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Research & Insight

Find the answers before you build

Every digital product has assumptions and unanswered questions. Unanswered questions which can, if not challenged, lead to wasted time, effort and resources. Who is this really for? What do they actually need? What would make them choose you over the alternatives? Research & Insight makes sure you have the right answers before you commit your time and resources.

What people say and what they do are often two very different things. To build a successful product, you need to understand why people do what they do and the motivations behind their actions. Otherwise, you may end up wasting time and resources trying to solve the wrong problem.

We combine qualitative research, market intelligence and behavioural data to give you a complete picture, so every decision you make is grounded in evidence rather than assumption.

Case Studies

Indoor floor-plan map app on a phone, an example of data and analytics in a mobile product
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LandTech

Putting the UK’s leading site-sourcing platform in property developers’ pockets
Connells Group's custom sales platform on an iPad, an example of Sonin taking digital products from idea to impact
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Connells Group

Helping the UK’s largest estate agency network unite 1,200 branches and 80 brands on one nationally proven platform, without disrupting agents’ day-to-day work.
Person holding a phone showing an app screen during user research and insight testing
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TravelHers

Creating a community of safer worldwide travel for women.

Our Approach

User Interviews & Personas

The fastest way to understand your users is to talk to them. Through structured interviews and focus groups with the people in your target market, we uncover what they want, why, and what’s getting in their way.

We turn what we learn into detailed user personas and journey maps that give your whole team a shared understanding of who you’re building for. These aren’t decorative documents – they’re working tools that shape every design and product decision that follows, keeping the real user in the room even when they can’t be.

User Interviews & Personas

Market & Competitor Research

Your product doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Understanding the market you’re entering – who else is in it, what they do well, and where they fall short – shows you where the genuine opportunities are.

We research the competitive landscape around your product: the features users have come to expect, the gaps nobody is serving, and the positioning that will make your product the obvious choice. That means you invest in the things that differentiate you, rather than playing catch-up on the things that don’t.

Market & Competitor Research

Data-Driven Insight

Qualitative research tells you why; data tells you how much. We use behavioural analytics, surveys at scale and quantitative testing to validate what we hear in interviews against what users actually do.

Where you have a live product, we review the data it already generates to find the patterns that matter: where users drop off, what keeps them coming back, and which segments get the most value. Where you don’t, we design lightweight experiments that put real evidence behind your biggest assumptions before you bet on them.

Data-Driven Insight

Hypothesis-Driven Testing

We treat every major product assumption as a hypothesis to be tested, not a fact to be built on. Working in focused sprints, we test ideas in rapid succession and without risk, so the expensive decisions are only made once the evidence supports them.

This approach means you learn faster and waste less: weak ideas are caught early while they’re still cheap to change, and strong ideas move forward with the confidence of real user evidence behind them.

Hypothesis-Driven Testing

From Insight to Action

Research only creates value when it changes what you do next. Every engagement ends with clear, prioritised recommendations: what we learned, what it means for your product, and what to do about it, in the order that will move the needle furthest.

And because research sits alongside our design and development teams, insight flows straight into the work. The people who heard your users’ frustrations first-hand are part of the same team designing and building the answer.

From Insight to Action
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The suite of products they delivered has given us an unprecedented level of visibility. We've completely replaced our paper-based processes, empowering our tutors, staff and customers alike.

IT Director – National Education Centres

Ways we can help

Every business is different. The way we work reflects what you need from a partnership and evolves over time in line with what you need to meet your objectives

Consulting

The right thinking, without the build Helping provide insights, expertise from across the industry and an independent point of view. Ideal for when you have in house capability but need guidance and new opinions. We bring the strategy, expertise and objectivity to solve a specific challenge or shape what’s next.

Product Teams

Everything you need to Build the Right Product. Our own dedicated teams set up to deliver your product end-to-end. Pre-built, high performing with the perfect mix of capabilities for your product. There to deliver the right outcomes from strategy through build to growth and adoption, bringing everything needed to deliver the right result

Embedded Teams

Our people, your team, one goal Our specialists join your team and work as one of you, embedded in your processes, your tools and your goals. Ideal for bringing in additional pace to an existing team, or adding complementary expertise into your delivery teams

Managed Teams

A dedicated team, without the overheads A dedicated team working on your behalf. Delivering the output of a high-performance agency team, with the benefits of a full in-house capability – and all without the overhead of managing it.

Product Discovery

Product Discovery

Make sure you’re building the right product. The biggest risk to delivering on your businesses objectives isn’t the build of the product, it’s building the wrong product.

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UX & UI Design

UX & UI Design

Exceptional UX and UI design drives adoption and business outcomes. Our proven user centric process lets you progress far faster with confidence that you’re building the right digital product.

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Team working on laptops in a meeting, the role of automated testing

AI Rapid Prototyping

Every product decision made on assumption carries risk and the bigger the build, the bigger the bet. Rapid prototyping allows you to try more ideas, learning fast, and only investing in what’s proven.

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Product Audit

Product Audit

If your digital product isn’t meeting expectations, you need to understand why. More importantly, you need to understand where to start.

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