You'd be hard pressed to find a tech startup that doesn't aim to innovate. But the field of innovation is in fact an established discipline that fuses design, business and technology in a research-driven process. By integrating these multiple disciplines (and then some), innovation firms devise solutions — products, services and more — that put the end user's needs above all else.
The top companies in the game have offices all over the world, and Austin is home to some of the most celebrated names. Meet three of them here:
Founded in 1969, frog has offices in cities around the world — including Austin. The company does everything from customer experience design to agile development. Their work spans industries, from social impact and transportation to healthcare and retail. They also put considerable creative resources behind experimentation and growth, offering venture and experimental design services to clients large and small.
After Austin’s Chaotic Moon Studios was acquired by Accenture in 2015, they became part of Fjord, the company’s interactive wing. As major advocates for design thinking, Fjord’s team uses the discipline in everything they do. Their work ranges from apps to community programs and even museum exhibits. Fjord’s clients include Disney, the State of Michigan and Pizza Hut, for whom they created a mobile ordering app that was downloaded nearly 1 million times the weekend it launched.
At Four Kitchens, open source technology and user-centered design are key ingredients for innovative work. The Austin company considers themselves “web chefs” who cook up tech, UX and content-related projects for clients like Entertainment Weekly, Stanford and PRI.org. And while the company’s based in Austin, they recently decided to shake things up and transition to a fully distributed team.
Photos via Facebook.
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