User Research & Insight Synthesis
Planning and synthesizing qualitative research that informs every downstream design decision.
Where strategy becomes tangible.
AI now handles the production work the junior designer used to do. The question every digital leader is answering is what an experienced design team still needs to do. Our answer: more. The judgment calls that decide whether a product ships well are exactly the calls AI cannot make on its own.
What our design practice does
The Thresh design practice is built around senior practitioners who lead delivery the same way our strategy and engineering leads do. The team designs the customer surface that the business runs on — product UI, service surfaces, design systems, AI-native interaction patterns. The same practitioners who scope the design work are the practitioners who ship it.
Why we built the practice this way
A design team built around senior practitioners produces a different output than a design team built around volume. The work ships more decisively. The design system is built once, with the right primitives, and stops requiring a refactor every quarter. The customer surface is consistent because the same handful of senior eyes saw every screen. Junior practitioners on the team learn from seniors and use AI to compound the speed at which that learning becomes shipped work.
Grounded in insight, structure, and craft.
UX Strategy & Information Architecture
Designing clear structures and navigation that scale as product complexity grows.
Wireframes, Flows & Prototypes
Converting concepts into tangible artifacts that can be tested, refined, and shipped.
Interface Design & Design Systems
Creating consistent, accessible interfaces backed by living design systems that compound across products.
Usability Testing & Iteration
Validating with real users so design choices are sharpened by feedback, not opinion.
Methodology that scales.
Design Decision Traceability
Every design choice tied back to a user insight, business goal, or engineering constraint.
Faster Concept Exploration
AI-augmented divergent design that explores 10× more options without sacrificing taste.
Design System Consistency
Token-driven systems that stay aligned with engineering — and stay current as the product evolves.
Reduced Handoff Friction
Spec-driven workflows that let engineers ship without re-deciding what was already designed.
Interfaces engineering can actually ship.
Designs that don't get re-decided at handoff. Each artifact is engineered for the build, not the portfolio shot.
Design System
Tokens, components, and contracts shared across product surfaces — the source of truth designers, engineers, and AI agents all read from. Compounds across every shipped surface.
Product Experience Vision
A north-star artifact showing what the product feels like in 12 months — interaction model, narrative, and surfaces. Not a deck. A directed prototype your team can build toward.
Customer Journey Architecture
The end-to-end map of every meaningful touchpoint — what each surface does, who owns it, where the seams are. Replaces tribal knowledge with shared structure.
AI-Native Interface Patterns
UI conventions for products where the user is collaborating with an agent — prompts, confirmations, undo states, transparency. The patterns most teams are inventing from scratch.
Questions executives ask before signing.
Direct answers to the questions that come up in nearly every first conversation. For anything else, email info@threshconsulting.com.
Do you do brand design or just product design?
Our primary practice is product design — interfaces, design systems, customer journeys, AI-native interaction patterns. We do brand and narrative work as part of the Growth & AI Commerce practice, often in tandem with product design when an engagement spans both surfaces. We do not do isolated brand identity engagements without a connected product or growth scope.
What design tools and stacks do you work in?
Figma is our default authoring tool, integrated with token pipelines (typically Style Dictionary or Specify) and component contracts in TypeScript. We design with the production stack in mind (most engagements ship code alongside the design), and we adapt to client toolchains where they exist rather than imposing ours.
How do you handle accessibility?
WCAG 2.2 AA compliance is the baseline for every shipped component. We design and engineer components to be accessible by default rather than retrofitting compliance later. For clients in regulated environments (financial services, healthcare, government), we work directly with internal accessibility and compliance teams to make sure the system passes formal audit.
Can you take an existing design system and bring it into AI-readiness?
Yes — this is one of our most common engagement shapes. Most enterprise design systems were built as documentation; making them defining (typed contracts, generated artifacts, agent-readable) is structural work that typically takes 3-6 months and produces a system the in-house design and engineering teams can extend independently going forward.
Do you do customer research?
We do qualitative customer research as part of design engagements when the engagement needs it — journey mapping, usability testing, intent diagnostic work for high-stakes flows. We are not a dedicated research agency; for large-scale quantitative research programs, we partner with specialist firms and integrate their findings into the design work.
What's the smallest scope you'll engage on?
A typical engagement is a focused product surface (a single high-stakes flow, a design system foundation, a specific feature rebuild) running 8–12 weeks with a senior practitioner team embedded inside the client's organization. We are not optimized for isolated-asset turnaround. The engagement economics work because we ship experience-led teams deeply embedded in the work.
Tell us what you're building. We'll show you what shipping looks like when strategy, design, and engineering move as one.