Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?
We never did a lot of marketing around the phishing apps, the first project that we worked on with Clay. We developed the apps around certain core features and our company kind of SDKed those features. Now we’re looking at offering them to other businesses so they can integrate them into their own apps. We also want to integrate these anti-phishing features into Identity Guard with Watson Mobile Apps, the second project that we built. The first apps we built were free because we wanted to offer protection at no cost to users. We didn't do a lot of marketing, so we never saw a lot of downloads. If we had done the marketing, we probably would have seen the downloads.
The project we finished 3 or 4 weeks ago hasn’t seen a lot of enrollments yet, but we’re still doing active development on it and adding features. They’re doing the same thing on the web side. In fact, enrollment is going to be done in the next couple of weeks. You can't even enroll in the product online right at the moment. We haven't had the opportunity to push this app, get users engaged, and drive adoption. I think that’s going to happen over the coming year. As far as metrics go, I don't think there’s much we can show at the moment.
For the first apps we put out, we didn't do a lot of marketing and we weren’t charging anything for the apps, so I don't think there was a lot of drive on our side to get user feedback. For this new project, we haven't had the opportunity yet to enroll a lot of users to be able to get feedback. To be completely honest, I think it’s a little premature to get feedback. The apps were literally released 1.5 to 2 weeks ago.
I can tell you that on the anecdotal side, our team is happy with the UI for both projects. I think the UI was a little bit simpler on the first project, so I think our focus should probably be on the second one. I can say with confidence everybody at our company who has seen the app is happy with it. It’s a clean and simple design. I don't think we would have been able to achieve the elegant user experience that we have if Clay wasn’t helping us with the project.
How did Clay perform from a project management standpoint?
Clay performed very well from a project management standpoint. We used them for that first project more than a year ago, and when it came time to do this new project about 5 months ago, there was no question in our mind that we wanted to work with the same group and the same team. They’re very responsive; their team lead responds right away. They’re connected to Slack, so whenever we need something, it’s easy to get ahold of them. We’re typically communicating with three or four people at Clay. The project worked out great, and I can't think of any other issues or red flags that came up during our time working together. They always delivered whenever on whatever they had committed to. They were always there as a group on all of the calls that we had set up. They usually had at least two or three people participating and taking notes. I don't recall anything ever slipping by. If our team mentioned something offhand like, “Hey, let’s make sure we change that color,” or “Let’s change that text there,” they seemed to be on top of things and noting down even the little things that we had discussed on calls.
What did you find most impressive about Clay?
I guess it’s hard for me to say. To be honest, they’re the only company in their line of work that I’ve worked with. I’ve never had the need to work with a design company on mobile projects before. I can say that if I ever have to work with another company in the future, I certainly hope that I have the same positive experience that I have had working with Clay. They’re professional, they understand the mobile ecosystem, and they understand what a good user experience is like on both iOS and Android. And for a company like ours where we had our own engineering team and we were only using Clay for UX/UI, it was just a very clean working experience, in the way that they provided us fact sets, flows, etc. They crossed their T’s and dotted their I's. It was a great experience for our entire team.
Are there any areas Clay could improve?
Honestly, nothing comes to mind. We simply didn't have any issues working with Clay as a team. I’m sure they’ll say the same thing about us, despite the fact that they’re our vendor. Their communication was great. I think they’re a great team to use across the board. For a company in our position where we just need help with design and user experience, they did a fantastic job. We didn't have them write any code for us or do any kind of engineering, so I have no idea how they perform on that front. Just from the perspective of UI/UX design, I can't think of anything they would need to improve on.
Having undergone user testing, the new design was extremely well received and its launch is eagerly anticipated. The team pays close attention to detail, working hard to ensure every step of the project meets the requirements, and iterating further when necessary.