Our Team
Advancing Ideas, LLC is a worker-owned, cooperative enterprise composed of approximately 10 core team members - an interdisciplinary team of experienced professionals, most of whom have been working together as such for more than ten years. We enjoy what we do and believe this is evidenced by the quality of our work.
"To make the world work
In the shortest possible time
Through spontaneous cooperation
Without ecological offense
Or the disadvantage of anyone."
- R. Buckminster Fuller
Member of:
Usability Professionals Assoc.
The Designers Accord
Defining Characteristics
Worker-Owned
Rather than working to increase shareholder wealth, we work to meet the needs of our worker-owners and their communities. By eliminating the need to generate a profit for capital investors, our clients typically enjoy lower rates while the staff is still compensated competitively. Given our collective worker-ownership, you can expect a consistent team capable of developing a deep understanding of your domain regardless of complexity.
Socially Responsible
Meeting the needs of our communities requires that we account for the social and ecological costs and benefits of our company and its work. We structure staffing, payment and equity agreements and pricing to allow us to work with organizations that might not otherwise be able to afford an agency of our caliber and choose to work primarily with organizations whose values are aligned with our own and frequently do so on a pro bono, revenue sharing or deferred compensation basis.
Not Just User-Centered, but also Humanity-Centered
Users > Humans > Humanity is at the heart of our process. The value of the most sophisticated technology and the most useful tool ever conceived is worthless if it isn't usable. Similarly, the most usable products have little value if they are not useful. We consider it our responsibility to design experiences that serve humanity's best interests and prioritize functionality over flair.
Culturally Attuned
Through intelligent process, user research and localized testing, we develop cost-effective and appealing cross-cultural, globalize and localized designs. This is achieved by continually accounting for cultural preferences and biases (users' and ours) as well as the technical considerations inherent in designing for localization or multicultural/multinational audiences.
Contextually Aware
Understanding context of use is critical to effective user-interface design. Through the exploitation of micro printing, GPS, sensor networks, and other emerging technologies, it's now possible to know more than ever before about where, how, when, by whom and for what purpose a system is being used. Along with an understanding of the user and their culture, our team develops and exploits an intimate awareness of context of use through research and scenario development to discover and address unknown and unmet needs.