Slide UX

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

ICF is a global consulting services provider that serves clients in a number of markets, including commercial industries and governments around the world. We provide consulting and advisory through implementation services and engagement services. I’m the vice president of digital and performance marketing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

We needed to bring a more opinionated design to a new editorial destination we were creating for our site’s brand. We needed someone who could come in and operate through a number of different lenses. We wanted to build a digital product and needed someone who had the ability to design something that would translate into solid, usable product interactions. It needed to be informed by solid research and exploration of some different visual design alternatives.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our first project was designing a new editorial destination. They came in and facilitated a group of our editorial team, our digital team, and a number of our content producers. Through that, they got a firsthand feel for the vision and the existing materials we had.

We then entered into a timebox design period. We workshopped around the vision and the design team turned around a number of prototypes of concepts. They built in a couple of rounds of iteration, using the first round to push the boundaries a little bit. Ultimately, we made our way towards a final design and, once we had that, they assisted us in selecting who we should partner with to build it.

We planned the detailed implementation of the new editorial site. Slide UX built the detailed design and all the HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and asset development that we needed for the site, while the other agency built the backend components of that. We’ve redesigned and rebuilt almost our entire website. We’ve backed into redesigning a lot of the core site, giving it an overhaul both visually and from a usability standpoint.

We were then able to use that as a launch point into some subsequent projects, including a large one that all three of us worked on together. We also did a couple sequential projects and now they are our agency record for interaction design.

What is the team composition?

We have worked with about four different people. Their creative director, Chad took point on the visioning and concept and guided it through the various stages of development. Another designer, Jeff, was involved from the creative and visual design standpoint. Samantha [User Experience Researcher, Slide UX] was our content strategist. She had a really challenging job of working with us to figure out how the design could support some of the content and interactions from an editing and design standpoint. Hannah was our project manager who kept on top of how much time we were spending on things and made sure we met our deadline.

How did you come to work with Slide UX?

I had some experience working with them in other organizations, which is what led me back to them.

I wanted to bring in Slide UX because I knew their approach to building things. It involved spending time gaining a deep understanding of the problem space: what the goals were, building something that supported the goals, and ensuring it had a visual identity. We turned our attention to them and they were differentiated for us by their approach.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in August 2017 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project was a huge success. It was a game changer for me and my team in terms of developing credibility. What we created with SlideUX was unique and special: a living asset that turned into lots of new traffic, new business, and new excitement amongst our business units. It was a huge win all around.

We’ve increased the quality and quantity of traffic to our website through the creation of our blog, and to our career site as well. Those have both been huge bonuses for us that have earned us the confidence of a number of our business partners. People come with new digital products that they would like to build based on the work that Slide UX has already done.

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

They go above and beyond to make sure they accommodate everything during the collaboration, using a variety of tools. We have our design discussions in Basecamp and have a Gantt Chart of our project timeline always available. We can always see what the latest task work has been and where we think things will fall out. We can always change our priorities together, but they’re always reflecting it back. We use Zoom Conference and they also have InVision, Zeplin, and a lot of products that help us collaborate on designs and turn them into detailed code examples for the developers.

They’re very on top of the other hygiene elements. We begin every week with a virtual standup meeting where they bring us up to speed on how much of our retainer we’ve used on what projects. Many times, they have to tell us we’re not giving them enough work. Erin, who runs Slide UX, reaches out fairly constantly to check in and hear our feedback personally, which is a really nice thing too.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They do solid research. Their design is user-centred and grounded in research, while their work style is adaptive and committed. What you see is what you get. I’ve never felt I was shown something that didn’t look like what was promised. It’s always exactly—or even better than—what we were planning.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could clone all their people!

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re really good communicators. If you’re open to what you’re trying to achieve and what the challenges are, then invite them in to help explore that with you. They’re able to meet your needs.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the president and founder of a company that specializes in software solutions around compliance with privacy laws. We’ve been operating in the US and parts of Europe for fifteen years.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

We do not have an internal frontend team and were looking to outsource UX/UI for a software tool we were building.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We went to them with an idea of what we were looking to build, and they worked with us to understand the business outcomes we wanted to achieve. They came back to us with a number of different ideas and design options, as well as several questions that ultimately led us to create a better product as a whole. They worked on Zeplin to create prototypes and work efficiently with our development team. We originally hired them as UX/UI designers, but they ended up helping us from a functional standpoint as well.

They worked through multiple iterations of various features of the product and simplified its functionality to maximize utility using fewer resources. They helped us to get our product on the market as quickly as possible, and we saw a tremendous ROI on this venture.

What is the team composition?

I worked with two UX/UI specialists, and any screen that was designed for this application went through them.

How did you come to work with Slide UX?

We created a list after doing some online research. After several interviews, Slide UX quickly rose to the top. We tested them out by giving them a chance to present a few ideas based on our challenge, and slowly ramped up from there.

How much have you invested with them?

The services that they’re providing range from $10,000 to $20,000 per month. We’re based in Canada, and although outsourcing to the U.S. is more expensive, we’ve seen tremendous value in the money we’ve invested.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July of 2016, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We got a much better product to market faster, which has driven revenue faster as a result. Our product is more visually appealing and easier to use than those of our competitors, and our sales numbers have reflected that. The pressure they applied on simplifying the product has allowed me to get more out of my developers per sprint.

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

They were very timely and had great ideas throughout the project. They earned the right to tell me what to do, and always ran ahead of schedule. They reliably met deadlines and provided substantive input on what we were asking them to do and how it could be improved. My team used Slack for daily communication, and they provided me with design files on InVision that were then carried over the Zeplin for my developers. They also used Asana for task management.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Beyond their excellent quality of work, they worked hard to understand my business objectives and provide functional feedback that was very valuable to us. We plan to keep working with them in the future.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing comes to mind.

Advice for potential customers?

Trust them and give them a lot of leeway. Go to them with a good understanding of your business objectives and let them provide input on potential solutions.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm one of the founders and the VP of development of Swivel. We’re a commercial real estate startup company with six employees, and are located in Austin, Texas.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

Our company uses software to facilitate building networks between brokers and tenants in commercial real estate. We needed a provider who could work efficiently and complete often vague and nuanced requests. The contractor UI designers we'd been using lacked the experience to keep up with our pace. In the startup environment, ideas often need to be fleshed out. It can be hard to give clear-cut directions.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We work with Slide UX on a continuous basis. Their first task was designing our mobile app which we issued to our first beta customer. After working on that for a few months, they started designing our corporate website which they're continuing to improve. They've also been building broker tools that will be available on a backend portal behind the site’s login.

Slide UX has assisted with virtually everything we've done since we started this company. They focus on design, while our internal development team executes the implementation. The designers also created finished products for the initial version of our website. It was hosted on WordPress, and they picked out the theme and templates. On occasion, we've provided wireframes for the design. The founder Erin Young improves our concepts from a UI and design perspective. We collaboratively flesh out ideas to the point where she can start creating new designs and mockups.

What is the team composition?

Erin Young is our primary point of contact and we’ve worked with three additional resources. A WordPress expert handled the site and themes. Two supplemental designers have helped efficiently complete a high volume of work at times.

How did you come to work with Slide UX?

I've worked with several local and national design firms during my 25 years in Austin’s software business. We considered a few companies before contacting Slide UX. We wanted a design firm to work with us on a consistent basis. Several vendors were only willing to execute a finite project, which ruled out several options. Other firms have a laborious design process that we found prohibitive. We needed a flexible provider who was open to different methods. During our consideration process, we assessed their previous design work and ability to communicate ideas.

How much have you invested with them?

We pay Slide UX a monthly average of $10,000. In total, we've spent over $70,000 on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together around August of 2017 and our engagement is ongoing. We always have projects for them to complete.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Slide UX more than cleared the bar from the first major phase of work. One of our major data customers has 30 users on our mobile app, which is the first product we rolled out. Those users were not in the tech field. They worked for a company that sells homes and builds major housing developments. We got excellent feedback on the design that Erin initially formulated. There were no usability errors or pressing changes to make.

We received similarly positive feedback on our website. My colleagues who helped start this company are all seasoned software professionals. Having seen a lot software, we're fairly good critics. Erin does a really great job incorporating our feedback and achieving results. Conversely, she knows when to push back on our requests. She offers a fresh and useful design perspective that helps us see the big picture.

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

Slide UX’s resources are very compatible with development staff. Erin listens to our ideas and does an A plus job managing the project. I can't praise her enough on how well she integrates with our team. She has an excellent method of utilizing InVision, Zeppelin, Slack, and Basecamp. The design work often comes in discrete stages that help us prioritize and meet our deadlines for development. The team consistently delivers everything we need.

Erin manages our expectations effectively. We’ve given them some unreasonable time constraints. If we ask them to redesign six things in two days, which we know is impossible, she'll walk us through a pragmatic alternative.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Erin is exceptional at messaging and marketing to our target audience, more so than any design resource I've ever worked with during my career. This was an unexpected fringe benefit of our engagement. She actually helps our marketing staff figure out their messaging, which is always tied into the design.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only thing they could improve on would be expanding their company. With more resources, they could complete projects faster and take on more work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Erin's review process is slightly different from what I was used to, but it really works well with her team. We don't see their whole method, but it's effective. I was pleasantly surprised with how she conducts the hand off to our development staff. I prefer her method, and will use it from now on. It's a net plus for any software company.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a Product Manager with A Place for Mom, the nation’s largest senior-living referral service.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

We were developing a platform that allows families to easily find hourly in-home care and needed assistance with UX design.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Slide UX’s involvement with the project predates my own. They carried out usability studies and had documentation in place (including Flinn diagrams) which I could reference. They designed the UI of our website. With their help, we also implemented a new feature which allows care providers to access our portal, search for jobs in their area, and apply.

What is the team composition?

Erin [Young, Founder, Slide UX] was my primary point of contact and she facilitated most of the advanced research before I took on the project. I also worked frequently with Lindsay Winters [UX Designer, Slide UX] and Travis Slate [UI Designer, Slide UX].

How did you come to work with Slide UX?

Our former COO had a longtime business relationship with Erin. He brought her in based on their existing trust.

How much have you invested with them?

Between $50,000–$200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together at the end of 2014. While we completed the project in October 2017, they continue to work on other assignments for our company.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

It’s difficult to gauge feedback since we have a relatively small user base, but everyone we’ve spoken to has been very pleased with the designs. Our internal team also enjoys working with Slide UX, as they’re been very receptive to feedback and make tweaks as needed.

Prior to working with Slide UX, we used overly simple designs which relied on inaccurate assumptions about our target demographic. Since most of our customers are older, usability tests showed that they didn’t necessarily have an intuitive understanding of web navigation. Slide UX helped us stay cognizant of that fact.

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

They worked with our on-site team on a weekly basis in order to touch base. Their team was accessible, responsive to emails, and communicated proactively anytime we had questions or concerns.

They also took the time to understand the unique circumstances of our industry, and how those details might affect user experience. Slide UX went into the weeds to ensure a successful outcome.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re fun to work with and understood our business, which isn’t always the case with vendors. It never felt like we were simply another customer; Erin became an integral partner and we trusted her to make the right recommendations.

As someone who’s new to UX, I also appreciated that Erin took the time to explain her process.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing comes to mind.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

The more you share about your company, the better service Slide UX can provide. Even if you feel you’re oversharing, this likely isn’t the case. They take things to heart and place every detail in the context of customer experience.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the UX designer at a software company that focuses on building integration software on the cloud and on-premise software for our customers. Our primary users are developers, but we also target admins and people who may be managing integration. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

Building software for integration is quite complicated. Our goals include creating integration software that is simple and intuitive for our users and building out complicated integrations. With the next generation of our integration products, we wanted to focus on the usability and simplicity of our products, both on-premise and for the cloud. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started with initial discovery. We were building out a new integration platform as a service that was our focus for the year. We weren’t sure how to tackle that objective from a UX perspective, so we brought in Slide UX fairly early to provide an integration platform as a service to our users. They were part of several of our design and requirement conversations, and they started building out wireframes and designs based on our discussions.

Over the past nine months, our requirements and delivery goals have constantly changed. Slide UX is flexible in making those changes and requirements. We’re still providing an integration platform as a service, but we’re more focused on a specific piece of that now: providing data-integration management tools versus all the other types of integrations that we offer. They’re working with us to navigate the requirements for that piece and strategizing how we can provide an intuitive experience for our integration customers.

We always had user research in the plans with Slide UX. Throughout the past nine months, they’ve done a lot of design work and wireframes for us. User research is the last thing that gets cut from our requirements, but more recently Slide UX did some basic surveys of our users. They put together a survey with about 30 questions, sent it out, and are in the process of analyzing that data to see what path we should take with some of the features of our product.

Early in the process, they provided a prototype of some of the designs they did. They’re constantly giving us updated design artifacts. I’m able to play with them and iterate over some of those designs. They’ve also put together a style guide to promote consistency for our development team as they’re creating the UI.

What is the team dynamic?

We’ve worked with probably five people, but we are consistently working with Erin [Founder & User Experience Architect, Slide UX] and Megan [UX Researcher, Slide UX]. They’ve brought in a few people with more experience or a specialty in certain areas. For example, when we were working on digital design concepts, they brought in somebody who specialized in putting together visual designs. When we were doing the survey, they brought in someone who specialized in user research and survey writing.

How did you come to work with Slide UX?

We’d worked with Slide UX for another project about three years ago. I’m not sure how they were discovered for that project. We liked working together, so we approached them again for this bigger project. They had the background knowledge from the previous project, so they didn’t have to learn many concepts. Personality-wise, they’re an ideal fit for our company.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $100,000–$200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in December 2016, and our collaboration is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I don’t have data because we just launched the new application and don’t have any customers on it yet. We’ve shown the new web application to internal stakeholders who use the product constantly and received great feedback. They said that we’re resolving some of the complications and difficulties they faced with the previous product.

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed well. I can’t think of an instance where we’ve had an issue. We meet every week, and they provide several different tools, including Basecamp, to coordinate the collaboration and project schedules.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’ve had a positive experience with Slide UX. They’re easy to work with. Since we’ve constantly changed our requirements, I’m always a little nervous to tell them when we’re about to change the requirements again. But, they’ve always worked with us on that. They have other resources within their organization who can assist when we need them, which has been really helpful.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of any ways they could improve. I’ve really enjoyed working with them. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our company supplies back office software, technology and integration for agencies, authorities, and public entities around the world. I’m vice president of global product and strategy management for the back office solution.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

We had an important product line that we needed a series of demonstrations for. Some of the functionality was under development or going to be under development shortly. We wanted some functional prototypes that would explicate our vision.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We did the ideation together. We described what we were trying to accomplish and what worked or hadn’t worked previously for us in our industry. They took that input and worked it through a couple of iterations.

Some of the use cases were easier than others. Some required three or four quick rounds of ideation and some one or two. Based on the ideation, they constructed clickable, functional prototypes for us, using static clicks and back office data. The prototypes simulated an app-quality user experience, but without the full functionality. One prototype was very complex and took most of the time. One involved medium complexity and one was really straightforward.

What is the team dynamic?

I had contact with the owner. There was also a project manager, a lead designer, and a second designer.

How did you come to work with Slide UX?

I had certain criteria in looking for firms: I wanted a small, local firm. That’s partly because I’m based in Texas and a big portion of my team is in Argentina. We had a very short turnaround time of four or five weeks from the point of contact to the point of completion. I also wanted a firm that either wholly or mostly specialized in prototyping and design.

I considered three other providers, two in Buenas Aires, and one in Texas. The firms in Buenas Aires offered significantly lower rates than in the U.S. But they, along with the Texas firm, were more strictly web development firms that would want to come in and quickly complete our project. I felt that this approach wouldn’t yield the results and volume I was looking for or make use of the rapid prototyping tools available.

Only Slide UX met all of my criteria, especially with their design and prototyping focus.

I brought them in for an interview and had them engage with my team in Buenos Aires to make sure that they could work well with that team remotely, as well as in person with our Texas team. They demonstrated that capability. They also provided quality references that assured me they met obligations with a good turnaround time.

How much have you invested with them?

$30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2017 and completed the project in July 2017.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We wanted to produce something that our pod audience would be interested in seeing. The demos worked well and did exactly what we wanted them to do. I was very pleased.

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

We used Basecamp to communicate, and it went well. Their asynchronous setup was a good fit for the project and for our geographically dispersed team. I really appreciated the fact that they were intentional about the asynchronous approach, rather than it being an afterthought. They clearly know how to operate that way, which can be very difficult.

 Their project manager was approachable and a clear communicator. With a timeline of only four-and-a-half weeks, it’s easy for there to be misunderstandings and different ideas of how things should work out. She was very receptive to changes and ensured that things stayed on track with what I wanted. I really appreciated her.

The way things worked out, there really were very few resources assigned to our project—I had one designer working on one thing at any given time. We didn’t have a large team coordinating work. Having a project manager who had direct responsibility for this was a good move on their part.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They did a great job of discerning what they needed to learn in order to deliver what we wanted. They limited their focus to what would directly impact the project. We couldn’t give them a crash course on our complex industry, but I pointed out some focus areas that would differentiate us from our competition. They drilled down on these, and the resulting prototypes highlighted that edge with a nice, usable design.

They were also extraordinarily receptive to feedback. We made a few changes because, from my perspective, things weren’t quite correct. They were very open to this and gave helpful feedback themselves when asked for their opinion.

I was really impressed by how much they got done in a short amount of time. Our goal was to complete at least two kinds of use cases, with a stretch goal of four. That we completed three in the time allowed was pretty amazing.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There was a large ability gap between their senior designer and the other designer on our project. I would grade the senior designer, who is a firm partner, as an A, and the other designer as a B or B-.

They switched the senior designer for the other designer in the middle of the project, which was fine. The second designer’s work was good and exactly what I would’ve expected, although I’m not a UI expert. However, I would’ve preferred to continue working with the senior designer, who had more novel and interesting takes on our designs while still fitting within our paradigm and with less back-and-forth.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

You’ve Got Leads is a is a division of A Place for Mom. A Place for Mom, our parent organization, is the largest elder care referral network in the country. You’ve Got Leads is the software division and, more specifically, it’s a customer relationship management program for the senior care/housing industry. I’m the senior account executive. I sell and marketing You’ve Got Leads to the senior care industry and I manage one other full-time sales employee on the team and also help manage support as well. I also have significant responsibility when it comes to marketing the product itself and features and functionality that go into You’ve Got Leads as a program.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

You’ve Got Leads itself really hadn’t ever had a rebrand or a refresh. The business challenge was that it had become a bit antiquated in branding and its logo. A Place for Mom had gone through a rebrand itself and had left behind the similar logo that You’ve Got Leads was using so there was a disconnect there meaning it just looked even more outdated to somebody that’s a prospect or customer. We needed to decide if we needed to do a complete rebrand and a renaming of the product or should we do a refresh and keep the name and potentially come up with a new logo and maybe some new colors, look and feel.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Slide UX helped us through the process with surveying existing customers, prospects in the industry, even people outside the industry. We somewhat predicted the response regarding the name You’ve Got Leads, or YGL as most users refer to it as. The response was overwhelming that we should keep the name. Based on that feedback, we moved forward with basically a refresh rather than a complete rebrand. We needed to come up with a great logo.

The progression was initially understanding more about what You’ve Got Leads is and who we are in this industry and who our audience is. What does the user look like that uses You’ve Got Leads on a day to day basis? Slide UX put together a full presentation of that and wrote it up in a section as if they were the marketer which was awesome. They shared that with us to make sure that we knew that they knew exactly the challenges our users face and why You’ve Got Leads is so valuable and critical.

In between the actual work and coming up with iterations of a new logo, we also did the surveys and everything else and they helped with that and they wrote surveys for us and just helped us every step of the way through that process and analyzing the results. Then we got into the refresh of the logo. We went through several rounds of logos and gave them feedback. We narrowed it down from five different categories with at least seven or ten logos in each category to one category that we really liked. Then we took a couple of logos from that category and narrowed that down further. All this time they’re just giving us more iterations of the logo with color and so on. That whole process was great and very collaborative. I love our logo. It’s incredible. It’s so much better now and people have nothing but positive things to say about it. It is incredibly versatile. I’ve been around this industry for a while and know how easy it is to mess that up.

After the first project was completed, we went back to them for another project. I know they’re a full-service marketing firm. It seems like they’re good at everything. We wanted to redo the user-experience, user-interface, what the actual pages looked like. This was an awesome experience for us because truth be told, we really hadn’t had a professional look at You’ve Got Leads as far as the screens themselves and what the user experiences when they click on something or the look in the field. We hadn’t ever had a full on UI professional take a look and mock up the sections and pages. In the beginning, there were some programmers that redid some pages, but this was the first time someone helped us with optimization. They know what users respond to, and they helped us with our dashboard and optimizing it for a mobile site. They also helped on optimizing the other main sections for leads and lead tracking in the program which includes the activities page for the lead and also the master record for a lead and lead search. When you log into our program and you have 1,000 leads, what does the page look like where you have to filter down and search for people that you’re looking for? They helped us specifically with the mobile dashboard, the desktop dashboard, the lead search page, and the activities page for a lead.

We had at least four or five resources from Slide UX dedicated to different areas of our projects. Erin [Young, Founder] and Lindsay [Winters, Interactive & User Design] were there every call, and there were others as well. Chad [Currie, Creative Director] was the head designer.

How did you come to work with Slide UX?

My boss and another senior VP knows Slide UX. We have offices in Austin, Texas, where they are located. They worked with other divisions of A Place for Mom and some projects that we’re working on for the homecare industry. We usually reach out to them to submit a quote for these types of smaller jobs and other things.

How much have you invested with Slide UX?

We spent between $15,000 and $20,000 over the course of our relationship.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in the summer of 2015. The UI project was in the first quarter of 2017. All of our projects have been completed. We are now doing the coding of the pages ourselves.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve received overwhelmingly positive feedback from our client base and customers themselves, and even prospects and other industry professionals. We get great feedback at shows -- we started to go to trade shows and exhibits, and we have some new materials and booth display. We haven’t launched the redesign yet so I don’t have any metrics. It hasn’t been experienced by any user at this point. We will have beta testers on the new redesign in June. We’ve had some growth in the division itself and so that’s been great. I don’t know if you can attribute it to a new logo, but it has certainly allowed us to put ourselves at the forefront again of the industry. A lot of times it’s intangible what consistent branding and marketing does for you. It’s hard to put your finger on a value number, but it’s been great for marketing and for real materials for our trade shows and conferences.

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

On a scale of one to ten, I’d give them a ten, ten being the highest and best performing. They were very detail-oriented and thorough which is great. They didn’t leave anything by the wayside or brushing over certain critical details. When you’re going through features, functionality, look and feel of software, it is quite easy to miss things and so you have to be very deliberate and conscientious with every piece and function. They approached our project that way and it wasn’t just verbalizing it on calls, it was using good tools. They would show us the mockups so we could see exactly what they did and how they got there. They explained why they chose to do certain things and asked for our feedback. It was a collaboration.  

What did you find most impressive about Slide UX?

They’re incredibly friendly, professional, and wonderful people to work with. That is something that you desire right off the bat. Are they a great communicator? Do I enjoy the calls that we have and the time that we spend together working towards a common goal, which is to make our product better?

Getting down to their actual process, it’s very detail-oriented. They start from the ground up and work with you every step of the way. I think that’s one thing that sets them apart is their ability to share their initial thoughts and the work. Some companies won’t do that. They would prefer to share with you the end result, not so much any of the details on how they got there. Slide seems to be very open about that. They show us a drawing or a sketch that maybe Lindsay or Erin did. I really appreciate that, because it gives you full insight and visibility into their entire process.

The quality of work is top-notch as well. I think they’re also on the cutting edge of the tools at their disposal. I’m not an expert in what tools are out there to communicate to clients if you’re a marketing professional or a user experience professional. Slide introduced a couple of neat and pretty awesome tools like Zeplin for one. I had no clue about that program and it’s just a mock-up type application software. I appreciate that they stay up on useful applications within their industry to help them do a better job for you.

Are there any areas Slide UX could improve?

Nothing stands out. I really wish we could find budget to work with them ongoing. As we get more budget, we would definitely welcome them back to iterate on more of the sections in You’ve Got Leads.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

The company is TicketCity, and we have a second division of our company called 360 Access. TicketCity is a marketplace for resales for concerts and sporting event tickets across the country. 360 Access is an inventory division that owns, procures, and distributes the inventory, whereas the marketplace is just an exchange. I am the chief purchasing officer and I’ve been with the company for 19 years.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

360 Access has a pricing tool called Axis. It’s the hub of our whole business where we log in, price our inventory, and compare it to other parts of our industry so that we’re priced competitively. My challenge was that it was built a long time ago in data tables and it was not user-friendly—even the color scheme was not friendly. I approached Slide UX to make it a more usable, workable, exciting tool that was more visually appealing, but also more dynamic and effective.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Phase one was them listening and understanding our business, diving into how we use our tool and what steps we take to get to what we need on each page. They took a lot of notes on what we’re looking for. They did research on our users and industry. We also gave them access to our tool so that they could poke around and look at it before we met. We met at least three or four times over the course of five months. Three people were on the project, with it mainly being Brant [Young, Partner & UX Architect], Hanna [O'Brien, Senior Producer], and sometimes Erin [Young, Founder & UX Architect.]

Then I prioritized which pages were the most important to me. They came back with their feedback and ideas. Afterward, they started the visual design of putting together screenshots that I either approved or made changes on. We started with our main page. For example, you log in and type “US Open.” The next page pulls up the event where you pick the day. Then it takes you to another page. We wanted to combine that initial first search process into something more user-friendly, so they completely changed the front home page where it’s now customized by each individual user. Now we can have events that we follow. For events that we are pricing, I can assign them to specific people on my team. We made it better in its usability. We added features as well, so you’re not just digging around. It’s all right there when you get on that home page.

How did you come to work with Slide UX?

The president of our company either met with them before (Erin, in particular) or they had done work for us before. He told me I should meet with them. They were already familiar with our company. We’re an Austin-based business like they are, so they already knew the main gist of what we do. I really liked them and we hit it off, so I decided to go with them.

How much have you invested with Slide UX?

It ended up being a little over $20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in November 2016, and we just finished right at the end of April 2017. Some of that stalling was on me because I was traveling for the Super Bowl and Masters. Unfortunately, they were sometimes waiting on me for answers to stuff, and I was underwater.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Not yet. I’m waiting for my developer now to do the implementation of their work into our pricing tool, so we haven’t actually started using it yet.

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

They did an amazing job. The communication was spot-on. Every step of the way, I knew exactly what was happening. They have really good project management tools and websites where you can log in and see the screenshots of the progress of the project. I thought that was really cool.

What did you find most impressive about Slide UX?

Their people are their strength. I really enjoyed my time with Brant, Hanna and Erin. From the couple of times that I met with her, I felt like she was really listening and understanding, and didn’t just do what I thought. They came up with suggestions, too. I took that as their understanding of what I wanted as an end result. Another strength of theirs was the communication and having those tools to reference.

Are there any areas Slide UX could improve?

I told Hannah once there’s maybe a few too many resources at my disposal because I got a lot of emails on daily updates. That was a lot for me. I’m not a tech person and don’t do these projects all the time, so it may be that I’m not used to that. That would be my only complaint.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our company is a non-profit, and our primary mission is providing certifications in the medical field through offering examinations. I am the director of communications.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

We had a website that wasn’t meeting the needs of our users. We wanted to create a new website to improve their experience and better convey the information our users need. It was a challenge for people to find the information they were looking for. We also wanted to update the design and look of our website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

After Slide UX had been chosen, they sent a group of their team to our office so we could meet face-to-face. We held a meeting with a fairly large group of staff members and our executive director. The meeting was about a day and a half, and it was very productive. It helped us get an idea of what Slide UX could do and also gave them a good idea of how they would handle the project. The next step they took was interviewing more than a dozen people from various disciplines and roles who use our website. They conducted one-hour interviews with those people and assembled a list of the main problems they felt should be addressed for the project.

Slide UX provided a thorough outline of approaching the project with wireframes. The main challenge was the user navigation: people being able to find the information they were looking for. After the wireframes, they created a design that went through several iterations and was approved by our management.

Slide UX then provided a group of 10–12 templates that we are now using to implement their design. We are editing the content and migrating it from the old site to fit within the new specifications. We have a very thorough site map that Slide UX also provided.

Another project that was added later was the design of a new logo. It hasn’t been as extensive of a project as the website. Slide UX did a good job, giving us several choices and going through many steps to get to the final logo. That project has been completed.

How did you come to work with Slide UX?

We sent out an RFP [request for proposal] to several companies and then held phone interviews. I was working with the IT director to decide which company to hire, and Slide UX definitely provided the most thorough proposal. We felt they were the best qualified to accomplish what we needed. Slide UX had definitely done their homework in answering the questions in the proposal.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement has lasted about nine months. Slide UX has completed their part of it, but they are still available to answer any questions that we have as we move through the process of implementing their design. Because their first meeting was so thorough and they got more information than they thought they would, we were able to skip one of the steps in the process and came in under budget. They could have walked us through the process and done everything as they had originally planned. Instead, they said, "We don’t think you need to do this part, and you can use that budget somewhere else.” To me, that showed professional ethics and integrity. If we find that we need more templates or further assistance from them, we have extra money in our budget that we can use.

Slide UX is now working on another project for us with a different group of people. I believe one reason they were hired to for that project was because they did such a good job designing our website.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our executive management really loves the look of the website and what we’re planning. I can’t give feedback from our main audience yet since we haven’t officially launched the site, but I anticipate it’s going to be very good.

We were all blown away with how quickly Slide UX understood what we were trying to do and the different ins and outs of everything that we have to communicate through our website. It’s a steep learning curve because our work is very specialized. It’s not like your typical company that’s selling something; we’re a nonprofit organization. Slide UX jumped right in there and grasped everything. The questions they asked were amazing, and we were very impressed.

Another thing that happened midway through the project was that our IT director left to take another position, and a new IT director was appointed. Slide UX was very professional and patient throughout this transition. The transition added a couple of weeks to the project, but they handled all of that well.

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

The project management was also handled very well. We had weekly meetings with Slide UX by conference call, and at that point, it was a smaller group than the original meeting. Slide UX stayed on schedule, keeping us apprised and running things by us, as well as making changes we suggested.

What did you find most impressive about Slide UX?

I think the two main things that stand out are Slide UX's intelligence and how they handled something unexpected that happened in the middle of the project. Their approach to the project was very well-organized, and the design of the final product that they produced for us is very professional.

Are there any areas Slide UX could improve?

I honestly can’t think of any area of improvement. We’ve been so happy with Slide UX that I can’t think of anything that they could have done better.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Media Driver provides consulting services, and we have a web-based management tool for enterprise middleware application systems. My position is one of the co-founders and I head up the technical practice.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

We approached them about modernizing the UI [user interface] and some of the UX [user experience] aspects of our middleware management application. We were releasing a v3.0 that had a lot of new features, and we wanted to just modernize our UI look and feel as well as address some UX challenges we had. Also, we had a deadline for a conference. We wanted the new look in time for a conference that was just a few weeks out when we approached Slide UX.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

When we met with them, we asked to understand their approach. They shared how they work and their service offerings. We wanted to line that up with what we needed and then also manage that against our short timeframe. We were just really happy with the way that all came together.

They started off by providing us a number of UI look and feel options, and then we went through a process of reviewing the UI components within our application. We picked the top UI components that we needed them to help address from a design perspective, and then we went through multiple iterations where they would deliver us first just the design, look, and feel. We were able to go and start applying that from a developer perspective, applying a content style, colors, spacing, and just some of the basic structural things. Then, as they completed different UI components, we would review them, go through a feedback loop where we would work with them to address things based on how we thought users were using it, and just have a real constructive dialogue back and forth with their experts on what they felt worked really well with their understanding users and then complemented that with how we understood users used our application, which has a very technical nature. There’s just a lot of information and data on the screen, and so they were really helpful with us to accommodate these uncommon UI/UX challenges.

We worked in an iterative model, and they would deliver a number of UI components. We would start working them into our application, and it worked out really well that way because we were able to provide feedback that informed the phase two and phase three of the additional UI components that they needed. We were able to make our deadline for the conference, and it was really well received. I couldn’t be happier with the way it went.

How did you come to work with Slide UX?

We did some research. We were based in Austin as well, and we wanted somebody local because we felt like for this initial read, we wanted to have some insight meetings. We researched top rated UI/UX groups within the area. Part of the evaluation process was that we screened and asked them to pitch how they operated, budgeted, and ran projects, and felt like Slide UX just had the most professional approach, met our budget, and was also available to work within our timeframe. From that perspective, it worked out really well.

How much have you invested with Slide UX?

We have spent $10,000 to $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

May 2016 – June 2016.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

From a metrics perspective, the number one was that they met the timeline. Two: they met the budget. Three: they delivered the quality we were looking for in the components. In UI, you might have a table or a little panel or detail view; these kinds of things that we called components. They were able to provide a new and modern look and feel for every component that we gave them. We didn’t present them a design challenge they couldn’t solve. Those are my big three: timing, cost, and delivery. In my mind, they really hit it out of the park.

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

I thought it was good. They provided us a dedicated resource to track the tasks and help coordinate meetings. We had a couple of in-person meetings. We had the meetings where they would deliver us the screens and the component looks, and we’d have review sessions. They provided us follow-up as well as budget and hours tracking, so I thought they performed well from a project management perspective.

What did you find most impressive about Slide UX?

I think the main thing that really distinguished them was when we were doing our initial evaluation, just the professional approach they had to it. Being in the creative space, sometimes that’s not married up with the business and the professional side of things, so we were just really pleased with how they made it a package. The delivery of the whole solution was packaged from project management, cost management, timing, all that kind of stuff, in addition to the great creative work they did. Just making it a really professional experience from their end, I felt really differentiated from the other folks we were talking to. That was our big deciding factor to go with them, and then they were able to deliver on it.

They’ve got excellent UI and UX talent that’s very knowledgeable in the space and understands the technical challenge. It’s one thing for a designer to come up with a good design, but to also be aware of the needs of the developer and how to make it technically plug into an application, was one of the things that we really needed. We couldn’t just have a really pretty picture if it wasn’t something that we could technically make work in an application; it wasn’t going to work for us.

Are there any areas Slide UX could improve?

I don’t think so. We communicated really well. Whenever we had questions, they were very responsive. It was just well done. The other side of our business is services, so we’re delivering similar technical services to other companies but not in the creative space. We’re pretty critical because we know how critical we are to ourselves, and there really just wasn’t anything that stood out to me that I feel like I wanted them to do differently. We’re looking to do more work with them as we add new features.