Momentum Design Lab

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the product manager at Adthena. Our company focuses on competitive intelligence for search. When conducting a Google search, there are ads at the top of each page from Google Shopping, PayPal, and so forth. Due to competitive intelligence laws, it can be difficult for AdWords users to compare data. We provide an analytics platform that can compare that data to help clients better understand their paid and organic search landscape.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Momentum Design?

Within search services, there are two main concerns: getting insights into ads to see how the competitive landscape changes over time and ensuring that brands and trademarks are protected. We were looking to improve our tools in the brand protection space and needed resources to design the UX/UI.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

When we started, we didn’t have any wireframes, but I provided a dossier of 10–20 pages on all the information they needed to know. We held a workshop to discuss the requirements, and, within a couple of days, they delivered high-fidelity designs as an initial draft. After some back and forth, we had the final designs in four weeks.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a project manager and a UX/UI designer. The designer also reported to a senior director who updated the designs as needed.

How did you come to work with Momentum Design?

We found them on Clutch and liked their portfolio designs. I sent out a contract to a number of agencies, but Momentum Design was the only one that replied quickly with a proposal.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent £25,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Their work lasted from May–June 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We're very happy with how the designs turned out; they're the most visually pleasing part of the app. We’ve also shared them to a few of our prospects, and they’re excited as well.

How did Momentum Design perform from a project management standpoint?

They used a project management software, which they updated frequently. They also used InVision to make sure that we constantly had up-to-date designs as well as Zeplin, which was good for design-to-engineering handoffs. We had a relatively small budget for 3–4 weeks of work, and they delivered within those parameters.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I appreciated their speed. Like I said, they were the only company to get back to me with a proposal and meeting time within a week. I had set ambitious targets to meet, and they were up to the challenge. By the time we signed the contract, they had already started working on the project. They completed the final designs in under three weeks, which is exactly the kind of speed a startup needs.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I wasn’t sure if they were working on the project full time. Sometimes the designer would spend three days to provide 5–10 new screens, but then it would take two days to touch up one screen. I didn't know if they were working on multiple projects or not, but that was my only concern.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a software company that offers three products focusing on patient engagement and health information. We enable normal people to access their medical records, either online or through an app. We entered this side of the business because it's typically difficult to retrieve clinical data from doctors’ systems.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Momentum Design Lab?

When we reached out to Momentum, we only had two products: a legacy solution that had existed for eight or nine years, and a new product that lacked UI/UX experts on staff. Through self-training, myself and my team guided the design. Since we did most of the QA in a startup atmosphere and saw the same interface day-in and day-out, it was easy to gloss over pain points. We were interested in getting fresh eyes on our product and seeing how we could improve the experience for the patients who leverage our tools.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Momentum performed a heuristic analysis and expertly evaluated the parts of our product that they would change. They analyzed the information architecture and helped us understand the journey that patients went through while leveraging our tool, down to the number of clicks to get to the information they wanted. We still have their detailed, in-depth analysis. During our engagement, my team and I learned design thinking from them. Momentum gave us helpful ideas and pointed us to resources we could use.

What is the team composition?

We had one project manager, a lead designer, and one or two salespeople who helped during the sales process. We also had a few junior designers, who didn’t interact with us much, but did help the main designer.

How did you come to work with Momentum Design Lab?

We put out an RFP to a couple of user experience and design companies to see who would be the best suited to help us. Momentum bubbled to the top. Their initial proposal was so buttoned-up that it blew everyone else away. We met with them a couple of times, and looked at eight to ten other companies, before settling on Momentum.

How much have you invested with them?

We didn’t have the budget to work with them on an ongoing basis, so we worked on a fixed-fee contract. We pointed out the areas we wanted to focus on, and they priced the project based on the effort they anticipated.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with Momentum between July and October 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our entire internal team was satisfied with the Momentum design team’s output. Their input benefitted us by pointing us in a direction we weren’t intending to take before. Internally, no one was disappointed with what they gave us, especially since we continue to learn from and reference much of it today.

We shared many of their designs during a quarterly user group to show our clients the direction in which we were heading. All our clients clambered to ask how soon we’d have it available, which spoke to the elegance of the designs Momentum proposed.

We adapted their designs into our third product, which is easily the best-designed and slickest of the three. With a subset of the product they reviewed, we launched a new product for a smaller market.

How did Momentum Design Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

We’ve had some differences of opinion about design, mainly because I can be stubborn. I have an architecture background, so my designs are sometimes a bit different. Momentum’s lead designer and I had some long discussions, but their communication was mostly top-notch. They did a phenomenal job with project management, bridging the gap between different disciplines and ensuring that everyone understood what each person said.

What did you find most impressive about them?

When we were trying to figure out color schemes and similar elements, they put together a bunch of mood boards and got all our stakeholders—including our CEO, the chief strategist, my team, the product team, and the marketing team—to give their opinions. Their goal was to come up with something that matched the whole company's design taste. They got a nice cross-section of our company and based their designs on that feedback. That helped with acceptance and gave everyone a chance to be heard, which doesn’t always happen.

I was also grateful for their approach to meeting our requests. We wanted to have our own design, but we also wanted to have something to show at our quarterly user group. They built towards that, keeping our deadline in mind and creating a clickable InVision mockup that clients could play with when visiting our location. I was grateful for Momentum’s ability to prioritize this. They kept us focused.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Communicate the project's vision and goals clearly and early. Communicate what you’re hoping to achieve and learn. Momentum asked us to do that, so I set up a call to cast a nice vision. That gave their team everything they needed to keep us on track during the project. They won’t forget what happens during the kick-off call, so be as prepared as possible at the outset. This will help during the project’s timeline.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the business process owner at AMN Healthcare, a staffing company that matches physicians and nurse practitioners for hospitals, health systems, physician groups, and clinics. I manage the sales and delivery sides.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Momentum Design Lab?

We had a provider portal where doctors can create profiles, schedules, and go through the needed processes to get them on an assignment. We wanted a better UX/UI design and mobile compatibility to accommodate doctors’ busy schedules.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We provided a lot of ideas and materials at our initial meeting, including process maps and old wireframes from previous customer events. We also held a workshop to review these items and our processes. Momentum called doctors and our internal recruiters to see what they wanted from the UX. Next, they built InVision wireframes and design screens in collaboration with our input. We also migrated all our systems to Salesforce to enhance the visual design for end users.

The engagement is completed but the portal is not yet launched. We’ve deliberated on coding extensively and are most likely using Angular.

What is the team composition?

There were at least 10 resources. We worked with: a senior vice president, the project manager, a couple UX designers, and developers.

How did you come to work with Momentum Design Lab?

A VP from our IT department requested a lead form on their website.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $250,000–$500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Work started in July 2017 and ended January 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Internal users find the new design simpler and more user-friendly. I think that’s a win because it matches our original goals. We are about to start the first of three user testing phases prior to launching the portal.

How did Momentum Design Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

The team worked in a timely manner. They uploaded design elements into InVision after discussing the concepts during our weekly or biweekly calls. Momentum used Basecamp to store documents, meeting notes, and attachments. Basecamp worked very well because it centralized everything we needed to save.

The project manager performed consistently before transitioning out near the end, when most work was completed. She kept us on track and maintained spreadsheets, timelines, invoices, and documentation well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

While I haven’t previously worked with other providers, I found their national experience very helpful for explaining concepts in an accessible manner. Every time we had concerns, Momentum brought in examples from engagements with major tech companies. The team also helped us better understand who our customers are and the support they need. That process refocused the way we think about customer service and growth.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There were some administrative challenges separate from design and development. We weren’t prepared for sudden resource changes; Momentum didn’t make it fully clear that people would transition on and off. Knowing that upfront would have been helpful because our internal systems require lengthy onboarding and offboarding processes.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Momentum’s past work allows them to ask the right questions. Give them as much information as possible; materials such as process maps help them understand specific industry nuances. They can design around those specifications and processes.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for Technomic, a research and consulting firm in the food service industry. I oversee our online research tools, as well as our syndicated research for clients.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Momentum Design?

We did a technical audit of our current platform a few years ago and interviewed clients and discovered that some clients found it overwhelming and too complex. We wanted to rebuild it to be more intuitive and user-friendly. We hired Momentum to do UX/UI design and help us meet our client needs.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started by walking through our goals. We spoke with a UX specialist, who interviewed about 15 of our clients about their impressions of the old platform. He then brought them back to respond to initial mockups of the new site to get their feedback. The interviews were extensive and we learned a lot about what was intuitive for our users and what we needed to work on. Once we had that feedback, we tried to lead the data and visualizations flow in the same logical path.

Once the initial interviews were complete, the design team built the mockups and wireframes for the second round of interviews. We used Visual Studio’s design and got through a few rounds before completing the CSS files. We got all the fonts and design elements from the developer.

Once design was done, we worked on marketing videos with them. We also went back for corrections and some additional work. The platform is live, so most of their involvement is on a smaller scale now. We’re still implementing final changes to phase out our legacy site.

What is the team composition?

We had a project manager, a UX specialist, a lead designer, and two additional designers. The lead designer went over the UX interviews with the specialist to get information from him, then worked with the design team on the individual pages, buttons, pop-ups, etc.

How did you come to work with Momentum Design?

We found them through an online search. Our COO heard of them, but hadn’t worked with them. We considered three firms. The questions they asked and the feedback they gave us made them stand out. We also liked their past work. They showed us samples of other sites they built to give us a sense of their design style.

How much have you invested with them?

Including all the design and marketing, we’ve spent approximately $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together around July 2016 and completed the initial design project in January 2017. We still work with them on other projects.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our biggest goal was an intuitive platform design that people wanted to engage with. Our previous platform was geared toward more of a power user. We were trying to redesign to accommodate the more moderate users. We have received feedback specifically from users in sales departments who used the previous platform and are pleased with how great the new platform looks and works for them. It’s not intimidating and overwhelming in ways our old site was. Board members from our parent company have seen it and comment positively about the look and feel of the new design.

How did Momentum Design perform from a project management standpoint?

Our project manager was very detailed. We used Slack, Visual Studio, and Invision for the project and had no issues.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The UX interviews really stood out to us. We received a lot of internal information that we could learn from as we made decisions about the new platform.

Are there any areas they could improve?

This comes from any team environment, but consistency among team members is important. Our UX specialist underlined this for us as a reason our clients struggled with the original platform. Sometimes the back button wasn’t in the same place and we had to remind designers to stay consistent. It would help if the lead designer was more diligent in catching that sort of thing.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re very timely. Once the project gets going, it will be fast-paced. Make sure you make time in your schedule so you don’t delay the process. Also, be sure that design elements and fonts fit your workflow and your clients’ needs. We had to adjust some Mac fonts that didn’t work for our Windows users.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Infinera is a leader in optical transfer. One of the key technologies we enable is high-speed bandwidth using the Photonic Integrated Circuit (or PIC), which allows us to build products which essentially carry almost all the internet traffic in the world today. I look after product management for software-defined networking (SDN), and the product I manage is called Xceed.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Momentum Design?

We needed a cutting-edge GUI [graphical user interface] display, which was important in order to present a lot of information about a network in a concise manner. Internally, our engineering team was more suited for building network functions. When it came to designing a GUI for presenting the information in the most concise and visually appealing manner, we would have to rely on Momentum Design for help.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We worked with Momentum Design on the frontend GUI design and implementation for our Xceed product. We initially asked them to design the interface for our topology screens, which present the way in which different optical nodes connect to one another. Displaying that is where their team came in.

We haven’t had too many changes on the broad direction, but there were lots of low-level details which we tackled. Momentum was responsive to these requests as we went through them.

Momentum provided us with wireframes and visual designs, as well as implementing some of the key functions. After this, it was up to us to take the GUI and integrate it into the backend code developed in-house. Designing one window made it easy for our team to replicate that work. Momentum Design gave us the basic building blocks which we could then take to the next level.

What is the team dynamic?

We’ve worked with 4-5 people from their team at different stages. There were around three visual designers, one project manager, and one developer for the actual implementation. Not all resources worked from beginning to end—the visual designers worked for the first month, after which the developer worked with us on implementing things on the backend.

How did you come to work with Momentum Design?

We were looking for a visual design company local to the Bay Area, and evaluated a couple of options. We found Momentum Design to be the most suitable for our requirements.

When we started the project, we didn’t know where we wanted to go, and the other companies we evaluated were not comfortable giving us a proposal until we defined exactly what we needed. This is where Momentum stood apart—they offered to work with us to get us across the line.

How much have you invested with them?

The cost was around $140,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Momentum Design a year and a half ago. The project lasted for four months, from May until August 2016. We launched in September.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Internally, the overall GUI was well-received. It was one of the most unique interfaces we’d worked with internally, which not only attracted kudos from us, but also from our sales teams and end-customers.

We are using it to increase the interest level for our SDN products, as well as for the marketing launch we had in September. We built a video for this, and used the visual elements from the GUI quite effectively.

How did Momentum Design perform from a project management standpoint?

One of the things I noticed with Momentum was that they use the Agile methodology. I’ve worked with multiple engineering teams with the same approach, and, by comparison, Momentum’s process was one of the best Agile implementations I’d seen. They had a strong project manager who worked with the developers and with me. I’ve tried to use them as an example internally, for our engineering people. Momentum did an exceptional job of this.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their project management capabilities were very good. We’ve noticed Momentum’s skills from the visual design stage through to implementation. A good deal of this was the fact that we had a strong developer who had worked on different GUIs for almost 25 years. Our internal people, at the beginning of the project, were skeptical that we could deliver this in 4 months, but Momentum stepped up to the plate. This sets them apart.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’m struggling to find something bad about them, seeing as I’m a fan of the work Momentum did. If I had to pick something, it would be giving us even more options for the directions we chose.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a kid-safe social platform being built that allows for brands to create a 360-degree product experience. We have families on the platform, including kids under 13, so we provide COPPA consent for the brands to engage with children.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Momentum Design Lab?

We needed a UI/UX to get past the MVP stage so we could actually build the product. We had a functional app on the App Store, but it wasn’t designed. It only allowed us to gain awareness of the functions and the future functions we needed to encompass. We basically just needed that design pulled in around our new logo, color scheme, and proper flows.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They were on a very tight contract to produce various user interfaces and user experiences for us to implement in time for a television show. They had signed up to meet a turnaround of 3 weeks, and we kicked that off. At the time, we only had an MVP app, but we wanted them to do both web and app concepts. 

They basically said what they could get done within certain timeframes, which included five screens for both web and mobile. We prioritized which screens made the most sense to get done in that timeframe, then they gave us the wireframes for the first review. They would then take our requirements expressed in the meeting and work for a couple days, then return to present their work. We gave feedback on that phone call, and then any outstanding things we needed to provide them with went through Basecamp. We’d give way to any final feedback the next day so they could keep working. 

They didn’t do any implementation for the app. For the scope of this project, they gave us everything we needed to build the screens ourselves put them into the app. 

What is the team dynamic?

They gave us a dedicated designer, and then we had check-ins almost every other day. We also had a program manager who was the point of contact with the designer.

How did you come to work with Momentum Design Lab?

They collaborated with our API architect on a military project. He really liked how professional they were, and knew how good they were at meeting deadlines. That’s the reason we reached out to Momentum Design Lab. 

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent around $25,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started at the end of December 2016, and went into the beginning of January 2017. They'll definitely be doing any further UI/UX work we need specific to our mobile app experience in the future.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

They provided the framework for our engineers to use in development. We have some creative fronted engineers, but Momentum Design Lab gave us an actual framework, or standard technology plan, that helped up create a look and feel for our products, as well as our platform. 

How did Momentum Design Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed at the highest level. This is one of their best qualities that’s lacking in many other firms. They will drive you to a deadline, make sure the cost and scope are kept in check, and keep you going with what you need to move on so everything can goes as planned. We used Basecamp for coordination. We had to be very tight with everything to make sure deadlines were met.

I’ve worked with a lot of different agencies and engineering firms in the past, and Momentum Design Lab was really good about sticking to a process. They would inform us if they needed to have approval by a certain time in order to meet cost, schedule, or scope. They’re really good about sticking to a project timeline, and they would bug us until they got approval in order to continue working. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their designers, along with their program management, were both very good. They gave us great people to pull our project off. Usually in a team, the design is awesome but the management is poor. My experience with Momentum Design Lab was that every single job within the company was well done, which isn’t typical. We have used a lot of UI/UX consultants, but we’ve never been happy with the full product. We had a great experience with Momentum. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

They're not the cheapest firm. You are going to pay for the work, but by keeping focused, we were able to avoid any issues.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We provide online learning, anything from videos, books, and courses to interactive material. Our aim is to help people build up their skill set and experience. I was the VP of product management for the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Momentum Design Lab?

The company was on a mission to build a new product and reinvent the experience. Our ultimate goal was to get users to engage and interact with the content and continue on their learning journey. We had systems in place that could deliver and keep track of learning materials, but they had become quite dated over the years. It’s important for our users to have a good experience with the platform since the utilization of the content is what really drives our business. If someone has a bad experience in finding what they want, they will be less likely to use our resources for learning.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We engaged with Momentum Design’s team for ideation on the type of experience we wanted our users to have. There was some ramp-up time in the beginning, while Momentum Design was still learning about our business and what drove it. We also engaged them to design some marketing materials, but the high-level work we did with Momentum Design focused on the ideation of the product. They also ran a couple of usability sessions for us at a major customer event.

The initial thinking was done around why people would come to our platform. We also developed some user personas, going through the difference between new and returning users and how we would engage each one. Momentum Design helped us think outside of our own boundaries. In essence, we were putting a replacement product into the market, and we tended to be bound by our own thinking. They helped us determine whether our limitations were internal — based on our own assumptions — or external.

I believe we used InVision at the time, possibly because it was already in use by our own design team. We’re a well-established company, so our own teams are used to certain processes. Momentum Design also used Zeplin. Our teams worked in tandem throughout the project. Tasks were tracked through JIRA.

How did you come to work with Momentum Design Lab?

Momentum Design did a lot of work with a company we acquired a few years ago. That company recommended the Momentum Design team. We liked the work we saw and reached out to Momentum.

How much have you invested with Momentum Design Lab?

I recently left the company and don’t have access to this data.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Momentum Design Lab at the beginning of 2016. I believe that there is still a UX person from their team working as part of the staff. I wasn’t involved in the staff augmentation piece, so I cannot say for sure.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Momentum Design helped reinvent our system, and the overall designs they helped put together were received positively. We performed a number of usability studies and focus groups. There was nothing I could identify as a major issue, but there were some tweaks to make.

How did Momentum Design Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

I had frequent phone calls with our account rep, including on Skype. About 1–2 members of Momentum Design’s team continue to do various user interface and user experience work with our Agile squad. Our own team used either Skype, Google Hangouts, or WebEx with video. Momentum Design was embedded into these platforms. They were great at working with us if we were unhappy with any of the resources, and they made changes quickly. They were responsive and good to work with.

There was an international team in place, which came with its own challenges, but Momentum Design was flexible and traveled whenever we needed them to. Given this setup, there will always be language and cultural barriers. At the beginning of the project, I was reporting to someone in Paris, France, which meant that any meetings had to take place in the morning. That person had a heavy accent when speaking English. I found myself translating their communication to the account rep from Momentum Design so that we could all get on the same page. This extended the work, but we worked through the challenge.

What did you find most impressive about Momentum Design Lab?

I found some of the brainstorming and ideation sessions to be very good. Momentum Design wanted to help us push our boundaries, which was unlike some of the other companies we’d used. Other vendors only wanted to take what we said and build it. Unfortunately, a lack of ideas from the vendor side can work against us sometimes. Momentum Design was really good at putting things on a board, then pushing us to determine if a persona was really valid or if there was another one we should have thought about. Their team was also receptive to feedback.

Are there any areas Momentum Design Lab could improve?

I can’t really think of anything, given the realities we had to work with. There were no major issues.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Momentum Design Lab?

Sometimes, we can go in with a specific project in mind and just want someone to execute what they’re given. However, Momentum Design can help on the deeper level.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My former company was Boost Media and I was the co-founder and CEO. Boost Media does AB optimization for advertising creative.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Momentum Design?

We needed help building the initial UI for our new product.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We came to Momentum with some wireframes showing what we wanted to build and they helped us refine those. They put together both the UI and UX based on the wireframes and then they coded the HTML and JavaScript. They did a lot of the frontend work as well to build out the initial UI.

The platform is basically an AB testing platform for ad creative. When we first started the business, we were doing it with a tech stack from Google. The platform syncs up with your Google AdWords account and makes a recommendation for which ads can be improved. You approve that recommendation, and then it generates a series of competitions. Writers see the best existing ad copy, and they submit alternative versions to try to improve the performance of that ad copy. Our platform then takes the existing ad copy and the copy provided by the writers, and it runs an AB or an ABCD split test between the baseline and the new proposed ad copy. It evaluates which one performs better, and then keeps the best-performing ad and pauses the underperforming ad.

We had about three people from Momentum on this project. A couple years later, we contracted with Momentum again for some redesign work. I don’t really remember the details of that project, but it was on the same platform.

How did you come to work with Momentum Design?

It was important that we went with a firm who had significant experience in B2B work and enterprise SaaS platforms. We looked at their portfolio of work and that was the decisive factor. I’m sure we were considering other providers at the time, but Momentum had done some work on their own product and I remember being impressed with their portfolio.

How much have you invested with Momentum Design?

It was around $100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project began in 2011. We worked on the first version for six months. The second time around was a little shorter, approximately three months.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their work was instrumental for us. We ended up raising a $1.5 million seed round and it was very helpful in us raising that.

How did Momentum Design perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed wonderfully. Joe Preston did a lot of the project management and David was involved as well. We were very pleased with that.

What did you find most impressive about Momentum Design?

They took a lot of pride in the craftsmanship of the UI and the UX they built for us. They were perfectionists about really making sure it was well thought through. They did a good job of really understanding our product and all the nuances of the use cases and interactions. They did a good job of listening to what we were looking to build but also pushing us beyond what we had thought of. We ended up using some designs and user interactions they had come up with without any input from us. We both contributed important elements toward the UI and UX, but they weren’t simply executing on our requirements; they also helped us to rethink some of the fundamental design and user flows.

Are there any areas Momentum Design could improve?

No. I was very satisfied and pleased with their work. I don’t remember anything that could have been done better.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO and head of product management of vFlyer, which I founded 12 years ago. It is a real estate marketing platform used by real estate agents, apartment communities, and property managers across North America. We develop a content management platform that generates and distributes marketing content. To get traffic for our clients, we send that content to some of the largest real estate websites.  

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Momentum Design Lab?

Design and user experience are critical to the success of a web service. We were looking at getting professional help with the development of our initial web application design and some of the templates that we use.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Momentum Design worked with me on 2 projects. They helped us with user interface design and graphic design. We handled the development side of it internally. Initially, they did some work on our design templates. Several years later, we re-engaged them to work on a new product — a website builder. We were going for the development with an inline editor in our website builder. It isn't that uncommon today, but it was a little bit more uncommon back then. In most cases, we were handling new products, so we didn't really have a user base to focus on. Certainly, there was consideration for personas, but I don't remember how detailed that persona analysis was at the time.

We worked with one of their designers. She ended up working part-time on our project for 3–4 months.

How did you come to work with Momentum Design Lab?

I don't recall how we found Momentum Design for the first project. Since we were pleased with their work on the first project, we included them in a review of potential vendors. We ended up choosing them again.

How much have you invested with Momentum Design Lab?

We’ve spent somewhere between $25,000 and $50,000 on Momentum Design’s services.

What is the status of this engagement?

The first project was in 2006, and the second project was in 2011.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We needed a design to build these products. They were integral in us developing some new services.

How did Momentum Design Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

It was a smaller project for them. I really was budget-conscious, so I really can't provide that much input. I worked with only 1 designer, so there wasn't as much project management that they potentially and usually provide. Nevertheless, it was adequate.

What did you find most impressive about Momentum Design Lab?

I like the fact that there was a team versus one designer, and they could provide support to each other. That was a benefit. They had a good portfolio of successful clients with good products. They were getting exposed to tough challenges and getting tested by users, so I felt they had the right experience to solve my problems.

Are there any areas Momentum Design Lab could improve?

No, I was satisfied. If it could have been done faster and cheaper, that would have been better.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

SingleMind Consulting is a digital product design and development firm. I’m the CEO and founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Momentum Design Lab?

At the time, our core focus was software development or web application development. We needed a design partner that could do the interactive and visual design for a client of ours, Screenshots.com.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They conducted the user interview of the client to get an idea of what the client wanted the interaction model to be for the website. Their design team built out the designs, including the interactive visual design, and handled the reviews for the client for any modification that needed to be made before development got underway. We took it from there and brought the project into completion, got it launched, and then they were on-hand for changes after the fact. This was the first creation of the website. What the client site did was there was a snapshot of what a website looked like at a given point in time for all websites on the internet. MDL created an interface that was really intuitive to the visitor of the website to understand what the timeline graph looked like and to make the navigation of all of the screenshots that have been taken for a given domain intuitive and easy to understand.

We handled all the development and collaborated with MDL on the production of the designs. They did some of the slicing of the assets and, since it was our client, we cleaned that up. But once the assets were all put under production, we worked with MDL to make sure that they were pixel-perfect, that the implementation was accurate to the design.

We have worked on larger projects with them. We’ve probably worked on 10 total projects with MDL. There’s been some general design consultation provided by some of the team members on some of the projects that we ended up not building and they didn’t bill us for.

How many resources have been assigned to your project?

Our account rep was Joe [Preston, Chief Experience Officer] and there was a lead designer. I believe there was a third person that we didn’t interact much that was doing some of the visual design production.

How did you come to work with Momentum Design Lab?

We have worked together over 10 years. This was one of the first projects that we worked with them on. We selected them because we knew them and knew they did good work. It was a high-profile client, and we wanted to make sure we put the best foot forward, so we used the best. We considered two other companies; a freelance designer that was going to work directly with us, and then another design firm that was based locally.

How much have you invested with Momentum Design Lab?

We have spent between $50,000 and $75,000 with them over the course of our relationship.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2007, and we still work with them on projects.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The metric would be the bottom line of retaining a relationship with a client because of the quality of work that MDL put forth. That’s certainly worth $250,000 to $400,000. I’m aware of awards that MDL has won. Generally, the comments that people make are that it’s world-class interaction and visual design, that it looks like it’s designed by one of the larger design firms.

How did Momentum Design Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

They are very consistent and they care very highly about what their clients think. They definitely want to deliver excellence throughout the organization. We use JIRA, Redmine, Basecamp, and Slack during the projects.

What did you find most impressive about Momentum Design Lab?

I would say the team is very capable of scaling. They were never asking for only large or small projects. They did whatever work we talked about doing together. The team was able to scale to meet the demand, which says a lot for a design agency to do that and then maintain their quality. That is very important and very powerful.

Are there any areas Momentum Design Lab could improve?

Nothing comes to mind.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Momentum Design Lab?

Be mindful of what your ideal budget is and consistently reach out to have a discussion with MDL around where they are sitting within the estimated budget. They’re very good at ideating and elucidating the ideas from the product owner, and sometimes that can mean it really doubles or triples the scope of the project. Sometimes the client is completely fine with that; other times they may enjoy the conversation but then when they get to the point of talking estimates, they get concerned about going over budget and then have a hard time pairing back the functionality. If they're mindful of that and enter into that dialogue on a regular basis it should prevent any surprises or negative experiences.