Dreamten

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CEO of a SaaS startup.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Dreamten?

We engaged Dreamten to help us redesign some of our products to make them more user-friendly.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Dreamten redesigned our web app, including all of its pages and its functionality. They used technologies that included Ruby on Rails and probably React Native, simplifying and reorganizing the user experience. They also set up improved analytics so we could more easily see KPIs, and designed marketing ads as needed.

What is the team composition? 

Philp (Creative Director, Dreamten) was our main point of contact, but there were other designers and developers working on our account as well. 

How did you come to work with Dreamten?

They were recommended by some friends of mine who had worked with them in the past, and I was very impressed by Phil and his team after meeting them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from September 2018–February 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our customers were blown away by the new designs Dreamten helped us rollout. The new user experience improved the speed of the onboarding process and reduced the amount of training and customer support we needed to provide. More importantly, our customers are getting more value out of our web apps thanks to their efforts. 

How did Dreamten perform from a project management standpoint?

They were great throughout the whole project. We're not the easiest client to work with, but they were very flexible, patient, and understanding; they hit our deadlines despite any changes we made to the scope. We held regular conference calls and built the prototype on Marvel, so we could provide instant feedback on their designs.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They looked for areas they could deliver more value to our customers. Their ability to design beautiful interfaces and understand the business goals behind them allowed for a more strategic approach to the overall design.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don't think so. We plan to work with them again when we're ready to incorporate new features. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be honest and open with their team about the company's goals and then trust the process they present.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of products at a B2B software company. We develop software for companies that want more feedback from their end users.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Dreamten?

We needed help with product design for a user feedback application.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Dreamten has provided two designers that support two different in-house feature teams with high-fidelity design. Our feature teams are comprised of four to five engineers, a product manager, and a designer. Dreamten’s designers fulfill that role for two of our teams and communicate directly with those teams. The designers work primarily remotely. Sometimes we have them come onsite to brainstorm and develop wireframes for more complicated projects.

We don’t have a specific process for the work. For smaller features, they’ll often go straight into development of the high-fidelity designs. For larger projects, we’ll work on the specifications together. They’ll start with low to medium fidelity wireframes to make sure the information architecture or calls to action are effective. Once we feel confident, they’ll do the high-fidelity designs to hand off to the engineers. They post all their assets in a central repository.

What is the team composition?

We work directly with two designers.

How did you come to work with Dreamten?

We searched on Dribbble, a site that showcases designers, to find who the most-followed designers were in our area. I reached out to them having reviewed their work on the site. We discussed and determined that the scope we needed was the equivalent of two full-time designers.  

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2019, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Dreamten’s designers’ work is on par with the talent I’ve encountered in the Bay Area, which attracts some of the best designers in the world. They have strong opinions but are also open to feedback. They understand what the product teams need to validate features and do a good job of balancing form and function. They’re thoughtful in their approach to design, and their high-fidelity work looks excellent.

How did Dreamten perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicate via Slack, and sometimes they come onsite. They’re responsive; we’ve never had a problem getting a hold of them. They stick to timelines and communicate their expected deadlines. They do what they say they’ll do. They can prioritize effectively and efficiently manage the work.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We're building an experience that doesn't have an exact analogy in the marketplace. One of their biggest strengths is their ability to quickly understand what it is we're trying to validate and turn around designs that can help us confirm our hypothesis. They’re proactive and feel integrated into our team. They’re solving the problems with us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing that jumps out.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have them onsite at the outset so that you can really walk through your entire product in detail. We did an abridged version of that upfront followed by a couple more sessions afterward. It led to a few miscommunications that we could have mitigated if we’d brought them in for longer at the kick-off.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CEO of Freedom United. Our website is the world’s largest online anti-trafficking and anti-slavery community.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Dreamten?

Although we’re a market leader, we spent several years focused on our work while neglecting our online presence. We needed a vendor to help us tell our organization’s story. Additionally, we wanted to deepen our community’s interaction with one another. With hundreds of thousands of people doing advocacy individually, there was an opportunity for more collective-based action.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started with a discovery project to identify our UX, outline the scope, and define the approach. We considered the taxonomy of the website, home page, and primary internal pages. Each of these smaller projects fed into the larger plan, which included both redesigns and new concepts from scratch.

Since design work began, we’ve used a collaborative approach for filesharing and concept reviews. After launching the homepage, we’re shifting focus to strategy. The team sits in on phone calls that aren’t relevant to the scope, but help them better understand our organization and stakeholders. They leverage this information for ongoing strategy and UI designs.

What is the team composition?

We work with the founder and project manager. The founder is our primary contact and leads strategy.

How did you come to work with Dreamten?

We found them through a local referral. We wanted to engage Dreamten after speaking with the CEO because he was incredibly passionate about our work. That was a big deal for us as a nonprofit. Before formally hiring them, we gave them a small logo design project. We hired them for the redesign because their design was incredibly thoughtful and professional.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $25,000–$50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Work started in January 2018 and is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

After 20 years in e-commerce and web development, it was hard to find an agency that cared about the business mission in addition to ROI. But Dreamten is unparalleled. They do a great job balancing both concerns in their overall strategy. Three weeks after the homepage launch, year-over-year bounce rates and exit rates decreased by 13% and 16%, respectively.

How did Dreamten perform from a project management standpoint?

We switched from an hourly rate to a retainer because they’re very efficient. Since they feel like team members more than a vendor, I didn’t want to count minutes when they were happy to deepen their involvement with us. The new model has proved helpful for our ongoing objectives. They use InVision to share documentation. We communicate primarily via Slack.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have three qualities that distinguish them. Dreamten has uncommon insight, world-class design work, and the ability to adapt design elements. Furthermore, they’re critical listeners that identify what’s most important. As a result, Dreamten is always right in their design recommendations; that aptitude has helped build our trusting relationship.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I've pushed the CEO to expand what they do beyond just UX and design. Due to their experience, they have a great grasp on marketing and user engagement. It’s great to stick with core competencies, but they certainly have the wherewithal to go beyond their current offerings. That would be a great expansion of their business. Otherwise, they’ve been stellar and I can’t recommend them highly enough.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Most clients hedge relationships with new vendors, but it’s worth investing time upfront to teach Dreamten about the business. Don’t be afraid to engage them at a deep level because they can handle the complexities. We trust them as our sole creative vendor.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m one of the co-founders and partners of a consultancy that builds online education programs for large organizations. We help them to train their staff that is spread out all over the nation and all over the world.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Dreamten?

We have an online marketplace that we built in the summer of 2016 and used once for an industry that is seasonal. We found that we needed to upgrade the system and wanted to do a complete review of our user interface, optimize it, and then add some additional features for some of our core constituents.

The people who work here are spread across a wide variety of different projects, and while we have enough knowledge of various components to produce the things we need, we really wanted to find somebody that had a deeper experience in UI/UX [user interface/user experience] than we have.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Dreamten first looked at our existing site application; they gave it an audit and pointed out some areas where we could be getting better results. Then, we worked together to identify some of the things that were most important to us in terms of our business objectives and to prioritize the tasks that we could potentially do to the site to improve it.

They wireframed the new components and, in some cases, they designed them as well. In other cases, they actually did some of the frontend coding for us. It’s also worth noting that throughout the entire process, they‘ve contributed to our thinking from a business standpoint and going over what things we might do to the site that could help us achieve our business goals rather than just focusing on the design problems that we were trying to solve.

What is the team dynamic?

We only interact with two team members, but there are at least four people that have worked on our projects.

How did you come to work with Dreamten?

I went to Dribble and looked for UI professionals that had a good, solid portfolio and experience. I found Philip [Founder, Dreamten] and contacted him and a few others. It turned out that Dreamten was across the street from us in the same American underground startup community. We met face to face and talked a little bit. There were a lot of things that I liked about them, including their process.

Clearly, Dreamten recognizes that there’s a link between the business goal and graphic design and coding. Philip, in particular, is really able to understand what we’re doing from a business standpoint and puts it into context. He has an encyclopedic level of knowledge of a huge variety of web apps and can draw on that as a reference. That’s a tremendous added value that he and his team bring to the process and it allows us to evaluate all of our options.

How much have you invested with them?

We have invested $60,000–$70,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2017 and the work is ongoing. They continue to work on three discreet projects with us.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Philip and his team led one part of a bigger multi-phase project for a very important client of ours. They were able to really take control and lead a vital part of that project from beginning to end. It wouldn’t really be possible or accurate to say that their work exclusively has led to subsequent work, but if they had failed or hadn’t done a good job, that probably would have impacted our ability to continue our work with this client.

Their work with us, for this client, has contributed to the strengthening of our relationship and new work with that client.

How did Dreamten perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re pretty good, but I wouldn’t say it’s their strongest suit. They use Envision a lot and then we mainly use email, text, and phone calls.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their main strength is their formal, organized process to help translate business goals into user interface concepts. Secondly, they can add their intellectual contribution to the product itself based on their own experience both as business people and as UI designers. Third, they have a vast knowledge of a huge array of existing systems and sites that they’ve studied and learned, which they can call upon to help solve the myriad of little UI problems that you encounter on these types of projects. Those to me are their overall strengths.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not that I can think of. They’re very professional and our experience has been great. There have been times when we’ve had many meetings and we’ve kind of discussed all our priorities and on occasion, they’ll forget what some of the priorities are. So, when we come back into work we’ll find that somehow we didn’t capture or institutionalize some of the things that we said in these meetings.

It’s not a big issue and it may be due to the fact that we have a number of different projects that we’re working on together, so it’s easy to get things mixed up. If there’s anything to improve, it’s at making sure that they continue to do as good a job as possible and listen and write down the things that are really important to us so that they get reflected back into our work product. Overall, it’s a minor thing and doesn’t happen all the time.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the project manager for a Trio modernization initiative. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Dreamten?

We’re taking an existing version of a software product and converting it into a new web-based application with Dreamten’s assistance.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Dreamten is designing the UI for our new product based on our initial feedback. They publish iterations of the UI to Insight, and they may be using in-house resources for the development, but I’m not sure. They have a great collaborative approach that starts with a couple of initial designs and requests for feedback from everyone. They’re really good at communicating throughout the process and reaching out to involve us in different iterations. They are really in tune with what we were looking for.

I liked their approach in helping us find a starting point. They spent time asking about our preferences and likes and dislikes. Then, they came up with a design that fit our product really well based on that information gathering.

I deal primarily with Philip [Founder and Creative Director, Dreamten]. I don’t know how many other resources are assigned to the project. They initially quoted a longer-term project, but we were behind our schedule and needed something more rapid. Philip was able to work within our timeframe and understood that we didn’t need a big project. We needed to take a certain scope and get started. They helped us restructure the project based on our needs.

How did you come to work with Dreamten?

We interviewed a few UI/UX firms. Dreamten understood the scope of what we were asking for much better than other companies. We felt that they could meet our goals.

How much have you invested with Dreamten?

They’ll be billing us for time and materials. We’ve spent between $16,000 and $25,000. We’re still working with them, so I’m not sure what the final cost will be.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them within the last 8 weeks. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or impact of the engagement?

They’ve completed the design for our UI, and we’re extremely happy with it. They continue to consult with us whenever we have questions about different aspects of the design.

How did Dreamten perform from a project management standpoint?

This isn’t a long project. They came up with the UI over 4 weeks. We had calls twice a week during that time. Now, we have a call once a week.

What did you find most impressive about Dreamten?

Philip, our primary contact, is easy to talk to and bounce ideas off. We feel like he’s part of the project team, which helps when we’re brainstorming and working through challenges. He’s very accessible. We have a great working relationship.

Are there any areas Dreamten could improve?

No. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for a managed services provider. We have responsibility for providing data center, managed services, and hosted services as well as recovery services for companies that range from Fortune 500 to Fortune 100 companies.

My role is working with the engineering team on operational support systems. We have responsibility for some the tools or systems that we use - our internal users manage our customer infrastructure, our core infrastructure and it’s a forward-facing environment that gives customer visibility into their infrastructure that we host or manage. That includes some systems that have been custom written in-house as well as commercial off the shelf products that we leverage internally and have customized at some level to be able to meet our unique business needs.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Dreamten?

Because we have and support some internal systems that were built in-house, we were looking to refresh those environments. One was a customer facing environment, and the other was one that is used by all of our internal customers - so employees of our company. We were looking for a partner that we could use to help bring a fresh look to our environment. While these are web based applications, they can’t be treated like another website. They also needed to have the right kind of element that would give people the comfort or familiarity so they can easily leverage them. When I say that I mean a lot of our users are customers and are familiar with social environments. Some things are unique to social environments that people are accustomed to using. We start to adapt those in some of our business applications so that the ease of use is there. They know how to use certain things - they know what they mean when they see them, and those were the kinds of attributes that we’re looking to bring into this internal application as well as the customer facing application. That was one of the key things. We were also very resource constrained. We wanted to get a partner that would be an additional set of hands to evolve our two web applications that were key to our ability for supporting our customers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We ended up using them for quite a bit. Initially, we brought Dreamten in to provide some design. Dreamten was largely responsible for revamping a look and design for a specific portion of the application. We ended up using them as well for our mobile applications. They did a lot of the design, look and feel, and all of the assets related to that. We did the backend, so they handed off all the front-end design elements to us. We used them for several different applications or portions of the system to redesign. As we bring in new features and functionalities, they were a resource to provide the design artifacts. They were responsible for the new look and feel of the systems that we’re using. We’re currently using them, and in this capacity, they are now working on a revamp of our tool because of some internal reorganization. We’re also bringing in and merging some other systems together. So, they’re responsible for the unified approach that we’re delivering as well. They’ve been very integral in the overall design concept and the artifact delivery as far as it relates to that. We went through storyboards, and now they’re getting to the point where they are delivering CSS [Cascading Style Sheets] and Javascript that are needed to allow the look and feel to be as they designed it. Then we do all the backend implementation.

The number of resources working on the project varies. We’ve probably had four at any one time working with us, but it depends on the body of work and time, and that has changed over the years. While we started out with something small and contained in one specific area of the system, we’ve been working on multiple things at once and two different applications. As the needs have increased, the number of people working on the team has increased as well.

How did you come to work with Dreamten?

I think it’s been three years. I think we found them on one of the design contract sites and looked at their work. I can’t remember what site it was, but we used a couple of them, and we reviewed samples of their work online, and then you reach out to them to bid the work or discuss potential projects. It was one of those online services that we ended up using to find them. We were able to look at samples of their work, look at a profile for them, and then contact them to make a determination for using them for our project.

How much have you invested with Dreamten?

That’s not something I can share with you.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in early 2014. It’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We’ve not had any problems with delivery any time that we’ve published for the work that they established and we agreed to. It’s always been delivered on time, and it has been exactly what we expected. Requirements change frequently, and things are adjusted in the flow of a normal project. I think they’ve always handled those things appropriately, communicated when more time was needed, and adjusted the timeframes as necessary. 

Evidence of the quality of their work was when we made some organizational changes, and they ended up moving with us to a new team. While it was an opportunity for us to bring in other resources, this other group wanted to continue to use the same group because they felt like the quality of the work was good, and they liked the direction that they were taking our product and tools. A lot of times when new people come in they bring in their folks or bring in someone they feel they might work better with. The company as a whole moved along despite the organizational shift and has been very instrumental in moving that additional program along. I do know that we’ve received a lot of direct feedback about the new design and some of the new things that we’ve been introducing in the application. We’ve also gotten a great deal of feedback with the new mobile application that was designed by them.

How did Dreamten perform from a project management standpoint?

It’s been fine. Because of the way that our project was structured, we had an internal project manager, and they were the hands and feet. They had to manage their specific resources on their end and make sure that the right people were allocated. We used them less in project management and more strictly around the design and delivery.

What did you find most impressive about Dreamten?

I think one of the best parts about working with them is they have a pulse on what is happening in the industry and new models, new direction, new design elements that might be trending. Dreamten can determine whether we follow the trends in certain directions or if it’s something that wouldn’t be beneficial to use and to leverage. I think their insight as to when things are appropriate and how to style things has been great. We did get great feedback from them as well from a usability standpoint. Sometimes we built stuff that looks great, but it’s less user-friendly or less intuitive. They’ve been really good in drawing that out in our interactions and making sure that that was key in the designs and the concepts they provided.

Are there any areas Dreamten could improve?

I don’t think so. We’ve had a great relationship with Dreamten. I think designers are opinionated and I guess they have to be in some ways. It’s never come across in a very forceful way or in a way that they were not open to suggestions or changes. I don’t know if that’s an area for improvement. I know we’ve had a couple of encounters internally with some of our teams where they’ve had similar dogmatic or very opinionated folks to work with. But I don’t know that they didn’t do that well. Perhaps that’s one area we could say could be better. They’ve done a great job. It’s been a stellar work relationship. They’ve been very responsive, and they delivered. That’s ultimately what we want.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder of CrowdOx. We do survey fulfillment mostly for crowdfunding projects on sites like Indiegogo or Kickstarter. We help them to collect information from backers and raise additional funding.   

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Dreamten?

With this type of a product, there’s a lot of built-in complexity when setting up and launching a survey. For example, there’s a number of pledge levels that the backers have potentially chosen on Kickstarter. There’s a set of add-ons that they need to associate with each of these or all of these. Plus, there's a lot of questions that they might be asked during the process. What we really wanted to do is boil that process down to something very simple. Our software should allow a user to go online and do everything without having to work with a dedicated account management team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Dreamten was responsible for the web application design of this product. When we first contacted them, it was all about building out the initial screens and onboarding of creation screens in order to get the survey launched. For this project, Dreamten provided the actual raw design files in Sketch format and then our developers did the actual integration. We haven’t really worked with them deeply into them doing the actual coding of the product itself, but everything we’ve contracted them for has been good. We continue to work with them for iterating on these designs. When we launch new features, they make sure that we are creating a consistent feel throughout the site. We aim to get that simplified view for everything.

How did you come to work with Dreamten?

I had worked with them in a previous company. They did all the designs for Sprucemail,  a product for building out Facebook advertising campaigns and connecting them to your email process. We worked with them a lot during that time, so I just immediately went back to them when we were launching this new project.

How much have you invested with Dreamten?

We’ve probably spent around $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working on this project about 2 1/2 years ago. We contacted them right at the beginning. The software has been launched, but we continue to work with them on new features and existing refinements.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

I don’t have any specific metrics, any measurable experiments or things we’ve done of that nature. I do know we get a lot of comments from our customers who have used other competing products. They say that hands down, it’s much easier to use our product. Our software is much clearer. Customers were afraid of the complexity they’ve seen in the past from other products.

How did Dreamten perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re great! Together, we work on our high-level roadmap items. From a workflow perspective, they’re quick to send reviews and initial mock- up designs. We do some interactive back and forth through our Slack chatroom. They manage things from their end in terms of their timeline. Our involvement is really just sending the tasks over and Dreamten completes tasks within an acceptable timeframe. It’s been good.

What did you find most impressive about Dreamten?

They’ve been great at boiling down complex problems into a simple solution. That’s been wonderful. They’ve also taken a critical look at their own designs. When they think it’s not going in the direction that they want, they’re not afraid to scrap something: “Let’s start with a clean slate and let’s get this right.” They’ve been really good about that.

Are there any areas Dreamten could improve?

Not anything I can think of off the top of my head. I can’t see any downsides.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Clovis Thorn: Grand Street Settlement is a comprehensive community services organization. There are around 37 settlement houses in New York City. Grand Street Settlement was founded in 1916. We provide services for tots to seniors and everyone in between. We offer early childhood health, pre-kindergarten youth services, afterschool programs, and summer camp. Our services for adults include assisting them with signing up for public assistance, legal help, and health services. For seniors, we run centers that provide programs for the elderly including nutrition—breakfast and lunch. We also own a senior housing facility. That’s also done in 34 sites across the Lower East Side of Manhattan and Northern Brooklyn. I’m the director of development and communication.

Robert Cordero:  I’m the executive director of Grand Street Settlement.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Dreamten?

Robert Cordero: We needed someone to work with us on branding, communications, and website development. Initially, we need help with a social enterprise project. We used to work with another graphic artist but we were not satisfied with the design.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Clovis Thorn: Currently, we've asked Dreamten to take on a pretty comprehensive branding project. It’s a new initiative that we're undertaking, a social enterprise café. This will be more than just a coffee shop; it's a café with a social purpose. It will be located in a brand-new building on Manhattan's Lower East Side. The café will be deeply invested in the community. It's going to have a double bottom line model: to make a profit but also reinvest those profits back into the people that it serves. It's going to provide job training in the culinary arts for young people. Oftentimes, these will be young people who are at risk for criminal justice involvement. We've asked Dreamten to come up with the initial design concept for the café, including the logo branding. They will also do the implementation of that logo and branding across the collateral that you would need for a café. That’s all the signage, menus, smocks, and all that stuff. We need to make sure that the café has exposure in the community and is known for being more than a coffee shop.

How did you come to work with Dreamten?

Robert Cordero: I had worked with Dreamten previously, specifically with Philip Lester. I gave him a call and asked him to work on it. If this project goes well, we’ll ask them to bid on more substantive work for the entire agency. Given the broader scope of potential work, we have to get multiple bids as the cost estimate exceeds our internal spending level. I'm sure they'll be competitive during the bidding process.

How much have you invested with Dreamten?

Clovis Thorn: At this point, we’ve paid $4,500 for their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

Clovis Thorn: The current project began recently, around 2 weeks ago. That's a pretty tight timeline. The firm has already delivered the initial concept and we'll be wrapping the initial stage up in the next week or so. If that all goes well, we would expect to continue working with Dreamten on several other projects over the next few months.

Robert Cordero: There'll be a monthly retainer for a limited number of months.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Clovis Thorn: We don't have any quantitative metrics but by observation and anecdote, their work is very well received. It is super solid design work. There are no complaints, even on the first draft. There's always critique and refinement, but it's always really solid.

How did Dreamten perform from a project management standpoint?

Clovis Thorn: We have worked almost exclusively with Philip Lester, the principal. Communication was by email, phone, and personal visit.

What did you find most impressive about Dreamten?

Robert Cordero: Philip is just a consummate professional and backs it up with very high-quality and thoughtful work. What distinguishes him is he won't take work just to take it. I've actually approached him at other points in my tenure. He'll be very honest about whether it makes sense for his firm to do a project for a certain price point. I really respect that a lot. He wants to make sure he does a good job.

He's based in North Carolina now but he was previously living in Virginia. That has not been an impediment to working with a non-profit in New York City. He often requests to come out and visit at the beginning of a job. This allows him to absorb everything so that can emerge in his work. There are firms in New York City that won't even come to your organization to do that. I think that differentiates them, as well as better quality work. It gives a deeper understanding of what we do and what we want.

Are there any areas Dreamten could improve?

Clovis Thorn: We did not experience any problems.

Robert Cordero: None.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My company is a behavioral and social science research firm. We conduct evaluations, put together reports, study and analyze data on behalf of a variety of clients, primarily government agencies: US Department of Education, Department of Labor, Health, and Social Services, etc. We focus on education, healthcare, international development and a few other areas.

We do a lot of things to help disseminate the different kinds of research products that we put together, including the development of different websites, web-based tools, and applications. I am a Research Analyst.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Dreamten?

For several years, I've been involved with work on what's known as early warning systems in education. That includes developing systemic approaches and continuous improvement processes at schools. 

The goal in early warning system is to use predictive early warning indicators to identify students that might be struggling to meet educational milestones. Whether it's dropout prevention, college readiness, or being ready for secondary education. There's been a growing amount of research in this area, and we've developed a lot of tools, guides, and even a web-based tool that different schools can use to gather these early warning indicators and take action to get students back on track.

We had restructured some of the work that we had done in this area and reached out to Dreamten to help redesign our website. It was about representing the breadth of different services we provide in this area and communicating that to potential clients.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Internally we had developed some designs for what the website might look like that were consistent with the new design of our company's main website. We wanted it to look and feel similar to that while focusing on the set of services that we were offering in the field of early warning systems.

We brought the design to Dreamten and worked with them on developing the structure and how the website should be designed. We had an older WordPress-based website but it was very wordy and a bit difficult to find information and resources. There wasn't a whole lot there regarding a call to action or encouraging potential clients to get in touch with us.

We had a lot of the pieces that we needed in place. We had designs for how the website might look and operate. We had too much text and other information on the website. We needed to pare it down and redesign it, so it provided a more interactive and user-friendly experience, to help individuals get the reports, products, and tools that we were producing, and to be encouraged to get in touch with us also.

Dreamten designed the new website and built it in WordPress, a more recent version of it, and has been helpful in helping us take this idea that we had, put it into practice, and make it real.

There are a lot of pieces that are custom to the website itself. I don't think it's an amazingly complex, cutting edge kind of website but I think it does its job very well in the sense that it's simplified, it's not cluttered, and it helps identify the main areas of work that we operate in. They helped us build the website around what we call our implementation task, and it features the different kinds of services, five different sections.

There's a separate component, a resource library where we're posting articles, videos, webinars, brochures; things that we've produced or things that other organizations have done that are aligned with some of the work that we're doing. We wanted to feature that kind of work. What Dreamten did was they allowed us to build a taxonomy for the resources that was tied to each of these five different services that we provide: synthesizing research, developing customized tools and supports, assessing and improvement practices. Turning what schools are doing into a continuous improvement process and evaluating how effective that is.

The resources are all tied to each of these elements. When you go to one particular section of the website, you'll see a description of that service, what it is we do, why that might be valuable, and a link to contact us. Then there are related resources so that you can quickly go to resources such as an article or guide that we've written that are tied directly to the part of the implementation path, which is the service area in which we operate.

How did you come to work with Dreamten?

I think that came just from working with our internal group. The way our company is organized is that we have a communications department, more so I guess you would call it a services department. This department goes out and helps conduct the research or evaluations, or the kind of core business area things that we do. The communications department was aware of Dreamten and suggested that we work with them because it would be a lot easier for them to build this cost-effectively and on time. 

The website isn't what our communications team would routinely put together. We tend to put most things through our main website, which I believe is built and maintained internally, so this is a one-off website. 

How much have you invested with Dreamten?

Significantly less than $5,000 hosting fees per year going forward. The initial investment to put the website together was in the $25,000 to $30,000 range.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started this work in November 2015. The problem is in January 2016, our company rolled out a major reorganization. The internal processes it took for things like spending money on contractors had entirely new and different routes it had to go, to receive approval. Everybody in the company was trying to figure out what these new routes were like and their new world and responsibilities. The delay was entirely on behalf of our reorganization.

Dreamten was extremely quick turning this information around. We had a deadline to expend our funds by the end of the year, and they did that. Then, the new structure was sitting there waiting to go and needed additional approval in the new year for the language and how we were going to approach different sections of the website. Getting that approval took months because it took us a long time internally to figure out who had to be involved in that conversation and what the language of the organization was going to be like within this new structure.

Dreamten was very fast in responding to requests in putting together the website, as we had drawn it up. Then we just had to sit on it for a long time.

Our agreement is for hosting the website, primarily. Just because of the structure of the company, we decided that it was easier for everybody if Dreamten just hosted it and the URL goes to their server as opposed to having it hosted internally. Maintenance and updates are there. I find that if I have questions on how to do something, they're very responsive and willing to walk me through the management of the website itself.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

I don't have any metrics set up at this point, which is ironic since a lot of the work that we do is about measuring stuff. We just went live with the website at the beginning of October, so at this point, I think it's premature to say exactly what impact the new design has had. We haven't announced it publicly, so I don't have much to share with you.

We have got some individuals that have contacted us through the website, a lot of views on the Contact Us page and the newsletter sign up feature. I don't have Google Analytics; I haven't pulled a report on the website pre-launch and post-launch, so I'm not at a point where I can say much of anything in quantifiable terms what the redesign or the services they provided have done for us.

How did Dreamten perform from a project management standpoint?

I think it's good. This isn't a huge project, so I don't know if this is one that speaks to their ability to manage large-scale projects to completion and within budget. They certainly have undertaken their other obligations promptly and have done everything to the plan and contract that we signed. Our experiences with them have reflected on them well and their ability to manage the project, but a small lift in the scale of things.

I had one contact at the company after we initially agreed to work with Dreamten and that's been the main developer, so I've just been talking with him directly. It's been a mix of emails and phone calls. 

What did you find most impressive about Dreamten?

I think that they have provided a great service. They explained the tools and the management of the website really well, so once the website was up, the conversation became one of how do I use something. They're very responsive to questions and requests. If I didn't understand how something was organized or how something worked, there was a very high degree of personal responsiveness to those requests.

Are there any areas Dreamten could improve?

Maybe just communicating about the tasks in a different way. It wasn't like there was a ton of stuff that needed to be done, but I think it would have been helpful if we had just listed out the tasks and the progress. I've worked with other web development companies where they are a little more explicit about what was going to be done. I think maybe because of the nature of this particular project; it didn't require a lot of specificity in essence. I always find it helpful when you list the next steps, sprints or tasks that you're going to accomplish, and then you share that with the customer so that they're aware of what you've been doing and how you've been doing it.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Vaporware is a consulting firm that specializes in building responsive web applications for startup companies. I am the Executive Director of the organization.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Dreamten?

We were looking for some modern and best-in-class visual designs at a very rapid pace. That’s what we simply haven’t been able to find from individuals or other organizations, so with really high expectations, we were looking in a week’s time for someone to come in and understand an application and design the initial concepts of the application for a client.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They provided some consulting, as well as several weeks of design iterations of UI [user interface] and UX [user experience] and graphic design for an entire web application. They essentially took over the entire design aspect from a creative design perspective all the way down to actually delivering the assets and deliverables for the project to developers and clients through an approval process that had many iterations.

How did you come to work with Dreamten?

I think we found him locally on a couple of different websites and just reached out and started having a conversation to see what it was like to work with him. I think their overall focus on design instead of development really made them a good partner for us as well as their flexibility in speed. For example, we needed a lot of things last minute as they typically are in our world of consulting. He was very flexible and was able to accommodate that as well as travel at a last-minute request.

How much have you invested with Dreamten?

We have spent between $50,000 and $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

It started November 2015, and it is ongoing. The first project that we worked on with them ended in January of this year. We’ve continued working with them on some other projects and are on our third or fourth project with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

I would say first and foremost it is the customer appreciation and customer happiness. That’s what we really pride and rate ourselves on. Dreamten has taken that on themselves and has done an extreme job with that. As far as the success of those projects, each of our clients defines success in their way. Some are looking to raise more money, and some are looking to acquire more customers or different kinds of customers. The successful rounds of funding and refunding that are continuing to fund projects from an investment level have continued since their involvement on those projects. 

How did Dreamten perform from a project management standpoint?

They are very flexible, which is one of the great parts of our relationship with them. We work remotely with them most of the time, and we use a variety of tools but mainly Asana as our project management tool and Slack as our main communication method.

What did you find most impressive about Dreamten?

I would say their professionalism and attention to detail. One thing that we also struggled with was the handoff between designer and developer and making sure that that communication goes smoothly and encapsulates the entire original intent of the designer, and that has been extremely positive working with them. Not many other designers were able to pull that off in our experience.

Are there any areas Dreamten could improve?

I don’t think so, at least not off the top of my head.