Obscure Interactive – Experience design services in Lahore
We dont cover too many IT services firms in PK because, well, there is one under pretty much every rock you come across and very few of them are committed to the long haul.
Obscure seems to be different though, because they are a young company focused almost exclusively on usability, experience design and online brand management. The CEO Ahmed Shuja is also involved with the IxDC with Adnan Ali and perhaps also Imran Hussein and other UX designers from Lahore. That team put together the World Usability Day event in Lahore recently.
Obscure seems to have a well-rounded team together, in the main consultants being UX Designers, Brand Managers and Interior Decorators, and they’re also doing a good job keeping up blogs to promote their insight and expertise (here’s one). Unfortunately, looking at their portfolio paints a different picture. Its possible that this is because this is an emerging company, but most of their portfolio projects are related more to website design rather than application usability, with the exception of a Corporate Tower project.
UX Design firms will also permanently be judged by a much higher standard compared to other firms. In this sense, unfortunately even a tertiary look at the site reveals some design mistakes. Chief among them is the fact that important content is hidden behind accordian widgets which results in excess clicking (and we know thats bad), their portfolio section has an incredibly distracting image on the right, and the overall "sketchy paper look" aesthetic should have been played up more to make the site visually balanced.
In terms of just having a visually balanced site that presents a good picture of a services firm, Viaduct or Deensoft may be good contenders. In terms of having a unique aesthetic style and layout, Techlogix or Confiz may have my vote. In terms of having a crazy-creative site, Orange Pixel takes the cake and eats the whole thing.
Ofcourse, most sites (and indeed our own site) isnt really a testament to the quality of work a company does, and I’m positive the Obscure team has the talent to make Ux projects work. Kudos for their laser-focus on doing one thing well, good luck to them, and I hope in time more and more firms will emerge in this ever-important area.
10:25 am
Thank you for the positive mention of Orange-Pixel. It was a bit of indulgence from the NLT team which decided to spin off its design department into an entity. shifaa.pk and yello.pk (to be launched soon) were also born out of NLT’s “20% time”. I hope you noticed the plug – please visit yello.pk and sign up for a beta invite.
12:15 pm
Hi Osama
Thanks for your comments and feedback. Much appreciated. I would like to add a few comments of my own here about your post. It’s true we are a spankin brand new company. MashaAllah we have been lucky enough to be up to our heads in work. Never really got a chance to work our own website to my satisfaction. It has been on our agenda for months now.
We are hoping to launch our new website, with the proper branding, case studies of what we’ve really done etc by January 2009. You should check it out then
Cheers!
12:26 pm
Ahmed – I hear you… its a funny side-effect of active services companies that most get too little time to keep their own sites up to date.
3:22 pm
Hey Osama
Thanks for the mention of Viaduct’s website as something that’s pleasantly balanced.
I agree with you as far as the “side-effect” of not being able to update our own company websites goes, but we all try!
We’ve tried to have a new website each year at least (although doesn’t always happen..cough)
Hoping to surprise you at the turn of the year as well.
8:51 pm
Glad to see other great companies from Pakistan.
I do have to agree with you guys that its really hard to keep ones own website updated with a gazillion projects on hand.
2:53 am
Good stuff…I like the concept. Good Luck my friend.
Cheers.
12:37 pm
Yes its true that we do our other client business and work on their sites but its really hard to keep up to date for own sites.
10:54 am
Adjustment is upon you and you need to set up the time frame to work with your client and your site as well.
2:09 pm
Thanks for the comments. And guess what, we finally managed to get enough time to completely revamp our website and brand identity
Do check it out at http://obscure.pk. Feedback would be appreciated.
It would be great if you also check out our blog at: blog.obscure.pk