App design services and UX/UI built to ship.

App design at PixelForce is Phase 1 Scoping & Design, sold as a standalone engagement and quoted as a fixed cost before anything is signed. What moves that cost is the number of consumer screens, whether an admin portal is in scope, how many user roles the product carries, how much regulated or financial logic sits underneath, and whether brand development is included. We settle it in a discovery conversation, against your actual product rather than against a rate card.

What you receive does not change with the number: the Blueprint Preliminaries covering business objectives, target users and success metrics; two strategic workshops covering business requirements, product requirements, design direction and the scope of version one; a Business Requirements Document; an enterprise-grade design system covering colour, typography, accessibility, iconography and components; high-fidelity designs for every consumer screen and the key admin portal screens; a Product Requirements Document; and a fixed-cost Statement of Work for development.

Phase 1 is a separate commitment on purpose. You can buy it, take the blueprint and decide about the build afterwards, including deciding not to build at all. No development quote is ever issued without a completed Phase 1. That is what we mean by No Blueprint, no Build.

App design at PixelForce is Phase 1 Scoping and Design, and its duration is agreed at kickoff rather than published, because screen count, user roles, admin portal scope and your own approval speed all move it.

Phase 1 Scoping & Design runs to a schedule agreed at kickoff rather than a published number of weeks, because the length is driven by the same things that drive the price - screen count, number of user roles, admin portal scope, integration complexity, and how quickly your stakeholders can review and approve.

The shape of it is consistent every time. Preliminaries first, so the workshops start from your business objectives rather than a blank page. Then design workshop one and design workshop two. Then the Business Requirements Document, replayed to you with option 1, option 2 and option 3 laid out under our 1-3-1 method - one problem, three options with their consequences, one recommendation across budget, timeline and scope. Then the design system and high-fidelity screens in Figma, the Product Requirements Document with Engineering Manager technical review, and finally the Statement of Work.

Cadence is fixed and visible throughout: squad sessions every 2 weeks and planning every 4 weeks. What we will not do is compress design to hit an arbitrary date, because a rushed blueprint is paid for later in development rework. For context on what a properly scoped programme produces afterwards, Pilates Obsession went live within 12 weeks and on budget, and Revia reached number 3 in Apple's Health and Fitness category within 48 hours of launch after a 4-month build.

PixelForce designs app experiences for both iOS and Android from a single brand language, following the Apple Human Interface Guidelines on one platform and Material Design on the other.

Yes. We design platform-native experiences for both, from a single visual brand language.

iOS design follows the Apple Human Interface Guidelines - tab bar navigation, navigation bar patterns, SF Pro typography, system iconography, and the gestures iPhone users already have in their hands. Android design follows Material Design - bottom navigation, the floating action button, Material You colour systems, and Android-specific back and navigation conventions.

The approach is one brand, two dialects. Colour, typography, tone of voice and the component library are shared, and the platform-specific adaptations sit on top. That keeps your brand identity intact while the app still feels native on each device, which matters for App Store and Google Play review as much as it matters for users. PixelForce holds a 98 percent first-time app store approval rate across 100+ shipped products, and platform-convention compliance is a large part of why.

Designing for both platforms is more work than designing for one, because the research, information architecture and wireframes are shared but the visual adaptations are not. Whether you need both on day one is a scope question we answer in Phase 1 rather than assume. If a single cross-platform build answers your question, we will say so - see our Flutter app development service for that path.

A design system is a library of reusable components, patterns and guidelines that keeps a product consistent as it grows. It includes colour systems, a typographic scale, spacing tokens, iconography, a component library covering buttons, inputs, cards and navigation, a pattern library covering forms and flows, and the documentation that tells a developer how each piece behaves.

You need one when you are planning multiple features or phases, when more than one designer or developer will touch the product, when you expect the product to grow, or when you need design and development to move faster than a screen-by-screen handover allows. You do not need much of one for a genuinely small, single-release build with 10 to 15 screens, one designer and one developer, that is not going to evolve.

At PixelForce the answer is usually simple, because an enterprise-grade design system is part of Phase 1 Scoping & Design rather than a separate purchase. It is built as the screens are designed, not retrofitted afterwards, and it is handed over as an editable Figma library that your team owns. If you later take the build elsewhere, the system goes with you.

PixelForce redesigns existing apps, starting with an audit of the current experience, the analytics and the app store reviews rather than a mood board, then redesigning against a prioritised list of real problems.

Yes. App redesigns are one of the most common ways clients arrive here - a product that works but converts badly, an interface that has drifted away from current iOS and Android conventions, or a design that has accumulated a decade of unplanned additions.

The process starts with an audit rather than a mood board: heuristic evaluation of the current experience, a review of your analytics to find where users actually stall, and analysis of app store reviews and support tickets for the problems users describe in their own words. That produces a prioritised list of problems ranked by impact, not by how annoying they are to look at. We then redesign against the top of that list, usability test the redesign, and sequence implementation so improvements ship incrementally rather than as one high-risk relaunch.

A redesign is often the cheaper move, because the existing features, data and infrastructure survive. Where the underlying platform is the real problem, the honest answer is a rescue rather than a repaint - Move With Us came to us with a 200,000+ user platform, and after our work crash rates reduced 50 percent, app performance improved 40 percent, user satisfaction rose 30 percent, and there was zero business interruption during the fix. Redesign scope is priced the same way as any Phase 1: an envelope settled at discovery, never a number off a rate card. See app rescue and modernisation if the platform underneath is the issue.

PixelForce runs app design in Figma for wireframes, high-fidelity design, prototypes, the design system and developer handoff, alongside analytics tools for understanding behaviour and Jira and Confluence for delivery documentation.

Figma is the primary design tool - wireframes, high-fidelity visual design, interactive prototypes, the design system, and developer handoff all live there. It is the industry standard for a reason: your team can watch the design evolve in real time rather than waiting for a PDF, and comments land against the exact component being discussed.

For understanding behaviour we use analytics platforms such as Google Analytics for user flows and funnels, and Hotjar for heatmaps and session recordings when we are diagnosing an existing product. For delivery and documentation we run Jira and Confluence, so every design decision has a written trail you can read months later.

What you receive at the end is not a set of screenshots. You get the editable Figma files, exported assets in PNG and SVG, written design specifications, and the documentation in Confluence. All of it is yours. Nothing is held hostage against a development contract, which is the point of selling Phase 1 as a standalone engagement.

PixelForce provides ongoing design support after launch through Phase 3, either as Warranty, Monitoring and Support on a flat monthly fee, or as a Product Retainer priced per four-week cycle against a committed story-point capacity.

Yes, through Phase 3 Post Launch Support, and there are two ways to engage.

Option 1, Warranty, Monitoring & Support, is a flat monthly fee. It covers critical-bug defect resolution under warranty, 24/7 infrastructure monitoring with proactive alerts, business-hours critical incident response, update notifications with cost implications stated upfront, and a monthly Platform Health Report, with technical support capped at seven hours per month. It is protection without the complexity, and it is the right choice if the product is stable and you are not shipping new design work.

Option 2, the Product Retainer, includes everything in Option 1 and adds the design and build capacity most launched products actually need: a Product Roadmap Workshop in month one, continuous product sprints delivering designed features into production, structured sprint planning, and quarterly business reviews. It is priced per four-week cycle against a committed story-point capacity, in five tiers named Steady, Growth, Scale, Velocity and Momentum, with Enterprise on application. You pick the tier from how much design and build work you intend to ship each cycle.

Most clients move to the retainer, because launch is the beginning of the design work rather than the end of it. The first month of real usage almost always changes something in the roadmap, and the retainer is the only option that can act on it.

You can buy app design from PixelForce without committing to the development, because Phase 1 Scoping and Design is a standalone engagement quoted as a fixed cost, and every artefact it produces is portable.

Yes, and a meaningful number of clients do exactly that. Phase 1 Scoping & Design is a standalone commercial engagement, and it is deliberately structured so it stands on its own.

At the end of it you own the Business Requirements Document, the enterprise-grade design system, high-fidelity designs for every consumer screen and the key admin screens, the Product Requirements Document, and a fixed-cost Statement of Work for the build. Those artefacts are portable. You can take them to your board, to investors, to an internal engineering team, or to another development partner entirely, and they will be able to price and build from them.

We structure it this way for two reasons. The first is that it removes the conflict of interest that makes discovery worthless everywhere else: if the design phase only exists to justify a build, it will always recommend a build. The second is that a blueprint is genuinely useful evidence. Some clients finish Phase 1 and correctly decide not to build, and that outcome saved them the far larger number. Declining a project, or recommending against building, is a valid answer here.

Agency rates for UX/UI design vary enormously across the market and are the wrong basis for comparison, because two firms quoting the same rate can deliver very different amounts of finished, development-ready design.

Rates across the market vary enormously, and the honest answer is that hourly and day rates are the wrong thing to compare, because two agencies quoting the same rate can deliver wildly different amounts of finished, development-ready design.

PixelForce prices design as an outcome rather than as time. Phase 1 Scoping & Design is quoted as one fixed cost for a defined and fixed set of deliverables: preliminaries, two strategic workshops, the Business Requirements Document, the full design system, high-fidelity designs for every consumer screen and the key admin screens, the Product Requirements Document, and a fixed-cost Statement of Work for development.

When you are comparing quotes, the questions worth asking are these. Does the price include a design system, or only screens? Does it include the admin portal, or only the consumer app? Does it produce a written technical specification a developer can build from, or only Figma files? And does it end with a fixed-cost development quote, or with another conversation about scope? Those four answers explain almost every price difference you will see.

The PixelForce app design process is seven steps in the same order every time: preliminaries, two strategic workshops, the Business Requirements Document and replay, UX/UI design in Figma, the Product Requirements Document, then the Statement of Work.

Seven steps, in the same order every time.

1. Preliminaries. You complete the Blueprint Preliminaries covering business objectives, target users, success metrics, design preferences and success sliders - eighteen points distributed across six levers, so we know whether speed, budget or scope is the one that cannot move.

2. Strategic workshop one. Business requirements. What the product must achieve commercially, who it is for, and what problem it removes.

3. Strategic workshop two. Product requirements, design direction and the scope of version one. Priorities locked, trade-offs agreed on the record.

4. Business Requirements Document and replay. We write it up and replay it to you with three options under the 1-3-1 method - one problem, three options with their consequences, one recommendation across budget, timeline and scope.

5. UX/UI design in Figma. The design system first, then high-fidelity designs for every consumer screen and the key admin portal screens, with the full user journey mapped end to end.

6. Product Requirements Document. The technical blueprint - feature logic, integrations, technology choices, and everything that cannot be captured visually - reviewed and approved by an Engineering Manager.

7. Statement of Work and final review. A fixed-cost, fixed-scope development contract with schedule, milestones and deliverables, plus stakeholder review and approval.

The whole process is run by the same 100% in-house Adelaide team that would build the product, which is why the designs are development-ready rather than aspirational.

At the end of a PixelForce Phase 1 design engagement you own everything produced during it, without conditions, including the editable Figma files, the design system, the written documents and the intellectual property in the work.

Everything produced during Phase 1, without conditions.

Specifically: the editable Figma files including the full design system and every high-fidelity screen; exported assets in PNG and SVG; the Business Requirements Document; the Product Requirements Document; the written design specifications; the Confluence documentation; and the fixed-cost Statement of Work for development. Intellectual property in the work transfers to you.

There is no licence that lapses, no source file withheld pending a development contract, and no dependency on PixelForce to interpret the deliverables. That is the practical test of whether a design engagement is genuinely standalone or merely a sales step, and it is worth asking every agency you shortlist the same question before you sign anything.

Choosing an app design agency comes down to what you receive at the end. Ask whether the engagement produces a design system, a written specification a developer can build from, and source files that become yours outright.

What is actually in the deliverable? Compare scope rather than day rates, because two agencies quoting the same rate can hand over very different amounts of finished work. Does the price include a design system or only screens? Every consumer screen, or a representative sample? The admin portal, or only the consumer app? Those four answers explain most of the price differences you will see.

Does it end in something buildable? Figma files on their own are not a specification. Ask whether the engagement produces a written product requirements document covering feature logic, integrations, edge cases and the decisions that cannot be expressed visually, and ask whether an engineer reviews it before handover. Design that has never been read by a developer tends to be redrawn during the build.

Who owns the files? Ask directly whether the editable source files, the design system and the documentation transfer to you unconditionally, or whether they are held against a subsequent development contract. That is the practical test of whether a UX design agency is selling design or selling a step in a sales process.

Is there research behind the decisions? Ask how they decide what to design, whether through user research, analytics, usability testing or app store review analysis, and ask to see the evidence trail on a past project. A portfolio of attractive screens says nothing about whether those screens worked.

Do they design for the platform or against it? Ask how they handle the differences between the Apple Human Interface Guidelines and Material Design. Platform-convention compliance affects App Store and Google Play review outcomes, not only how the product feels in the hand.

What happens if the answer is not to build? A design engagement that exists only to justify a development contract will always recommend one. Ask whether the agency has ever advised a client not to proceed, and what happened next.

For reference, at PixelForce Phase 1 Scoping and Design is a standalone engagement quoted as a fixed cost before you commit, and the design system, the high-fidelity screens, the Business Requirements Document, the Product Requirements Document and the editable Figma files are all yours whether or not you go on to build with us.