Hostile Sheep Research & Design Navigation
  • Home
  • Services
  • About
  • Contact
  • Blog
  • Home
  • Services
  • About
  • Contact
  • Blog
Home About

About Hostile Sheep

Hostile Sheep is a product design firm like no other.
Founded in 2012 by Jordan Julien, Hostile Sheep was built on the back of Jordan's consulting practice. One of his fortune 100 clients wanted to deepen their relationship and Hostile Sheep was born. Retained 100% by this client for the first few years of our existence, Hostile Sheep made money and was wholly-owned from day 1.
Over the years Hostile Sheep evolved and refined its approach to maximize the value we could offer our clients. We recognized digital shops weren't giving their clients what they needed, so we decided to offer what digital shops weren't: quick, actionable user research & experience design guidelines that could be used on an ongoing basis to evolve digital products. This grew our revenue and client-base to unexpected levels.
2020 is a pivotal year for Hostile Sheep. We've been quietly testing a new service offering with a revolutionary approach that will allow Hostile Sheep to deliver fully-deployed digital products. True to our nature, our approach to product development is completely unique and already well regarded.
The 5 core values of Hostile Sheep
Do less more often.
We encourage our clients to employ continuous improvement principles. We don't believe in a perfect product; just products that are good enough for now. "Set it and forget it" is not a term that should apply to products. Products require testing and experimentation.
How does this impact me?
Help users.
Today, users are more fickle than ever. They have so many products vying for their attention. As a result, we have to build products that help users more than any other product on the market. Thus, we need to uncover the features matter the most to users so we can plan to include them in our products.
How does this impact me?
Services over sites.
Websites and applications should offer useful services that helps users get things done. There are too many sites that merely provide information, without helping users in any way. We generally think of websites and apps as the online expression of a service offering that helps users complete real jobs.
How does this impact me?
Designers are made.
Design shouldn't be thought of as a professional service; it's a skilled trade. Just like chefs, blacksmiths, and electricians, designers learn best using the "master-apprentice" model. This model requires master designers and apprentices to work hand-in-hand.
How does this impact me?
Value isn't an hourly rate.
The products we produce (advice, guidelines, documentation, etc.) provide a certain amount of value to our clients. This value doesn't really change based on the amount of time it takes us to produce the product. So, we don't think we should charge more just because it takes us longer.
How does this impact me?
The 5 core values of Hostile Sheep
Do less more often.
We encourage our clients to employ continuous improvement principles. We don't believe in a perfect product; just products that are good enough for now. "Set it and forget it" is not a term that should apply to products. Products require testing and experimentation.
How does this impact me?
Help users.
Today, users are more fickle than ever. They have so many products vying for their attention. As a result, we have to build products that help users more than any other product on the market. Thus, we need to uncover the features matter the most to users so we can plan to include them in our products.
How does this impact me?
Services over sites.
Websites and applications should offer useful services that helps users get things done. There are too many sites that merely provide information, without helping users in any way. We generally think of websites and apps as the online expression of a service offering that helps users complete real jobs.
How does this impact me?
Designers are made.
Design shouldn't be thought of as a professional service; it's a skilled trade. Just like chefs, blacksmiths, and electricians, designers learn best using the "master-apprentice" model. This model requires master designers and apprentices to work hand-in-hand.
How does this impact me?
Value isn't an hourly rate.
The products we produce (advice, guidelines, documentation, etc.) provide a certain amount of value to our clients. This value doesn't really change based on the amount of time it takes us to produce the product. So, we don't think we should charge more just because it takes us longer.
How does this impact me?
Our founder, Jordan Julien, works on every project personally.
Jordan doesn't just oversee every project, our master-apprentice model requires him to get hands-on with every project. In fact, he personally does 50-60% of every project. His apprentices work hand-in-hand with him, filling in the gaps and completing the production work. It's like hiring a freelancer; except he has a team of apprentices supporting him.
Jordan had a prolific career before founding Hostile Sheep. Starting in the early 2000's, he spent time working with Nike, BMW, Dove, Cineplex, Scotiabank, Grocery Gateway, Doctors Without Borders, Nissan, Mazda, Walmart, Citi Group, Campbell's Soup, Gillette, Telus, Coca-Cola, Lays, West Jet, and many many others.
Image
Yas
Yas is our first journeyman and is an expert craftsman in his own right. He often oversees other apprentices and can work independently. His side-hustle resulted in a 6-figure income in 2019. He's been a valued member of Hostile Sheep for the past 5 years and has worked on over 40 projects during that time.
Image
Mina
Mina has been working with Hostile Sheep for several years but moonlights as a dental hygienist. She brings her healthcare knowledge and passion for helping people to all of our clients. Mina is a proud soccer mom of four and offers quality insights on all of our projects. She's a valued member of our team.
Image
Mary
Mary graduated with a diploma in advertising but spent the last few years as an office administrator. She is a people-watcher and anthropoligist at heart. She's curious about what motivates people to buy the things they buy. As a mother of two, she loves traveling with her family and brings that perspective to our table.
Image
Linda
Linda spent years as a copywriter, always wanting to get to know the people she was writing for. As a single mother living in rural Ontario, she primarily works remotely but enjoys coming to city when needed. As our newest apprentice, Linda is eager to learn and prove her unique perspective brings value to all of our clients.
Our one-of-a-kind process
Hostile Sheep developed a methodology that delivers real, tangible, value to our clients in as little as one week. Unlike other UX firms, we don't assign a specialist or a team to each project; we devote all of our resources to a single project at a time. We use a trade-model, that has one master craftsman that leads every project. We currently have one master craftsman, our founder, Jordan Julien. The rest of the firm consists of apprentices that work hand-in-hand with Jordan to complete projects in record-setting time. (Note: This is our process for research and design projects only. Our end-to-end product delivery process can be seen here.)

  • Request a proposal

    Tell us a little bit about your project. What do you want help with? What kinds of deliverables do you want? Where would you like us to spend our time? We want to give you the most value for cost; and this can be different for every client.

  • Refine + accept proposal

    We rarely get the proposal exactly right on the first try. We'll work with you to document everything you want from the project. The more specific we can be, the more likely we'll deliver what you want and need. When the proposal is right, we'll lock in a time-box and set a kickoff date.

  • Kickoff

    We'll create a kickoff presentation that we'll use to get team alignment and brief our internal team. This is where you can ask questions, make adjustments, and raise concerns. By the end of the kickoff, we should have everything we need to move forward and you should feel comfortable.

  • 100% dedicated team

    You're hiring Hostile Sheep in its entirety. The whole firm will be devoted to your project, we won't work on anything else during your time-box. During this time, we'll complete everything we defined in the proposal and kickoff. Time-boxes can be as small as 1-week or as large as 3-weeks.

  • Presentation + delivery

    The final day of every time-box is presentation day. We like to have 2hrs to walk your team through the project, our findings, and our recommendations. We prefer to have the entire down-stream team to ensure we answer all questions and achieve team alignment.

  • Ad hoc support + revisions

    Revision cycles are one of the biggest time-sinks in any project; we can spend one week making recommendations and one month revising. Since we don't believe in a "perfect" product, we encourage our clients to take ownership over our work. You may want to engage a graphic designer to create mock-ups or move directly into development; regardless - it makes more sense to revise our work through downstream processes. That said, we're always ready to step-in and lend a hand.

What is the benefit of using time-boxes?
You're probably familiar with open-ended projects that can go on for as long as necessary. These projects usually strive for perfection. Revision cycles can last weeks, and you end up with exactly what you want. The problem is, a perfect low-fidelity prototype is going to be changed by the downstream team. The end product may not look anything like an initial low-fidelity prototype. So, why spend all this effort to build a perfect low-fidelity prototype if there are only a few guidelines you're trying to convey to the downstream team? Instead, Hostile Sheep defines the requirements in the proposal and selects the right-sized time-box to deliver what you need. We can build a low-fidelity prototype for most websites and apps in a one-week time-box. This allows us to deliver more, with better quality, in less time than most other firms.
What if I need revisions?
We have micro-time-boxes (we call them consulting blocks) we designed to accommodate revisions. We use consulting blocks for all kinds of things; from revisions to attending meetings, from conducting workshops to evaluating downstream work. These blocks give you the ability to engage us for specific tasks and give us 1hr for each member of Hostile Sheep (5hrs total) to complete the task. If your revisions can be completed in 1hr, awesome; if not, we can use multiple consulting blocks to complete the revisions. All you need to do is give us a list of revisions, and we'll quote you the number of consulting blocks we think it'll take to complete your revisions.
Can you just give us a set of wireframes?
There are a large number of digital shops that require "wireframes" (which is a type of low-fidelity prototype) because their clients want them. No one really knows what a set of wireframes is for; clients see them as an extra design review, dev shops see them as part of functional specifications. So, the short answer is "no" - we won't provide you with a set of wireframes that will be used to check a box in a project plan. We want to provide our clients with a customized set of deliverables; and that takes some discussion. Depending on how the team (and client) wants to use the wireframes - we may recommend creating some user flows, a taxonomy, content governance guidelines, personas, or an interactive low-fi prototype that defines things like interaction design and interface design. If you want a "wireframe monkey" that will give you what you want - we can recommend a few; there are tons. If you're looking for a partner to advise you on what you need and deliver on those needs, we'd love to work with you.

Ready to get started?

Tell us a little bit about your project and objectives. We'll give you a detailed proposal for free, with no commitment. We'll tell you the next time-slot we have available and you can choose to use it or engage us anytime down the road.

Email me directly

© Hostile Sheep 2012-2022

  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
Do less more often
Organizational value 1 of 5
Many organizations treat their websites and applications as marketing and communications channels. This means they update their sites and apps as their marketing changes. This usually means large-scale updates on a semi-annual or annual basis.
At Hostile Sheep we believe websites and applications are digital products requiring continuous improvement. This means a product manager is constantly measuring usage, experimenting and optimizing the product. There should always be a product backlog that includes new features and optimizations.
This means our recommendations should be road mapped and not implemented all at once. There should be a roll-out plan that introduces new features gradually. We don't want to disrupt the experience of existing users. This is less of a concern with new builds, however, even new builds should be road mapped. New builds should focus on launching a MVP and measuring usage/behaviour. "Nice to have" features should be introduced gradually.
Help users
Organizational value 2 of 5
It's easy to get caught up with "achieving business objectives" - after all, if the business isn't achieving it's objectives, the business (and all owned products) are likely to fail. However, business objectives don't always match-up with user needs.
The disparity between business objectives and user needs often leads to undesirable features or content making its way into digital products.
This means we prioritize user needs over business requirements. Ideally, our clients are part of a user-centric organization - and business objectives map to user needs. However, if there is disparity between user needs and business objectives; we will recommend testing and only adopting controversial features/content if users display a desire for them.
Services over sites
Organizational value 3 of 5
"I need a cool website" has been the mindset of many organizations over the years. They don't know what their website or app should do, but they believe they need one; often to keep up with their competition. These sites tend to be brochure-ware; essentially acting as a fancy Yellow Pages listing where customers can learn about (and contact) a company.
At Hostile Sheep we believe websites and applications should help users make progress toward accomplishing a job. This means we need to understand what kinds of jobs users struggle with. BMW could have a beautiful brochure site or they could do some research to find out their customers like to have short road trips. This could lead BMW to building a road trip planner that provides value to their customers and potential customers.
This means we're more likely to take on projects that provide services to their users. While there are more aspects that go into the decision to take on a project, we generally like the challenge of translating a service offering into a digital experience.
Designers are made
Organizational value 4 of 5
Ad agencies were one of the most notorious culprits for the shift from "Design as a craft" to "Design as a service". They implemented a professional service organizational structure that started with junior designers and moved all the way up to C-suite executive designers. The interesting part is that they moved away from senior designers working hand-in-hand with juniors. Instead, seniors merely oversaw juniors; providing feedback and critiques, insteading of actually doing the work together.
At Hostile Sheep, we implement a "Master-apprentice" model. Our master designer & researcher actually works on every project with the support of a team of apprentices. This means everything we produce is at a master-level and we avoid internal re-work/ expensive internal meetings. This also means our team is always growing in terms of professional capabilities. We're able to attract the highest-level talent because we offer true apprenticeship - which is rarely available for digital product design.
Value isn't an hourly rate
Organizational value 5 of 5
An hourly rate made sense for lawyers and accountants but stopped making sense when organizations started billing design services out by the hour. This meant that clients were paying for hours designers were thinking and planning their designs; often with nothing tangible to show for it. These hours were of no value to clients; at least, not until the designs were completed.
At Hostile Sheep we believe our services only have value when we've completed a product and have delivered it to our client. We also believe hourly rates can be used to over-charge clients for lower quality work. If we drag our heels, it'll take us longer to produce products our clients can use; why should our clients pay more just because we've been dragging our heels?
This means we don't have an hourly rate & all of our projects are time-boxed. We are a team of five people. We know how much it costs to pay each of our employees, we know our overhead; so, we can add a margin to that number and define a reasonable weekly rate for our time-boxes. It's still not perfect, but it's proven to be a lot better than "time & materials".
Do less more often
Organizational value 1 of 5
Many organizations treat their websites and applications as marketing and communications channels. This means they update their sites and apps as their marketing changes. This usually means large-scale updates on a semi-annual or annual basis.
At Hostile Sheep we believe websites and applications are digital products requiring continuous improvement. This means a product manager is constantly measuring usage, experimenting and optimizing the product. There should always be a product backlog that includes new features and optimizations.
This means our recommendations should be road mapped and not implemented all at once. There should be a roll-out plan that introduces new features gradually. We don't want to disrupt the experience of existing users. This is less of a concern with new builds, however, even new builds should be road mapped. New builds should focus on launching a MVP and measuring usage/behaviour. "Nice to have" features should be introduced gradually.
Help users
Organizational value 2 of 5
It's easy to get caught up with "achieving business objectives" - after all, if the business isn't achieving it's objectives, the business (and all owned products) are likely to fail. However, business objectives don't always match-up with user needs.
The disparity between business objectives and user needs often leads to undesirable features or content making its way into digital products.
This means we prioritize user needs over business requirements. Ideally, our clients are part of a user-centric organization - and business objectives map to user needs. However, if there is disparity between user needs and business objectives; we will recommend testing and only adopting controversial features/content if users display a desire for them.
Services over sites
Organizational value 3 of 5
"I need a cool website" has been the mindset of many organizations over the years. They don't know what their website or app should do, but they believe they need one; often to keep up with their competition. These sites tend to be brochure-ware; essentially acting as a fancy Yellow Pages listing where customers can learn about (and contact) a company.
At Hostile Sheep we believe websites and applications should help users make progress toward accomplishing a job. This means we need to understand what kinds of jobs users struggle with. BMW could have a beautiful brochure site or they could do some research to find out their customers like to have short road trips. This could lead BMW to building a road trip planner that provides value to their customers and potential customers.
This means we're more likely to take on projects that provide services to their users. While there are more aspects that go into the decision to take on a project, we generally like the challenge of translating a service offering into a digital experience.
Designers are made
Organizational value 4 of 5
Ad agencies were one of the most notorious culprits for the shift from "Design as a craft" to "Design as a service". They implemented a professional service organizational structure that started with junior designers and moved all the way up to C-suite executive designers. The interesting part is that they moved away from senior designers working hand-in-hand with juniors. Instead, seniors merely oversaw juniors; providing feedback and critiques, insteading of actually doing the work together.
At Hostile Sheep, we implement a "Master-apprentice" model. Our master designer & researcher actually works on every project with the support of a team of apprentices. This means everything we produce is at a master-level and we avoid internal re-work/ expensive internal meetings. This also means our team is always growing in terms of professional capabilities. We're able to attract the highest-level talent because we offer true apprenticeship - which is rarely available for digital product design.
Value isn't an hourly rate
Organizational value 5 of 5
An hourly rate made sense for lawyers and accountants but stopped making sense when organizations started billing design services out by the hour. This meant that clients were paying for hours designers were thinking and planning their designs; often with nothing tangible to show for it. These hours were of no value to clients; at least, not until the designs were completed.
At Hostile Sheep we believe our services only have value when we've completed a product and have delivered it to our client. We also believe hourly rates can be used to over-charge clients for lower quality work. If we drag our heels, it'll take us longer to produce products our clients can use; why should our clients pay more just because we've been dragging our heels?
This means we don't have an hourly rate & all of our projects are time-boxed. We are a team of five people. We know how much it costs to pay each of our employees, we know our overhead; so, we can add a margin to that number and define a reasonable weekly rate for our time-boxes. It's still not perfect, but it's proven to be a lot better than "time & materials".