Brave UX

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started with engagement research where Brave UX did a full series of interviews with key stakeholders within the business. They were trying to gain an understanding of various elements and ways that our business interacts with our product from an account management, sales, finance, and billing standpoint. They also did some external research where they contacted actual users to ask them about the platform’s various elements and how they use Rokt (i.e., key data points, product takeaways).

Afterwards, they came back to us with a report which broke down those findings and laid the groundwork for the next phase. We then broke the platform down into different elements and started a user experience redesign.

They effectively started working on different aspects of the platform and did a whole series of wireframes. They went out to Australia to meet with the product team and spent a lot of time working through different elements. They also set up a bi-weekly meeting schedule which involved many people from the product team as well as the CEO. These discussions worked through different core elements of the platform over time.

We then progressed from wireframes and designs to a high-fidelity design stage. The final deliverable was the full user experience in the form of a sketch which was handed over to the company to implement as our new UI.

What is the team composition?

We worked with about five people, including their co-founder and CEO. Their head of design led the project and had about four other people working for him along the way. We had a frontend designer, a user experience expert, and an assistant who helped with research, information collation, and project management. I worked with their CEO to coordinate the engagement around commercial elements.

How did you come to work with Brave UX?

Their initial pitch was unbelievable. They really thought about the business before they tried to get it.

How much have you invested in them?

We spent around $300,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in August 2017 and wrapped the project up in December 2017.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We worked with Brave to redesign our entire product, which consists of three platforms. The primary platform we provide is for users who access video content on a customized portal. The second platform is a CMS [content management system] for our clients (i.e. the organizations we partner with), while the third platform acts as an internal lab for our team to support and manage the operations from a Stretch perspective.

Before we began architecture, we spent ten weeks researching our users, focusing on how we could strengthen the three parts of our platform. Brave delivered three full-fledged reports based on their findings and interviews, which we used as the foundation for six months of intensive information architecture and visual design.

The information architecture and design phases of the project were very collaborative. We usually had 2 to 3 90-minute sessions with them every week, as well as a couple of in-person trips to either Washington D.C. or here in Arizona. During each sesion we would review wireframes or mockups and have collaborative discussions to fine tune the product vision.

Rather than designing all three parts of the platform at once, Brave UX staggered the process, starting with the architecture for one platform, then designing it as we began architecting the next one. The final product is a platform built on custom HTML.

We also engaged with them to help us rebrand and build a new marketing website for us as well, which was an auxiliary side project that we embarked on towards the end of the main project.

What is the team composition?

We dealt with different people depending on what stage we were at. Early on, we interacted with the research coordinator. Once we finished the information architecture, we interacted with the UX architecture team which consisted of a couple of really focused people. Once we finished the visual design, we worked closely with a couple of designers.

We also worked with someone in their frontend web development department. We had experience working with everyone on the team throughout the process.

How did you come to work with Brave UX?

We did a web search for different UX firms and looked at 30–40 initially. We narrowed it down to 5–6 after discussing internally with a team of three people who made decisions, and then sent out inquiries. We had some initial conversations, demos, and presentations, after which we narrowed it down to two companies.

We wanted someone who felt like a true partner or an extension of our team, which eliminated the bigger companies with over 100 employees. We wanted more of a boutique agency. Cost was also a factor in terms of ROI [return on investment].

We had 3–4 calls with Brave UX before we decided to work with them. Lee [CEO, Brave UX] was more than happy to engage and bring in different team members for interviews based on the components we wanted to discuss.

How much have you invested with them?

In total, we spent just shy of $400,000 with Brave UX, and while it was a big investment, we think it was worth every penny.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them after Labor Day in 2016 on the research, architecture, and design of the three platforms. We then had weekly meetings from September–October 2017 to complete the branding and marketing site.

At present, we’re interacting on a support basis. We’ve received the UX deliverables from them, and now our internal web development team is building out and coding the platforms. We’ll use them as a resource for some support or adjustments throughout the process.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We reached out to Brave to partner with the backend of our website. The legal analysts we worked with to do the data analysis have a content management system where they house all of those data, but it’s not pretty, and it’s not something that would make sense necessarily to the audience we were looking to engage, which are city policymakers, advocates, and researchers in different areas of health, education, etc. We reached out to Brave to bring them this concept and say, how can we take all of these data and arrange them in a way that will be quickly accessible and digestible to this audience where they’ll be able to navigate and understand the story that we’re trying to tell about these different policies, about these different cities and penetrate what all of that actually means?

So it was a big, complicated concept, very wonky, very dry, not something that is easily accessible, even to the type of audience that we would look to engage. We approached them with that challenge from the very beginning, and they were absolutely phenomenal. I cannot say enough good things about how quickly they understood the types of information that we were looking to house on this site, how to package it, how to arrange it, how to structure the content in a way that made it easily understood and told a beautiful story about it.

They transformed something that could have been kind of dry and wonky into something incredibly cutting-edge looking, particularly for the field of public health and policy. You just don't see information packaged and arranged the way that they were able to do. They created the whole look and feel and then worked with our legal team to manage the content management system to make it actually happen, which had a lot of challenges in and of itself. The content management system is not all that user-friendly and wasn’t necessarily created with the idea of cutting-edge design at the front of it. They were infinitely patient, flexible, thoughtful, and great at troubleshooting and problem-solving and thinking through, “How can we make the best out of the circumstances in front of us to create a beautiful product?” We were incredibly impressed with what they were able to create for us.

How did you come to work with Brave UX?

At the time I was working with an outside communications firm who had come across Brave’s work while bidding out a different project. I approached a few different firms for bids, and Brave rose so far above the others that it was hardly even a comparison by the end, just in terms of their sophistication of user experience, their incredible aesthetic sense, and their savvy and understanding how information architecture works with how people process that information. It ended up being a much easier process than we would have expected because they were so sharp.

How much have you invested with Brave UX?

At the end of the day, we invested between $100,000 and $150,000 with Brave.

What is the status of this engagement?

I want to say we began working with Brave about 18 months ago. I really don't know. I’d have to look that up. I’m not sure that I have a specific date. The project was launched in February 2017.

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

The project followed a 12-week sprint format that included two meetings per week to discuss and give feedback. The first seven weeks included strategy, information architecture research, and wireframe development. The last five weeks included design and finalizing changes to the site. While Brave did not implement the changes directly on our site – we have our own development team – they did provide all of the necessary information and details to hand off to our developers. 

In terms of strategy, Brave took us through many activities to help us determine our main priorities and the overall branding message we wanted to display throughout our site. They recognized our current business goals and took the time to understand our future goals, confirming that any solution would accommodate future growth.

Information architecture is where Brave really excels. Many companies do not prioritize IA and, instead, primarily focus on design. Brave really shines when it comes to IA. They understand the importance of IA and take the necessary time to map out how the given information should be prioritized and then structured in a way that results in the optimal experience for the user.

We are still working through the design phase of our project. But, so far, Brave has exceeded all of our expectations.

Overall, Brave provided a comprehensive schedule that tackled our main issues through the seven weeks of information architecture and five weeks of design. Additionally, Brave provided coaching and guidance throughout the process, ensuring that our team will be equipped to address UX issues better in the future.

How did you come to work with Brave UX?

We first began working with Brave on a consulting basis, receiving feedback on specific features and user flows on our website. After a few months of intermittent feedback, we decided that to improve the usability of our site, we would need to work on a full UX engagement with Brave.

We previously received invaluable feedback from Brave, so when it came time to improve the overall user experience of our site, Brave was the absolute best choice. Brave understands our business model very well and, in addition to UX feedback, they were also willing to provide coaching and guidance to our team throughout the process.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

It was $50,000 to $100,000 to date, including consulting hours before the major UX redesign.

What is the status of this engagement?

The full redesign project began April 2016 and will wrap up around July 2016. We will definitely continue our relationship with Brave beyond the extent of this project.