Catalyst UX

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of customer success at VALID8 Financial, a software company in the audit/accounting space. Our products automate financial statement audits and forensic accounting investigations.

What challenge were you trying to address with Catalyst UX?

Our company needed design help to build out a prototype to display visualizations for our software. The prototype needed to be rich enough to show customers and prospects the type of features we’re looking to build in the future.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We hired Catalyst UX to expand our current product interface. More specifically, they created a visualization design prototype that acts as a clickable demo. They took a business process that you’d see and mocked it up so that we could show the end-to-end process in a demo environment. They made the demo accessible via tablet or desktop. 

What is the team composition?

We worked mainly with Paul (CEO, Catalyst UX) and Kevin (VP of User Experience, Catalyst UX).

How did you come to work with Catalyst UX?

I’ve worked with them a couple of times. I found out about them 3–4 years ago when I was looking for a company that does UX/UI work. I did a bunch of research as to what companies were out there, with being initially referred to Catalyst UX by a colleague. I did a sales cycle with them and many others. The reason I went with them was that not only were they good at what they did from a design point of view, but they had domain knowledge in financial areas.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $25,000–$50,000 in total.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from June–July 2019.

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

It was a rapid prototype project that was delivered on time and within expectations. We’re using it to show where we’re going from a product point of view. When people see the demo, they’re very impressed by its quality and the concept that it lays out.

How did Catalyst UX perform from a project management standpoint?

They were continuously improving their processes. We were pleased by their organization and project management capabilities. We were very aggressive with what we wanted to do, and they worked with us on the timelines and told us what they could deliver. They were realistic in terms of what their delivery was. The tools they used, including Trello, were top-notch.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We were impressed that their knowledge included not only design and UX/UI but also business. 
They understand business terminology and what the consumer wants to do with their product. That was invaluable and the reason that I will continue using them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I’ve been impressed with what they’ve done. They’ve quickly turned around the projects I’ve used them for. The quality and value proposition that they offer is great.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you have the time to invest in the project. Part of the beauty of the way they do things is the collaborative piece of it.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a brain-computer interface company. We’re building an implantable brain-computer interface for people with paralysis, allowing them to control handsfree devices that overcome problems of communication and upper and lower limb function.

What challenge were you trying to address with Catalyst UX?

We’re working with them to solve a very exciting UX problem, namely building a handsfree user experience that is cross-platform. We’re building a completely modular and cross-platform system that enables people to interact with existing operating systems but without the use of a mouse or keyboard. Critical in this is the UI/UX, and Catalyst is serving that role for us. We chose them because of their experience with medical device applications and their understanding of FDA regulations.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’re utilizing Catalyst’s access to industrial designers and developers to deliver a user-focused UI/UX solution for our cross-platform development needs. It’s traditional technology development, but we’re targeting a patient population, and therefore, have to meet specific criteria set out by the FDA. Catalyst is going about development in a strict and highly regulated manner so that we can present our work clearly to the FDA.

We’ve gone through a discovery phase, and we’re working on the design now before we begin the coding phase. Catalyst has been an early partner for us, helping us design the product at the outset. Focus-group testing has been handled by both our parties.

What is the team composition?

There are about five people from their team working with us. Paul (CEO, Catalyst UX) is our main contact, and he coordinates the entire team. There’s a UX designer in place, a programmer, and a few others.

How did you come to work with Catalyst UX?

We did an exhaustive search to find every UI/UX developer in the US who had experience with getting software through FDA approval, and Catalyst UX came out on top. We had buy-in from their founder, and that was important. We knew that they were interested in the project, and it was obvious early on that Paul had a strategic vision for delivering on the requirements of a small, early-stage startup. He’d been through a couple of major development projects and understood what I needed in order to get the next round of funding, a necessary step to keep the project moving forward. That was the real difference point, and they’ve proven capable of doing that.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Catalyst UX at least three years ago, probably in the first quarter of 2017.

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

There’s something a bit different about Catalyst. The reason they’ve been able to attract good people in the Bay Area—which is highly competitive—is that their developers are spread all over the country. Our work with them has been web-based, and it’s worked well. Our company is spread between Silicon Valley and Australia, and they’ve been flexible, especially in terms of communication.

How did Catalyst UX perform from a project management standpoint?

Paul is the project lead, and he’s very approachable and friendly. I can’t speak highly enough of his professionalism and responsiveness. We use Zoom and monday.com for project management.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Another feature of startups is that plans change frequently, and some people don’t do well with that and become frustrated. We’re changing what we want a lot, and Paul has been very responsive and flexible. As a startup, we need to control our cash flow, and, rather than bringing in our own software programmers, I’ve used Catalyst in a way that allows us to freeze their activity depending on the stage we’re at.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We have only positive feedback for them overall. I don’t think I have anything negative to say.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

We deal with medical and consumer devices, which have very different design approaches. There needs to be a complementary set of skills between those, which is challenging to get. If that’s what you’re looking for, I’d recommend Catalyst UX extremely highly. I’m glad we chose them.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the global product manager at a gas dispenser and POS technology company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Catalyst UX?

We were introducing a new platform with an app store and development resource tool to enable our retail customers and third-party developers to build apps. We needed to develop a portal for the platform.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Catalyst UX helped design and develop our platform’s portal for retailers and developers. First, they did a brainstorming session with some of our development team to determine what we needed and how best to go about it. 

Then, Catalyst UX worked on some UX use cases and layouts. They developed the wireframes and conducted customer interaction sessions to get feedback and really capture the voice of our customer base. Finally, Catalyst UX developed pages, including the layouts and functionalities. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with an account manager, a project manager, and a developer who worked on the UI. The project manager also did a lot of the UI.

How did you come to work with Catalyst UX?

I vetted 4–5 partners in the space. I told them what we were looking for and asked what they could do for us. The vendors provided us with examples of their work and previous customers to contact. Catalyst UX just came out on top.

How much have you invested with them?

My company spent about $72,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The work spanned August–November 2018.

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

We’ve launched the first version of the portal and have six large customers using it. They’re able to roll out projects pretty quickly. We’ve received wonderful comments from our customers regarding how intuitive and easy to use the portal is.

How did Catalyst UX perform from a project management standpoint?

Catalyst UX was excellent. They were always on top of it. They ran all of the meetings, including the customer interaction sessions. The team was open to different ideas and what we had to offer. They were very good at providing feedback on how things might be perceived and utilized so that we could create the best possible solution. We were in communication with them about twice a week.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The way they were able to demonstrate how the portal would look and feel was impressive. Catalyst UX was very knowledgeable about what we needed. They put themselves in our position so that they could see what we were going to do with the portal and create exactly what we had talked about. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t. They were awesome to work with.

Any advice for potential customers?

Be open to their ideas. We hadn’t considered some of the things they proposed to us, but we implemented them because they were really good. It can be difficult to step out of your own little box when you’re doing projects like this, but they help you step out without being too disruptive to what you’re trying to do. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of CEO of Valid8 Financial. We build software that's targeted at CPAs. Our products automate financial statement audits and forensic accounting investigations.

What challenge were you trying to address with Catalyst UX?

We collect complex data from a variety of sources, including ERP systems and financial institutions. We integrate that into a new data set, but it's very complex and we needed a simple way to display it. We asked Catalyst UX to provide mockups of some interactive data visualizations.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Right now, our system output is just a file, and we wanted a user interface to view the data. They mocked up a wireframe of various new screens that would need a navigation approach, as well as the screens themselves in terms of markup. We’re going to use their output as our requirements for the development of our next UI. They wireframed using Figma, and when I logged into Figma, I could see both UI mockups along with the screens that were being designed.

What is the team composition?

I worked with Paul (CEO, Catalyst UX) and Kevin (VP of User Experience).

How did you come to work with Catalyst UX?

Our vice president of customer success had worked with them previously. Also, they had experience creating UI that leveraged financial data. Those two data points made the decision pretty easy.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $25,000–$50,000 in total.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from June–July 2019.

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

They delivered the concept. It was a very well-run project.

How did Catalyst UX perform from a project management standpoint?

They had useful infrastructure and they ran very specific meetings with clear objectives. They maintained their cadence throughout the project and delivered on time. We did a kickoff in person to do a deep dive into requirements and discovery. After that, we just did screen sharing. They’re very easy to work with.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their understanding of both accounting and finance data at a very granular level and without a lot of background made them unique. The data design on the output was really good and we've been really happy with it.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not off the top of my head. We were really happy with their output.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I don't think you can go wrong with those guys. You have to be committed to the process. If you’re doing UX design, you have to commit to the requirements development process. You’re going to get out what you put in.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the VP of product management at a small technology company that developed software for life sciences companies related explicitly to content management, like documentation for managing clinical trials. Then, that company was acquired by a larger company, and I became senior director of product management. I worked with Catalyst UX in both of these roles.

What challenge were you trying to address with Catalyst UX?

My company originally hired Catalyst UX to redesign our dated electronic trial master file (eTMF) application.

What was the scope of their involvement?

For our first project with them, Catalyst UX developed the second version of our eTMF application’s UI. They built all of the screens and features that enable users to navigate the system, upload documents, and perform QC on documents. They developed the UI using React and Kendo UI, and then they implemented it using CSS and JavaScript. This initial project was quite lengthy; following that, we worked on several non-continuous projects.

What is the team composition?

The CEO was in contact with Catalyst UX before I joined the company, so I’m not sure how he found them. We did a proof of concept with Catalyst UX and another company, and then we put out an RFP. We chose Catalyst UX for two reasons: first, they had a vision for how they’d develop a set of reusable components; second, our engineers were more knowledgeable on the server-side, and Catalyst UX had the supplementary resources necessary to help with implementation.

How did you come to work with Catalyst UX?

Throughout our work together, my team worked with 6–7 individuals. Some of them worked on the technical side, and some were designers. Paul (Managing Partner, Catalyst UX) was involved from an oversight level.

How much have you invested with them?

My former company spent around $200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with Catalyst UX in early 2013, and the engagement was still ongoing when I left my company in April 2019.

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

Their work was well-received by our clients and prospects.

How did Catalyst UX perform from a project management standpoint?

They were mostly good in this regard. When we had tight deadlines, they put in extra effort to meet them. For instance, we needed to get a demo to an important client under short notice. Catalyst UX got us a clickable prototype in time for the demo.

Sometimes, I think their designers were over-allocated and not as responsive as they should’ve been. Our sprints often didn’t have a defined scope or assigned number of hours; once, a designer used up hours we weren’t aware of. When we addressed this issue, Paul returned some hours to us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their designs were great. The team was very collaborative; if we weren’t happy with something, they worked with us to fix it.

Are there any areas they could improve?

As I mentioned, there could’ve been more clarity in the billing process. They didn’t give us time sheets, which left us a bit uncertain as to how much work they did.

Any advice for potential customers?

They’re all good, but some of their team members are more senior than others. Be aware of the seniority level of the person you’re working with; also, try to get as much clarity as you can regarding the sprints. I felt that the sprints should’ve been defined by either a deliverable or a set number of hours.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the VP of Marketing for an innovative division of Bio-Rad that is developing solutions for digital polymerase chain reaction (dCPR) and next generation sequencing(NGS) sample preparation.

For what projects/services did your company hire Catalyst UX?

Our company had developed the UX primarily internally and needed some sophistication and usability built in. Catalyst took these constraints and built a world-class UX on time and on budget.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to have a world class UX to go with our innovative, world-class system.

How did you select this vendor?

I knew Catalyst from my past experience with Ventana Medical Systems (Roche Tissue Diagnostics).

Describe the project in detail.

Catalyst picked up a project in the middle and completed the UX build.

What was the team composition?

Initial composition was Catalyst personnel working offsite on design.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The outcome of the project was great UX design work that integrated the constraints already in place along with fresh look and feel to the UX. It was completed on time and on budget and exceeded our expectations.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It was great!

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The most impressive part of Catalyst is their ability to very quickly adsorb what the goals and deliverables for the project are, especially in a complex product line. They understood our needs right away and began to add best practices to the UX customer experience.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

The company I previously worked at is a global provider of information management software and services for defense, government, and commercial customers. We were acquired to provide world-class maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) capabilities for a large aviation company’s $20 billion annual operations. I was the VP of Logistics Products Services (LPS), the company’s commercial software division. I was responsible for all product development, maintenance, and operations, as well as defining a vision for next-generation MRO capabilities in a very competitive market.

For what projects/services did your company hire Catalyst UX?

As with many mature companies, we lacked innovative and accessible software tools. We needed to outsource a fresh and objective perspective to define the most user-friendly enterprise MRO capability that contemporary users, specifically the aviation company’s installation mechanic workforce, could easily deploy without much training.

What were your goals for this project?

The new MRO capability needed to vastly simplify the UX while maintaining the complex legacy capability. We wanted to add enterprise and cyber security skins so that our existing users could keep their original look, while new users could enjoy a more progressive UX.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Catalyst UX took an agile approach in their redesign of the new MRO capability’s UX and UI. My team interfaced directly with our end users, and we provided that feedback to Catalyst UX. They coded how the UI would flow.

While Catalyst UX worked on the frontend, my company hired an offshore vendor to do the backend development and other coding.

What is the team composition?

The teams on both sides scaled depending on the effort at hand. Our internal (parallel) team had a lead technical manager with supporting managers in the following disciplines: product data management, software development, and hardware.  Catalyst UX provided a technical manager for leadership and scaled various resources dependent upon tasking, which included software developers, UI experts, and process and human factors specialists.

How did you come to work with Catalyst UX?

My company underwent an exhaustive and meticulous vendor selection process for this strategic effort. We initially chose over one dozen vendors, then did due diligence and compared financial and performance reviews to narrow the selection down to three. After more matrix comparisons and numerous discussions, Catalyst UX was the clear leader and preferred vendor.

How much have you invested with them?

My company spent somewhere in the range of $250,000–$500,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The work with Catalyst UX began in January 2018. Although I left my company in March 2019, their work with Catalyst UX is ongoing.

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

We primarily tracked the quality of Catalyst UX’s work and their ability to adhere to the schedules and budgets, as this ultimately affected our delivery schedule. They were considerably on or under budget for each of their estimations, and their deliverables were top-quality.

How did Catalyst UX perform from a project management standpoint?

They did exceptionally well in this regard. Catalyst UX’s entire team, even the CEO, was very responsive to the user feedback we collected, and they thoroughly explained their decisions. They interacted daily with our development team. We also had weekly team meetings, during which we received project updates and saw feature demonstrations. Each month, Catalyst UX provided financial accounting and status reports. They traveled as necessary.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The overall goal was very complex, but Catalyst UX delivered on or under budget and schedule for each milestone leading toward this capability. Having worked with many vendors, it was nice to work with a team that delivered on what they said they would. They didn’t make excuses or try to upsell. Catalyst UX was a true extension of our internal team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It would’ve been helpful if they had more aviation expertise, although perhaps their lack thereof gave them a fresh perspective. Aviation’s maintenance repair overhaul ecosystem is very different from other fields they’ve probably worked in, like pharma or finance.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the CTO of OmniComm Systems, a leading supplier of web-based technology that allows pharmaceutical companies to collect and manage data for clinical trials.

For what projects/services did your company hire Catalyst UX?

While functionally rich, our lead product looked dated and didn't support mobile devices. A UI redesign was the first step in what became a three-year project to bring a fresh new release to market.

What were your goals for this project?

We set out to improve the UX and add targeted new functionality and mobile device compatibility.

How did you select this vendor?

We surveyed the market, developed a shortlist of three vendors, and asked for a capabilities presentation and price quote from each. We selected Catalyst UX based on their expertise, energy, and experience with healthcare applications.

Describe the project in detail.

We reviewed the current application and its functionality and then drilled down into the major areas we wanted to rewrite: navigation, patient selection, data entry, and data query management. For each area, we discussed ideas and required functionality and then waited for a proposed UI and workflow. We iterated about three times on each proposal before all participants were happy. We convened twice a week by web conference, and all work was done remotely.

What was the team composition?

We had a team of three. Paul (CEO, Catalyst UX) was the key driver in understanding our very specialized industry and proposing elegant solutions.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The redesigned product was released in May 2018 and has been a significant commercial success. All new trials use the new release because it looks so much better than the old one.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

You have to work at it. Catalyst can't propose a suitable solution until they fully understand the intricacies of the desired functionality. As mentioned above, we'd typically work on each topic three times to make sure nothing was missed or skipped over.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They worked hard to understand our industry and were proactive in proposing solutions—a responsive layout for the main data entry page—even if we didn’t specifically ask about that area. Though we didn’t use their development arm, knowing that they had one convinced us that we could cleanly implement their UI. They were conscious about staying within budget.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Nothing significant.