AWSMD

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My position is chief operations officer. We enable our clients to have a cost-effective video solution by providing our clients with a purpose-built camera kit that gives them all the training and the resources necessary to shoot their own videos. Once our client has shot their videos, they upload those videos to us via our cloud-based system, and our editors do all the post-production work (music, color grading, and logo animations), and turn that video around for the client in 24 hours.

What challenge were you trying to address with Awesomed?

The challenge that we were trying to solve is that we have our cloud-based hub that’s essential for managing video projects. Our clients need to be able to brief us, provide us all the footage, provide us any extra B-roll footage or cutaways, and give us direction on what they want to be produced out of the video. The biggest challenge for us is making something that was seamless and integrates those four processes into a new platform.

Our current hub does its job and still works quite well, but business needs have changed. We realized we needed to go for a complete overhaul and make sure that what we’re building for the future is not what we built a year and a half ago when we first started the company.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The services that we were looking for was purely UI and UX because we did a complete redesign of our platform. We needed all the UX done before we could have the developer build it. I provided Awesomed with a detailed scope of how our users use our hub and then they had a detailed call with me. We didn’t have them do any user research.

One of the biggest features of the platform is our upload wizard. Clients have multiple files that they upload either from their smartphone, laptop, or camera, and those uploads are all critical for us to collaborate on a project. The whole uploading side is one feature. Another feature is our visual brief. Once all of our clients have uploaded their footage to us, they’re able to just visually drag and drop things around on a timeline so that they can reorganize the project. As well, clients can trim the file once it’s been uploaded, delete a little bit on the end, or change the order of them. With this, they’re able to easily do that on one screen once all the files are uploaded, which makes it easier for our editors being able to edit and post-produce videos if the client can visually organize their project.  

As far as I know, there were 3 designers working on this project. I don’t know about the project management side on their end.

How did you come to work with Awesomed?

We started looking around for good examples of UX companies or agencies that would be able to provide some insight into our project flow and user behavior. We needed to figure out the best way for our clients to upload footage to us and manage their project efficiently over the web.       

We had three companies lined up at that time, and we decided to go with Awesomed because their existing designs and examples seemed like the design that we wanted. 

They had also done some UX design with Uber, and that was another reason I decided to go with them as well. If Uber had been working with them, they obviously had to be a fairly respectable company

How much have you invested with Awesomed?

It was roughly $10,000, give or take a $1,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project took place between March and May of 2017. I don’t have anything ongoing with them at the moment. It was a just a one-off project to get all of the UX slides done. 

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

We have only gotten feedback on it internally because it hasn’t been released to the public yet. The internal feedback is all good. The designs look great; they’re quite clean. The flow in which we deal with the client in uploading files and sorting footage is all quite good. They obviously thought about what they’re doing rather than just designing something.

How did Awesomed perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re quite good. I was quite impressed. We had NDAs on both sides. They actually held quite well to the schedule. There were some pretty tight deadlines to work with, and they hit them, which was good.  

What did you find most impressive about Awesomed?

Their strength is their attention to deadlines. They actually met all the deadlines, and I gave them some pretty hard deadlines. Their employees were working over the weekends and almost harassing me to get the information needed to make sure that I met the deadlines. In all honesty, I think that was actually quite a good thing.   

Are there any areas Awesomed could improve?

They could have improved their flexibility in working to a scope of work. I know everyone wants a scope of work to complete a project, and those scope of works frequently change as business needs and features change as well. They weren’t as responsive to change things during those scope of works, even if it wouldn’t affect the cost.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CEO of an enterprise talent development platform. We help employees improve their skills and grow their careers.

What challenge were you trying to address with Awesomed?

We were in the process of designing a new version of the product and didn’t have any internal design resources. We wanted to work with an external partner.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Awesomed developed our web and mobile app. We worked with them to define and design the various pages and features of the platform.

The initial version had been designed by another third party. There were a couple of conceptual differences, including the integration of a new source of data into the application, specifically labor market data, which is unique to what we do. The aim is to help organizations understand what the demand is for various skills and roles within their teams. Our goal is to present this to users in an understandable way, which will help them guide their own careers towards what the organization needs most.

This represented a design challenge, as it was something which could become overwhelming if not done correctly, and we wanted to make sure we got it right. We needed to move quickly and collaborated on specific pages, which Awesomed helped us think through. They executed at a high level and allowed us to make changes and iterations.

I believe that we had a team of up to 3 people from their side, including a product designer and the CEO of the company.

How did you come to work with Awesomed?

We were looking at different portfolios and Awesomed stood out. We contacted them, learned about their organization, and they came out as the winner.

How much have you invested with Awesomed?

The cost of their work has been between $10,000–$50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Awesomed at the beginning of 2016, around January. The main project ended no later than June. We also worked on additional case studies and updates around September or October of that year. This was the last work we did with Awesomed.

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

We’re planning to launch the new product in the next 30 days. As of yet, we haven’t seen any results, but I suspect it will have a large impact on the company.

Feedback has been generally positive from all the clients we’ve shown it to. They’ve been very excited.

How did Awesomed perform from a project management standpoint?

The communication was clear and open. They were always willing to hop on a call and talk to us when needed. We used InVision as the primary design communication tool.

What did you find most impressive about Awesomed?

Their ability to create a high-quality user interface stands out. It’s not something we can find anywhere, and it’s something we placed a premium on. Awesomed is able to deliver high quality very quickly.

Are there any areas Awesomed could improve?

They’ve been growing fast since we started working with them, but I don’t have any particular improvement suggestions.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the VP of product for a well-being company that offers 12-week programs and software solutions to enterprises to increase the health and well-being of their employees. These are programs focused on stress management, eating, fitness, resilience, etc.

The user signs up and logs into the program and they select a healthy habit they want to work on over the course of 12 weeks. They select a coach and a group of colleagues they want to work with and go through the program from week to week. Each week has a theme with a series of content for them. They can go to the app daily or weekly and check in their habit as they complete it and add journal entries.

What challenge were you trying to address with Awesomed?

We wanted to completely revamp our mobile and desktop experiences. We had a pilot version of the app that we used for some customers. Based on that feedback, we decided to completely redesign the experience.

What was the scope of their involvement?

When we engaged with Awesomed, we had UX [user experience] wireframes complete, which were originally done by another vendor. Then, I hired a full-time UX designer to work on them further. Awesomed helped us fine tune those and create the visual designs for them. They worked on native iOS and Android mobile applications as well as a responsive website for mobile and desktop. The wireframes were mobile first and they translated those to polished visual designs for the complete experience. They also created visuals for our desktop designs as well. We didn’t take things as far with them for desktop because now that we’ve polished up the mobile adequately, our UX designer can finish the desktop work. The desktop designs we received from them were quite good.

We discussed branding with them but decided we didn’t want to do that. We wanted to maintain the look and feel of our brand and brand guidelines. They did help us to adjust our colors, typography, and iconography a bit, though.

There was one full-time designer that was located in Latvia and a part-time illustrator that worked on some illustrations and iconography. Their design manager located in California was also involved part-time.

How did you come to work with Awesomed?

We went through Dribble and a few other sites online and looked at a number of different portfolios. We were looking for a very specific design aesthetic including something very modern and clear. We liked Awesomed’s prior work and reached out to them.

How much have you invested with Awesomed?

We spent $15,000 per month with them. Because we were able to commit a period of time with them, they were willing to negotiate the hourly rate with us.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in April 2017, and the project was completed in June 2017.

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

We’ve gone through a significant amount of usability testing with the designs and they have performed well. We use task completion metrics for a number of features and functionalities within the app. Nine out of 10 users were able to complete all the tasks that we provided, and most of them remarked that the app felt very user-friendly and intuitive.

How did Awesomed perform from a project management standpoint?

The design manager, George, in San Jose was helpful. We definitely needed his involvement on the project. It would’ve been hard for us to coordinate with the designer in Latvia directly given the time differences. George was a conduit; we would meet up through Google Hangouts and he would also come into our office frequently. The coordination was pretty good. There was some miscommunication, but for the most part, we were happy.

What did you find most impressive about Awesomed?

They provided modern visual designs for both desktop and mobile devices. However, I felt that the desktop designs and had more of a wow factor than the mobile ones. That was partly due to the space constraints on mobile. George has some experience on the UX side and was able to provide some good recommendations on the original wireframes that we had received from the other vendor, and helped us make some improvements. They are definitely stronger on the visual side. The other areas that they excelled in were app animations and illustrations.

Are there any areas Awesomed could improve?

There were some coordination issues because of the time difference. George wasn’t with us full-time and that played into it, but that was our decision because it was more expensive. Given the fact that he needed to be the conduit, there were times when there was miscommunication.

I wouldn’t say that the people that we worked with excelled in the colors, iconography, and the typography. I would’ve liked to see more examples and guidance there. They might have others on their team that are better at this, but the people we worked with didn’t.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Companion is a mobile app startup that provides on-demand mobile-first personal security solutions. We started in the fall of 2015. I’m the CEO.

What challenge were you trying to address with Awesomed?

Our team just closed a round of intuitional funding and with that, we wanted to do a lot of development work to implement new features and also increase retention. We don’t have an in-house design team.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’ve helped us explore new options for our users, build new features and dig into our data to ultimately improve retention. They’re a very hands-on company. Everyone at the company is involved in the process. We met with them over the phone and Google Hangout and talked about the details of our product and the needs of our end-user, which we felt was very crucial. In addition to that, we made a lot of different spreadsheets—flowcharts of what we have now and what we’re hoping to accomplish. Along the way, we learned that Awesomed doesn’t just take your instructions; they really are a part of the process in suggesting things we might not have thought of.

The deliverables they provided are all design work, but they have insight on the development side too. They have developers we consult with to make sure a design or animation is possible to do with code. The deliverables are typically Invision, Sketch or Photoshop files. Our company practices Agile development, so we have a two-week sprint that we set up in advance with certain features and things we’d like to get done. Awesomed is fully in-line with that and every two weeks, we push new updates using their deliverables.

What are key features of the app?

The app is only in beta, but right now we’re implementing a chat function where users can chat right on the app. It’s a feature that is big as far as development, but it also needs to be very user-friendly which is what Awesomed is helping us with. That will go live in a week or two.

Another thing they’re helping us with is the overall map and view experience. Right now, our app allows people to virtually ensure their family and friends’ safety. We feel like we need to create a component of security and trust, and they’re helping us design that as well as the user flow of how you can watch someone, keep them safe, and how a user knows that someone is watching them.

How did you come to work with Awesomed?

We weren’t even looking for a designer. My co-founder and I both dabble in design, and we’ve been designing the app as we go. We felt we were able to handle it for the most part. But we were looking for inspiration online for maps and different features. We came across Awesomed’s designs, and we were very pleased and impressed with what we saw. We reached out to them, and their team stuck out to us because they really like to get to know the client’s products.

How much have you invested with Awesomed?

They have a $10,000 minimum and we put down a deposit on that. We’re still working in the confines of that.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in April 2017, and the work is ongoing. We are constantly going to be pushing updates and iterating. We’re always going to need designers working with us. After seeing what they can do, my co-founder and I both know that our skill level is not the same as theirs. If we really take our design and our data seriously, we need to work with a firm like Awesomed. We foresee us working together in the long term.

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

A unique thing about Awesomed is how they look into our data and user behavior. We had worked with a few freelance designers in the past, but never before has anyone looked in our company’s data to see how users are reacting to certain things in the flow of the app, how they react to certain features, where there are drop-off rates and how we can improve that. They gave suggestions based off of our data of things we should implement. They were things my founder and I had never thought of. It really helped us think bigger and think about how to use design to improve the user experience.

Our app has a much more professional aesthetic. We are giving off the appearance that we are secure, we can be trusted, and users can have confidence in us. After interviewing our users and learning from them, we feel like that has been improved over the last couple of months. In addition, our retention has gone up. We feel that people understand our app more, understand the value proposition more and are using it more often. That has improved our numbers and benefits us in many more ways including our valuation and raising our next round of capital. There’s a wide range of positive implications in that.

How did Awesomed perform from a project management standpoint?

I would call them a 24-hour firm. If you ever have a question, they’re always available. They have a very unique model. They have a big team in the US but they also have a very large team in Europe. Things are getting done during the day, but when I go to bed and get up in the morning, I know the European team has done so much more. The work never really stops. They’re super-fast and on top of it.

The experience has been a very collaborative experience with more of an Agile approach. Since we started working with them, I have spoken to their team every single work day. We discuss and iterate constantly. Even though they are in California and we’re in New York, we screen share and they show us their iterations, their designs, and what they’re thinking. We have the option and opportunity to iterate with them and give our feedback.

What did you find most impressive about Awesomed?

Compared to their competitors, I would say Awesomed is very focused on the end-user which I think is unique for a design firm. I also believe that they’re so data-focused and driven and, at the end of the day, the numbers are what defines a business. The numbers show what users are responding to. If you don’t get into the data, it’s hard to measure the effects of the design work. I think because they put data on that type of research first, it delivers incredible results to their clients.

Are there any areas Awesomed could improve?

Not yet. If that ever changes, I’ll let you know.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a marketing director at Upside Travel. Our company sells business travel directly to unmanaged or self-managed travelers at small and medium-sized companies.

What challenge were you trying to address with Awesomed?

In the initial stages of our startup, we were building a pilot website to test some of the basic propositions that ground our business: How do business travelers behave? Are they willing to buy both their flights and a hotel room as a package? That’s common among leisure travelers but less common among business travelers. We needed a website that we could rapidly iterate and improve on to test this idea. Awesomed was a key contributor in design and UX of this website. They continued to work with us as we built out an internal design/UX team. They continue to do small projects for us.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Awesomed started with a pilot website, which we iterated as fast as we could. They provided constant design work. Another team member hired them but I worked with them on a daily basis. We worked with them in a daily capacity for 6+ months, as our pilot evolved into our first of several betas.

In addition, they worked with a number of my colleagues and assisted with various side projects for us. They created an early version of our brand design — color scheme, typography. As our design/UX team grew, we started shifting their help towards both email look and feel, as well as our initial brochure-ware website (the front door to our travel-selling product).

Later, Awesomed helped design many of our landing pages. As a company, we strongly believe in testing and continue to test our landing page. They’ve designed 20+ landing pages for us over the last 4–5 months.

How did you come to work with Awesomed?

One of my colleagues found Awesomed through Dribble.

How much have you invested with Awesomed?

We’ve spent more than $250,000 over the course of our relationship.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working them in March of 2016, and the work has been ongoing at various frequencies ever since.

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

Awesomed has been with us since the beginning, so I couldn’t say how they’ve performed compared to what somebody else would have been able to do. I’ve worked with other agencies in the past, both large and small. Part of what encouraged us to keep using them as designers was that as a startup, our needs frequently changed, and they were able to adapt quickly. Their flexibility allowed us to pursue sudden opportunities with minimal transition time.

While the impact of their design is hard to encapsulate in any sort of metric, their landing page designs have competed head-to-head against many of our internally designed pages, and we continue to use their designs as our controls because they have performed better to date.

How did Awesomed perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re a small shop, and they seem to contract their work out to trusted designers and developers who they’ve taken through a quality process. Their 3 core guys have been easy to work with. Awesomed is very nimble, which really helped us as a small company that’s still figuring out things. They also have a strong ability to deliver and can build quickly. We’ve given them some fairly aggressive deadlines, and I’ve never wondered where something is. They’ve moved quickly and adapted, which has been excellent, and they’re curious to know the reporting numbers so that they can improve their work.

What did you find most impressive about Awesomed?

When we first started working with them, they were in Eastern Europe. Their English has been pretty good. I know that’s often a concern when working with people outside the country, but I’ve had no difficulty (and I don’t have an ear for accents). Because of their connections with Europe and new presence in California, they’re able to do constant work. I’m on the East Coast of the US, and when we gave them a task, they would create something new overnight, I’d give feedback in the morning, and I’ll have a new iteration before the end of the day. Rinse and repeat.

Are there any areas that Awesomed could have improved?

As a negative, I’ve never received any work that has blown me away from a creative standpoint. A lot of that is probably because we have not challenged them to really think outside the box (hard to do when we continue to move quickly and shift positions), but they have had ample opportunities to show something that is just completely different than anything you have ever seen. Awesomed’s work is usually pretty safe, and gets the job done. It looks clean, it performs well, and there’s little downside to it, but your unlikely to get that home run. Maybe it just requires a bit more of a mature company to challenge them.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Awesomed?

You need to be a strong project manager who sets dates and defines the roadmap. They’re a small, agile group who are not afraid to give feedback and try something different, but that can often take you through unplanned iterations, and thus lose time. In addition, you need to be very forward with them about what you like, don’t like, and why. They have the ability to move and iterate quickly, so if you don’t give them quick feedback, you will not move at the speed and efficiency they are capable of, which is just a lost opportunity. You will make faster progress and feel much happier about the results if you give them feedback about their work.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

The company is a product company that helps organizations adapt and analyze their behavior to understand which people and teams are productive. I ran the product team when I worked there.

What challenge were you trying to address with Awesomed?

We needed to build the UI/UX for our enterprise platform. I had built a lot of products before and having a designer who understands not only “what” we’re trying to accomplish but can own the “how” is really hard to find.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They functioned like an external product designer for us. We included them at every stage from ideation to wireframing to coming up with the actual assets and iterating based on feedback. We worked with them for almost two years on quite a few products. One project was a 3D visualization of how people in a company are communicating with each other. The visualization showed different lines that are drawn between people based on the strength of their connections. Awesomed did the 3D visual design, the interactive design, the UI work, all the icons, etc.

The second project was an OKR system where teams have objectives that have dependencies on other teams that have objectives. It’s more of a calling space, and they helped us come up with that design hierarchy of how to structure it all the way to the executional details of how it’s going to look. There were three or four resources from Awesomed that worked on the projects.

How did you come to work with Awesomed?

We found them on Dribble. We spoke to hundreds of potential agencies in Canada and we felt Awesomed was the best.

How much have you invested with Awesomed?

We spent a total of between $50,000 and $200,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

I left the company in March 2016 and they were still working with the company when I left. At that time, we had been working with them for at least a year.

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

The product was released and it’s growing and profitable. There’s nothing better than that. All of our biggest customers talk about the design being the strongest part of the product. Awesomed made it easy to understand and beautiful, which the customers liked. It’s a very complex product in terms of how it worked.

How did Awesomed perform from a project management standpoint?

The project management was done on our side in our normal sprint planning. We discussed what reasonable timelines were and they delivered on time to the best ability of both sides. There are problems that come up that you can’t plan for. The communication was great which was essential because of how quickly we were iterating.

What did you find most impressive about Awesomed?

They think about products in terms of how it works and not just how it looks. I think that’s a very rare quality. If you have people that are good at that, normally they’re not the best at visual design. But Awesomed’s visual design is excellent including iconography, typography, etc. They’re experts at what they do.

Are there any areas Awesomed could improve?

They’re a larger team now which is awesome. Communication can always be improved with anyone you work with. I can’t think of anything specific that they could improve.