Masamune—Digital Agency for World-Class User Experiences

UX at its zenith.

Digital user experience crafted by independently-tested practitioners dedicated to their craft, and among the very best in their field.

Healthcare UX Concept

Crafted by practitioners who have attained mastery in their craft, specifically formulated for your users.

A gorgeous, highly-advanced, next-generation healthcare concept designed by the former lead designer for Anthem’s mobile platforms, with brand-new innovations that represents a generational-leap over anything being used in the healthcare space today.

Available

CRUNCHYROLL

Streaming Platform

Advanced, next-generation healthcare concept designed by the former lead designer for Anthem’s Find Care, Sydney Health, and Express Scripts PBM.

Early 2024

CHASE

Brokerage Platform

Early 2024

AMTRAK

Booking Platform

Early 2024

ARABIAN OUD

Shopping Platform

Mid 2024

PORSCHE

Auto Companion Platform

Crafted by practitioners who have attained mastery in their craft, specifically formulated for your users.

Practitioners are craftsman that display mastery in their craft and dedication to their discipline.

In the discipline of design, "manpower" is not what's really important. One practitioner is worth more than thousands of product designers combined.

In a field so subjective-oriented as design, a practitioner's level of expertise, creativity, experience, passion, knowledge, and level of attained mastery is unmatched by product designers.

Intuition-Driven

We believe in a intuition-driven approach to digital design that's supported and augmented with UX research, user feedback, testing, and data analytics.

Bespoke Design

We deliver high-execution bespoke user experiences that are completely unique to our clients, and crafted at the highest quality level of craftsmanship.

Continuous Improvement

We work diligently from kickoff to continuously progress design into the best possible solution for our clients and their users all the way up to delivery.

Seamless Handoffs

We know how to craft responsive platforms using a true mobile-first approach and deliver it in a way your front-end developers would only fantasize about being possible.

Attained Mastery

Design isn’t only our mission, it is our singular purpose. We are unafraid to venture into the abstract, conceptual realm and harness the power of the human imagination.

Our designer has been entrusted with some of the most high priority design initiatives at some of the largest per revenue companies in the world.

Anthem Find Care

Primary Designer

Selected to redesign & lead Anthem Find Care.

Primary Designer

Anthem Sydney Health

Selected to redesign & lead Anthem Sydney health mobile platforms.

Amtrak

Primary Designer

Selected to redesign Amtrak.com ecommerce web platform.

Express Scripts PBM

Primary Designer

Selected to redesign digital ID, PBM platforms

UX Design

Don’t be stuck being served up mediocre design work, being at the mercy of random, task-oriented, checklist-style product designers and credential-less design managers. The competition to offer the best digital experiences will only intensify will win from here on.

Your brand's user experience belongs in the hands of design practitioners absolute in their dedication to their discipline and craftsmanship.

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User Experience

User Interaction

Visual Design

User Interaction

Advanced
Prototyping

Recieve minimum-viable products (MVP) adhering to the possible highest standards. thoroughness, and completion by due date, prototypes that can be smoothly implemented integrated into your platform's user experience.

Platform
Auditing

Ever have that gut feeling that your UX could be a lot better, but you can’t quite put it into words?

Ever have that gut feeling that your UX could be a lot better, but you can’t quite put it into words? It's ever more imperative to have your online platforms thoroughly audited through the dual perspective of a hybrid designer (designer &developer combination), as most design personnel have no understanding of the underlying mechanics behind today's modern responsive web platforms.

Services / Solutions

Digital Strategy

others can tell too. it's a really bad look. Have you ever felt a gut feeling that your UX could be a lot better, but you can’t quite put it into words? planning and implementation of information architecture done correctly through the guidance of a hybrid designer & developer

If you've been struggling with UX that never improves, and have been wondering why...

Your user experience never improving is neither the result of accident or random chance.

When individuals with no identifiable qualifications or credentials are placed in charge of a company's design department, it shouldn't come as a suprise that your platforms run clunky, feel janky, designed incorrectly, and present a thoroughly mediocre user experience.

It's not a mystery, although it may become the greatest discovery that will be made in UX.

Do you believe there should be qualifications to ux design?

The endpoint of your product or service is the beginning of their ux journey to the customer. User experience is the tip of the spear, and if your UX is designed incorrectly, it will be developed incorrectly as well.

Many companies don't know they are sitting atop mountains of bad technical debt because their platforms were designed incorrectly.

This sets up an improper foundation that all future design and development work must be built ontop of, with each new intiative exponentially exacerbating the pre-existing issues.

Most ux work is just doing the same thing over and over again with the promise that this time things will be different, a promise that never materializes.

You will never just magically recieve the kinds of designs you've always wanted to have.

Real changes require real changes from within and from the very start including who is leading the design process.

Why are you allowing random product designers to define your company's digital strategy?

Most methods and processes widely used in product design are not being defined by design practitioners, people with a portfolio, background, or expertise in design

Who has the keys driving your company's digital strategy to?

Based on our experience, it seems like a stunning majority of design department are being run by individuals who possess no identifiable or discernable design portfolio, background, or relevant experience whatsoever.

Individuals in positions of design leadership should be presenting the following minimum qualifications:

Portfolio

A design portfolio of the individual's own work and their ability to explain it in precise detail.

Technical Skillsets

Essential as the lines between design and development continue to blur ever closer together.

Relevant Background

Continue to blur closely together, so it seems the ever-growing underestimation of this reality.

Design leaders should be displaying their portfolio to display front and center, right?

These are things required for a internship. If these don't matter for leading a design department, then what do you think it should be?

It's not a surprising thing that design departments are very rarely led by design practitioners, as true practitioners of the craft are themselves extremely rare.

It could be the case that the majority of product design methodologies being used at your company were instituted by individuals with far less qualifications than individuals they interview for UX internships.

Does any of this actually matter?

What material impact does this have towards your company's digital strategy?

The consequences are enormous, people just don't know it yet.

There seems to be a perception about UX design like it's of course a necessary thing, but it's almost not being taken seriously profession or field.

Things that in and of themselves do NOT qualify individuals to be running a company's design department:

Marketing degree
Psychology degree
Background in "digital strategy"
Attending adobe trade shows and tech expos
A significant interest in tech
Being up-to-date on latest tech news

A risky path to take.

These easy to execute, assembly-line product design results in low quality MVP products usually with enormous defects, and potentially disasterous consequences.

The MVP (minimally-viable product) has been horrendously misapplied in UX design.

The basic definition of the MVP as we understand it is to build a product with just enough viable features to be usable to market to customers, and gain user feedback for future product developement.

“The version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.”

— Eric Ries
(The Lean Startup)

And no, we're certainly not trying to argue for a return to the 'Waterfall' method of designing.

Ultimately you have to ship your product, but you don't have to go so fast.

We understand that when we say that some people will ask, are you advocating for going back to the "waterfall" method? No we aren't, product design has evolved far past that.

But the way that design departments are employing the minimum-viable product methodology today towards UX is totally wrong.

The most misunderstood thing about this is that the vast majority of ux design work has nothing to do with this.

But what does any of this have to do with UX? Especially if you are a company or business that already has customers or userbase. Why are you releasing a minimally-viable product type of thing?

Trying to find a market fit for a product and presenting a user experience are wildy different objectives.

in UX, you are not trying to switch things up in a moment's notice and adapt to some market.

In user experience design, you already have both the beginning and end points in mind. what you are doing is you are defining the path in-between these two points.

Alright guys, let's iterate!

A minimally-viable product release will yield minimally-viable analytics and feedback.

It can only be derived from what you have released into the wild. What do you think can be derived from this type of release?

The better and more fully their experience is defined, the better the data, analytics, and feedback will be. This is because these things can ONLY address that which is already there.

Ask yourself this question, what kind of quality in data, analytics and user feedback do you think you are yielding from such type of releases?

User experience design is about leading the way and refining the path, it is not about pivoting to find market-fit.

Most iterating is just wasting time trying to polish a turd.

While data can and is certainly being used to make predictive models about future behavior, it can never lead into the unknown.

It doesn't address anything about not potential. Not what could be, or what is ultimately possible.

This way of designing is an abjection of responsibility and duty.

YOU are supposed to define the complete experience for your customers. Users loading into your platform should be considered as your guests.

Disrupt, not be disrupted.

truly two opposing places to be in, Be the industry disruptor, not the disrupted. on one side, you're on the top of the digital world. and on the other, you're in a place you never, ever want to be standing in.

CRUNCHYROLL

CHASE

AMTRAK

ARABIAN OUD

PORSCHE

UX Design

AdvancedPrototyping

PlatformAuditing

Digital Strategy

A risky path to take.

Disrupt, not be disrupted.

Advanced
Prototyping

Platform
Auditing