Momentum Design Lab

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

ChangeTip facilitates social media-based payments using Bitcoin and United States dollars in exchange for content that you love. You can buy your favorite YouTube artist a beer or a coffee through the comments, and then we handle the transaction.

What is your position?

I was the CEO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Before we brought Momentum on, we had a fairly ugly site, and we needed to reduce the complexity. Momentum came in and thought through the process from the user’s perspective, created a set of wireframes for us and produced a template for us that made the site look much more aesthetically appealing and professional.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

They helped us at first with user archetyping, understanding what a typical user should want to experience. Then, we went on create information architecture diagrams. Then, they produced wireframes, a template, and a style guide and those were the final products.

How did you come to work with Momentum Design Lab?

I had worked with Dave [Thomson, Momentum Design Lab's CEO] at a previous company, so this was the third company that we’ve done work at together. I knew him from before he started Momentum.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

It was between $10,000 and $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from February 2014 through May 2014. We were just done with their services. We ended up taking on design resources in house.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Based on the template that they gave us, we relaunched the site. Conversions went up. Based on what they did, the user experience was improved. Users proclaimed that the site was much better.

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

I give them an A-plus. They did everything they should. They managed requirements well. They delivered on time and with no complaints. We had an assigned project manager, and we met about once a week digitally using Google Hangouts.

What distinguishes Momentum Design Lab from other providers?

Momentum is exceptional in the breadth of their knowledge, the quality of their talent, and their ability to reduce very complex problems into simple user interfaces.

Is there anything Momentum Design Lab could have improved or done differently?

No. Truly, they did everything very well.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

I worked with Momentum when I worked with Attensity, which was a text analytics product. The technology was bought by another company in February 2016, so Attensity doesn't exist anymore.

What is your position?

I was the senior director of business operations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

About two years ago, Attensity was planning to launch a new product in the market, and we had to bring this product to market very quickly. Rather than hiring UI [user interface] designers and developers, we wanted to have an extension to our team. We had some front-end engineers, but we wanted to augment the existing team, so we used Momentum for that.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

They provided us with a contractor who supported our team and helped with development of our product.

How did you come to work with Momentum Design Lab?

They had done some work with my company in the past. That was a while back. Then, when we had this need, we reached back out to them.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

It cost from $50,000 to $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

It started about two years ago and lasted about a year. The majority of the work took place in 2014.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

No, not directly, but it was helpful to have the resources that Momentum provided to take our product to market on time. We had a relatively short timeline of nine months. It was good to have the Momentum resource on our team so we could scale more hours without having to worry about hiring somebody. They were a very good quality resource.

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

They did extremely well. There wasn't much project management required because we just needed one person as an extra addition to our team, but they were very responsive to whatever we needed. They very quickly gave us people and rates, and they worked with our budget – those kinds of things. They didn't need to do a whole lot of day-to-day project management but, once the resource joined our team, he was like an internal resource for us.

What distinguishes Momentum Design Lab from other providers?

Momentum was very responsive, very interested in helping us succeed, and possessed high-quality resources.

Is there anything Momentum Design Lab could have improved or done differently?

No, not really. We didn't do more business with them because of what happened, but that's not a reflection of Momentum's quality. It's more of a reflection of where my company was because the plan was to do much more.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

My company is a software development company. We produce software products for the insurance industry that we sell and license to insurance carriers.

What is your position?

My position is manager of the user experience design team.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

On the initial project, we were actually doing a visual redesign of our core product, so it was a pretty big project. At the time, our UX design team was very small and didn't really have sufficient visual design expertise, so we needed to supplement our team.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We've actually engaged Momentum in three different projects, so I'll talk through those. The first project was the one I just described, which was the visual design project. They were essentially creating a larger theme for our core products. They did quite a number of iterations on visual themes for my company to review and eventually incorporate into our product.

The second project involved getting some resources to develop the UI [user interface] work that they had done. The third time we engaged them was on a different project where we needed a few icons designed. It was a relatively small project where we needed seven icons.

How did you come to work with Momentum Design Lab?

I don't remember how we got in touch with them – it was five years ago [2011]. I had talked to several different UX consulting firms and chose them over the others.

How much have you invested with Momentum Design Lab?

The first project was less than $100,000. The second one was probably about that size, too. The third one was about a $15,000 project. It wasn't that big. Our total spend was probably right around $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The first project was about five years ago, the second one was about four years ago, and the third one was earlier this year. I don't have an active engagement with them at the moment.

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 statistics, but I can tell you that Momentum satisfied our needs in those first two projects so that I thought to call them back on that third one. They completed the work that we needed on time with good quality. They were certainly competent and very good in terms of meeting deadlines and organization of work. We use Basecamp to communicate, and they're very good about posting things there and keeping us informed about what's going on.

We had a lot of positive feedback on their design work. Internally, the last set of icons was for a couple of internal development tools, and the team is quite happy with the designs. They're using them now.

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

The first and third projects went very well. Again, they kept us informed. The second one that involved development resources wasn't as smooth as the others, and I want to make sure to mention this. The developers who were working on it didn't seem as well integrated with our team. At that point, we needed people who had UI development expertise to help us through some humps because we were developing our own expertise in-house, and it wasn't as smooth as it could've been. They weren't as communicative. It wasn't bad, but it didn't go as smoothly as in the other projects.

What did you find most impressive about Momentum Design Lab?

They are easy to communicate with. I never felt like I was passed around. In some companies, you're talking to one person, and then you have to talk to somebody else to get something done. Then, that person can't make decisions, and so you're going back to somebody else. I didn't get that sense here. I was dealing with one person and that person was my contact, and they had the ability to make decisions or at least get back to me quickly. I liked that – the personal relationship aspect.

Are there any areas Momentum Design Lab could improve?

I did mention the responsiveness problem in the second project. Other than that, no, I thought they did well. I thought they had the right people on the job. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

My company is NTT i3. We provide a global network. My group is working on an SDN [software defined network] solution.

What is your position?

I am the senior UX [user experience] designer. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

In this company, I do both UI [user interface] development and UX design. I have to work more on the developing side, so I need more help on the UX side. 

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

First, they started consulting our project status. One thing I really liked was that they are very practical. They tried to accommodate our project goals, status, and schedule. They tried to fit our project status, and then did the wireframing and mockups for the design. Then, we discussed our goals and then finally we agreed on their proposal for the wireframe and started the visual design. They provided the HTML code for our project.

How did you come to work with Momentum Design Lab?

Joe [Preston], who worked for Momentum Design Lab at the time, organized an enterprise UX meet up in the Bay Area. That's where I got to know Momentum Design Lab. They understand enterprise customer issues, and they're knowledge is very fitting to our solution.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

The project budget was around $120,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in September 2015, and it ended in December.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Our product is not yet for ready for market. Our company is the center of the NTT group. We provide our product to other NTT-owned companies. We don't have any kind of statistics or metrics but, because of the work Momentum has done, we developed a great reputation from our parent companies. I appreciate their work in that regard.

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

They are very flexible. They do agile-style design. I changed the project a couple of times, but they followed the changes with ease. They try to stick to the project status and goal. They are very flexible.

What distinguishes Momentum Design Lab from other providers?

I have worked with other design agencies for other projects. Momentum knows a lot about enterprise industries and about what's popular in the enterprise market. It is easy to talk with them about our product because they know what's happening in the enterprise market. Other agencies are good for the consumer market, but they don't have much knowledge about the enterprise market.

Is there anything Momentum Design Lab could have improved or done differently?

No. I'm very happy as far as their work. They are still a small agency, so if they had more people, they could have finished the project faster. They could expand their company to do more, but that would be it.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

I am the cofounder and CEO of Manifold Technology, a B2B [business-to-business] security product company. We're early stage, and we've got about a dozen people.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

As you might imagine, trying to communicate the value proposition of a back-end cybersecurity tool is pretty challenging, particularly telling the story visually. We had some very complex concepts that we wanted to convey visually, and we started working with Momentum probably more than a year ago to help us tell the story using keynotes and some website materials.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

There were a couple of things that they helped us with. They created some visual and graphic designs for multiple product pitch decks as well as presentation materials. We used their visuals for website layout. Then, they did some UX [user experience] and UI [user interface] mockups for a couple different prototype applications that we had developed.

How did you come to work with Momentum Design Lab?

I want to say they were referred to me by somebody. I met Henry [Swasey, project manager at Momentum Design Lab] early on and was impressed with his approach. Then, we got to know more of the team. I can't remember how we initially got connected.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

It was $10,000 to $50,000 during the course of six months.

What is the status of this engagement?

It began probably in late fall of 2014 and ended mid-2015.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

Like I said, we're still pretty early stage, so we don't have many quantifiable results. We've since hired and built out our own design team, so we haven't worked with them in the past year, but when we were relying on them for a lot of our design work, we were definitely using a lot of what they developed for external pitches and things like that. There's no doubt that they helped us raise money. We raised money from some institutional investors. They probably helped us early on get some customer attention, but quantifying that is pretty tough. Much of what they developed was for external consumption.

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

Momentum was really professional. I liked their approach and the methodology that they used. It was very well organized. One of the things that attracted me to them was their overall professionalism and methods. Sometimes, I'd call them up, and I would need them to put a rush on things, and they would bend over backward to help us.

What distinguishes Momentum Design Lab from other providers?

It was a couple of things. First, we've dealt with a couple different design firms, and Momentum is a very good value. They're very attentive to their clients' needs and to details. There's a personal touch in that they're willing to work with you to surge when you need them to, so it still feels like a small shop even though they've grown into a fairly well-established business. I always felt like we had a lot of personal touch and attention.

Is there anything Momentum Design Lab could have improved or done differently?

It's hard to say. Many weaknesses were probably on our side just because we were early stage and often things were changing quite a bit. They were very adaptive, and I don't really have anything bad to say other than we weren't very mature at that point, so much of what they developed for us eventually was overtaken by other things. I was very pleased. I don't have a bad thing to say about them.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

I am the chief software architect at 3N1 Solutions. We help clients build secure enterprise software.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We partnered with Momentum as a UX [user experience] design partner for the first phase of a software project for one of our clients.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

They provided UX design services to complement the database architecture that we were providing for a client. The project was to transform a legacy system that was about 20 years old. Momentum worked with the client alongside of us as we remodeled the data. It was more of a transformation type of a project. Momentum was providing user experience design services that allowed us to create the future user experience for this new system.

How did you come to work with Momentum Design Lab?

We were searching for a business partner for several years and had done several interviews with companies for the type of partners that we wanted to work with. Momentum had a great track record. They had worked with many Fortune 500 companies through the years. The difference for most companies is when you have a collection of talented, smart, focus-driven people working together it doesn't just make the job much more fun but it makes it easier to cross the finish line. They've got a very talented group of people. They're very focused on what they do, and they've got a good approach. I'd say not just a good approach, but also a very repeatable approach that delivers results.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

We've spent somewhere between $250,000 and $500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started with the one project in May 2015 and finished up in December. We were actually making good progress, but the client had some internal business direction changes, and we had to put the project on hold. They're getting ready to start it back up again in August [2016]. That was not due to any of the work we were doing. They were very complimentary of the work that we were doing – both on the database side and the UX design side.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We got some feedback from our client after showing them our designs. They were able to see many of their problems being solved as these new mockup screens were being presented to them. They were very excited because they saw an elimination of work and elimination of redundancies, plus an addition of good capabilities. I think the actual business users were frustrated when the project was suspended because they saw the results of us transforming the data and transforming the user experience. We created more scalability.

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

They were very solid on the project management side. Momentum understands very well not just the project scope of what we're trying to do, but the process and methodology and why it's so important. They're very patient because, many times, companies will want to do a variation of something, and they have their own ideas about how they want to approach it. Momentum is very adaptable. They patiently help the client understand where things can be corrected as the project starts to take different directions.

That's the one thing that impressed me most about Momentum. They were focused on the value of every dollar that was spent and they absolutely did not want to burn money from a client without providing value. It goes against everything they're about. We were in the same boat, and that's why we enjoyed working together. Neither one of us wanted to be unproductive with our time. For Momentum, value was paramount and project management was the key to that. Without solid project management and communication following a very repeatable process and approach, it makes it very difficult to cross the finish line.

What distinguishes Momentum Design Lab from other providers?

Passion is number one. They're very passionate about what they do. They don't try to dabble in everything, they focus on a core set of services, which makes them very good at what they do. Also, it's their core integrity. There are companies that will talk about integrity, and then there are companies that perform where you see integrity lived out in what they do. Momentum has a tremendous amount of integrity as a company in the way they deliver their services.

Is there anything Momentum Design Lab could have improved or done differently?

I think the challenge with this project specifically was that we were working with a client that did not have much exposure to user experience design. Momentum had previously done most of their work with companies that were very familiar with it. I think the only thing that could have been better was how to educate a business that had no idea what user experience design was and show them the process and value. That was an experience they hadn't come across yet, and I think that's probably something they've focused on improving.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

My organization is a healthcare software vendor specifically targeting the payer space.

What is your position?

I am the director of user experience for three of the five products that we have.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Initially, it started as staff augmentation. I was focusing more on our UX strategy, and I needed help in terms of production and output based on ideas and concepts of wireframes we had.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

Without taking much spoon-feeding, Momentum is able to take sometimes very vague requirements and come back with two or three concepts for us to review. They primarily give us great visual design in combination with good user experience paradigms. I like this model because, usually, you have to give finalized wireframes to design firms, and they come back with styles and a color palette, but you get more with Momentum.

They helped us design our new portal strategy based on the latest consumer-based approach of reaching out to customers who want their healthcare information. Momentum understood the healthcare space well and, once we explained the personas to them, they solved that problem while giving us other ideas, too. They didn't hesitate to provide their own ideas and suggestions. We didn't have to explain it to them what consumerism means – they got it. Momentum has great experience but, at the same time, they did a little bit of research on their own to understand the nuances of our industry. They got it.

How did you come to work with Momentum Design Lab?

When I joined, we already had a relationship with them, but they were not engaged properly in terms of their skills. Very quickly in my first engagement, I realized they were much better than what we were using them for. They can be leveraged, partnered, and collaborated with much more effectively. Then, instead of sidelining them, I tried to use what they had to offer, and it worked out well.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

We've spent less than $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

I personally started working with them in January 2016, but they had already been engaged a full year earlier. My project had been going on with them since January, and it just wrapped up [June 2016]. We might try to grow our own UX team, but if we need more staff augmentation, I will not look for any other agency. It will just be Momentum.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

They have produced five themes for us and about 25 to 30 screens. Turnaround time is good – usually two days average. Weekly, I did not have to engage with them more than two hours to move the project forward. Their leadership is good enough to move things further along. From that perspective, the metric of having to engage with them on a weekly basis is a positive for me.

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

It was great. Whenever a task or milestone was done, I would get an email telling me how many hours we had left. We were always informed on about a weekly basis. At times, when I thought having a meeting wasn't necessary because we knew exactly what we wanted, we just gave it to them, and they took care of it. The project management was receptive, and they were flexible. Usually, I don't see that, but Momentum folks really adjusted at times when we wanted to be mindful of our hourly cost.

What distinguishes Momentum Design Lab from other providers?

They are very responsive in terms of our needs, and they understand it. Their approach is best suited for me because I'm a user experience professional, so I like to do a lot of A/B testing, and I just did not have time to create designs. I gave them a wireframe, they came up with three different concepts and color schemes, and then I took that and tested it with 15 users. It saved me a lot of time, and I got very good feedback.

They use this approach very well, and they insist on this approach because it has served them well. There are other firms I know that will only do visual designs and require much more collaboration and guidance. Momentum initially will burn through the hours very quickly, but it'll be worth it in terms of giving you a lot of options. I think that's a good approach that they use, and then they rotate the designers from project to project, which also keeps the innovation going.

Is there anything Momentum Design Lab could have improved or done differently?

At times, maybe turnaround time for certain designs, but I wouldn't take that as a negative. I understand they were working on different projects and not just our project. There were days when I thought they could come back in two days rather than four, but then you take it with a grain of salt.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

I am vice president of product and user experience for FirstRain, a SaaS [software-as-a-service] company that's in data analytics.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We are trying to make our analytics much more usable and change people's perception of what our product does. We were primarily being used as a newsletter, even though we had much more to offer. My goal as head of product was to shift that positioning into something that was more reflective of the market that we are playing in, which is business analytics. We wanted to bring that to users in a more visible and valuable way.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

At the time, we had a couple of user experience-related folks on the design team, but what I was really looking for from Momentum was a more senior user experience designer. Specifically, a full-fledged interaction designer mixed with enough visual design skills so that I could primarily deal with one person. What I needed was someone who could explain the requirements and could quickly do concept wireframes. I did ask them to do concept leverage design, UI [user interface] design and then, sometimes, a little bit of visual for various projects of all sorts.

How did you come to work with Momentum Design Lab?

I did a search online for a firm. I realized that they were a good fit for us because of their pod organization, which allows you to get somebody from their pool of designers more nimbly. I've probably interacted with two of their designers, and I usually go for very senior ones. They've both been good in terms of quality and very flexible. There are other firms out there that won't do work unless the whole team's involved. Momentum was a little bit more flexible in their structure and able to be used almost like an ad hoc team.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

It was on the pricey side, I think they were about $200 an hour. I was spending about $50,000 per quarter, and I used them for a couple quarters. If I had more budget, I would use them more.

What is the status of this engagement?

I first reached out to them in early 2015, and it ended probably in October or November of 2015. I'm not working with them currently because I have no budget.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

I basically used them to help me do the work of UX [user experience] deliverables so that I could communicate them to our engineers in India. During this past year, we've completely launched a new product. In terms of feedback, everything seemed to be very smooth.

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

I think it was left to the individual. I basically engaged two different designers during the course of our overall engagement to work with me. They worked with me and my style. I feel like they were very responsive. I didn't ask them to do too much project management overall. It was more sort of fitting my project management. Being responsive throughout the day was a style that I liked.

What distinguishes Momentum Design Lab from other providers?

The flexibility is great. The second thing is that the quality of the two designers that I worked with was higher than average. Building up a UX team in-house is a lot of work. You have to find the right fit and train them. The folks that I interacted with at Momentum were senior. They had the spectrum of skills that I expected, which distinguishes them from freelance UX-ers.

It was a quick on-boarding. Usually, you need to spend some time familiarizing your designers with the context of stuff. Our project is kind of complex. I was really amazed at how quickly the two designers that I worked with from Momentum were able to get it, so that's a differentiator.

Is there anything Momentum Design Lab could have improved or done differently?

Maybe a little bit of clarity on what happens when the engagement ends. I think that they hire designers who are kind of independent in the way that they manage their stuff.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

My company is one of the leading SaaS [software-as-a-service] companies that allow businesses to manage their log files.

What is your position?

I'm the VP of product.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We have a web-based SaaS product whose customers are engineers and general technical personnel who manage applications and technical infrastructure. Our product is generally approachable and easy to use, but we needed to make some design improvements and had recently lost our principal designer. It's difficult to design complex interfaces, so we wanted to use a firm that could help us with the interaction.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

One of the distinguishing features of our mobile product takes up about a third of our screen. Although it's a powerful feature, some of our customers find it complex and confusing at times. We wanted to redesign that feature and rethink how our customers should interact with it, so that was where the project started.

From there, we explained the capabilities and functionality of the product to Momentum and then discussed what we envisioned it to be. We considered the challenges that our customers face as well as the additional features that we wanted to include in the new design. Momentum's primary focus was the interaction design, so they started with wireframes and InVision interactive mockups. We had five or six phases of back and forth where they sent us designs and we provided detailed feedback using Basecamp.

We didn't embark on information architecture because the scope of this project didn't require it, but after the first design phase, we went into visual design. That phase included selecting colors and fine tuning the graphics.

How did you come to work with Momentum Design Lab?

We had previously worked with a different agency for a separate project and weren't satisfied with how it turned out. We decided to switch to a new agency and our CEO recommended Momentum because he knew the CEO of Momentum [David Thomson].

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

We spent between $10,000 and $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began the project in November of last year [2015], and it lasted about three months, ending in February. We intended to use them for another project, but ended up not needing to outsource it.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We are still implementing the design and devising a schedule to make that happen, so we don't have any deliverables yet.

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

Momentum has a project manager, a principal designer, and also the executive team who joined us initially. The project manager, Henry [Swasey], made sure the meetings were on track and Basecamp was all set up. We would post documents in Basecamp that were related to the functionality or any other research that we had from our customers that would be relevant. We worked iteratively over five or six versions of the design. The designer, Zach, produced InVision mockups which were 20 to 30 screens, and then screen by screen our team of two or three people would review and post specific feedback on Basecamp.

For us, it was pretty iterative because this piece of our product was confusing to customers, and we didn't know what the optimal design was, so we had to experiment with different ideas. We went back and forth to get to a design that we thought was sufficiently rich in capabilities, but also approachable from a user perspective. The project manager was not very involved. He would make sure that the project was on track, we'd get billed, but mostly we worked directly with the designer.

What distinguishes Momentum Design Lab from other providers?

The one thing that was striking was that they were pretty granular in their billing and very fair in the pricing. If they only worked half an hour, we would get for billed half an hour. Momentum was pretty good with staying well within budget and updating us on where we were from a budget perspective.

Is there anything Momentum Design Lab could have improved or done differently?

Not really – nothing came to mind. We'd give them feedback, they'd come back with the updates, and it was that simple. They're half an hour away, and it was relatively easy to schedule a time and have follow-up discussion and get the interaction mockups. That part was all smooth.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Sencha is a UI [user experience] framework company that delivers solutions in software development for Fortune-1000 companies around the world. I was the Director of Worldwide Professional Services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Momentum?

Momentum has a unique skill set in UI/UX. Even though we were a front-end UI company, we built a lot of applications. However, building an application is only one piece of the process. The success of an application rests on how well the user feels in it: Does it flow well? Do I have to click too many times? Is it visually pleasing to the eyes? Is it too cluttered? All these things matter.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

There were times when I would recommend that clients just visit Momentum directly, but for larger projects we would often bring in Momentum as a department of our own team. We brought them in as a first step to walk the client through what they needed, and to ask all the right questions. Finally, when the client felt like they had enough information, Momentum would step back and do some iterations on flow, colors, etc. They would not just present one proposal; they would present several options, and then ask the client which direction they wanted to go. Eventually this process would yield a specific solution of how everything would look.

Again, all this happened before we would actually engage with the client ourselves. Once the visual design and the flows were created, then we would step in and start developing. Along the way, we might keep Momentum involved as the solution was coming to fruition. Once the app was finally being developed, such that there was something you could touch and feel, it might happen that some tweaks were needed or some additional pieces added that hadn’t been part of the initial concept.

How did you come to work with Momentum?

This is probably the sixth year I’ve been working with Momentum. When I started with Sencha, Momentum was just a small organization—perhaps 10 or 15 people. They were actually involved in the early days of our framework, so they had some expertise with our product. Although they have, more or less, stepped out of that arena, their intimate knowledge of our product made them uniquely qualified to deliver solutions for our clients. What was different about Momentum from other design agencies was the fact that they don’t just come up with visuals; they actually understand application development.

How much have you invested with Momentum?

We probably did 20 projects with them over the course of the last 5 years, and each project can span anywhere from $30,000 or $40,000 to $200,000. They weren’t all huge, they weren’t all tiny; they were a mix. In total, our investment would probably be between $1 million and $10 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them around 2010–2011 and continued through the last five years. They’re still listed as a partner, but the company is not as actively engaged in utilizing any partners at the moment.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

There weren’t any specific metrics, but I never had a problem with their quality of work or with a customer not being happy with what they were able to deliver. In fact, that’s why I used them: If I wanted to present myself as a professional organization, I needed to have people working with me who also have that level of professionalism in what they do. With Momentum, that was there.

How did Momentum perform from a project management standpoint?

They have their own ways of doing things. Our models didn’t always align, but they were flexible enough, and we met in the middle. We tried to put our own management style around what they did; sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. This hindered them sometimes. For the most part, they have their methodologies and they met their deadlines. They were in the meetings we expected them to be in. I have no complaint from that aspect; just two organizations trying to work together, and you have your way, I have mine. As long as you’re delivering on your commitments, you’re present in the meetings, and the client is happy, I’m okay with a little bit of flexibility.

What did you find most impressive about Momentum?

They were a good company to work for. I don’t have any problem with their quality of work, and I never had to worry about the job getting done. If they committed to something, I didn’t have to worry about them flaking out on me. They were professional in that way, and we treated them that way.

The people in the company are great. They’re easy to work with, they’re professional, and they’re reliable. That goes a long way, because you can find people who are really good, but sometimes they’re so good they think they don’t have to meet deadlines. Or sometimes you find people who are good at what they do, but they don’t know how to deal with the clients. I never had to worry about any of that with Momentum. Really, it was a no-brainer for me to go to them.

Are there any areas Momentum could improve?

I actually think they did what they needed to do. They were doing a lot more development in the beginning when I met them, and it turned out that their real expertise was in UI/UX. They got their team more streamlined, and it became more apparent what I should use them for. We took advantage of their clarity and vision as needed because, as much as we were a UI company, we really were not that strong in the visuals; we were stronger in creating the applications. In this regard, Momentum was a good fit for us.