Afternoon Assembly

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m currently the head of design for Skellic. We build an educational platform for universities.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Wilcox Williams?

We brought them on to provide end-to-end UX consulting.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Alex meets with us (Senior Group Director) on a weekly or bi-weekly cadence for an hour or so. We don’t necessarily get into the nitty-gritty of projects; we talk on a higher level about the end-to-end UX of our product. We write down their advice and put it in a Sigma file.

Most of their advice was geared toward UX and UI design. They’ve worked in a similar environment to ours, so we get a lot of advice on end-to-end UX. They also think on a larger scale, advising us on how to scale the platform in the future. We’re a small company, and we focus on short- and medium-term designs, but they got us to think about long-term strategy.

They provide a large amount of feedback. I work through forty hours of designs and new product flows, and they take on some of that work. They’re very familiar with the product and understand our users, so they’re capable of providing advice.

How did you come to work with Wilcox Williams?

They were working with Skellic for almost one year before I joined.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since November 2020, and our advisory contract runs for another year.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were redesigning our entire platform from the ground up, and Alex put in a lot of advice about how we may want to do it. The initial design is the most critical part, as everything is riding on it, and Alex gave us great advice about what we needed to take into consideration at that moment, including what kind of concrete guidelines we needed to put into the system. Their familiarity with design systems really added value.

When we talk with them about end-to-end UX, ideas come up that we haven’t anticipated, and we take those things into consideration and implement them.

Alex is very well connected within the design industry. I was looking for someone with very specific UI experience, and he referred me to someone I could talk to.

How did Wilcox Williams perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very prepared for the meetings we have. I let them know what I’m working through in a particular week, and they come prepared with whatever we need to talk about. We’re on the same page, and we work efficiently together. Everything is timely.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I have very similar aesthetic values to Alex, which makes him easy to work with. This would also be the case in general, however, as he's very open to different ideas. The first week we worked with them, they made it clear that they would never pressure us to take their advice. Right off the bat, this gave the impression that they would be easy to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’re heavily focused on the UX portion of the work, so if there was a bit more on the UI side, then that would be good. I’ve been trying to find other advisors with UI experience. If they had that specialty in-house, then that would be very helpful.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Look at what projects they’ve worked on. Alex has experience with very consumer-facing products, so if someone is working on a product like that, then Wilcox Williams is a great choice. They know users, which is the most important expertise for a designer to have.