Slide UX

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work at a spirits company. I’m the senior director of global owned platforms, which means I run the digital experiences for all of our brands in the portfolio.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

I had a specific project that I needed design expertise on from a consumer-first lens. Slide UX is really good at being consumer-centric. We wanted to do usability testing and research to ensure that whatever we were developing from a business perspective was relevant to the end-user.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Slide UX is our design company, and they help with research and usability. They helped build the consumer insights and pain points, and then they identified what features and functionalities we’d build to satisfy those needs. They also built the UI, so what the experience will look like and how it will behave with different users. 

They partner with our development agency to ensure the handoff and transition is really clear and clean so that we can get to the outcome that we want, which is a fully developed product with a well-thought-through experience for our consumers.

What is the team composition?

I mainly work with Tia (Principal Consultant), and she’s amazing. What’s great about Slider is that their team members all wear many hats, and Tia does that very well. She manages the account as well as research and usability. There are other players, but I’d say Tia is the lead. We also work with Erin (Founder & UX Architect). 

I like the tiny but mighty analogy; they’re not a huge team, but we definitely get a lot accomplished with them, probably more than we would with a bigger agency.

How did you come to work with Slide UX?

I’ve worked with some of the people at Slide UX in the past, so I had a lot of trust and confidence in the talent and skillset. Also, I was really eager to work with a smaller, less complex agency that allows us to move really quickly and is the right size of investment for our budget.

We chose to bring them on based on the value system of how I like to work and the types of partners my company prefers to work with. Slide brings high levels of transparency and integrity to the table; there isn’t a lot of fluff in the sense that they’re able to scope a project and keep it the right size based on the maturity of the product and where the business value is.

They’re true partners in every sense of the word. They’re like an extension of our internal team. It feels like there are a lot more barriers with some of the bigger agencies, such as necessary approvals and people to get through. If I need to make a quick change or there is a change in scope, Erin is very reachable and able to quickly adapt. Nothing has prevented us from succeeding.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our work together began in March 2019, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve only launched the beta to date, and we’ll have the MVP in the next four weeks. The measurement right now is that our company has been able to do something very innovative with low risk, so the investment level we’ve made is much smaller than what we would’ve done with a big agency model. It’s also been a very calculated risk; because they do usability research and collect consumer insights throughout the process, we’ve been able to validate every spend we’ve made. From a build perspective, it’s been a very smart and responsible way to innovate.

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re really buttoned up. I always have a true sense of where the burn is and what we’re going to be able to accomplish. Expectations are always very clear and met. Their transparency and visibility are a strength, as is their ability to track the progress of what’s been done and what’s next, and understanding where the burn falls to that. There haven’t been any surprises, as there can be with other agency models.

We communicate via email, phone calls, and Zoom. We also use design tools to comment on their work and leave messages. It’s pretty simple.

What did you find most impressive about them?

There are a couple of things. First, I think they’ve built a practice that doesn’t oversell things, so we feel confident in the transparency that they share of how they’re billing in terms of rates and hours. It’s very clear about what to expect on the deliverable side of it. I don’t think that’s always true with other agencies; there can be a lot of vagueness and ambiguity. 

Secondly, they really work like they’re an extension of our team. They’ve gotten to know the internal team and our company’s process, and they’ve adapted to what we have, versus having us form-fit to them. They’re very good at that.

Finally, their focus on the consumer is a big piece. They’re very clear about making sure that whatever we’re creating or designing is from the perspective or lens of the user that we’re serving, rather than it being a solely business-driven decision.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I think they have the capability to scale up or down, but I haven’t had the luxury of doing that. I think that over time, the question will be whether they can scale to bigger projects.

Any advice for potential customers?

What’s worked so well for us is having a lot of directness and clarity around what success looks like. They’re very keen on having a clear view of what success metrics look like so that they are successful. I think that can get lost with larger agencies. They’ve taken a very disciplined approach to the end goal, which comes back to their value system. Their transparency is a big confidence builder.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO Healthcents Inc. We’re a healthcare-focused company that primarily serves healthcare providers. We help them contract with insurance companies, essentially getting them the best rates. We also help them assess their position in the market to ensure they’re not missing out on any untapped patient populations.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

The business was 25 years old and the website looked like it. We saw an opportunity to rebrand.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Slide UX started with the brand redesign. They helped us to establish a new logo and color palette.

Their team provided guidance and support to build a completely new WordPress site. They were instrumental in the creative aspects. Slide helped us to find the right template, which they modified to meet our requests. They consulted on the architecture and navigation too.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a project manager, Megan (Senior Consultant), and another key person Chad (Principal Consultant) who helped us with the branding. Brant (Founder & Principal Consultant) helped to build the website.

How did you come to work Slide UX?

I found them through a referral from a COO in Austin.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $35,000 on the project.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in February 2020 and it wrapped up in April 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Anecdotally, everyone has been complimentary of the new look. The website’s a drastic improvement from the old one in terms of clarity and aesthetics.

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

We were in almost constant communication. We also had formal check-ins weekly. In the thick of the project, we coordinated through daily check-ins. They were collaborative and helpful.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I had a positive experience. They were able to stretch our limited budget to drive value. Their team was willing to tailor their approach to our set up. They let us move aspects forward to keep the budget in place. Their team was collaborative and creative.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, they were great all around.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

This isn’t advice that’s specific to Slide. Have a clear intent and set dedicated resources to the project to get the most out of it.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and head of product at Liveoak Technologies, Inc. We're an enterprise software startup that provides secure video conferencing and document collaboration to banks and insurance companies to help them get virtual business done. We are about a 27-person startup based in Austin, Texas. Some of the largest financial institutions in the world are our clients, so we deal with very big organizations that are trying to innovate and bring their tech stack and CX into the 21st century.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

We have a lot of software engineers, but we didn’t actually have any on-staff design folks. When we engaged Slide UX, we probably had 10 software developers, but no UI/UX or full-time design talent. We realized that design and UX is a really important part of any application, even B2B software. An emerging application trend is looking and feeling like a really slick iPhone app, so we started feeling that pressure from a lot of our client feedback. We wanted to bring on an organization that could help us make our UX more pleasant, but also just bring some beauty and elegance to our application.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started Slide UX off with a small trial project based on one discrete component of our application to get their thoughts on how they would redesign and rearchitect it. We’d used design contractors in the past, so we gave Slide UX a lot of our existing design assets. We also gave them a tour of and full access to our application and trained them on our tool. 

They’ve done a lot of projects for us; today, we have 3–4 projects going at once. They designed from the ground up the concept of a rating page, so that we can have customers rate our application.

What is the team composition?

We primarily work with one project manager Lindsay (Senior Consultant). She’s awesome, and we love working with her. We really like their flexibility and our ability to parallelize and use multiple Sliders simultaneously. They’re able to pull in 2–3 designers, Lindsay, and 2–3 others.

Lindsay keeps all of the projects organized; she does the status summaries and things like that. On any of the given 3–4 projects running at once, we have a dedicated Slider who runs that specific project.

How did you come to work with Slide UX?

It was a company goal to build up and professionalize our design and UI/UX components of our app. We didn’t want to hire a full-time employee yet, so we wanted to find a design firm that we could work with closely. Two other local startups referred Slide UX, who they’d had awesome experiences with. Most importantly, these startups were in our exact position; they had not yet made a full UI/UX design hire, so Slide UX was the bridge between getting some professionalization around their UI/UX and design, but not yet making the plunge of hiring someone fulltime.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $50,000–$100,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We had an intro call with them in September 2019, but we didn’t actually engage until October.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The qualitative feedback has been awesome. We had them look at some of our most highly-trafficked screens first, and we’ve gotten really good feedback from our existing customer base and our internal employees who use the tool quite frequently; they’ve said it’s been awesome.

The rating pages they designed has been a massive tailwind for us as a company; the actual pages themselves are really gorgeous and super intuitive. It’s also meta because it’s allowed us to get really quick and direct feedback from our clients regarding how they feel about all parts of the application. The feedback and the efficacy of Slide UX are mostly qualitative at this point, but the value proposition is very clear. It’s night and day between the pages of our app that they’ve touched versus the ones that they haven’t. Our internal users and our clients – and even their clients – all remark on aspects of the application that Slide UX has worked on.

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re great. We have a weekly touch base for 30 minutes each Monday, where we run through the various projects that are in process. Lindsay gives us a summary ahead of time about the status of each project and what the next steps are. The summary is in a really consumable format for someone who is as busy as me. We use those Monday calls to review the summary, give any feedback, or close up any loose ends around projects that we haven’t gotten to over the course of the week.

Our communication is primarily email- and call-based, with the caveat that all of the projects are in a design cool called Zeplin, which I really like. It’s like a high-fidelity wireframe, and it allows me as the client to leave comments at exact locations on the screen to give them direction or feedback.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are super organized and responsive, and they have incredible attention to detail. You can explain concepts or parts of the application just once, and they’ll get it and be able to carry it forward. The best part about working with them is that each project, in a sense, gets easier and easier because they have more context for the whole application. Since it’s a relatively consistent base of designers working with us, they can carry their understanding and expertise of the app forward to the next project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We had some changes from our side of who owned the relationship, but that ultimately ended up falling on me. Also, we were initially doing some project management in Asana. We as a company have had mixed experiences with it, so we ultimately decided we didn’t want to stay in Asana, and they were really great about allowing us to transition to email and Slack. They met us in our preferred communication medium.

Any advice for potential customers?

Appointing one owner on the company side to keep on top of it is definitely helpful. What’s amazing about them is you can dial them up or down as much as you want; we have them working on 3–4 projects simultaneously when we’re really busy, and it tapers when it’s slow. Just having a good sense of your design budget is good; they’ll help, but you as the client have to take responsibility for the burn rate and how much of their effort you want to deploy at a given time.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of MedCognition. We’re a company that has created an AR holographic medical patient simulator. We write software and market it and sell it to education institutions, services providers, EMS agencies, medical school, nursing school, and military. Currently, we’re working on a project to create a patient simulator that will replicate in-flight critical care for the Air Force.  

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

We needed to rewrite a big portion of our software. We were moving from a relatively simple use-case to enabling our simulator to perform complex multi-day care missions that align with the critical care transport team mission. They convert cargo planes into ICUs, and we needed to increase our simulator’s ability by an order of magnitude.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Before this project, we had been using a tablet to do the editing and creating the simulator. When we increased the number of interventions from a dozen to over 100, and we increased the number of patients, we realized we needed to move to a PC or laptop-based editor. And we did not have the expertise to develop the UX rapidly to meet our client’s requirements. On top of that, we wanted an intuitive, easy to use UI.

We met and they got to know the scope and our projects. We started out with user interviews and we’ve worked our way up to the initial prototyping of the UX/UI. Then we did a few rounds of user testing. We're currently finalizing the design and will author the software in Unity.

What is the team composition?

We have two people working with us— a project manager and a UX designer.

How did you come to work with Slide UX?

My CFO found them, and I believe it was through a web search. We were attracted to them because they were close by. We considered some other firms, but Slide UX was able to provide some assurances and capabilities that we needed for this particular project. They also seemed genuinely interested in working on this specific project.

How much have you invested with them?

We came in slightly under budget. It was between $100,000–$150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2019 and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

 I’m genuinely impressed by their mockups. This is definitely better than anything we could have done on our own. But more importantly, our client is very excited about this. We’ve gotten a lot of feedback from them and they’re really impressed with all the features Slide UX has been able to implement. They’ve been able to pull in all of the requirements and integrate it in a clean, intuitive, easy to use interface. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.

They’re very refreshing because they listened to what we have to say. Even offhanded comments are considered and possibly integrated into new designs.  So Slide UX has helped move us from a very vague concept to what we consider a really beautiful, intuitive, and easy to use interface. Our UX designer really enjoys working our niche and has been a terrific fit as well.  

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

Our project manager ensures that deadlines are being met and manages a lot of communication. We speak twice a week and we meet once a week.

They communicate over several channels, but primarily use Asana. They’re also in Slack. I also really appreciate that I don’t have to ask for updates. They come at a very predictable rhythm; every Tuesday we get an update on where we stand. They’re very proactive in getting information to us.

Our project manager and UX designer really are a tag team. They’ve been seamless. They’ve delivered on time every time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’ve truly exceeded my expectations. For one, their design work truly is top-notch. I couldn’t expect it to be that good. Number two, their communication is far better than I expected.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Honestly, I can’t think of anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Trust the process. Trusting the designer and providing feedback made everything better. They designed everything better than how I would have done it.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

As chief commercial officer, I was responsible for building a business plan to enter new markets and grow the business by developing a new SaaS product offering.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

Slide UX was responsible for delivering a top-notch UI and UX design for the new product.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We provided Slide-UX with wireframes and functional requirements. Their role was to help us improve the design in terms of usability, look and feel, and streamlined workflow. We had a preexisting software system from which we wanted to re-use as much underlying functionality as possible, so the UI/UX design wasn’t a totally blank slate. The overall UI/UX design targeted the end-to-end workflow including order entry, planning and dispatch, tracking, delivery, invoicing, and payables.

What is the team composition?

We had a primary contact and a chief designer.

How did you come to work with Slide UX?

We started by looking online for vendors in our area. At some point, we received a referral from a colleague who worked with them in the past.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2018 and we wrapped up in November 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The project hasn’t launched, so it’s hard to say how successful it was. Qualitatively, we were happy with most of the design and UX work that they did. We felt like it was pretty valuable and we wouldn’t have been able to do it ourselves.

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

Slide-UX did a good job of project management. Project status was reported on a timely and detailed basis. Meeting notes and summaries were diligent. We used Slack for a lot of our day-to-day communication,  and Asana for project management. They also used a few additional tools to share design mockups.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Slide-UX was very thoughtful, diligent, and conscientious about the design and usability aspects of our project. They took the time to really understand and think through what we were trying to achieve. They held detailed design reviews and asked for feedback and clarification whenever necessary.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Overall our project with Slide-UX went smoothly. When there were differences of opinion on design and UX aspects, we had open discussions to weigh trade-off's and resolve any concerns.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It’s always important to have clear boundaries and scope so things stay on track and everyone involved knows what they’re working on.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the head of UX for a company called Aveva. We produce software for the engineering and operations sector of the energy and manufacturing industry.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

We have 14 UX designers on our team, but the company has over 125 products, so there aren’t enough of us to handle all of the work. We engaged Slide UX to help increase our capacity on specific projects.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

There were two main projects that their team worked on. One was helping us create a digital style guide for our gamut of web properties and product that could unify all of the different brands we had collected over the years.

The other target we gave them was to conduct customer research, at one of our company events attended by over 1000 customers, where we had targeted certain products and customers to get more user feedback on how to best market those.

What is the team composition?

We had a main project manager for each of the projects, each of whom had a team of 3–4 people working with us directly and a few more on the account behind the scenes.

How did you come to work with Slide UX?

Over the course of about six weeks of research, we looked into a few different companies’ previous projects and feedback from their customers. That helped us narrow it down to about seven potential partners, on whom we did some deeper research, including using Clutch. In the end we interviewed three teams, of whom Slide UX felt like the best fit in terms of enthusiasm and engagement, so we decided to move forward with them.

How much have you invested with them?

In total, we spent $185,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started with a kickoff meeting in July 2019 and was delivered in March 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

At the end of the project, we delivered a presentation to our management team about the results of the project, and they were very pleased with the results, especially given that they were delivered on time and in budget.

Internally, we were very pleased by the quality and clarity of what they designed and prepared for us, but we’ve also been applying the design principles they created for us to products in our portfolio, and the stakeholders around those have been just as happy with the work there as well.

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

Their style of engagement is very personal and really makes them feel like part of your team. They do a good job of listening carefully, understanding the core problems, and paying attention to details in the work they deliver.

If we asked for something outside of the scope of the project, they would immediately get back to us with a quote and details about how they would incorporate it, as well as how it would affect the current project status and plan.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I’ve been a UX designer for 34 years, and in all of that experience, Slide UX stands out in three particular ways. The first is their level of understanding and ability to capture exactly what we were looking for; the second was their engagement with our team throughout their work, which felt like they were a part of our own team; finally, their delivery made clear that they were as invested in our success as we were.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only issues we had with them were incredibly minor ones, but they were always good at picking up our feedback and making sure they did not repeat them. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be prepared to work at their pace and partner with them, because in the same way that they’re engaged and determined in the work, they need you to provide that level of support for their team in order for them to be able to operate and deliver at their highest level.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for a privately-owned multi-service operator called Comporium. We’re a regional internet and phone service provider.

My official title is online channel manager, which means I handle everything digital. I focus primarily on our e-commerce website and our account portal.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

We hired Slide UX to overhaul our client portal. The site was built almost 20 years ago, and the design and functionality were completely outdated. We were pretty far behind in terms of offering self-service functionality to our users. 

Before Slide came on board, we partnered with another development firm to design and developed our e-commerce site. That launched about a year ago. We weren’t very happy with the UX/UI of that site and turned to Slide for help on that as well.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Before we started on the design work, Slide conducted user research to prioritize features from a navigation standpoint. We also asked them to uncover new, unaccounted for functionalities that our users wanted. Soon after, they delivered wireframes, navigation flows, and branding materials.

They revamped our self-service portal. We’d already designed the majority of the functional requirements, like bill payment, but we asked them to help us expand our offering. They’ve created several UI designs for new features that we hope to implement in the next phase of development.

What is the team composition?

Erin (Founder & UX Architect, Slide UX) and Hanna (Senior Consultant, Slide UX) handled the RFP process with me. When the project started, there was a project manager named Chad (Principal UX Consultant, Slide UX), and he had at least one person helping him with the user research piece. There was also a designer working on the project.

How did you come to work with Slide UX?

We found them through Clutch.co and submitted RFPs to them and four other agencies. Theirs was one of two that ended up being very thorough. We got the sense from Slide that they knew UX/UI very well. We felt confident that they could do the job after seeing their presentation. The other company gave a quote that was way too large, which made the choice easy for us.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested $82,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We submitted the RFP to Slide in late April, and we informed them that they’d won the bid in late May. The project officially kicked off in June of this year and just ended in October. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I don’t have any success metrics because the site hasn’t launched yet, but we’re all looking forward to that.

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

The project management was the best part of the engagement. I’ve worked with several other vendors who didn’t even come close to how well Slide ran the project. They used the perfect amount of communication to keep us informed without taking up too much of our time. 

Chad, our project manager, was excellent. We could say something once and he would know exactly what to do. We never had to give detailed requirements, especially as the project progressed. He was quick to pick up on our needs and our vision. We had check-ins at various stages of the project, but there was always very little to change in terms of what was being delivered.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have a sense of camaraderie that sets them apart from other remote teams. They’re very close despite not all living in the same town. Also, I think they were a great fit for us because of how small they are. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any recommendations. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Include them in your candidate search. Compare their prices to other vendors, and you’ll find that they will provide more bang for your buck. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a marketing executive for a food distribution company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

We were looking for a new UI for our menu services tool.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

At first, we were only going to do a UI change, but then we had to build it from the ground up because of internal challenges. They're very instrumental in the whole redevelopment process. It’s keeping us on track. They helped with the overall project, but they specifically were working on the whole user experience.

They interviewed many of the customers that use the tool and used their input in building the tool. After this, we kept iterating. They would design it. We’d build it, get more customer feedback, and integrate that into the project.

What is the team composition?

There are 4–6 people. There’s one key person and the others chime in when needed.

How did you come to work with Slide UX?

They were recommended to us. We did some due diligence. Out of the three companies I was looking at, they were highly rated based on feedback from previous customers.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested $250,000-$500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2016 and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The feedback is overwhelmingly positive. People are blown away and think the new tool is a game-changer.

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

When we need them to be here, they come. We meet 2–3 times a week to review designs and do backlogs. It took us a while to get into a cadence, but it’s since been seamless.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I like their logical approach and the way they think through things that we probably wouldn’t have thought of.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’ve really been a good partner. I can’t speak highly enough about them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be open-minded. You should establish meeting cadences upfront.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for a people analytics firm that focuses on business consulting. We partner with enterprises and mid-market companies across various different industries to help them make better decisions. We do most of our work through data storytelling. As long as our clients have data, we can help them derive results.

My role is senior director of web strategy and digital marketing. I oversee all of our online experiences, including our website, our advertising, our social profiles, and our other digital properties. Everything that has to do with our online presence falls under my purview.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

Our site design and overall UX felt too much like that of a startup. We wanted to update our messaging and flow to show that we’ve matured as a company. The goal was to have a website that’s more geared toward the majority market, rather than just early adopters.

One of the largest problems we had to deal with was cutting down our content and messaging. We’d used a ton of industry jargon and marketing-speak on the site, and many of our pages weren’t clear or concise. The page flow was also very limited. We had too many dead-end pages on our site.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Slide UX started the project with stakeholder interviews and site research. Afterward, they moved into wireframing and high-level design work.

They focused on reducing the amount of content that we had on each page, as well as the overall flow of the site. For example, they gave us examples of bold, self-assured statements that communicated our message in a small chunk of text.

What is the team composition?

There were two core people assigned to the project. We had a main project manager who was also our principal UX researcher. She focused on keeping the project on task, scheduling and working on all of the interviews for the user research part of the engagement.

We had another individual who served in more of an administrative capacity. That person kept everything running on the backend.

How did you come to work with Slide UX?

I originally found Slide UX on Clutch several years ago. I engaged with them at my previous company for a site redesign, and I was pleased with the results there. I decided to bring them in for this project at my current company.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $45,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in earnest in May 2019, and the project wrapped up in August 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The site launched very recently, but we’re already looking at a variety of metrics. We’ve had to tailor our measurements because some pages are more geared towards having users complete an action, while other pages are purely for content. We’re predicting decreased bounce rates and more conversions.

From a qualitative standpoint, the feedback we’ve gotten has been immensely positive, both from internal teammates and external visitors. We’ve done testing with a few of our customers, and they’ve all expressed that the messaging is much more precise.

Overall, the website is more usable. The navigational elements and site architecture are much more in line with what users expect of a larger company. The site presents us as an industry leader, rather than just a startup player, in our space.

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

They met every deadline. We set scheduling expectations early on, and they were very communicative and transparent. If there was ever a delay, it was usually because of our internal struggle to gather proper feedback from various teams. From an overall project flow and time management perspective, they did an excellent job.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re a smaller team, and this allows them to be agile and connect on a personal level. Other agencies will assign you an account executive and won’t give you access to the people doing the work. With Slide UX, we got to know their entire team. We valued that level of collaboration.

They were also willing to hop on a quick call or have a conversation over Slack, no matter the question or request. They were always very quick to respond.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We did experience some issues with invoicing. They had a new administrative person who wasn’t as familiar with the process and ended up invoicing us for the whole project all at once. That was more of an isolated incident, not an overall process issue or anything like that. It was fine in the end, we just had to address it with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure your team is ready to provide inputs and rally around a set timeline. Slide will always deliver as long as you give them the feedback that they need. Their success is dependent on your willingness to provide time and resources.

If you’re on top of everything and willing to commit to the project, they’re going to deliver a fantastic result. If you’re slow to respond or can’t gather consensus feedback, it’s going to be a little bit more challenging for them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm a business architect at The American Board of Radiology.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

We engaged Slide UX for web development services in order to help us make our website more user-friendly. We wanted to create an online application that made our maintenance of certification program easier for physicians, while meeting our requirements.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We provided Slide UX with the project scope initially, but they also provided input on the overall architecture and design of our website. After we mapped out each page of the site and collaborated with their team on wireframes, they developed the site layout. UX, and individual sheets for each page.

What is the team composition? 

We worked with 3–5 people in total, including a project manager.

How did you come to work with Slide UX?

Our IT director at the time researched different UX firms online and eventually selected Slide UX. Although I wasn't involved in the selection process, I was extremely happy with the relationship overall.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them on the most recent project from around April 2017–January 2019, but we plan to engage on them on different projects in the future. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

After launching our new website to a major part of our users, we've had about a 93% adoption rate. The quality of their work, including user-friendly designs, has been great and the project has been been a huge success overall, helping us provide an easier solution for our physicians to maintain their credentials. 

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

They were very accessible and responsive throughout the engagement, and flexible in providing solutions that met our unique needs. They went out of their way to figure out creative solutions and did a fantastic job overall. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

We're very happy with their willingness to take the time to understand our business model and unique challenges before helping us come up with solutions. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I have nothing but positive things to say about our experience with them. I'm usually a very picky person, but they were solid partners throughout the project. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don't hesitate to work with them. They're not pushy, but able to provide a broad range of services.