DePalma.io

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of software development for an ERP software company that caters to food businesses.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DePalma Studios?

We wanted to give our legacy software a facelift and move it to a new technology. Hence, we hired DePalma Studios to review its existing design and make it more modern and user-friendly.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

DePalma Studios has helped us update the UI/UX design of our software. Before starting the process, we initially had 2–3 meetings with them, during which we provided a brief overview of our software and ran through several processes within it. For instance, we gave them a walkthrough of how our software processes an order. We also gave their team a sandbox version of our software that they could experiment with. From there, they proceeded with the work and created designs using Figma.

The initial project has already been completed, but we’re still working with Floyd (CEO) and his team on a retainer basis. We’re also discussing new projects with them.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with various people from DePalma Studios. We were in contact with at least two people during calls and initially worked with four people. Now, we mainly work with three people, including Tatiana (Senior UX/UI Designer) and a project manager.

How did you come to work with DePalma Studios?

I had two people search for UI/UX companies. They contacted about 10–12 companies and narrowed it down to their top five. Our management team and I went through those five companies and collectively selected the best two, which included DePalma Studios.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $45,000–$55,000 on this project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with DePalma Studios in November 2023, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’re pleased with DePalma Studios’ designs and have achieved the results we were looking for. We look forward to working with them again in the future. 

How did DePalma Studios perform from a project management standpoint?

DePalma Studios has hit all the goals they initially set for us on time and within budget. They’ve also kept us updated on everything. For instance, they always tell us what happens in each step of the process and when we can expect the work to be completed. We communicate with them through Slack.

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to shout out to in this review?

Tatiana is great to work with. She fully understands how our software works and her designs are very good.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We love the design DePalma Studios created — it really fits our software. Their communication has also been excellent.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of anything DePalma Studios could improve on.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs

Be completely open with your expectations and give DePalma Studios as much details as possible regarding your current processes. In our case, letting their team evaluate our software’s existing processes was very helpful for them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Partner of Vennderful LLC

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are a CRM product for the Events Industry

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire DePalma Studios to accomplish?

• Design a custom development project
• Build code for the designed project

SOLUTION

How did you find DePalma Studios?

Clutch Site

Why did you select DePalma Studios over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from DePalma Studios were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

We hired Deplama for a total of three contracts. First was their DIW (Design Impact Workshop) which was quoted at $10,00 and a total of 3 weeks, which they ended up billing $29,500 and taking 6 weeks to complete. Second was the actual product design, contracted at $47,000 and completed at a total of $57,897.50. Third was our Product Development, this was quoted at $172,000 and a timeline of 20-21 weeks. Development went from a July delivery to a January 1st delivery, making it take over twice as long as originally promised.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

A completed product, ready to use and sell to customers. What we got excuse over excuse, increased budgets, and extended timelines.

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

Deplama builds a project management fee into their costs, billing $100 an hour for 300 hours on one of our four contracts with them, thats $30,000 for project management. What did this get us? Our development that was contracted for delivery on July 14th, wasn't delivered until December 18th. It had an original delivery timeline of 20-21 weeks, we ended up not getting our product until 43+ weeks. This isn't the first time Deplama had done this to us. We had another company/project with them that went over double on time, and our first with them, a Design Impact Workshop, went over by double and we were also charged double what was originally quoted.

What was your primary form of communication with DePalma Studios?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Their ability to seem competent, but in the end, not deliver on a single promise. The owner has a tendency to agree to projects and budgets to get the work, without the intention of ever full-filling the contracts as written. We spent a total of $259,157 on this project alone with Deplama, to be left without help from them, no bug testing (even though it was in our contract and we hired a lawyer to try and force them to follow through) and now we have an almost $300k brick. The product is riddled with inconsistencies from Deplama switching developers mid build, bugs, and shortcomings of the deliverables.

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

Stop taking projects out of desperation to keep your calendar full.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CTO of a company focused on building automation solutions for manufacturers. Our main product is designed to be a system that welders can use to help automate their work. Our company's goal is to help with labor shortage by empowering welders with easy-to-use software. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DePalma Studios?

We needed support analyzing our software's UX to identify improvement areas. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, Floyd (CEO) and Matthew (Head of Creative) came into our office, and I laid out a few different user journeys that we wanted them to explore through customer interviews and then map out. DePalma Studios conducted a design impact workshop where they mapped out user journeys and identified opportunities to make certain processes better. 

For this project, the main process we were looking into was user onboarding. The design impact workshop was aimed at identifying improvement areas to go after.

What is the team composition?

We worked with three teammates from DePalma Studios.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $21,000 on this project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with DePalma Studios on this project from January–March 2024. We just wrapped up the project and are starting a new project with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were pleased with the workshop's results and the team's work. We're starting a new piece of work with DePalma Studios, which aims to tackle the improvement opportunities identified during the design workshop for our onboarding process. 

How did DePalma Studios perform from a project management standpoint?

DePalma Studios delivered work on time and on budget. We had a frequent cadence of talking, and overall, our communication was good. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was impressed by DePalma Studios' expertise. We selected the team because we were looking for a company focused on UX rather than just website design since we have an application that runs across iOS, Android, and web systems. The project also involved hardware components, and we thought DePalma Studios would be the better fit.

Are there any areas they could improve?

A little more communication at times was needed. I don't have negative feedback, but over-communication tends to work well for a client.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

In our case, we have a hardware component to our product. Before engaging with DePalma Studios, Floyd and Matthew came to our office to get their hands on my product and experience its function to help them understand what we do. The most significant piece of advice I can give is to make sure the team is clear on what you're doing and what you're setting out to accomplish with your project. Define your goals clearly.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior director of e-commerce for LKQ Online. We’re a global company with headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee. Our origin was the salvage yard business, and we grew through many acquisitions. We’re now in the salvage aftermarket and new auto parts industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DePalma Studios?

We desperately needed a complete redo of our main-selling website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our project with DePalma Studios was a three-month project to design a new UI for the website. They walked us through everything; we loved their documentation process and how they got all the information before starting the design. They used Figma for the design. At the end of the project, they gave us the files related to CSS and all the information the developers would need.

What is the team composition?

We had at least two designers working on different elements of the project. We also had a project manager and a technical head to ensure everything we requested was doable within the design.

Additionally, Floyd (CEO) was available and involved in the project.

How did you come to work with DePalma Studios?

I worked on a separate project before I joined LKQ Online. I had a thorough conversation with Floyd, who showed me some documentation examples. Since I’ve worked in development and digital marketing since 1991, I knew I’d rank them as a top-tier company.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $18,000–$20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from January–March 2023.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Unfortunately, our organization moved slowly and came up with some roadblocks to move forward with development. We have feedback from our C-suite executives, but we haven’t been able to implement it yet. Nonetheless, DePalma Studios did the project on time and was professional. I wish we had metrics, but they did what we needed overall.

How did DePalma Studios perform from a project management standpoint?

They were constantly on top of everything. We used Slack for team communication.

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

Marcos (UX Lead) did a fabulous job of taking what we were asking and giving us 2–3 recommendations on how to present something. We really appreciated that.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The follow-through by the team was impressive. They were very comprehensive in how they worked with us; it was a totally collaborative team effort. DePalma Studios kept everybody on task and completed everything within the deadline and budget, which was remarkable.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I think the expectation for a team that doesn’t work with Figma is to pick it up and know how to use it. However, we struggled to make changes. I recommend creating and sending a video when they complete changes to demonstrate the item for review.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You should have your documentation and requirements thought out as much as possible. Provide them with every bit of information you can about customer struggles and improvement areas.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Co-Founder of RV Overnights LLC

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We are a membership-based program for RVers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire DePalma Studios to accomplish?

• Design our web and mobile app
• Build our apps on Bubble.io

SOLUTION

How did you find DePalma Studios?

Clutch Site

Why did you select DePalma Studios over others?

• High ratings
• Pricing fit our budget

How many teammates from DePalma Studios were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

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

The scope was clearly defined in a Google spreadsheet and also in the SOW from Depalma:

• This engagement aims to kick start the custom product design work, and the timeline is estimated to be 1-2 weeks along with 6-7 weeks of Low Code development. Note: Design and development will occur concurrently, and timeline will be a total of 6-7 weeks:

1. Product Design Activities:
   • Low-Fidelity Designs
   • Visual Designs as a handoff to dev team ** Curated Design Scope is derived from Client and prioritized by Client. Required collaboration time with the client is up to 2-4 hrs per week
2. LowCode Development Activities:
   • Set up and onboard the Buddle team
   • Develop, Test and Push is the plan since it is a small project
   • We plan to give demo every week with collective features which are developed
   • We also plan to do a daily feature level testing async.
   • Once we have all the features we will go-live and provide 1 week warranty support on bug fixes and as needed ** Required collaboration time with the client is up to 2-4 hrs per week

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

A working web application with the features defined in our scope.

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

Project management from Depalma was lacking in every facet. They went over our delivery timeline by double the time. Originally, this project was estimated 6-7 weeks and they took 23 weeks to complete what they considered a final deliverable. Even once they said they were done, they never delivered a fully completed scope.

What they did deliver was riddled with bugs and errors that rendered the product unusable. We began with a new developer after Depalma told us we would need to pay an additional $18,000 to complete the project. The new developer discovered bad practices in the build which was why it was not working correctly.

What was your primary form of communication with DePalma Studios?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

I would stay as far away as possible. If time and money is important to you, avoid Depalma Studios. The owner Floyd will say whatever he needs to earn your business, but once the check clears, there is little he cares about. Floyd and his BDM quite literally begged us to bring this project to them after previously declining it.

Only once we began with another company for development, they came back to us begging us to leave and come back to them, promising they would match what our currently contracted developer was doing. In the end, they made excuse after excuse about the functionality of the project, the scope, and the deliverables. I have a recording from one of the meetings which I am sure they would not want out there as it is them admitting the flaws and that they won't be fixing them.

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

Properly estimate and budget the work you send SOWs for. Do not take work out of desperation at the time of the offer and later have seller remorse when you cannot deliver on what you promised.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the President of Superhero Sidekick

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Superhero Sidekick comes alongside CEO’s to help them raise more money faster, increase donor and customer loyalty, reduce pressure and turnover, scale your organization quickly, and help you become more flexible, adaptable and agile, to accomplish your dreams and live the adventure we believe you were called to.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire DePalma Studios to accomplish?

• Develop an App Concept
• Create an MVP strategy

SOLUTION

How did you find DePalma Studios?

Referral

Why did you select DePalma Studios over others?

• Close to my geographic location
• Pricing fit our budget
• Referred to me

How many teammates from DePalma Studios were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

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

Proposed Services 

• Design Impact Workshop | 1-2 Weeks
• Custom Product Design | 3-4 Weeks
• MVP Development | Release 1 | 8-9 Weeks
• Post Production Support ○1 weeks of warranty Production Support is included in the Release 1 Post Production Services | Additional Services
• Post Production maintenance and support | 2-4 Weeks
• Beta Testing | Update the flow from feedback
• Plan for Release 2
• Backlog Refinement 

Summary of Key Deliverables: Deliverable Description Design Impact Workshop Phase 1 

• Stakeholder Interview(s)
• Project Vision 
• Proto Personas
• User Journeys | 

Scope Determination Custom Design Phase 2 

• Style Guide 
• Wireframing 
• Visual Designs 

Low-Code Application Development Phase 3 

• Working application on low-code platform 
• Support & bug fixes post-go-live for 1 week

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

• Completion of -Design Impact Workshop 
• Phase 1 -Custom Design 
• Phase 2 -Low-Code Development and testing 
• Final Application
• launch to public

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

There project management was very structured, well communicated and executed with great success. They did deliver on time. They effectively responded to our needs and questions.

What was your primary form of communication with DePalma Studios?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

They were excellent in there execution of discovery of the product to develop the MVP. They had a great method in place and utilized a team of people to bring many expertise to the creative and development process. They listened well but also provide strong experience .and leadership to the project.

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

None that I can think of currently

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of a YouTube channel called The Tech Prepper. I also develop software that aligns with some off-grid offline communication topics I cover on the channel.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DePalma Studios?

I was in the process of developing an off-grid, offline communications platform with offline mapping components. The application was for search, rescue, and emergency response purposes. The idea was to be able to track and communicate with emergency teams in the field when they’re deployed for disaster scenarios.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

DePalma Studios provided UI/UX design services. They designed the frontend and mapped the different resources to make the UX work. I initially prepared a requirements document, and they had a few days to review it. Then, we started the project with a kickoff meeting.

I walked them through the design and more details. DePalma Studios asked their question and established a timeline; they had a rough idea of how many hours the scope would take.

A week later, they provided the first look at the project with a Miro board. They understood my requirements, audience, and goals. DePalma Studios showed me the first set of UX screens they designed, and we discussed their next steps for the next deliverable.

Finally, we had a meeting where they presented about 95% of the project completed. I made a few modifications, and they completed everything a few days later. Figma was the key technology, and I just exported it from Figma into a PDF.

What is the team composition?

We worked directly with three teammates: the owner, a lead UI/UX designer, and a UI/UX director just for oversight.

How did you come to work with DePalma Studios?

They were followers of my YouTube channel for a while. We got to exchange emails, and it turned out they were in similar industries. They offered their design services, and I reached out to them when I finally needed to do some work. We figured out a price that would work for us, and they did the project.

How much have you invested with them?

I spent $8,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together throughout November 2023. The entire project lasted two and a half weeks.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The product is still in the initial phase, so it’s too early to see its impact. However, our success criteria for the product was its usability: whether or not the program was easy to use with little guidance and information.

Overall, DePalma Studios delivered top-notch quality work. I’ve been in the technical consulting space since 2007, and they produced at the same level or even better than many vendors I’ve worked with in my full-time capacity.

How did DePalma Studios perform from a project management standpoint?

We had no issues with the project management; they hit every deliverable. When we started, I spoke to DePalma Studios and told them I had a limited budget and a compressed time frame. They worked with me and delivered 95% of the project in two weeks. 

We communicated through emails to set up the logistics and had three meetings over Google Meet.

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review?

Tatiana (Senior UI/UX Designer) was the lead designer. She essentially did all the work; the other two teammates were involved in 2–3 meetings. She translated my technical requirements into an amazing UI/UX design I can now use. I couldn’t be happier with her work, product, and performance.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I had unique requirements and constraints on how they could create the design. One of my key requirements was using Adobe React Spectrum, an uncommon UI library. Although they didn’t have experience with it, DePalma Studios was able to understand it and implement the design in two weeks. Overall, their ability to quickly ramp up on a new UI library and integrate it into the design was very impressive.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there was nothing to improve. In fact, I plan to engage DePalma Studios for future work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Before meeting with them, I took time to prepare a detailed requirements document. It spelled out my project goals and success criteria, and I even included wireframes and examples of how I wanted the application to work.

I did all the homework to outline a clear scope and the MVP I wanted to achieve. I absolutely recommend handing off this document before starting the project if you want the most return from your investment.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the VP of application development at a car sales company. We work with over 40 dealerships to help customers with challenging financial histories purchase cars. I am the lead architect for our website and run our local development team.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DePalma Studios?

We were working with another IT solutions vendor that wasn’t fulfilling our needs for our website. We were using a vendor platform to display our cars, but we wanted to build our own online sales platform to service all our sites so we could track inventory in one place.

We needed a vendor that could work alongside our development team and do their own development. Our former IT vendor was functioning decently, but they weren’t well-equipped to handle this specific project, so we started looking for other web design vendors that could help us re-envision our car selling experience.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

DePalma is involved in everything from the design to the development of the website. We met at the beginning of the project to discuss our vision and dictate standards. 

DePalma has built our site's web UI and code designs using a JavaScript framework. They used React Native and Next.js to develop the site on an express live server hosted in Azure. Our local team built an API in Azure that pulls data from different backend systems to show users lists of cars or dealerships. 

We built a source code repository using Azure DevOps, which DePalma uses to check the code. The system automatically produces a website where we can test and view progress as DePalma works towards different tickets. They’ve also helped us with QA functions and continue to assist us with various web enhancements as we move towards enabling customers to perform digital transactions.

What is the team composition?

I work with Floyd (Founder), Sushmitha (COO), a scrum master, lead developer, QA specialist, and three developers. 

How did you come to work with DePalma Studios?

I had worked with Floyd before he founded DePalma Studios, so we reached out when looking for design partners. Our committee interviewed and reviewed plans from 10 companies, and DePalma presented an affordable, realistic solution that gave us the confidence to move forward with the partnership. Then, we had the same companies present development solutions, and DePalma stood out as the best fit for our development needs as well.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested roughly $300,000 in the partnership with DePalma.

What is the status of this engagement?

We partnered with DePalma for design work in October 2021, and then they delivered the initial website in April 2022. We’re continuing to work with them on major enhancements moving forward. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We initially brought DePalma on as a design partner, but they immediately impressed us with their efficiency, quality of work, and pricing, so we expanded the partnership to include web development. Their design capabilities are incredible; they’ve helped us turn ideas into concrete visuals to show our executives what we plan to build, which has been beneficial. Our executives have been impressed with DePalma’s plans and overall execution. 

The new website has far more capabilities than our original site. Our old site could only accommodate a few daily inventory updates, so we couldn’t reflect inventory as accurately as we’d have liked. DePalma created a website that gives us full access to flows, so we can keep the inventory updates in real-time, which is a big deal. The new website plays a crucial role in acquiring and retaining leads. We have several forms that we track, and our data shows that we see roughly 1000 leads per day. 

How did DePalma Studios perform from a project management standpoint?

DePalma performs exceptionally well from a project management standpoint. We typically meet with them three times a week via Zoom, and the process is very collaborative. We use Asana as a ticketing system to keep track of our requests for certain qualities and features and to view progress. They’ve built a very efficient workflow, and we receive emails when tickets are completed. We can always go into Asana to prioritize work items, approve designs and costs, file bugs, or list capabilities we want DePalma to code next. 

DePalma is very transparent and easy to work with. We don’t have to question what work is being done because we have access to live progress updates, which has made the experience really positive. DePalma has been a good match for our needs, and they’ve become an extension of our development team. 

We can ask questions about anything and everything, and they keep us updated on reporting. We primarily communicate through Slack, email, and Asana. We’ve developed personal relationships with the DePalma team, and it feels like we're family now.

What did you find most impressive about them?

DePalma delivers great quality work at an affordable price. Their design capabilities are the jewel of their company, and their development work is impressive. Finding a company that can deliver high-quality design and development results and affordable rates is rare, which sets them apart. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have nothing DePalma could improve on. Challenges always arise during software development projects, but because we have so much daily interaction with DePalma, we’ve been able to avoid coding issues or scope change misunderstandings.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to give DePalma a chance; you’ll be impressed once they show you their design chops. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of CustomCook, a marketplace startup. We’ll do a website where people can upload personal recipes or import them from other websites to find a local cook or chef willing to prepare them.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DePalma Studios?

Our business model is unique because we use affiliate marketing for the recipe-sharing part.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

DePalma Studios has facilitated the recipe-sharing process and ensured we can enable the affiliate marketing side. Their work is split into three phases: the design impact workshop, the design, and the actual website coding. We’ve just completed the first phase.

Initially, we sat with their design team and walked through the different needs that the platform users would have. We outlined the challenges and needs and discussed the overall business plan and how it all tied together. Then, we discussed the user flows and made plans for budgeting for the design phase and the website’s final creation.

What is the team composition?

There are a lot of people on the team. Marcos (UX Lead) and Tatiana (Senior UX/UI Designer) are the designers, and Sushmitha (COO) is our main coordinator. We’ve also met with Floyd (CEO), Matthew (Head of Creative), their chief architect, and 4–5 people from their engineering team. Finally, our main point of contact is Cheney (Business Development Manager).

How did you come to work with DePalma Studios?

We looked at online reviews at Clutch and other sites and called several companies in addition to searching online. We wanted a company with the necessary technical expertise to do what we needed, but we also wanted someone who wasn’t too large. When we called some competitors, they were preoccupied with more prominent clients, so we felt we'd get lost in the shuffle.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $18,000 so far. The next phase will be $57,000, and they’ve given us a preliminary estimate of $280,000 for the last part of the project. We’ll spend $357,000 in total.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April 2022, and our relationship is ongoing. They’ll complete phase two in six weeks and the code writing in 16 weeks, so they’re set to complete the project in 22 weeks.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We initially defined some of the goals that we wanted to see. Part of them were the four different profiles for the website’s design. Also, budget and deadlines were other criteria we set. So far, the workflows have been completed. They’ve delivered different design elements. When they finished each of them, they gave us a portfolio to show to our other stakeholders or potential investors, so we have a deliverable that we can use to see the overall view of the design.

How did DePalma Studios perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is great. In the beginning, we set up a schedule, and they always arrive with a whole team. They’re always prepared. Moreover, we talk about the progress we make and what kind of support they need from us to answer questions. When we talk, we line out the following steps and the particular development stage they’re at. If we have questions, we can call our customer service representative. If it’s a more sensitive issue, we can reach out directly to Sushmitha.

Most of our meetings are on Zoom. We also have Slack to share documents back and forth and a Miro board for many design aspects. We all throw our different thoughts and brainstorm to devise a plan.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re especially in tune with startup needs. Since we’re starting out, we have a lot of uncertainty. They’ve helped us to delve into our customers and evaluate costs. Since we’re building something new, we need to define clearly the financial components. Other people have told us that other companies get far along with the project and then ask for more money. However, that hasn’t happened with DePalma Studios. They’ve defined the scope and cost; if something falls outside the parameter, it’s always within the expectation.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They were kind of jumping ahead to the next step at some point. We had to reach out and get it sorted out. They were actually doing extra work and moving on with the second phase because they were waiting for the engineers to wrap up the first part. All in all, we were getting extra free work, but we had to reach out to answer our question at the time. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You should go in with a clear business model in mind. Also, they might cost a little more, but don’t shy away because you’ll get a seasoned team that’s used to working with each other. If you don’t want to bring in someone unprofessional, you’ll get real expertise from DePalma Studios.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CIO of a subprime automotive leasing company. We lease vehicles to subprime customers directly, and we provide lease financing to our 60 dealerships across 10 states.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with DePalma Studios?

We hired DePalma Studios to design our new dealership’s website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

First, we provided DePalma Studios with a business requirement document, which expressed our general desires of what we wanted out of the website. Then, we worked with them on a series of workshops and collaborative meetings to design all of the site’s pages, interactions, and functionality to create a well-defined UI/UX. Our goal was to have a site where we could lease vehicles online.

During the design process, we provided DePalma Studios with a lot of input into the look and feel we wanted to achieve. We also described our core audience and our goals. Then, they helped us refine and optimize the designs to meet those criteria.

After that process, they provided us with very detailed design documents on a Miro board. It included designs of how each page would look on desktop, tablet, and mobile devices, as well as designs of the collapsable and actionable elements mapped out within the pages. The final deliverable was the designs on Figma so that it was easier for the developers to implement them on the new site.

What is the team composition?

We worked with around seven people from DePalma Studios. Their team included Floyd (CEO), Sushmitha (COO), Matthew (Principal Product Designer), Sean (Senior UX Designer), two logo designers, and an additional designer working in the background.

How did you come to work with DePalma Studios?

We had a previous relationship with DePalma Studios. We worked with them on another project for a design impact workshop.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $78,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from February–May 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The internal and external feedback on the designs created by DePalma Studios has been very positive. People have told us that the new design looks tremendously better than our previous website.

How did DePalma Studios perform from a project management standpoint?

DePalma Studios used Asana for project management. They also used Miro, which we could use to leave notes and comments on tasks as a sort of asynchronous communication, although it wasn’t used specifically for project management. Additionally, we communicated via Microsoft Teams, through which we would have multiple meetings per week.

What did you find most impressive about them?

DePalma Studios’ secret for their great designs was Matthew. It was great working with him because he was very creative and communicative. For example, he made design decisions based on our conversations, and he then walked us through those decisions, explaining in detail the reasoning and benefits behind them.

Other companies are very creative, but they can't provide the logic behind their creative decisions. However, DePalma Studios was very logical and creative at the same time, which was a unique trait.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. We were very happy with their work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Your project will be very successful as long as you stay very engaged and be very open. Try to establish a good dialogue with DePalma Studios to express your needs.