Therefore

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Our organization is an employees' union. I am the supervisor of the information technology unit.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Therefore Interactive?

We are working on the second phase of redesigning our website. A year before starting our work with Therefore Interactive, we employed another company for consulting and designing the changes, moving our site from an old front-page, static HTML, humongous collection of content, to a Drupal 7-based dynamic website with the ability to have control over content submissions and editing. The first phase didn't work well, and we didn't have time to finish what we wanted to have done.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Therefore Interactive built our website based on the first Drupal version which we created. They changed things gradually, in the end making a full redesign. Therefore Interactive worked mostly from the information architecture side, rather than the graphical representation one.

Therefore Interactive assigned one designer, a project manager, and a database administrator to our project.

How did you come to work with Therefore Interactive?

We worked remotely with our previous company, having phone meetings in which we discussed designs, which didn't work very well. We were looking for a local company that we could meet and with which we could discuss last-minute changes and challenges. Therefore Interactive has always been flexible around our needs and with the general challenge of running a Drupal site.

We went through a formal request for proposal, and found Therefore Interactive through their previous work online. We agreed on what we needed to fix and improve, and our experience with them has been positive.

How much have you invested with Therefore Interactive?

The cost of the project phase was greater than 150,000 CAD.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our first redesign process started in 2013. We switched to Therefore Interactive at the beginning of 2015. We have a contract for maintenance and support, as well as a few ongoing design hours, which we've prepaid and utilized.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I find Therefore Interactive's work to be cleaner and more organized than what we first created, which helped with overall efficiency.

The biggest recognition for us was the award that we received from the Canadian Association of Labour Media. It was the first time that our organization was recognized by them. We received praise for the architecture of the site. It was logical for union members to navigate it and find what they need.

We have various groups of members who are divided into sections, which makes searches difficult. We addressed this by allowing users to enter information which they already knew, in order to receive the information that made searching possible. This was the biggest challenge in the first phase, which led to tons of complaints. It virtually disappeared once we switched over to the site built by Therefore Interactive. Users can also find information by simply looking around, which was also something that didn't work before, as our information wasn't structured for that purpose. The user interface isn't the greatest part of our design, but it does work.

Therefore Interactive designed a tool which allowed our in-house web designers to have the flexibility to create more content without taking a Drupal boot-camp. There were many overall bugs and some unfinished work in the previous stage, which was cleaned up and improved by the people from Therefore Interactive.

Therefore Interactive did a great job in saving our server a few months ago, after a DOS attack. It's a hosted server and it's supposed to provide the full Drupal stack, but our hosting provider wasn't as good as Therefore Interactive. They didn't have the proper tools, despite the discussions we initially had. Some of the network people from Therefore Interactive were able to pinpoint the attack and rescue the server. They treated our contract as a full set of services, not limited to design, but also from an administration standpoint, which has been useful. Our previous consultants charged us for every minute spent talking, which didn't help us identify our needs.

How did Therefore Interactive perform from a project management standpoint?

We had to extend some deadlines, but still managed to respect our ultimate schedule. This was also a function of our internal availability for tests and feedback. Therefore Interactive's responsiveness and communication style are excellent. They're very approachable and I was always able to contact them when I needed to.

What did you find most impressive about Therefore Interactive?

Even though approachability may not be unique to Therefore Interactive, I really liked this about them. I can talk to their team, and whenever we have a problem, I know that Therefore Interactive will jump in to solve it. We do have a running agreement with them, but Therefore Interactive has taken it a step further.

Are there any areas Therefore Interactive could improve?

Therefore Interactive did admit that graphic design is not their strongest point, but still they could employ someone for more creative graphical user interface designs.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

FUJIFILM VisualSonics is a designer and manufacturer of ultrasound technology. We service a niche market, operating in the point-of-care ultrasound space, with FUJIFILM as our parent company. Our focus was in the pre-clinical space until last year, when we released an ultra-high-frequency product for the clinical space.

I am one of two marketing managers for North America. We also have a couple of product managers on the team, working closely with the marketing department in order for us to closely understand each other in terms of how the product can be marketed to the right audience. My focus is mostly on the brand, website communication, advertising, and managing graphic design. I play the role of a creative director to an extent.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Therefore Interactive?

When I came onboard a couple of years back, we were outsourcing our website management to an Indian company. The admin interface presented a challenge for us, even though we had a Drupal 7 site. Changes took a bit of know-how, which hindered the flexibility of the team and made the site look dated. The platform was strict even in terms of image and video sizes we could use. Unless the user knew their way around Drupal and had programming skills, the interface proved very challenging. Working with a team which was from a completely different time zone to ours was another difficulty. When we were just getting ready to work, they'd be signing off for the day.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We have an ongoing web development project with Therefore Interactive and are hoping to migrate our entire work to their team, locally.

Therefore Interactive proposed a site architecture and look-and-feel. We liked it and continued to work with their contracted designer outside of the project, for rebranding company materials, including a new logo. This enabled us to have a consistent company image across different media.

How did you come to work with Therefore Interactive?

I found Therefore Interactive through their website. We looked at a number of companies, even quoting our previous one. Our parent company was also working with a web agency which we contacted ourselves. I was looking for a Toronto developer which had experience with the Drupal. Therefore Interactive had done enough of a good job in terms of SEO [search engine optimization] as to push its site forward for these terms. I looked at the work posted online and reached out to Therefore Interactive. Their principals came to our office and we had a nice discussion. We liked their approach and felt strongly that Therefore Interactive had the strongest proposal out of all 3 candidates.

How much have you invested with Therefore Interactive?

The total cost of phase-one of our project with Therefore Interactive was $100,000. They came in at the higher end of the scale, but we took into consideration the fact that the other companies were working with US dollars. The fact that Therefore Interactive was a Canadian company was a bonus. Ultimately, after a 1-to-1 conversion, they'd be on par with the other candidates.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Therefore Interactive at the fall of 2015. Our project is underway. We're hoping to finish stage one in the near future.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The navigation and ease-of-use of our website have been put in place. There have been a few challenges in terms of development, which is something I'm used to, given that I come from a web design background. There will always be bugs and it takes time to fix everything.

As a pre-clinical company, our challenge was catering to that space through our website. Our target audience is composed of pharmaceutical and clinical professionals who are used to a certain look-and-feel. If we wanted to play in that space, our present solution would prove lack-luster. In terms of strategy and ideas posed, we wanted to make sure that we presented a clear definition. Coming to our site, a user would only see clinical material. The proposed architecture and construction of our site by Therefore Interactive was very impressive to me.

We're able to manage content easily in the backend. As long as we respect the proper tagging for a certain type of material, it will be integrated and brought in beautifully. As long as we do our homework, the architecture will have effective results.

We're still in the development phase and haven't shared the site with customers. I plan on sharing the site with our sales team on Wednesday but, on the administrative side, it's been a very easy and intuitive experience. Knowing how to use it requires a bit of training, but Therefore Interactive has attacked our wish list one item at a time. I'm very pleased overall.

How did Therefore Interactive perform from a project management standpoint?

There was one point at which I would have wanted more weekly meetings with Therefore Interactive. We were getting updates, but I wanted to speed things up a little bit. Therefore Interactive added me to the internal project management interface. They share the progress for each task being worked-on and we also started talking every week, addressing all the items which need to be accomplished.

What did you find most impressive about Therefore Interactive?

Therefore Interactive's team tries to understand what our needs are. Compared to the other companies we approached, they did their homework at the proposal stage, trying to understand who we were as a client and what our needs were. The advantage to working with Therefore Interactive is that they're based in Toronto, half an hour away from our office. Even though most of our interactions are over the phone or online, we have had training sessions on-site. Having face-to-face interactions was very important to us, which is something unique in this day and age.

Therefore Interactive understood our pain points and addressed them in the architecture that was developed.

Are there any areas Therefore Interactive could improve?

There were some bugs on the technology end of things which weren't always fixed immediately. There's not a lot of content involved in our site, but the architecture is complex in a sense. Therefore Interactive could also be more proactive in terms of setting up a schedule, instead of having me initiate meetings.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are the Canadian Securities Exchange. I am the Vice President of Technology and Operations for the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Therefore Interactive?

We needed a developer for our company website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Therefore Interactive worked on our website using the Drupal platform. They were also focused on the infrastructure setup.

How did you come to work with Therefore Interactive?

I researched local developers through Google. Therefore Interactive was one of the first names that came up for our area when looking for Drupal developers. We also used a company for gathering proposals, ultimately selecting Therefore Interactive.

How much have you invested with Therefore Interactive?

The total cost of our project with Therefore Interactive was around $187,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Therefore Interactive in October 2015. The work for our site was completed at the end of March 2016. Therefore Interactive continues to work with us on a support basis.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Therefore Interactive worked through 2-week sprints, allowing us to choose the direction of the website within each one. Therefore Interactive also planned the overall schedule in the beginning. Sprints were delivered on time and in accordance with the specifications.

How did Therefore Interactive perform from a project management standpoint?

We outsourced our project management to another company which managed deliverables and testing on our behalf. We didn't have such a great involvement in this sense, but Therefore Interactive assigned a project manager who was very good at giving us updates.

What did you find most impressive about Therefore Interactive?

Therefore Interactive seemed to have better technical knowledge than other website developers I talked to in the past. We also appreciated the sprint methodology used by Therefore Interactive. We didn't have full requirement documentation for our website, so it was easier and quicker to work by defining tasks in 2-week sprints.

Are there any areas Therefore Interactive could improve?

Therefore Interactive could gain more knowledge on the Rancher side of things. They tested out a methodology for high availability on Rancher, which was a newer setup that we requested. Therefore Interactive gained more experience on it and got it up-and-running, but it took a little longer than expected.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CEO and founder of Classic Journeys

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

The world's finest walking tour company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Therefore to accomplish?

• The search function on our website suffered a mission critical error on a Saturday morning.
• We needed an expert partner to step in to stabilize the system, and implement a temporary fix so that users could still find our tours.

SOLUTION

How did you find Therefore?

Referral

Why did you select Therefore over others?

Referred to me

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Therefore stepped in to help us during a time of crisis on a mission critical problem for our website on a weekend. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

It was clear that even though our relationship with them was very nascent, they cared for us as people and as a client. We would recommend their team, their expertise and their company to anyone without hesitation.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

They were an exemplary partner providing top-notch communication and problem-solving.

What was your primary form of communication with Therefore?

Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Timeliness of communication and desire to help us.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Therefore could have done differently?

No.