UI/UX Design Agency
Screens and interactions for physical products and the software around them.
RKS Design is an award-winning UI/UX design agency in Thousand Oaks, California, founded in 1980. We design the screens and interactions for physical products and the software around them: lab instruments, medical devices, enterprise software, and the mobile apps that connect to devices. Every project starts with user research and Psycho-Aesthetics®, our method for understanding what people want and choose, then moves through wireframes, prototypes and usability testing with real users. Recent work includes the Quantum-Si Platinum Pro, Hamilton Microlab Prep and the Aspargo dispenser app.
- 45+Years
- 200+Awards
- 500+Patents
45+ years of creating seamless, intuitive digital experiences grounded in user needs.
powered by Psycho-Aesthetics®.
The Quantum-Si Platinum Pro's interface simplifies complex workflows, guiding scientists with clarity and speed.
The Platinum Pro’s touchscreen interface was designed for clarity and efficiency. Optimized digital layouts guide users through sequencing workflows with minimal cognitive load, while responsive navigation and live feedback streamline the overall user experience.
Now Quantum-Si’s flagship commercial platform for protein sequencing.
Microlab Prep brings compact, user-friendly pipetting automation to small and mid-sized labs.
Our UI/UX team designed an intuitive interface for this project that guides users through protocol setup, execution, and monitoring. The digital interface reduces cognitive load and minimizes error, even for less experienced operators.
Automates repetitive pipetting, reducing human error and improving reproducibility for small and mid-sized labs.
20+
The Aspargo dispenser app delivers precise dosing, adherence tracking and wellness at your fingertips.
We designed a mobile app that syncs with the device to automate dosing reminders, track usage, and deliver adherence data to caregivers. This digital layer extends the user experience, introduces new functionality, and reinforces treatment outcomes.
20+ patent filings within 18 months, with fewer missed doses and better caregiver oversight.
Human-centered UI/UX design services
As a full-service UX/UI design agency, our team crafts intuitive, human-centered web and digital experiences, products, and apps across research, development, and project execution. Our proprietary Psycho-Aesthetics® methodology blends psychological insight with aesthetic strategy to guide every UX/UI decision. By understanding user behavior, biases, and heuristics, we design interfaces that drive engagement, viral adoption, and long-term experience success through the design process.
How we research UI and UX with Psycho-Aesthetics®
Great user interfaces and experiences come from insights gained through thorough research and testing that focuses on people.
Research for UX and UI is a multi-step process that combines exploratory research and concept testing research. We conduct exploratory research to help our designers understand the end user’s needs and goals. We use these methods to understand the psychological and aesthetic motivations and needs of users to drive product adoption.
UX Research is studying and learning what consumers of a service or product need and want to enhance the design process. UI Research gives our designers insights into the way users interact with products and services. User research is at the forefront of our UI and UX design process.
UI/UX Design Research
Research Capabilities
- User Research and Analysis
- Wireframing and Prototyping
- Information Architecture
- Interaction Design
- Ethnographic Research
- Human-Factors Testing
- Moderated and Unmoderated Testing
Quantitative Research
Once a prototype is ready, our designers conduct user testing through concept testing research. This process gathers real user feedback to improve and refine the user experience for products, experiences, and apps. It serves two key purposes: identifying areas for improvement and evaluating the overall effectiveness of the UX.
Qualitative Research
Qualitative research in UI/UX design allows us a deep understanding of user behaviors, needs, and frustrations. These insights help us create tailored, human-centered solutions. Qualitative research also helps us identify pain points, foster empathy, and stimulate innovative solutions. We use it as a tool to validate design assumptions by providing nuanced feedback on prototypes.
These insights can be persuasive in aligning stakeholders around user needs, making qualitative research indispensable for successful UI/UX design.
Synthesis & Strategic Insights
After collecting qualitative and quantitative data, we move into the synthesis phase, transforming insights into clear, actionable design strategies. By identifying key patterns and aligning findings with user goals, we create wireframes, interaction flows, work flows, and UX roadmaps that keep each project aligned with user needs. This ensures every design decision is evidence-based and crafted to deliver intuitive, high-impact user experiences.
What our UI/UX design work includes
Using our proprietary Psycho-Aesthetics® methodology, we push the boundaries of UI, UX, and digital experience development. Through wireframes, user flows, and prototypes, we build intuitive, interactive digital experiences. By combining iterative design with real user testing, we create solutions that meet both functional needs and emotional goals.
UX Research
Our UX research dives deep into understanding your users through a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, including interviews, surveys, ethnographic studies, and analytics. This comprehensive approach uncovers user needs, pain points, behaviors, and motivations, providing the essential insights that guide every design decision. Grounded in real-world data, our research ensures your product truly resonates with its audience and addresses their core challenges.
Wireframing & Prototyping
We bring ideas to life early in the design process by creating wireframes and interactive prototypes that visualize the structure, flow, and functionality of your product. Wireframes allow the RKS Team to quickly iterate on web, app, and experience layouts. We also leverage them for user journeys, while prototypes simulate real interactions, making it easier to gather feedback from stakeholders and users. This iterative approach helps identify potential issues early, saving time and development costs while ensuring a user-friendly final product and experience.
UI Design
Our user interface designs encompass the aesthetic design of all visual elements of a product’s presentation and interactivity. We focus on designing highly usable and efficient user interface solutions. Our Psycho-Aesthetics® methodology is how we work towards creating evocative experiences. Our responsibility is to architect the aesthetics, the functionality, and the emotional connection.
As an award-winning user interface agency, we create original solutions for our clients. We believe a user interface is effective when users can immerse themselves into a product or service. The less users notice they must use controls, the more they will immerse themselves.
User Experience (UX) Design
We are an award-winning user experience agency located in Southern California. We design UX as the totality of how a user responds to a product or service. Our view is that user experience encompasses a user’s emotions and attitudes. Users should feel good about themselves when using a product with exceptional user experience design.
We create exceptional solutions because our designers understand how to achieve the best results. This type of understanding comes from well-designed and executed research. Because it’s so hard to get it right, good UX is the ultimate competitive advantage.
Usability Testing
To ensure your product or app is intuitive and effective, our team at RKS conducts usability testing sessions with real users interacting with prototypes or live products. This hands-on feedback reveals usability challenges, confusion points, and areas of delight that might otherwise go unnoticed. We analyze the results to make informed design refinements that improve the overall user experience, reduce friction, and increase satisfaction.
Design Systems & UI Kits
We create comprehensive design systems and UI kits that standardize visual elements, components, and interaction patterns across your product ecosystem. These scalable libraries promote consistency, streamline collaboration between design and development teams, and accelerate product iterations. By investing in a robust design system, your brand maintains a cohesive look and feel while reducing design debt, enhancing the user experience, and speeding up time to market.
UI/UX design by industry
Our impact and solutions span across platforms and industries. As an established UI/UX Design Agency, we have experience developing cross-platform apps to full digital transformations.
UI/UX Design Expertise
Industry Expertise
- Medical UI/UX
- Consumer UI/UX
- IoT UI/UX
- Commercial UI/UX
- Industrial UI/UX
- Transportation UI/UX
Consumer UX/UI Design
Consumer UX/UI focuses on how users feel when interacting with a product, app, or interface, supported by tailored services that ensure each solution meets user needs.We apply human-centered design to explore use cases, reactions, and real-world contexts, ensuring every experience is intuitive, efficient, and engaging. Guided by the four golden rules of interface design, we create solutions that connect with users and simplify their journey.
Medical Device UX/UI Design
User interface and user experience design for medical devices is a unique sub-section of product design. Our designs need to comply with a diverse set of regulations and meet the needs of a complex ecosystem of stakeholders. We follow ISO and IEC principles in the design of user interfaces and user experiences for medical devices, and combine those standards with human-factors design to create medical devices that meet the most demanding regulations.
Enterprise UX/UI Design
We create tailor-made enterprise UX/UI solutions for various business types, job types, and organizations. Enterprise UX design integrates a client’s pre-existing design elements, processes, usage guidelines, and patterns into an innovative solution. We build enterprise applications, enterprise products, and UX design solutions that are consistent and efficient to adhere to a company’s guidelines.
Adoption challenges for Enterprise software can be especially challenging. Accessibility laws for web and apps are forever changing. When designing, we consider elements such as color, navigation, layout, and performance for accessibility. This is to ensure that the fundamental digital experience effectively supports users.
UI/UX design clients
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Contact UsFrequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between UI and UX design?
UI (user interface) design covers the visual and interactive layer of a product: the layout, color, typography and controls a person sees and uses. UX (user experience) is broader. We treat it as the whole of how someone responds to a product, including whether they can reach their goal and how using it makes them feel about themselves.
So UI is one part of UX, not all of it. Our UX work starts with research. We find out what users need and want, then test prototypes with the people who will use the product and refine the interface based on what those tests show.
What does your UI/UX design process include?
Our process includes research, user journey mapping, wireframing, prototyping, visual design, usability testing, and final UI handoff. We also create design systems and accessibility-focused interfaces for long-term scalability.
What is a UI/UX design sprint?
A UI/UX design sprint is a structured process that helps design teams quickly and efficiently identify, prototype, and test solutions to user experience problems. It is a collaborative and iterative process that involves designers, developers, and stakeholders coming together to focus on a specific problem or challenge within a limited time frame
What are the benefits of UX research?
We strongly believe in the benefits of UX research. UX research is the process of studying and understanding the needs, motivations, and behaviors of users in order to design better products and experiences. One major benefit of UX research is the ability to identify user pain points and frustrations. By conducting in-depth interviews, surveys, and usability testing, we can uncover areas of confusion or dissatisfaction within the user journey. This allows us to design solutions that address these issues and improve the overall user experience. Another benefit of UX research is the ability to validate design decisions. By conducting user testing, we can see how real users interact with a product and identify any areas that may need further refinement. This feedback is crucial in ensuring that our designs are intuitive and easy to use. Additionally, UX research allows us to gain insights into user behavior and preferences. By analyzing data from user research, we can better understand how users interact with a product and make informed design decisions that align with their needs and expectations. Furthermore, UX research helps us to build empathy with our users. By putting ourselves in the shoes of our users and understanding their motivations and challenges, we can create designs that are more human-centered and better meet their needs. The benefits of UX research are numerous. From identifying user pain points and validating design decisions, to gaining insights into user behavior and building empathy with users, UX research is an essential part of the design process at our firm. By investing in UX research, we can create better products and experiences that delight and engage users.
Can you work with our existing brand or design system?
Absolutely. We can build from your current brand guidelines, design system, or existing components to ensure consistency while introducing enhancements that improve user experience. Key Attractors, Hero’s Journey, Design, Execution, and Moments of Truth.