an overview

As strategists, we share key industry insights, leveraging our expertise to create roadmaps that guide our clients through the technologies of the future.

As user experience and visual designers, we build solutions that are up-to-date and scalable, creating applications that can evolve and grow as time goes on and demands increase.

And as experts in technology, we harness the power of platforms such as Adobe Flex & AIR, HTML5, Apple iOS, Google Android, Java and Microsoft Silverlight, integrating our workflow and processes so that we consistently get the very best results.

strategy

Strategy is the driving force behind all Nice projects. Firstly, we delve deep into our clients’ businesses. We then also ensure that we are crystal clear about their requirements. And finally we get to know users’ needs, wants, desires and personas so well that we can see the app through their eyes, ensuring that rates of successful uptake are good upon release.

Nice Agency uses a proven workshop format to gain strategic insights. Workshops deliver fast results, bringing together key stakeholders in sessions that are collaborative, engaging and fun.

The outcomes of such workshops are essential to success. Project objectives are set. Furthermore, the vision is defined and a vision statement agreed upon. And finally, the project roadmap, key milestones and deliverables are clearly outlined to ensure that everyone is moving forward on the same page.

Once the workshop stage is complete, we move on to strategic concept designs. These prove the viability of the solution, involving a series of creative design sketches, user journey maps, wireframes and technical spikes. Such proofs remove the risk of wasted work and misunderstandings, and improve efficiency and shorten completion deadlines considerably.

experience design

User experience design is a rapid, iterative process. Directed by the strategic goals and contextual user personas defined in the workshops, user experience design takes place across a series of software releases. Components are progressively built into live, working applications rather than design taking place in an abstract environment, immediately proving functionality and allowing continuous testing for performance.

Channel 4 provides an example of a typical project life cycle. The project began with a collaborative design session with key stakeholders. From this, high level concept designs were outlined in the form of sketches, which were then reviewed in a collaborative workshop with the Channel 4 design guardians. Once the design concepts were approved, we moved into more detailed design, creating wireframes and clearly defining all user interactions and touch points.

technology

At Nice Agency, we pride ourselves on our strategic use of technology. We are technology agnostic, meaning that we do not attempt to fit solutions into the technologies we have available. Rather, we begin with the purpose and long-term goals of the application and the needs of the users, assess all available options, and only then select the most appropriate tools for the job.

The value of this approach is that it results in solid solution architectures - applications which are built upon sound foundations for the future. We employ enterprise-grade application design due to our experience working with major financial service providers. This makes us rare in the app development sector, able to build consumer brand solutions for global scalability because of the strength of the information and design architectures.

A further benefit of a rigorous financial application pedigree is the strict adherence to quality assurance processes. We employ leading techniques such as test-driven development, continuous integration and cloud-based load testing for outstanding results.