Centric Park

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am a department VP at ArcSpan

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Early stage company providing digital publishers audience monetization and revenue solutions

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Centric Park to accomplish?

• Relaunch our AMS platform which is our customer facing portal that allows users to create and manage audience cohorts as well provides access to relevant analytics

SOLUTION

How did you find Centric Park?

• Referral
• Other

Why did you select Centric Park over others?

• Close to my geographic location
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Centric Park were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Centric Park helped us reimage our customer facing UI. Clients access the AMS portal to build audience segments from a variety of data groups and thousands of data segments. The amount of data that is available to leverage can make the audience building process cumbersome and non intuitive.

Centric Park helped us develop a streamlined UI for the building, management and activation of audiences. Deliverables included product specs, wireframes, sales screens and research validation.The project also included multiple work sessions where the Centric Park team really got immersed in our business and current challenges.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Weekly status emails, weekly status meetings. Sprint planning and review meeting

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Project Management was excellent. They communicated both in written form and via scheduled meetings to advise of status/progress, important upcoming milestones/dates, any risks as well as open action items.

What was your primary form of communication with Centric Park?

Virtual Meeting

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Centric Park really put in the effort to understand our business and challenges in the marketplace

Are there any areas for improvement or something Centric Park could have done differently?

no

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an assistant for strategic projects at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a land-grant research university.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenges were you trying to address with Centric Park?

We wanted to create a web presence for our organization.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Centric Park provided WordPress web design and development services using Figma for design. They walked us through the process and even made the contract negotiations easy. Their team was also responsible for figuring out everything based on our needs, making proposals for the site, doing copywriting, defining user personas, and building the platform’s backend — they handled everything from start to finish. In terms of technologies

What was the team composition? 

We worked with 5–6 members of their team, including an account manager, a developer, a design lead, a writer, a testing specialist, and a graphic designer.

How did you come to work with Centric Park?

A coworker referred Centric Park to us and chose them because they seemed like a great team.

How much have you invested with them?

For this project, we spent around $250,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from September 2022–March 2023.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The site that Centric Park created received great feedback from everyone in our community. Overall, Centric Park delivered according to the agreement and exceeded our expectations.

How did Centric Park perform from a project management standpoint?

Centric Park’s team was great with project management, including meeting deadlines, staying on budget, and communicating with us. Regarding tools, we used email, Zoom, and Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Centric Park listened to our needs.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I didn’t think there was anything they could improve on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I recommend working with Centric Park because they were great at doing what they did best and running the show.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the communications director at the office of the provost for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Centric Park?

We hired Centric Park to develop a new website for the office of the provost at MIT.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

This website was the first one our office would have, so Centric Park went through a discovery process before completely designing and implementing it from scratch. Still, we built a temporary Drupal site internally during the design process, and Centric Park built the new one on WordPress using the same template. Their team used Figma to create the designs.

The website displays our information and has two user-interactive features. One of those features is some digital forms that Centric Park has implemented for us to collect information from our audience. Using this feature, they can submit administrative forms and make requests. The second feature is the ability for users to find resources. Those can be sorted and filtered for easier searching.

In addition to website development and design, Centric Park implemented SEO tactics and wrote content for our site. Moreover, they created training documentation for us to maintain the site, including training manuals and videos of training sessions they had with us.

What is the team composition?

We worked with Rachel (Senior Copywriter & Content Strategist), Elana (Design Lead), Cassandra (Senior User Researcher & Behavior Specialist), Brady (Chief Data Officer & Co-Founder), Michael (CEO & Co-Founder), a developer, and a designer. Brady Oversaw the whole project, whereas Michael participated in the initial discussions and supported the content development discussions in the middle of the engagement.

How did you come to work with Centric Park?

In the summer of 2022, our office issued an RFP to web development companies. We had heard about Centric Park, and I was aware of them prior to coming to this position, so we invited them to participate in our RFP process.

Centric Park was in competition with several other companies that submitted proposals. We reviewed those proposals, came down to two finalists, and ultimately selected Centric Park as our service provider.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $100,000–$150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from August 2022–March 2023.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

Since launching the website, we’ve received very positive feedback. We’ve gotten around 40 messages of support praising the new site from colleagues around the institute. Additionally, I was very pleased with the services that Centric Park provided; their work was of very high quality.

How did Centric Park perform from a project management standpoint?

Centric Park was detail-oriented and always stayed on schedule. Moreover, they were professional, knowledgeable, and pleasant to work with. The team was responsive and easy to communicate with, sharing information with us constantly and helping us understand the tools that we would need to use.

For example, they taught us how to use Notion and Figma, which we hadn’t used before. Throughout this process, they were very patient with us in trying to bring us up to speed on those tools to help drive the project. In addition to Notion and Figma, we used Slack, Outlook, and Zoom to collaborate.

What did you find most impressive about them?

What Centric Park did best was to listen to our needs and understand our organization. They spent a lot of time on the discovery process, which helped them make informed design, UX, and development decisions. I can’t say enough good things about them — they were terrific!

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything Centric Park could have improved on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be responsive and provide Centric Park with as much information as you can because their expertise will guide the decision-making. Additionally, ensure to be available to answer their inquiries and give them feedback on their schedule to help them meet the project deadlines.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a product manager for a new mobile app feature at a nutrition product company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Centric Park?

We hired them to design the UX of a new feature we’re developing.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Centric Park has provided a full range of services related to the UX design of a new feature for our mobile application. Initially, we provided them with a brief, and Centric Park made suggestions on content and the feature's UX. 

They've been involved since relatively early in the project. The team has done user research and created initial designs and prototypes. The team has also done various kinds of testing for the feature. Centric Park uses Figma for UI/UX design. 

What is the team composition?

The team composition varies according to our needs; we've worked with as many as six teammates from Centric Park. During the research phase, we worked with a research collaborator, and since then, we've worked with team members such as a copywriter and a UX lead. 

How did you come to work with Centric Park?

Centric Park was signed on before I joined the project. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around February 2022, and the engagement is ongoing. The project is about to wrap up.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

We’re very pleased with the new feature’s design. Centric Park is very collaborative in their approach to coming and has come up with solutions for UX issues that came up in research. They have a good sense of what we’re after and have helped us refine our needs through research. Overall, we’ve been pleased with Centric Park’s approach to research and UI/UX design. 

Moreover, the Centric Park team is responsive, creative, and knowledgeable. They’ve been active partners throughout the process and are very comfortable with Google tools, the Microsoft Office suite, and analytics tools. We haven’t launched the new feature, so we don’t have any result metrics. 

How did Centric Park perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve delivered on time and within the budget. We primarily use Figma for project management and have communicated extensively through Slack, where we maintain much of our tracking. We appreciate that Centric Park’s team composition is flexible, adapting to our needs at any time. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’m most impressed with Centric Park’s responsiveness to us and our needs — they’re very available. They’ve come to us with a good team that has the knowledge and experience to do what we need. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think they need to improve anything. If we have any concerns, Centric Park always addresses them, and we haven’t had major issues. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about what you’re looking for and respect that Centric Park brings their own knowledge and expertise. They’re very willing to share and collaborate.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the head of product and engineering for Laudio. We build an operations platform that helps healthcare leaders achieve their organizational goals more efficiently.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Centric Park?

We were looking for a fresh perspective from experienced designers to help address potential UX/UI design challenges with our SaaS web application. We wanted to make sure the web app was as simple and effective as possible since many healthcare leaders use it.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Centric Park improved our web app’s UX/UI. During the first sprint — the discovery phase — they identified areas for improvement in parts of the web app that could greatly impact UX/UI. During the next three sprints, they implement their design recommendations in Figma. 

We provided brand guidelines but wanted Centric Park to redesign the UX/UI from scratch to follow best practices for visual design. They recommended consistency of color, typography, and iconography. They also made suggestions to improve the web app’s navigation. They wanted to simplify the web app and ensure that each element had a known and accepted meaning, so users weren’t overloaded with information.

What is the team composition?

Brady (Chief Design Officer & Co-Founder) was our main point of contact initially, and a project manager and lead designer completed most of the day-to-day tasks.

How did you come to work with Centric Park?

Our CEO knew Brady previously and referred him to me.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project lasted from October 2022–December 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

The biggest metric of success was whether or not the web app’s design moved in the right direction, and I know it did; I’m very happy with Centric Park's designs. The internal response has been very positive.

Their recommendations were effective; they helped us rethink and improve our processes. Given how foundational their work was, it was difficult to assign metrics to it, but I had no doubt that it improved our web app.

How did Centric Park perform from a project management standpoint?

Centric Park was the first design consultancy we’d worked with, and they were great. They regularly solicited my feedback on the designs, and their communication was prompt — we used Slack and Zoom. Their project manager did a great job.

They used Airtable internally, which we didn’t interact with very much.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their fundamentals were strong; they had a strong project manager and lead designer who understood our goals and made progress on them. They were true professionals who did a great job.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We initially had a different project manager and lead designer, but Centric Park found other teammates that fit our project better. This change ended up being the right call but may have affected the timeline; if we work with them again, I’d like to work with the teammates we ended up with from the beginning.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be accurate and specific about the project's scope so Centric Park can provide the right resources for a successful project.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the product head of a SaaS company. We build open-source intelligence tools.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Centric Park?

We reached out to them for their UI/UX design services.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Centric Park handled our UI/UX design needs. They provided us with a UI/UX contractor who produced various designs over the course of six months. They made the designs using Adobe XD and Figma.

From an educational standpoint, Centric Park helped us build out processes within our product teams. This taught us how to use design more and learn some of the best practices. They also presented a presentation to our company on how to use design in everyday practices.

What is the team composition?

We worked with two people from their team: a UI/UX designer and an advisor.

How did you come to work with Centric Park?

We met Brady (Chief Design Officer) through an investor relationship.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $60,000 in total.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from February–July 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We were satisfied with their services. Centric Park delivered a good amount of designs for us on a monthly basis. They also played a vital role in helping us conduct user research sessions — we were able to execute 3–4 sessions that turned out great.

How did Centric Park perform from a project management standpoint?

They were great in terms of meeting deadlines and staying on budget. We used Jira to manage tasks and communicated through Slack, Google Meet, and Zoom.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We were impressed with Centric Park’s flexibility; they adapted well to our in-house team and never held us back amidst sudden changes in processes and timelines. Moreover, their team also provided us with a great designer who was easy to work with, highly creative, and a fast learner.

We also appreciated the mentoring services they provided. This showed us their willingness to go above and beyond for their clients.

Are there any areas they could improve on?

They could professionalize their library of resources.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure to clearly define the scope of work.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a consultant for a wealth management firm. I'm focusing on their strategic marketing efforts

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Centric Park, and what were your goals?

Initially we were interested in a reskin of our website, with the possibility of a rename and rebrand.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We spoke to 3 firms including Centric Park. One was open about the fact that they could not help with a rebrand if we went that route. One indicated that they were equipped to complete a rebrand and a new site, but based on work I'd seen, I didn't feel that they were qualified. I've worked with Mike from Centric Park many times over the years, and I knew that he had the knowledge and expertise to guide us through this process, whatever we decided.

Describe the scope of their work in detail, including any steps and the final deliverables.

Internal and external stakeholder interviews, competitive analysis, workshops to brainstorm on new name options, name, logo, visual identity, and construction of a new website with comprehensive admin tools to update and maintain, as well as analytics.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

4 people - Mike and Shannon worked with the stakeholders, Bob ran the creative, and Joey built the site and admin tool

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We recently received feedback from a new client that the content on the new site helped him to make the decision to choose our firm. We've also had client feedback that the new visual identity is sleek and modern.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

The project timeline was supposed to be 3 months. We stretched that out a bit with the naming project, and then again because it took some time to write copy and load content to the site. We ended up launching the brand and site at the end of June after starting in Jan, but Mike and team were about 95% done by April.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

I found that Mike and team really listened to our feedback, questions, concerns. The experience I'd had with other agencies was quite the opposite - they felt that because they were the experts, they didn't need to take client feedback into consideration. The Centric Park team was collaborative, showing impressive expertise every step of the way.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

We struggled with copywriting. It would have been helpful to have that built into the initial project.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am an executive in my company's Experience Management group, and have accountability for several customer journeys.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Centric Park?

We hired Centric Park to help us capture the current state of journeys in my space, and identify pain points in the current state.

SOLUTION

How did you select Centric Park and what were the deciding factors?

We looked at two different companies who were familiar with the company and its operations. Centric Park stood out because of their keen understanding of the work that needed to be done and the extra effort they put into fleshing out the project prior to the project's start.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

This was a 14-week engagement to capture current state journey maps and identify existing pain points. The phases of the project were: Discovery & Collaboration Workshopping, Co-creation & Journey Mapping Journey Map Refinement & Delivery At the end of the engagement, we had several interactive journey maps built in Mural (our tool of choice), as well as a framework for addressing pain points.

How many resources from the Centric Park team worked with you, and what were their positions?

In total, we worked with four people from Centric Park. Two of the people we worked with were co-founders who focus on strategy, design and research. We also worked with a lead designer/producers and a research specialist. All were fantastic to work with.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The pain points we discovered through this effort were actionable and we have begun addressing them, which will result in real business value.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow was extremely effective. Centric Park led weekly team huddles and monthly extended team updates.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

I was impressed by the Centric Park team in many ways. First, the co-founder was extremely accessible and helpful in driving the project forward. The team was talented and understood our business well. I have found that sometimes design teams are disconnected from the limitations of IT infrastructure and business realities.

This was not the case with the Centric Park team.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

The project and it's deliverables exceeded my expectations.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and chief scientific officer of a plus-sized nutrition company called InsideTracker.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Centric Park?

We were looking for a design agency or person who could help us build a new design for our product.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

To start off the project, Centric Park conducted user interviews and held some workshops to come up with a very nice design concept. We continue to work together in developing that concept into reality and implement it by the end of the year. They use Figma to create designs.

What is the team composition?

We work with a number of people from their team, including UI/UX designers, a behavioral science person, and a project manager. We’re mostly in touch with Brady (Chief Design Officer & Co-Founder) who oversees the entire project.

How did you come to work with Centric Park?

I got introduced to Brady around the end of last year.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested more than $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in February 2022, and our engagement is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

We’ve received very positive feedback from our user interviews, which is a good sign for us.

How did Centric Park perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re good at delivering outputs on time and within our budget. In terms of communication, we mainly interact through email and Slack and have weekly in-person meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve worked with several design agencies in the last decade, and they’re one of the best agencies that I’ve found; their team is very impressive.

Are there any areas they could improve on?

No — they’re doing a very good job. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I strongly recommend working with them because they’re really good at what they do.