About Useful & Beautiful
Useful & Beautiful is a digital and mobile solutions consultancy built on 20 years of experience in the digital and mobile technology space. With a passion for enabling businesses to leverage mobile technology to drive better value and relationships with their digital consumers – Useful & Beautiful specializes in mapping out intuitive and seamless user experiences that benefit both the business and the end user. Digital and mobile strategies, bespoke mobile products (including design, development and mobile enterprise solutions) have been delivered for a diverse range of sectors spanning retail, financial services, energy and IT sectors.
MEET OUR CO-FOUNDERS
Founded by two leading experts in South Africa, Lynette Hundermark and George Reed have been the names behind some of South Africa’s most widely used and embraced mobile solutions, creating mobile solutions for brands such as Ster-Kinekor, LeisureBooks, Old Mutual, General Electric and Bidorbuy. With a passion for all things mobile, they established U&B as a specialized boutique company that focuses on delivering rich and engaging mobile experiences across a variety of sectors in South Africa.
Lynette co-founded U&B from Prezence Digital, where she served as the Apps Business Director and Head of Product Strategy. Her prior roles included mobile roles within the Naspers Group and she started her tech career as an enterprise analyst/programmer working in the UK for brands that included HSBC, Citibank , and Tesco. With a BSc (Hons) in Computer Science & Psychology , Lynette also holds various technology certifications in development, SCRUM and human factors in computing. Lynette’s appetite for the mobile space while keeping abreast of the latest industry trends has established her locally as an expert tech commentator and opinion leader. She is also involved in a variety of mentorship programmes that aims to build a greater community of passionate people in the tech and mobile field.
George Reed is respected in the digital and mobile industry with over 20 years in the creative space. He headed up the design department at Prezence as Creative Director for 7 years and then expanded his responsibilities by becoming Deputy MD. These roles have given him vast experience in the planning, strategizing and designing some of the best of breed digital solutions in South Africa. His practical experience ranges from designing websites, mobisites and apps to creating hugely successful online marketing campaigns. He is also a classically trained graphic designer making him fanatical about creating high quality and functional designs.
The Way we Work
We know that the best way to deliver a truly successful mobile solution is to work closely with our clients & their customers.
Working together
One of the first things we do when working with a new client is to gather an in-depth understanding of the business including their objectives, customers, vision and goals and how they see mobile contributing to the overall business strategy. This forms the foundation of our collaborative partnerships where clients rely on our digital expertise and we rely on our clients business knowledge.
Creating with users
We follow a user-centered design approach in all that we do where we place the user at the heart of what is proposed and created. We do this by including the user throughout the project using methods like depth interviews, co-creation workshops and usability testing.
Driven by business goals, led by users
Designing a mobile app or site that delivers the right experience to your customers while also achieving business objectives is not something that can be dreamt up in the boardroom. A methodical approach, with client & customer involvement throughout is the only repeatable way to ensure success.
Things we can help with
Mobile Product Strategy
Establishing the foundation of your mobile product lifecycle & executing a plan for further development.
Mobile Apps
Creatively led & user centred mobile applications focusing on achieving business goals using today’s most popular mobile platforms.
Mobile Sites
Mobile optimised sites that are device agnostic while embracing the best in breed mobile user experience.