Syde

BACKGROUND

Could you describe your organization?

I work for a distributor for a Swiss sewing machine manufacturer.

What is your position?

I’m the marketing manager, and my focus is on social media.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Could you describe the business challenge that you were trying to address when you first approached Inpsyde?

They built the official BERNINA International blog on WordPress, and they are now building our micro-blog on WordPress, too. We didn’t have a blog for our division beforehand, so it was altogether a new endeavor for us. According to the experiences of people we talked to and work with, WordPress was the recommended platform. We were very open to platforms since we were transiting from essentially nothing, and we wanted to have increased content control and oversight. We needed to make sure the site was easy to use and navigate for internal and external users.

SOLUTION

Could you describe the scope of their involvement in greater detail?

They are primarily in charge of developing the blog. We are providing the design collateral, and we’re currently in the update phase of our blog. We will have a much more contemporary look and feel, which is long overdue. The owner of the company was involved with us from the very beginning, together with the agency who provided the design, because he wanted to make sure that we have a smooth integration of the front-end design.

We are currently starting the development process, and so far we’ve had very positive experiences with Inpsyde and their crack team. Alex [Frison, Founder at Inpsyde] has offered us feedback from the very beginning around best practices, what to consider, and what to avoid. His suggestions are great, and he’s very insightful. The team at Inpsyde also helps us with maintaining the blog and debugging it. Given that we are in the U.S. and they are based in Germany, it has worked out very well in terms of responsiveness. That was originally a major concern because we have a seven-hour time difference, but they are still able to address things in a timely manner.

How did you choose Inpsyde as your partner?

We were introduced to them through our corporate office in Switzerland.

When is this engagement going to be concluded?

The current update project is ongoing, and probably will be for the duration of this year. We’re constantly trying to improve our site.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

In terms of results, could you share any statistics, metrics, or user feedback that would demonstrate the quality of their performance?

I will be able to answer this question in a couple of months after we launch the new blog. What I can tell you anecdotally is that the planning and discovery stage has been very fruitful. They were able to offer a number of valuable recommendations around how to organize and distribute our content most effectively. They have also been educating us as to how to optimize our content for organic search, which was something we had never really considered beforehand. 

When working with Inpsyde, is there anything that you would consider unique about their strategic approach or development methodology that distinguish them from other vendors?

They are extremely personable and friendly when you interact with them. I’m not a trained professional when it comes to technical development, but they really speak the language that the client understands. They present everything in layman’s terms. They take the highly technical concepts and break them down into digestible, meaningful points. We’re very fortunate to have them working with us.

In retrospect, are there areas in which you think they could improve as a service provider?

It’s difficult for me to answer this since we are only beginning the actual development phase. I would have a much better idea in a few months after evaluating the performance of our launched blog.

What advice, if any, would you give a future client of theirs?

I would probably give them advice to include SEO [search engine optimization]-related questions right at the beginning. This is something I wanted to have more support for at the beginning with our initial blog. They should also be interested in WordPress for their business objectives. Inpsyde has extensive and deep knowledge of WordPress, how to use it most effectively, how to train new users, and how to use the platform to grow business.

BACKGROUND

Could you describe your organization?

Smashing Magazine is one of the world's leading online publishing companies in the field of Web design and Web development. Apart from the blog we have established, our Smashing Events branch organizes conferences and workshops all around the globe, and we offer a series of books and e-books.

What is your position?

I'm a front-end Web developer. I'm responsible for maintenance, performance optimization, vendor relations, and related tasks. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

Could you describe the business challenge that you were trying to address when you first approached Inpsyde?

First of all, we don't have a full-stack backend developer. We had one for six months, back in early 2013, but he was hired as a trainee, and left the company after six months of work. A lot of clean-up projects had already started with him. We are working on dusting up the underlying PHP code, templates, and plug-ins. What we achieved was a good overview of what the underlying problems were and then went about rectifying them.

But even with two guys working on the blog, we couldn't get very far because we had other projects that needed our attention. We knew that we needed some WordPress experts to clean up the codebase of our blog, to restructure the template files, to automate things that were doing manually, and to unify our six separate WordPress installations [operating with six separate databases] into a single, consolidated platform. 

SOLUTION

Could you describe the scope of their involvement?

The primary scope of the project was custom development, or refactoring of the codebase, and ongoing support after the clean up. In terms of our approach, we were using Trello, Github-Issues, Coding Sprints, and pushing smaller releases via Git-Tags. It's a dynamic and agile approach to development very close to the Scrum framework.

How did you come to choose Inpsyde as your partner?

We found them through online research. We were looking for developers with PHP and WordPress experience. Inpsyde was one of several we identified and vetted.  

What was the project duration?

The project began in September 2013 and, in December, we already had first major results. As we have an ongoing support contract with Inpsyde, there is no defined end date. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

In terms of results, could you share any statistics, metrics, or user feedback that would demonstrate the quality of their performance?

Before we started working with Inpsyde, our speed-index at Google's Pagespeed Insights tool was around 70 for mobile and at around 89 for desktop users. Now, we are up at 100/100, respectively. 

The only problem we are still experiencing sometimes is with third-party advertisers. They sometimes upload code from the Google CDN or from their own servers or wherever. This often results in worsened scores and speed indexes, but we are not able to do anything about it at this point in time.

Apart from the huge performance hit, which was a team effort, we have Inpsyde to thank for an awesome, scalable, and refactored template structure, an optimized delivery of scripts and style sheets, automation of tasks, and excellent day-to-day support whenever it is needed.

Like I said before, they did an amazing job. They not only covered the specified scope, but also found additional bugs along the way, and fixed those as well.

When working with Inpsyde, is there anything that you would consider unique or special about their strategic approach or development methodology that distinguish them from other vendors?

I think what's most valuable to me about the experience working with Inpsyde, apart from their warm and friendly nature, is that on top of all their great work, they helped me become a more proficient developer. I've definitely learned some great things from them during the course of our working relationship. 

What advice, if any, would you give a future client of theirs?

This might be more generalized advice when hiring someone external to work on a project, but definitely ask a lot of questions before initiating a project and provide any information or data you can about the current state of affairs and the expectations you have. Anything that might help Inpsyde to understand your challenge and objective better.