What Should You Look for in a Digital Product Design Consultancy?

Look for a consultancy that can show you a product it helped grow after launch, not just one it made look good at launch. The best ones also work beyond the screen when your product needs it, and their research changes what gets built.

Here's what that looks like in practice.

1. Results after launch

Launch screenshots are easy to show. Ask what happened next. Did people keep using it? What changed when the design changed?

Cook reached 500,000 downloads in its first three weeks. Keeping people was the hard part. When we designed features that let people build and share their own recipe collections, monthly active users rose 240 percent. That's the kind of evidence to ask for.

2. Range beyond the screen

Many products now live across apps, websites, devices and services. A good consultancy can design all of it as one system.

For the Marc Newson x Flite Controller, we designed an interface for a small, round colour screen that riders read in a glance, in full sun, while flying over water. That's product design where a wrong decision affects safety, not just clicks. See how we approached the controller interface.

3. Research that changes the roadmap

The best product design consultancies don't just test designs. Their research decides what to build next.

For SafetyCulture's iAuditor, our research found out why more than 90 percent of new customers weren't engaging with the product in their first 28 days, and what would make them stay. That work helped shape the product roadmap from 2021 to 2024 around fixing the first month, not adding features. Read the SafetyCulture case study.

4. Systems that scale

As products grow, consistency gets harder. Look for a partner who builds design systems your own team can keep using after the engagement ends.

When to bring them in

At the concept stage for a new product, or early in a redesign, before features are locked. The earlier they're involved, the more of their value you get.

Questions to ask

• Show me a product you helped improve after launch, and what changed.
• What research would you do before designing anything for us?
• What will our team be able to do on its own when you've finished?

For why this matters to the business, read why product design is a business strategy.

Related: Experience design and the Cook case study.