Our Work
Examples of how we have helped clients take a human-centered approach to design and innovation.
A Path to Award-Winning Design
Med Inventory Management- Fortune 500 Med-Tech Co.
A global medical device manufacturer hired Aardvark Design Labs to help its employees take a human-centered design approach to product development. Aardvark used the opportunity to tackle the design of an enterprise software product that the company had been struggling to gain alignment on for two years.
Aardvark Design Labs led the team through a human-centered design process from customer research to prototyping wireframes, adding design expertise and coaching and mentoring team members along the way. Aardvark engaged stakeholders, and in twelve weeks had a clear vision for a new medical inventory management system and a fully aligned team excited to move the product into development. Following launch, the product was recognized with internal and external awards (Best in KLAS).
Inclusive Learning & Development
HCD Co-lab with Fortune 500 Retail Co.
A Fortune 500 global fashion and apparel retailer was anxious to spread human-centered design tools and methods to its rapidly growing workforce of more than 20,000 employees. The company wanted to partner with a seasoned design expert, Aardvark Design Labs, who could custom tailor training to fit the brand values and navigate special requests from internal stakeholders.
Aardvark Design Labs worked closely with an internal team to design and deliver an engaging and inclusive training that the company could own and translate, as necessary, into multiple languages. To help scale the training internally, Aardvark also designed and delivered a train-the-trainer program to quickly ramp up instructors and prepare them to educate others. The training continues to be regarded as one of the 'best and most engaging trainings we have'.
Rapid Solutions for Rapid Growth
Design Sprint- Color Genomics
In the midst of a global pandemic, Color Genomics wanted to find ways to rapidly scale up their COVID-19 testing lab. Aardvark Design Labs guided an internal team through a one-week design ‘Deep-Dive’ from afar, quickly educating team members on how to conduct design research, frame opportunities, and generate ideas.
Aardvark coached and supported the team as they conducted real-time interviews with internal stakeholders, synthesized their findings, and brainstormed ways to rapidly improve their workplace. The group walked away with both a suite of ideas they could further explore and a hands-on human-centered design experience that transformed how they approach similar problems today.
Boosted Collaboration & Creativity
Serious Play workshop- Ankrom Moison Architects
A leading architecture firm was looking for a fun and engaging way to help employees connect and strengthen their creativity and collaboration skills. The firm hired Aardvark Design Labs to run an on-your-feet ‘Serious Play’ workshop focused on play and innovation as part of their design week celebration.
Aardvark Design Labs led participants in a joyful exploration of how we support each other, say yes, and build on each others’ ideas to make innovation happen. Participants deepened their connection with each other and expanded their creative flexibility and gained new, valuable insights that immediately, in their own words “have already improved the way we appraise each other’s ideas and relay our own.”
Empowered & Inspired Community
Creativity Series- Sun Valley Center for the Arts
The Sun Valley Center for the Arts wanted to support the growth of creativity and collaboration in their local community. As part of their “Creativity at Work” exhibition, the center brought in Aardvark Design Labs to invigorate discussion and run an interactive two-day workshop. Bobby Hughes, founder of Aardvark Design Labs, stimulated the conversation as he, along with other business leaders, shared insights and perspectives in a panel discussion on creativity. Hughes shared personal anecdotes and heart- felt answers to audience questions such as “how to stay creative” and “how to encourage creativity in others”.
Following the discussion, Aardvark Design Labs ran a two-day workshop focused on tools and approaches that support collaboration and creativity both in and outside the workplace. Participants spent the first day of this “Serious Play & Design Thinking” workshop learning the value of connection and vulnerability in working together on creative endeavors. Through “on-your-feet” activities and reflection, they challenged their relationships with failure and re-examined their personal and professional interactions through the lens of supporting innovation and ‘outside-the-box’ thinking.
Participants then engaged in an intimate design challenge that provided structure, language, and tools for tackling future innovation projects. The two day experience resulted in a palpable enthusiasm for local collaboration and a deep interest in incorporating play and design thinking in the local community.
100% Global Leadership Alignment
Leadership summit- Fortune 500 Retail Co.
A leading athletic footwear and apparel company was convening a group of twenty global leaders for a four-day off-site retreat. The off-site focused on bringing these leaders together to share sweeping changes that were coming from above. To encourage a productive discussion and get the group working collaboratively, the company needed to quickly expose participants to new ways of thinking and working.
Aardvark Design Labs provided an interactive kick-off experience that both inspired collaboration and set the stage for the following days of the off-site. By facilitating a combination of team-building exercises and structured design thinking training, Aardvark empowered the group to actively understand and contribute to the impending company-wide changes that were coming.
The group quickly discovered tools applicable for managing change, empathizing with multiple stakeholders, and fostering global collaboration to boost individual division success and grow the entire business.
Futures Built on a Brand
Innovation Workshop- Fortune 500 Retail Co.
An American worldwide apparel and footwear company was looking to help its subsidiary brands stay innovative and competitive in the marketplace. To do so, the company looked to Aardvark Design Labs to help design and facilitate a 3-day ideation sprint to generate innovative ideas inspired by customer needs.
Aardvark provided an engaging program that united a diverse group of brand stakeholders to facilitate connection and excitement and push their thinking in innovative ways. Participants generated hundreds of ideas, refining and combining them into six powerful concepts that the brand carried forward for further development.
Design Oriented Leadership
Design Thinking Workshop- Insurance Co.
An insurance company wanted to inspire creativity and outside- the-box thinking among their leaders and managers. With an average employee retention rate of eleven years, the business had a high number of seasoned employees who had become ingrained in their thinking, afraid of change, of taking risks, and trying new things.
Employees throughout the organization lacked a process that supported collaboration, individuals worked at different paces, roles were unclear, and motivation to push through new ideas petered out over time as people gave up when innovation became difficult.
The company hired Aardvark Design Labs to lead a group of 130 managers and directors through a hands-on interactive design thinking workshop as part of their "Innovation Leadership Series".
Leaders learned about innovation first hand by taking to Seattle streets to interview locals and uncover design opportunities, brainstorming ideas, building prototypes, and using rich storytelling to share promising concepts. The experience gave participants a common language and a visceral understanding of a design process they could use on future projects.
A select group of participants applied their learning immediately, turning the process on themselves to plan their next leadership event. The team built empathy for company leaders through interviews and uncovered pressing internal challenges and concerns. Empathy in hand, they collaboratively designed the upcoming session in a way that addressed the most relevant challenges, engaged the leadership team, and moved the company forward together.
Cleaning up Puget Sound
Stormwater Mapping Tool- The Nature Conservancy
Faced with the need to prioritize projects to clean-up Puget Sound, The Nature Conservancy was eager to build a tool to help regional stormwater managers make informed decisions about where to allocate resources for infrastructure projects.
Aardvark led a 12-week project to mentor an internal team in taking a human-centered approach to this challenge and help them understand the needs of stormwater decision-makers in order to best design a decision-making tool.
Through a series of in-person interviews and empathy-building activities, Aardvark guided the team to discover important customer insights, craft customer archetypes, and establish design principles for the stormwater mapping tool development. Aardvark’s guidance also helped the team discover additional opportunity areas for The Nature Conservancy to more quickly clean up Puget Sound.
Encouraging Beverage Exploration
Research Sprint- Fortune 500 Coffee Co.
A Fortune 500 coffee and tea company wanted to understand their customers with the goal of encouraging them to try different beverage options. Aardvark Design Labs led a six-week design research sprint with a team of internal and external partners to develop a new strategy moving forward.
Aardvark led customer interviews and the synthesis of research findings, helping the team identify key opportunities for impact and mapping out a series of behavior-based personas. This project laid the foundation for multiple stages of follow-on work including ideation and prototyping of new customer experiences and interactions via the company’s mobile app.
New Ways of Ordering
Research Sprint- Fortune 500 Coffee Co.
A Fortune 500 coffee company was curious about how coffee ordering fits into regular customer routines. Aardvark Design Labs led a three-week research sprint with an internal team to quickly understand and identify customer needs and difficulties around ordering and explore the relevance of some high tech ideas the team had in mind. While this project was conducted prior to 2020, the insights led to the development of highly efficient and convenient ordering experiences that became immensely valuable when the world faced a global pandemic.
Support for Caregivers
Cognitive Care Strategy- Kaiser Permanente
The Contour Team at Kaiser Permanente WA wanted to improve the cognitive care experience for patients and caregivers while simultaneously learning about human-centered design as a method for designing great service experiences in the future.
Aardvark Design Labs led a team project that helped participants discover insights about cognitive care with plenty of time for learning and reflection about the design process built in. Aardvark mentored the team through planning, conducting, & synthesizing user research, brainstorming around key opportunity areas, and crafting and testing initial prototypes with caregivers.
The tools the team created together helped everyone align around key opportunity areas and promising interventions that the team implemented within months following the project. The reflection time built into the project also gave the team confidence in using human-centered design on their own to continue improving patient care.
Streamlined Global Service
UX Design - Fortune 500 tech co.
A multinational Fortune 500 tech company was looking to completely redesign an integrated software tool for its service professionals.
Working with a team of designers over the course of eight months, Aardvark Design Labs conducted global research, synthesized insights, crafted personas, built conceptual and mental models, and collaborated with internal developers to deliver an improved user interface.
Aardvark played an essential role of facilitating client engagements, encouraging the team to stretch their thinking beyond the status quo while maintaining a human-centered approach with every design decision.
Heightened Brand Experience
Service Prototyping- Brand studio & Global auto-maker
As a branding firm wanted to showcase ideas to heighten the car purchase experience for a major automotive manufacturer, the firm needed someone who could quickly build and iterate prototypes while considering manufacturing implications.
The firm hired Aardvark Design Labs to supercharge an existing team of graphic and communication designers with innovative ideas and construction know-how. In five short weeks, Aardvark helped the team brainstorm and generate countless concepts, select the most promising ones, and then build ten fully functional prototypes to test with stakeholders.
The prototypes proved valuable in helping stakeholders understand the implications of multiple options at an emotional level and collaboratively make decisions that moved the design forward and strengthened the brand.
Strategic Architecture
Service Design/ Protototyping- Architecture firm
As an architecture firm sought a cost-effective way to collect environmental data from global project sites, they hired Aardvark Design Labs to design and craft a simple, delightful data-collection experience.
Aardvark led a research team to establish a lasting design strategy and align the team for rapid development of a collection kit prototype.
Aardvark crafted a self-guided data collection experience simple enough for a teenager to conduct.
The kit significantly lowered data collection costs for the firm. More importantly, Aardvark’s collaboration with the firm, showcased human-centered design methods that employees now use regularly.
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