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Workshops
Design Sprints
Advising
Need to innovate? We’ll provide inspiration and templates for productive product work sessions that gather all your great ideas, plus ours. We’ll find the differentiating and feasible themes for your business, sketching strategic product concepts that you (or we) can take into R&D sprints.
1 week (including preparation and reporting)
2–4 weeks per sprint
1–12 months (weekly or biweekly)
Need to execute? We’ll create a breadth of low-fidelity concepts or a depth of high-fidelity designs, get them in front of your target audience, and see what resonates (and why). We use grounded theory research methods to synthesize unique behavioral insights and strategic product directions.
Need to level up? We’ll coach your team through product challenges, building a capacity for and culture of value-driven experience design. We can lead or support planning sessions and design critiques, sharing 4D Thinking principles and practices that help you succeed faster.
Launch your next product with 4D Thinking
Move from beautiful 2D interface designs to inclusive, personalized 3D experiences to memorable, long-term 4D relationships. We'll be your R&D partner from insights through implementation.
4D Thinking Studio is a product experience design practice founded by Erica Heinz to bring strategic R&D to forward-thinking companies. We assemble custom, expert teams to define, design, and launch brilliant, successful projects.
Our process uses multi-dimensional, UX-focused thinking to take ideas from “could be” to “must do”. Research phases use grounded theory methods to understand audience behavior and find differentiating opportunities. Design phases start with content-focused, low-fidelity prototyping to prove meaningful value instead of surface-level appeal.
We love to partner with startups, accelerators, in-house research and design teams, technology providers, educators, and other culture changers of all sizes. Book a free discovery call to get started.
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Preferred partners
Brand
Karin Fyhrie
Founder, Sovereign Objects
Technology
Skylar Challand
Founder, Oak
Audience
Kathryn Salam
Founder, Proof Media
Growth
Tom Critchlow
tomcritchlow.com
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Design brilliant user experiences and valuable digital products
Engagement is up and execs are happy at TrueCar
TrueCar’s online car buying experience wasn’t having the desired results. Five months, partnering with Runyon Design, got them ready to build a differentiated, validated product. The process:
Collaborative ideation workshops
Low-fidelity R&D sprints
Research synthesis and product strategy
High-fidelity mobile-first design
“Thank you for the entirely new way we now talk about our product and business. Your TRULY MAGNIFICENT WORK has given all of us a fresh perspective and renewed empathy.”
Civic data has reached new buyers at ProPublica
ProPublica wanted to turn a one-page experiment into a full storefront. Five weeks, working with their head of business development, and handing off to their visual designers, got them ready to scale. The process:
Internal and external UX audits
Information architecture and wireframing
HTML prototyping (in Jekyll)
MVP design
“It looks great, it’s easy to use, it’s easy to manage — and people are using! Data’s rolling out, buyers are reaching out, and signups are happening. I couldn’t be happier.”
Exploratory editorial experiences are popular at The New York Times
The Times saw an opportunity for a travel app, hypothesized some value propositions, and wanted to find possible products. Three weeks, partnering with strategist Tom Critchlow and the NYT’s R&D team, gave them a breadth of ideas to test. The process:
Market and analogous research
Collaborative ideation workshops
Low-fidelity concepts and mid-fi prototyping
“You were so great to work with on what was a very loosely defined project. [The Google Docs product] actually came out of one of our early Travel ideas!”
Launch your next product
with 4D Thinking
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