I’m Kayla Sox. South Side kid. Big on clean screens and clean copy. If you want even more background, you can skim my full hands-on take on UI design in Chicago for the backstory. I build product for a small food app based by the river. We had to redo our mobile app and our checkout. Chicago has a lot of UI talent. I tried a few crews. Here’s what was real for me.
What I needed (and why I felt stuck)
Our app did three things:
- Sign up new users
- Show meals for the week
- Check out fast, without a mess
Simple, right? Not really. People bailed during sign up. Buttons felt tiny. Text felt loud in some spots and weak in others. I also cared about reach. Folks with older phones. Folks who use screen readers. And yes, we had to ship before winter hit. Snow slows teams more than you think.
Who I hired in Chicago, and how it went
Fuzzy Math — research first, then careful screens
We met at 1871 in the Mart. Coffee was strong. Their team led two weeks of user talks. Real people. One dad at Harold Washington Library. Two students at UIC. Four moms in Pilsen. They built simple flows in Figma. Tap, tap, done.
Good: They listened. They cut fluff. They fixed our menu layout with one small change: move “Add” to the card, not the modal. Conversions went up.
Hard: Slow warm-up. Lots of docs. I like docs, but not when I’m sprinting. Price was mid-high, but fair. If you’re curious how they bring that same rigor to cultural institutions, take a peek at their Chicago Architecture Foundation case study—it’s a tight example of research turning into clear interaction patterns.
Codal — move fast, ship a system
We met in West Loop near Sawada. Their designer spun up a tidy design system in Figma. Tokens, color styles, type ramp. We got real screens by week two. They paired with our devs, too.
Good: One change killed a major pain. They split our checkout into three short steps. Drop-off fell from 62% to 38% in six weeks. Load time went from 3.2s to 1.6s on 4G.
Hard: Scope grew. We added “just one more tweak” more than once. That bill grew, too. Also, stand-ups were early. I’m a night owl.
Clique Studios — brand and website polish
We needed a landing page that felt true to Chicago. Warm. Direct. Clear. Clique got our tone fast. They fixed our sign-up page copy. They built clean web UI, with smart spacing and tight type.
Good: They make pages that breathe. Our bounce rate dropped.
Hard: They’re stronger on web than on heavy app flows. For deep app logic, I needed others.
Eight Bit Studios — workshops that push you
We did a one-day workshop with sticky notes and a rough prototype. It felt fun, like a hack day. They sketched, then clicked through a test build on an old iPhone 8.
Good: They pulled story out of us. We found a hidden win: save user picks as a “Quick Cart.”
Hard: Handoff was light. We needed another team to finish the details.
TXI (you may still say Table XI) — product brains, steady hands
We booked them for a short design audit. They gave us three simple rules: name things the same, cut friction, and show price changes early.
Good: Their write-up was short and sharp. No fluff.
Hard: Pricey. Plus, they had a waitlist. Worth it if you can plan.
What worked across the board
- We tested with Chicago weather. I asked for a sun test by the lake. Glare matters. Big buttons won.
- We checked color contrast early. We hit AA contrast with one small color shift. Darker text, calmer blues.
- We tracked real numbers. “Add to cart” taps rose 24%. Time on task dropped a full minute.
- We kept copy human. “Sign up” over “Create account.” It sounds small. It isn’t.
You know what? Most wins came from tiny fixes. A label change. A step split. A better empty state.
What bugged me (and how we fixed it)
- Too many tools. Figma, FigJam, Miro, Jira, Slack. I asked for one tracker and one design file. Calm helps.
- Jargon storms. When words got heavy, we paused and used plain talk.
- Scope creep. I set a “no new features after Wednesday” rule. It stuck.
Little Chicago details that made a big difference
- We tested on the Blue Line. Bad signal tells you what loads slow.
- We watched a user shop at Jewel-Osco, then try our app on the bus. Real life beats lab life.
- We met near the river during a cold snap. Gloves off, tap test. The team laughed, but it worked.
- At sunset we ran a quick glare test atop Prudential Plaza—my go-to high perch downtown (I even wrote my take on Chicago’s Prudential Plaza if architecture’s your jam).
I also needed fresh spots to recruit test users outside the usual coworking circuits. For that, I browsed CityXGuide — the listings shine a light on which bars, cafés, and late-night hubs actually stay busy, so you can time intercept tests when real traffic peaks. And if you’re testing beyond the city limits, say in the Mount Pleasant suburbs, skimming the local classifieds on Backpage Mount Pleasant can quickly reveal the late-night spots with real foot traffic—ideal for lining up impromptu usability sessions without cold-emailing strangers.
If you’re choosing a Chicago UI team
- Bring real data: screenshots, heatmaps, support tickets, even angry emails.
- Ask for a design system, not just screens. You’ll thank yourself next sprint.
- Get weekly Loom videos. Fast updates beat long calls.
- Plan for access needs on day one. It costs less than fixing it later.
- Test outside once. Sun, wind, noise. You’ll catch stuff.
For a deeper dive on building accessible, user-friendly interfaces, I recommend skimming the insights over at Areco.
Who I’d choose for what
- Deep user research: Fuzzy Math
- App UI plus development: Codal
- Brand and marketing site: Clique Studios
- Fast MVP sketching: Eight Bit Studios
- Short, sharp product check: TXI
None of them paid me. I paid them. I felt the wins and the misses.
My final take
Chicago UI design feels like the city. Warm. Honest. A little no-nonsense. I’ve worked out of New York, too—here’s my honest first-person take comparing the two cities if you’re deciding where to set up shop. If you bring clear goals and real users, you’ll get strong work back. Keep the screens simple. Keep the words plain. Ship, learn, ship again. And if you can, test by the lake on a bright day. It’s humbling, in a good way.