2011 is an exciting year for us at Flow. Last week we announced our merger with Foolproof to create Europe’s largest specialist UX agency. I wanted to explain a little more behind our thinking, and Tom Wood from Foolproof shares his own thoughts on the Foolproof blog.

Fundamentally, a User Experience consultant wants to make things better. We have idealistic goals but we’re proficient at finding realistic routes towards a better future. We find the common ground between the desires, expectations and abilities of our clients and their customers.

Our own history at Flow is no exception. We have always believed that delivering the right user experience was key to our clients’ success, and that the best way to do this was by uncovering insight and applying design principles.

Back in 1998 though, we had to start by creating a market through evangelising “usability solutions”.  This involved simple usability testing and tactical recommendations because the clients didn’t expect, or know what to do with, anything more. In the last 8 years we have concentrated on enabling and inspiring our clients through providing a wider range of user centred design methodologies and training.  Several recent projects have become far more strategic as we are asked to weave customer-centricity throughout our client’s organisation in order to drive a great user experience across all touch-points. We have started to think that our idealism could come of age.

The merger with Foolproof makes this final step towards our goal a reality and creates a real force in the user experience world. We’ve been friends with Foolproof for a while, but we were amazed to find that our client list, sector knowledge and range of skills were largely complementary rather than directly in competition; and that we shared the same vision for the future. Combining forces gives us the capacity and range of skills to deliver a full spectrum of user experience consultancy across multiple sectors and platforms. Both sets of staff are looking forward to learning from each other over the coming months.

We remain true to the following guiding principles:

1. The right user experience is created by uncovering insight and applying design principles.
2. Tactical improvements and full scale innovation are valued equally and applied appropriately.
3. We invite a wide mix of passionate, highly talented people to join a team which becomes far greater than the sum of its parts.
4. Collaboration is key.

And yes – we will still have cake on Fridays which we’re looking forward to sharing with our new colleagues.

We’ve joined forces with Foolproof creating Europe’s largest specialist UX agency, with 70 staff and initial turnover in excess of £5.5m per annum. This places the combined business within the top 50* UK digital agencies, based on the recent 2010 New Media Age league table.

The Foolproof and Flow brands are both retained. The expanded business will operate out of two sites: Flow’s existing home at 90-98 Goswell Road, EC1 will become the consolidated London base of the two companies, and Foolproof’s current Norwich office will be retained.

Foolproof’s Peter Ballard and Tom Wood will be majority shareholders of the expanded business, whilst Flow’s owner Meriel Lenfestey will join the shareholder board of Foolproof.

Peter Ballard, Joint Managing Partner of Foolproof, said: “After eight years of successful organic growth, and fresh from our best-ever year, joining forces with Flow will take the business to a completely new level. It will help us capitalise on the clear trend for UX insight and customer-driven innovation to sit right at the heart of clients’ decision-making processes, which gives us a key strategic role within their businesses.

This hugely exciting move will make us Europe’s biggest UX agency, and gives us the capabilities and critical mass to become a truly global force in the digital experience design space.”

Meriel Lenfestey, Founder and CEO of Flow, commented: “Combining two successful experience design businesses delivers a great result for the clients, staff and shareholders of both companies. This has very much been reflected in the positive feedback we’ve already received.

This is very much a move for growth. Our greater capacity means we can continue to deliver the very highest levels of quality in experience design support to our clients, while ensuring that we also capitalise on the many new business opportunities currently coming our way, both in the UK and from overseas.”

There are not expected to be any job losses as a result of the deal – in fact the continued high demand for insight-driven design expertise means that there are immediate vacancies within the account management and UX consultancy teams.

*£5.5m annual turnover would have placed the combined business within the top 50 UK digital agencies based on the latest New Media Age league table.