UX and product design studios for regulated products in Europe: a list with the criteria
Gideon Awolesi ·
If you're building a medical device, a banking product, or a public service, a general UX agency isn't always enough. You need a team that has worked under the same rules before and can show it. A lot of "best agency" lists rank studios by things you can't check. This one only uses what each studio publishes on its own website, checked on 26 October 2026, and it includes us on the same terms, so you can judge for yourself.
01The criteria
- Public case studies in a regulated field, like medical devices, banking, or public-sector accessibility.
- Standards the studio names on its own site, like IEC 62366-1, ISO 13485, or EN 301 549.
- Published prices, so you can budget before the first call.
- Team size, where the studio states it.
We left out anything a studio doesn't say about itself. If a cell says "not stated", it means we couldn't find it on their site, not that they don't do it.
02Medical devices and human factors
| Studio | Where | What they show | Standards named | Prices |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Use-Lab | Steinfurt, Germany | Medical devices, lab equipment, and IVD since 2001. Sample projects, like a patient monitor concept taken from contextual inquiry to summative evaluation. Client references are mostly confidential. | IEC 62366 and IEC 60601 | Not published |
| UID (User Interface Design GmbH) | Six offices in Germany | A medical sector line, including the COPD Fitmacher patient app for BERLIN-CHEMIE (Menarini), with usability tests with patients and clinicians. | ISO 13485, ISO 9241-210, and IEC 62366, on its homepage | Not published |
| Emergo by UL, Human Factors Research & Design | Global, with offices in the US, Europe, and Asia | Human factors engineering for medical devices, with over 50 full-time specialists. | US FDA and global human factors standards | Not published |
Emergo by UL isn't a European company, but it has European offices and is often on the shortlist for device teams.
03Banking and fintech
| Studio | Where | What they show | Standards named | Prices |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Netguru | Poznań, Poland | A team extension for UBS mobile banking, covering payments, log-in, navigation, and the mobile design system. 400+ people. | GDPR, PCI-DSS, and ISO/IEC 27001 | Not published |
| 10Clouds | Warsaw, Poland | Virtual Branch, a video banking product, with discovery workshops with BNP Paribas, mBank, and Raiffeisen. | Not stated | Not published |
| ustwo | London, Malmö, Lisbon, New York | The European Payments Initiative, with research in five countries and testing in four languages. Also health work for Fresenius Medical Care. | Not stated | Not published |
04Accessibility specialists
| Studio | Where | What they show | Standards named | Prices |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Funka | Sweden | More than 25 years in accessibility, and a co-founder of IAAP. Built an accessible learning platform for SPSM, the Swedish special-needs schools agency. | WCAG 2.1, EN 301 549, and an extended WCAG 2.2 audit | Not published |
| AbilityNet | Leamington Spa, UK | Accreditation of the Barclays personal banking app, with disabled testers from the wireframe stage, and user testing for Darlington Borough Council. | WCAG AA, version not stated | Not published |
05Where we fit
| Studio | Where | What we show | Standards named | Prices |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fessburn | Warsaw and Poznań, Poland | Usability engineering for Philips bedside monitors, QIAGEN QIAsymphony, and Bayer's ICU Angel. Finance work for Euler and Merkle Science, and our own KSeF invoicing app, InvoiceRate. | IEC 62366-1, ISO 14971, the FDA's human factors guidance, and WCAG 2.2 AA | Published: reviews from €2,500, Evidence Sprint from €9,500, builds from €25,000 |
We're a small studio, so we're a better fit for one product team than for a programme that needs dozens of people. If you need a large team extension, Netguru or 10Clouds will scale further. If you need a full human factors lab with test rooms, Use-Lab or Emergo by UL have them.
06How to choose
Ask every studio the same questions, and ask to see the evidence:
- Which project in my field can you walk me through, and what did your team produce for it?
- Which standards have you worked under, and what did the documentation look like?
- What's a fixed price for the first piece of work, and what's outside it?
- Who exactly will work on my product, and how many people is that?
If a studio can't show you a document or a screen from regulated work, even an anonymised one, treat their experience in your field as unproven.