Momentum Design Lab
Adding Momentum to Design Thinking

The constant quest for digitization of enterprise services has spurred intense competition within the web application products and services market. Competitive pressure has necessitated the companies to adopt strategies and methodologies that guarantee a high degree of accuracy in the product planning and design phases. “We follow the design thinking methodology by understanding the competitive landscape, context of software deployment, the users and their goals by observation, investigation, or interviews,” says David Thomson, CEO, Momentum Design Lab (MDL), a software design and services firm headquartered in San Mateo, CA.

Thomson mentions that MDL treats the planning phase as a research period where the company reviews various parameters associated with the product along with the clients, to hone the objectives. “We bring refinement in terms of product goals and ways of accomplishing them within the business strategy,” says Thomson. Once there is clarity on the objectives, design activities like creating wireframes and use cases incompliance with a work flow pre-defined by the client, are taken up. MDL allows a high degree of agility in design and describes the whole process as intuitive. “It is intuitive in that you don’t need all the information to start designing. We can use the existing design to gather more information to validate the assumptions made during previous phases and then iterate until we get the right information,” explains Thomson.

The possible constraints in design implementation are addressed by identifying the pain points during the design phase itself, through collaborative work sessions and even workshops with clients. “Any legacy software used by clients helps us understand the problem. For others, we might have to interview the users to comprehend the challenges before designing the wireframe,” says Thomson. Once the problems are identified, the information architecture is structured accordingly to optimize the workflow. This is often followed by working at the clients’ site to note the most impactful areas of design. Experience in designing complex enterprise web software and custom-tailoring it to clients’ requirements is MDL’s differentiating factor.

We bring refinement in terms of product goals and ways of accomplishing them within the business strategy

The rich experience has helped the company develop a number of general procedures and tools. For instance, “We have created a 3D interface plug-in tool inside HTML5 that has pushed the boundaries of JavaScript and HTML5,” adds Thomson.

MDL’s unique approaches have also won accolades from clients. Thomson states a case wherein the company helped a large retailer with an online and offline presence, in optimizing the roles of both buyers and merchandisers, by restructuring their backend applications. Several pieces of software were consolidated into one with 20 users handling most of the activities, along with the incorporation of analytical reporting.

In a second instance, MDL helped a U.S. based global company—serving more than 150 countries in the payment space—better capture and nurture the relationships between different stakeholders—banks and payers—by designing software compatible with their hardware. “We not only delivered a great user experience on their device, but also identified factors that helped in operating the product better,” mentions Thomson.

While MDL has carved a niche for itself in the enterprise web software design, development, and services arena, its core principles based on Creativity and Ideation, have remained intact. “They are the two main components of what we do here as our business; they drive us as an organization,” states Thomson. The company has also embarked on an expansion plan and has set up offices across U.S. “In days to come, we are also eyeing global expansion— predominantly in France and UK,” concludes Thomson.