has impacted how front-end design is treated and approached. We also joke about whether Deane actually “invented” responsive web design. (He didn’t.)
Episode 17: Plan for Hosting (w/ Elias Lundmark) Off-site link
Corey asks Deane a brutally honest question: as non-developers, why should we care about hosting at all? Then, Elias Lundmark, product manager for cloud hosting at Optimizely, joins us to talk about website hosting in common terms — cloud versus on-premises, the reality (and politics) of “five 9s,” and the things you need to understand before choosing a hosting provider or vendor offering.