The Norm: How a digital experience agency is enabling Coherent Solutions to set new standards in UX design

Nearly a decade ago, Coherent Solutions launched a small UX practice with a simple idea to bring design thinking into the heart of software engineering. What started with just a handful of specialists has since grown into an almost 40-person team shaping design strategy and delivery across industries and continents. 

Now, that practice begins a new chapter with a new name and distinctive brand representing our full-service digital experience agency solutions: The Norm 

To understand how Coherent’s UX practice evolved and why now was the right moment for a brand launch, we spoke with Katya Sevruk, Global UX Practice Lead. She reflected on how the team built its credibility, what makes the promise of The Norm design agency unique, and where they go from here.

About Katya Sevruk

Global UX Practice Lead, Coherent Solutions
Founder & Managing Director, The Norm, a digital experience agency

Since joining Coherent Solutions in 2018 as a Lead UX Designer, Katya Sevruk has transformed UX from a supporting discipline into a strategic driver of product success. Under her leadership, the UX practice expanded from 15 to more than 40 professionals, launched a company-wide UX training program, and implemented a design system that unites creativity with engineering precision. With a background in both design and business analysis and a master’s degree in business administration, Katya combines analytical rigor with human-centered thinking. Her leadership approach ensures that every solution is not only visually refined but built for real-world performance and measurable impact.

Growing into a strategic experience design partner for product executives

As the UX practice grew, designers moved from being the last stop for user experience polish to trusted advocates for product owners looking to have a more significant and strategic impact in their business. What did that shift look like from your perspective?

When I joined Coherent back in 2018, I immediately noticed how much talent was here. In fact, it’s one of the main reasons I joined. I wanted to work with people who were deeply skilled and genuinely passionate about design. But while the team was already strong, the company’s overall activation of UX design as a strategic function was quite low.

People outside of our design team usually didn’t understand what designers were really doing or how they added value. They mostly saw design as just the final layer of polish, rather than a process that could shape strategy upstream with product owners, validate ideas, reduce software engineering risks, and help products succeed at launch.

So, the capability was very much there, but awareness wasn’t. I didn’t know this at the time and had expected that everyone already understood our approach. However, once I started working on several client engagements, I quickly realized that I needed to be a UX advocate and explain the reasoning behind our methods and show how design thinking could make the entire downstream product stronger.

It didn’t happen overnight, but step by step teams began to see the benefits of thoughtful design, and their perceptions began to shift. We moved from being “the design team” to being partners in shaping products and strategy with our clients.

That’s how the foundation of The Norm was built. And this brand launch is simply another step in that evolution. We’re making visible externally what has been true inside the company for a long time.

User persona workshop at Coherent Solutions, future The Norm team

Was there a particular project that demonstrated there was a market need for a design-led agency born from within an engineering firm?

Yes. A client was working with us and a creative agency at the same time. The agency gave amazing demos; they could spend 40 minutes talking about a single static screen, presenting it like a piece of art. But when it came time to build, those designs weren’t workable because their team didn’t understand critical user flow dependencies, context of use, and exceptional cases that our engineering teams would encounter downstream.

Our team took a more evolved approach. We built connected prototypes, worked closely with business leadership, product teams, researchers, and developers, and our features went live in production exactly as designed. Over time, the client placed greater trust in us, not because we were flashier, but because we delivered results that could be implemented in the real world. 

That experience wasn’t unique. Project by project, the UX team proved it could de-risk ideas, accelerate delivery, and shape business outcomes by delivering world-class product designs meant to be engineered for production. By 2025, the question was no longer whether design created value, the question had become how to capture that identity and share it more clearly.

Product design for JRNY app by Bowflex

Why launch a design agency brand now? Design maturity meets business demand.

By 2025, Coherent’s UX team had scale, capability, and influence. Yet many clients still weren’t fully aware of that strength, even though our work often exceeded their expectations. The brand launch became a way to bridge that gap, giving the team an externalized identity that reflected its maturity, made design value visible alongside engineering value, and speaks to the unique motivations of ambitious product leaders.

Over the years, we’ve built strong partnerships both internally with our global engineering teams and externally with our client product teams, and we have delivered results that frequently exceeded expectations. Yet, many clients still lacked a full awareness of the scope of what we could offer. They’d see the end product and be amazed, yet couldn’t see how much strategic design thinking had gone into it from the start.

Branding our design capabilities as a distinct solution offering is a way to close that gap and to clearly and confidently illustrate what our team stands for and the value we deliver as a team embedded alongside engineering. At the same time, it’s also about reaching the right audience and attracting design-driven clients who are looking for partners that speak their language and understand their needs.

Branding our UX design solutions as The Norm gives us an identity and a voice that resonates with that mindset and allows us to position design not as an add-on, but as a strategic necessity.

Extraordinary as a new standard: The meaning behind “The Norm”

At Coherent, a benchmark of excellence isn’t theoretical; it’s already how our teams operate. Extraordinary outcomes aren’t rare achievements or happy accidents at Coherent; they’re the expectation on every project with every client.

How do you explain The Norm and the philosophy, "Extraordinary is our norm,” to clients?

When people first hear The Norm, it sounds simple or even ordinary. And that’s the point. In design, “normal” is what works; normal is the product that launches, the experience that feels natural, the solution that solves a real problem. This “normal” should be every product owner’s standard.

Where many design agencies chase flashy visuals or one-off concepts, our approach is different: Our “norm” is to deliver work that is extraordinary in its practicality, usability, and impact. For us, extraordinary isn’t an exception; it’s the standard we hold ourselves to.

So, when we say, "Extraordinary is our norm,” it means you can expect every engagement — from an ideation workshop to a full product design — to go beyond surface-level creativity and result in solutions that are both inspiring and implementable.

Whatever we design, will be built.

What makes your UX design team unique in this approach?

I wouldn’t even start this if I didn’t have the right people. The Norm team’s mindset is what makes us unique. Inside Coherent, we’re often compared to a special forces unit: diverse, adaptable, and ready to deliver where it matters most. The UX design team is proactive, empathetic, and not afraid to ask tough questions.

Product design for Planet Fitness

Looking ahead: Shaping the future of UX design

Across the industry, design is no longer judged by its visual appeal but by how seamlessly it fits into people’s lives. In an increasingly complex world, where technology, behavior, and business needs evolve faster than ever, the value of design lies in making practical sense of sometimes unrealistic complexity.

Companies don’t just want well-researched or technically sound solutions; they want solutions that make sense to their customers and drive meaningful business results.

The Norm is built for this new reality.

The Norm team at the Future Product Days conference

How is The Norm able to help clients looking to reimagine their own futures through extraordinary design?

Clients working with us gain a partner who:

• De-risks ideas through early validation

• Improves user retention and conversion with usability

• Builds scalable design systems for complex digital products

• Bridges design and engineering to ensure extraordinary concepts become working products

What is the main message you’d like clients to take away from this conversation?

If you really want something, whether it’s just an idea or a product that isn’t working, this is the place where we’ll help you build your dream; your digital vision. At Coherent, this isn’t the exception. It’s The Norm.

The Norm represents more than a brand. It’s a commitment to design that delivers solutions that create digital value. At Coherent, that’s not the exception; it’s The Norm.