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  • Lextant Fall Fry 2010 > Columbus, Ohio
    TBA

    Fall will be here before ya know it- and with that comes our Fall Fry Cookout Event!

Insights & Blog_In Here and Out There

Our observations of the world around us

  • New Hires! by Jim Couch on April 29, 2010

    Columbus, Ohio, April 22, 2010 — Lextant, a leading Design Research and User Experience company, has named Sherie (Bauer) Masters to User Experience Design Vice President position and Steve Simula to User Experience Design Director position. 

    As early evangelists in the User Experience (UX) and Interaction Design fields, and a creative partnership for over 20 years, Masters and Simula bring extensive skills in understanding what users desire and how to use emerging technologies to create customer-focused design strategies and solutions.

    With expertise across a variety of industries, they have been trusted advisors to clients such as Apple, L3 Avionics, AARP, Intuit, Nissan, Openwave, Microsoft, AOL, Siemens, Mayo Clinic, and many others. 

    “Sherie and Steve are terrific additions to our already outstanding team. To have their caliber of talent and experience here at Lextant brings our User Experience Design offer to a whole new level. We are in a great position to build on the market momentum for experience-centered design solutions as the world becomes increasingly digital and interconnected“, said Chris Rockwell, Lextant’s CEO. 

    Steve and Sherie will once again be collaborating with long-time colleague, Colette Vardeman, Vice President and head of Lextant’s User Experience Design team.

    “Our user-led design techniques allow us to envision and create ideal experiences that transform our client’s products – and ultimately their businesses. Sherie and Steve are consistently ahead of the curve. Their design thinking will provide our clients with a competitive advantage and create a solid framework to expand our UX Strategy and Design offer,” explains Vardeman. 

    Masters and Simula join the Columbus-based Lextant from Masters Group International (MGi). While partnering at MGi, they worked with clients on creating product experiences that integrated mobile, social media, and web-based tools. 

    Prior to forming MGi in 2002, Masters and Simula were part of Fitch Worldwide. As a Partner at Fitch, Masters was head of the Interaction Design Practice for 8 years. Simula was Associate Vice President and charged with leading creative teams to bridge the gap between concept and real-world solutions. This highly respected product design offer was located in three U.S. offices; Columbus, Boston, and San Francisco; and is credited with many groundbreaking designs from high-profile concept cars to complex medical diagnostic software to innovative web and mobile applications. 

    Prior to Fitch, Masters and Simula co-founded TopKat Interactive in Cincinnati, a successful interactive design firm that was acquired by Fitch. They were founding members of Clement Mok Design’s interactive team (subsequently Sapient in San Francisco) and EPC Multimedia Group’s interactive team (in Grand Rapids, Michigan), one of the first interactive design studios in the U.S.

    About Lextant, Inc.

    Lextant, (www.lextant.com), founded in 1998, is a design research and user experience firm that helps companies bring the best possible products and services to market. Their innovative research techniques dig deep into customer emotions – the frustrations, expectations, needs, and aspirations that frame every experience. These insights give Lextant clients design clarity, a key to aligning efforts, reducing risk, and building customer loyalty.

    The firm is based in Columbus, Ohio. 
    For additional information, contact the firm at 1(800) 324-1613 or email Jim Couch at jcouch (at) lextant.com

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  • Upping the engagement level on surveys. by Taylor Lies on January 29, 2009

    If you believe like we do at Lextant than you’d agree that people are inherently creative and that research should be experiential and emotional. Creativity, experiences, and emotion – not words that typically come to mind with traditional online surveys. That isn’t to say there isn’t a place for them but that we simply shouldn’t be surprised that they may not always be an ideal means to understand people. This matches up well with some of the findings in a recent report by Engage Research and Global Market Institute that stated online surveys are experiencing declining completion rates, poor data quality, in part, because participants are bored. Frankly, questions with fixed answer sets or the habit of adding question after question don’t really seem to be the best ways to understand the inherent complexity in peoples’ behaviors, motivations, and preferences - especially considering that we find ourselves more frequently trying to understand generations that, more than ever, desire personalization, self-expression, and self-determination. Again, these are words that don’t typically come to mind with traditional online surveys.

    Online surveys, like those reported on, are just one hammer researchers have, but its likely that because of their flexibility, ease, and reach they’ve been used to hit too many nails. We’re at a point where technology has provided new and powerful ways to give the participant the control and freedom to appropriately express themselves and document their experiences and desires. We’re able to apply the principles or participatory research with available technology. People can now document themselves via audio, photo, or video recording, as well as do so when mobile or as needed, not fixed to a computer or their home. These tools create compelling experiences for the participant and provide rich, compelling data for the researcher. You don’t have to throw away your old hammer, but you should check out getting a couple new ones!

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  • My thoughts on World Usability Day by Katie Kimble on November 21, 2008

    Recently, Sri Putrevu, Kendra Shimmell, Jim Couch, and I had the wonderful opportunity to travel to Miamisburg, OH and present Lextant’s point of view at the World Usability Day Conference at Lexis Nexis. For those who aren’t as focused in usability, World Usability Day (WUD) is a “holiday” of sorts organized by the Usability Professionals Association (UPA) designed to celebrate of the practice of usability and its efforts to “Make Life Easy’ and user friendly’. All over the nation on Nov. 13th, usability experts across the world joined together to learn, share, and celebrate usability research and methodologies.  Leave it to us usability buffs to create a holiday for ourselves!

    The most impressive aspect of this year’s WUD was its record attendance! At Lexis Nexis, Darren Kall (Senior Director of Global Experience Design for Lexis Nexis) did an excellent job of publicizing and raising awareness for the event. With a start time of 1 pm on a weekday, the conference requires the majority of attendees to take time out of their work day to attend earlier presentations. As one would expect, attendance of any presentations that take place before 5pm is usually relatively light. However, for Lextant’s presentation at 3pm, we were moved from a conference room to an auditorium to accomodate our 54 audience members. This is an incredible turnout for a local event!

    Lextant presented our philosophy of Experiencability, the marriage of Usability and Experience. At Lextant, we believe that a product’s usability is important, of course, but we also believe that the emotional aspect of the interaction plays an equally strong role in the user’s experience. Traditionally, usability testing does not address the user’s emotional experience. Lextant has developed a set of methodogies that address all aspects of the user experience in a way that leads to a more actionable and accurate design. Our presentation was well received at World Usability Day and we intend to continue spreading our message as other opportunities arise!

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