Senior UX research and product design, JTBD interviews, usability, design systems. We pair research with engineering so the work compounds instead of stalling in Figma.
[ TL;DR ]
UI/UX Research at Bluematter Labs pairs senior customer research (JTBD interviews, usability testing, conversion research) with product design and design systems. Most of our UX leads ship code, handoff happens in the same room, not over Loom.
Practice lead: Mel George · Founder & Forward Deployed Engineer
See six modes of UX work ↓We interview your customers, your sales team and your support inbox, then synthesise the jobs they're hiring you to do. Output: a problem map, not 80 slides.
Five-user studies on your current product or prototype. Moderated or unmoderated, recorded, transcribed. We score severity and prioritise fixes by effort × impact.
Card sorts, tree tests, navigation audits. When your site or app has grown past two product lines, IA is usually the unblocker, not visual design.
Figma to production. We design with your engineering stack in mind so the handoff is one conversation, not a translation exercise.
Token-based design systems your engineers will actually use. Built in Figma + Tailwind / shadcn / your framework. Documentation that's a living thing, not a Notion graveyard.
Quant + qual. Heat-maps, session replay, structured surveys, plus behavioural-science framing on top. We find why visitors leave, then ship a re-design that fixes it.
Ten conversations with real users beats 100 NPS responses. We bias hard toward 1:1 contact and verbatim quotes.
Most of our UX leads ship code. Figma files compile to the same tokens your developers use. Handoff happens in the same room, not over Loom.
Defaults, framing, social proof, loss aversion, we apply them where they pay back and skip them where they're cargo cult.
One question, answered
1–2 week research sprint to answer one strategic question ("why are people churning?", "what should v2 look like?"). Customer interviews, synthesis, written report with prioritised next steps.
Scope
Focused
Quoted per engagement
Senior designer on your team
A senior product designer or UX lead inside your team for a sprint or two. Research-led, ships to production. The shape that pairs best with a Product Engineering build.
Scope
Scoped
Quoted per engagement
Design system + documentation
Token-based design system for your product or marketing surfaces. Built in Figma + your engineering framework. Docs, governance and a hand-over that sticks.
Scope
Custom
Quoted per engagement
Both. Most of our engagements pair customer research with design, research-only sprints exist for strategic questions, design-only for already-validated builds. We're upfront about which mode fits your problem.
Three things. We talk to real users (most agencies talk to your team and call it research). Our designers ship into your engineering stack (most agencies hand over PDFs). And we measure outcomes after launch (most agencies disappear after the invoice).
Both, but our verticalised playbooks are wealth management, stone retail, and logistics, same as our Product Engineering practice. Customers in those industries get the fastest discovery because we already know the operator vocabulary.
Yes, most engagements do. A 1–2 week Sprint answers one strategic question with 5–10 customer interviews and a written report. Quoted in writing after a 30-min brief.
For research: a Notion / PDF report with verbatim quotes, themes, opportunity map, and prioritised next steps, plus a 30-minute readout. For design: production-ready Figma with tokens, states, and a written handoff. For systems: a deployed docs site.
Wordmark, type, colour, basic identity yes, full brand strategy with positioning workshops, no. We refer those out to specialist studios. Saying "yes" to everything would dilute the practice.
A 30-minute brief is the fastest way to find out if research is worth it.