Enterprise UX services

We turn operational complexity into competitive advantage

When you're building tools that don't exist yet (or bringing software to industries that never had it) you need design that starts with deep understanding of the work itself, not templates from consumer apps.

Seeking a design partner?

Explore how we could deliver excellent product together in a quick 15 minute call.

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Problems we solve

Do these sound familiar?

Weak Demos

Clunky UI and weird flows are hindering your sales process

Bad User Adoption

Churn is resulting because your product isn’t seen as essential

A person icon with question marks in the thought bubble

Product Vision Ambiguity

Ability to imagine the future state and strategy causing lack of alignment

Development Waste

Devs are figuring out design and logic directly in the code, slowing progress

Designs that don't work

Pretty mockups aren't reflecting the reality of your software

Poor Data Dashboards

Quantity of data is there but utility is lacking, causing overwhelm

Use cases & Solutions

Concrete design approaches for your tough situations

Product concept innovation

Push the boundaries of what's possible

Innovation and pushing the realm of possibilities forward can be hard to do without external expertise. We use our deep knowledge of software in complex industries and understanding of technology to uncover a whole world of possibilities. It's hard to dream when you've been deep in the weeds.

Let us unlock new business opportunities and industries for you.

UX Audits

Professional assessment for your product

Calibrate your product backlog based on our expertise in enterprise products.

We assess your product and rank the experience strengths and weaknesses based on the priorities and most important user flows. By the end you have a solid understanding of where you rank and a roadmap for what to do next.

Embedded design team

Daily collaboration for product teams

Enterprise platforms are often operating with either no designers, or a couple of overworked members. It can be tough finding resources that can slot into a complicated product. We work exclusively in enterprise industries and are uniquely equipped with strategies to jump in to help you deliver new designs this sprint!

Great for teams looking to deliver great product quickly.

Product redesign

Eliminate design debt

This process involves concrete design steps that result in development-ready designs in the short term, and new designs for future releases. You’ll have a reliable de-risking process for new features to make development as streamlined as possible.

Our approach includes a design-system approach and mapping the exisitng and future functionality and use cases in detail. Whether you're modernizing or innovating.

Not sure if this applies? Read our Redesign Assessment checklist:

What we do

Enterprise Software UX Services

We work with your team and your needs in the full scope of UX/UI design services for enterprise software

Map going from A to B

Low fidelity mapping & discovery

Mapping out the logic, user journey, wireframes and task flows

Mess of cords with arrow showing the cords getting organized neatly

Iterative experimentation & de-risking

Interactive prototyping, UI design, interaction design, user research

Blue circuit illustration

Development support during implementation

Documentation, specifications, design QA, design system creation and maintenance

Why We're Special

We succeed where other designers fail

We’ve been picking up the pieces of Fiverr, unqualified designers and haphazard design attempts by non-designers for years, and we’ve developed a bespoke methodology to nail the design every time.

We are unique in our expertise around:

  • Complex industries, software and data
  • Nuanced use cases and interactions
  • Onboarding to intricate domains with lightning speed
  • Artful facilitation with product team to derive requirements
  • Transforming SME insights into high quality designs
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Mini Case Studies

Recent projects with enterprise software companies

Voice forms for realtors on the go

Scenario
A real estate company needed their realtors to comply with the forms required by the state, but realtors are constantly on the go. Paperwork like this would pile up, and context switching and remembering what was said was unnecessarily difficult.
Outcome
Streamlined voice forms interaction, resulting in 20% faster and more complete forms.
Natural Language Processing
AI
Real Estate

Data exploration unlocked with AI

Scenario
Data analysts historically have performed manual effort in unnecessary places, for example chart creation, data cleanup, transformation and many other places. Our mission was to determine where we could create behaviour and defaults to ease this pain through AI technology.
Outcome
Product architecture which reduces painpoints along the user journey.
Data dashboard
AI
Interaction
Analysis

Protecting patient anonymity through streamlined UX

Scenario
A data analytics company anonymized giant clinical reports through a manual process which was exceedingly difficult to execute quickly. However, producing safe anonymized reports was required urgently by regulators, creating an urgent need for automation.
Outcome
A robust software-based experience creating efficiencies, error reductions and allowing the company to present professionally to pharma customers.
Biotech
AI
Database
Automation

Instrument experience for novice users

Scenario
An instrument company was producing a mid-range instrument for the first time, where software training would be much less available, making reliance on easier software and in-app help urgent and important to the team.
Outcome
A clear setup process for new users getting started preparing an experiment for the first time.
Biotech
AI
Interaction
Lab Software

Physician Portal for "Lay" Oncologists

Scenario
A medical diagnostic company providing genetic testing for patients provided AI-informed diagnostics to doctors via traditional means (paper-based test requests) but the process did not scale. Additionally, doctors without extensive genomics knowledge had difficultly interpreting results at a glance.
Outcome
Streamlined digital portal with embedded education and improved awareness around test requisitions and test status and timing.
Health
AI
Interaction
Diagnostics

Rethinking dashboards for HR suite

Scenario
An established HR platform has historically valued quantity over quality, as a result the 6+ dashboard views were underused and not seen as valuable by users.
Outcome
The amount of dashboards and views were cut down significantly. Data visualization standards were established and useful metrics were derived for different user persons.
Human resources & Ops
AI
Data tables
Data dashboards
Design System

Iterative workflow remix

Scenario
A data analysis company used semi-automated process (macros, scripts etc) to transform unstructured data and perform highly sensitive secondary analysis.
Outcome
Created a state of the art SaaS experience which reduced the risk of errors and manual effort by half.
AI
Health
Data tables
Interaction
design of an iterative workflow in an enterprise product

Manual to software product

Scenario
A data analysis company used semi-automated process (macros, scripts etc) to transform unstructured data and perform highly sensitive secondary analysis.
Outcome
Created a state of the art SaaS experience which reduced the risk of errors and manual effort by half.
Pharma
Data dashboard
AI
Design System
Examples of a documentation tool's features and ux

User-specific dashboards

Scenario
A real estate company with a large dataset didn’t know the ROI on their marketing spend across platforms. The sales team was not empowered to use data to make decisions due to fragmentation of reporting across marketing and advertising systems.
Outcome
Custom dashboard experiences lead to members of the team to measure effectiveness of their part of the sales pipeline.
Real Estate
Data Dashboard
Large Datasets
Enterprise ux data dashboard examples
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"P&P has a deep understanding of data and user empathy in complex experiences."

Chris Parmer, VP of Product at Plot.ly

"P&P's expertise in building complex data products and integrating AI was a game-changer for our UX, and we would recommend them without hesitation."

Devin Pickering, VP of Product, Orennia

team work makes the dream work

We're not your typical agency

Some people have had a bad experience with agencies in the past, we’ve never worked in the typical agency style, instead, we practice intentional and wholistic collaboration and hold ourselves to the highest possible standard

Collaboration by default

Not at all detached from clients, we work together every day

Efficient workstyles

Using sophisticated collaboration methods, both sync and async

Facilitation

Leverage the minds in the room for best possible outcome

Practical information extraction

Have established methodologies for extracting information, onboarding onto complex tools & mapping data

SME collaboration

Working with devs, SMEs, technical people exceedingly well

Holistic Vision

We aren't just here to cross off checkboxes and call it a day. Our design lens incorporates your business and product goals

"The professional approach to engaging with the team is among the best I've seen. They communicated in a timely manner, were consistently upbeat, and produced outstanding designs."

Andy Leikucs, Head of Development, IQVIA

Product design services

Full scope of experience design

Our team are senior specialists who have honed specific parts of the user experience design workflow and adapted it specifically to cater to complex industries, data-rich experiences. We apply expert taste and judgement when discerning when and how to utilize the tools in the toolbox.

  • Flow mapping
  • Wireframing
  • User testing
  • Visual design
  • Code prototyping
  • Figma prototyping

Enterprise UX case studies

We’ve got product and business stories aplenty

From science instruments, to realtor marketing platforms to novel technologies like AI, we've provided UX design services to a variety of companies. We have a wealth of stories to share with you.

Get in touch to hear about our work

FAQ

No surprises here

You aren’t alone in some concerns around collaborating with an external team for your  UX/UI. We’ve compiled a list addressing the most common FAQs we’ve seen from companies seeking UX design services.

How does UX de-risk development efforts?

Mapping out the flows, user journey, wireframes in and of itself catches big assumptions and misses in the complexity and logic of the software development, on top of that, adopting a lean user testing process allows quick de-risking to happen on specific designs and approaches. Regardless of where you land in the product market fit spectrum, design helps you really think things through, instead of perpetuating the building and hoping cycle.

How do I make the UX business case?

Not every software team needs UX to succeed. There are industries which aren’t particularly competitive or products which inherently rely more on the backend (they are used in the command line etc). For those products, UX is not as much of a key priority.

For products which are losing customers left right and center, a great UX creates a key differentiator which makes your product indispensable to users at renewal time. There are many competitive verticals in SaaS and hard tech where UX is an unsung hero.

For more on crafting your case around UX ROI, check out our article.

Does onboarding take a long time?

Lots of people worry about this, because they liken our onboarding to how long it takes an employee to onboard to a job. Our approach is more like a nascar pit crew, in that we have a dialled in method to derive all necessary information and starting to build user journeys, wireframes and new ideas within a matter of weeks of starting our collaboration. Our onboarding process is dialled, efficient and geared towards complex situations.

Where do I get started with UX?

If you’ve been trying to do UX yourself (without designers) and it’s not really working, you’ve come to the right place. If you need to get started as quickly as possible, get in touch with us for a free UX session and we can point you in the right direction?

Do I need to do a huge UX project to move the needle?

We’ve had great success making relatively small UX improvements to software which have significantly improved the usability and flow of products (and it doesn’t always need to be fancy UI or animations either). We believe that incremental improvement to your product and development process can make a huge difference. Often this is accompanied with longer-term work that sets a vision for the future. Both of these approaches work hand in hand to improve your product.

Is my project too early for UX?

Often the answer is no, except when you’re a startup with almost no product or company definition yet (in which case we can work to advise you, but not build too many designs yet).

If your project already has development resources allocated and you basically know what you’re building, this is a great moment to get in touch with us. If you’re already building, same thing, get in touch.

Is there anything in the scope of design you don't do?

We do the full scope of UX/UI design for software in the enterprise arena. This includes “zooming out” and formulating logic around the whole flow, to wireframing (mapping out screens) and producing realistic prototypes. UX/UI design however does not extend to branding or marketing, so we will happily refer you to wonderful teams we know.

alex leduc
“Their ability to quickly get up to speed, understand things so clearly from a user perspective and rapidly iterate ideas makes for a collaborative environment that always results in a better product than we originally anticipated. ”
Alex Leduc, CEO of Perch
lee noble
"Their deep knowledge of user experience design and best practices was evident in every stage of the project, they had a clear design rationale and their attention to detail ensured that every aspect of the UI was carefully considered and refined."
Lee Noble, CEO of Goodpaw
pot
"Collaborating with Pencil & Paper was instrumental as we shifted our product culture towards greater user-centricity. Their expertise in B2B software kickstarted this journey for us, and we can visibly see how their guidance shaped our current UX practices."
Nakisa product team, (Nakisa HR Suite)
pot
“The professional approach to engaging with the team is among the best I've seen. They communicated in a timely manner, were consistently upbeat and optimistic, and produced outstanding designs.”
Andy Leikucs, Head of Development at IQVIA
dan b
"I recommend them highly to any fintech or startup looking for user focused design and would use their services again without hesitation."
Daniel Barton, Co-founder, COO of Billi Labs
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