Divami Design Labs

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder and CEO of Fluid Delta Solutions Inc. We provide services and products to help clients manage physical assets, including pipelines, water, and wastewater utilities, and municipalities.

For what projects/services did your company hire Divami Design Labs?

Divami provided our team with comprehensive UX/UI design for our first product - a project management and data analysis application. We did not have adequate internal UX/UI capabilities, and our prior attempts for designing the UX/UI using freelancers did not yield satisfactory results. As a result, we decided to engage a UX/UI firm.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted the UI to display relevant information and analysis results in a simple and intuitive application flow. We also wanted a consistent theme across the app.

How did you select this vendor?

We sourced potential partners using the web and referrals. From a potential pool of more than 10 vendors, we invited six firms to bid on our project; five submitted formal proposals and bids. We selected Divami due to their previous work, documentation, references, and their understanding of and approach to the project. The CEO played a crucial role in communicating their approach.

Describe the project in detail.

We then exchanged internal documentation, including flow charts, ad hoc mock-ups, and technical- and domain-specific information. Both sides participated in the initial kickoff and the knowledge transfer phase by attending four day-long workshops. After the initial workshops, they executed the project remotely. Deliverables included user flows, and interaction designs (IxD) and documentation. For the UI, they provided mock-ups, designs, assets, and specifications for icons, fonts, spacing, etc.

What was the team composition?

They assigned a project manager, a design lead, and an interaction designer. Divami allocated other resources, such as graphic designers, as needed.

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

The product exceeded our expectations for quality. They used the UX/UI mock-ups and effectively. Conflicts rarely arose between the two teams.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We communicated well via email and online meetings. Although we were in separate time zones, the collaboration never encountered problems.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Divami delivered what they said they would and then exceeded it; that does not happen by happenstance. Their commitment was excellent. Some team members worked during the weekend to accommodate my schedule during the workshops.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There were none.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and CTO of Incentives Software. Our company launched two years ago with the intention of developing affiliate marketing business tools.

What challenge were you trying to address with Divami Design?

Our main goal was to produce a software as a service (SaaS) platform for the affiliate marketing business. Our cashback site lets users launch discount programs for affiliate publishers. Our finished MVP was based on a B2B model. Sales cycles were too long from a business perspective. We decided to use the platform to launch our own brand, instead. We only had backend engineers internally, so we needed a design agency to support this new objective.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Divami Design helped us calibrate the frontend and backend of our system to target business clients. As we worked with them over multiple full-day sessions, we explained our primary requirements. We spent time explaining our business and platform, and the team quickly grasped critical details. They integrated this information into a full proposal. They created a logo and design for our B2C domain, savingnest.com. This new page is consumer-facing.  

They assigned two teams to our project for the logo and layout respectively. One of the teams also worked on the website itself. They presented a variety of options for us to choose from. Designers created assets using PSD and HTML for our in-house engineers to develop.

What is the team composition?

A dedicated lead designer worked on our project full time. He managed and collaborated with several junior designers. A part-time project manager organized the workflow. This team worked with our frontend and backend developers who provided necessary technical and business materials. My role was akin to a business sponsor since I mostly explained the scope.

How did you come to work with Divami Design?

The team developing our product was collocated in our startup incubator co-working space in India. They’d been advising another design agency.

How much have you invested with them?

We had a choice between a fixed-price or a time-and-materials engagement. As a startup, choosing the former model made more sense. After negotiating with Divami’s estimate, we agreed to a total cost of $23,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with Divami in 2017 from May to July. As we look to pivot into a few new projects, I definitely plan on using them again.

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

We launched our savingnest.com site right after Divami’s implementation. It began generating traffic immediately. Currently, we have 4,000 users and counting. We needed to invest in marketing our product to consumers but couldn’t raise sufficient funds. Regardless, the site is still live, functioning, and consistently being found organically.

We’re happy with Divami’s work. Their designs specifically target the millennial demographic in India. The team has great ideas to reach the younger generation. They came up with impactful themes and styles that brought our ideas to life. Customers praised the site’s color scheme and flow.

How did Divami Design perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re a very professional team. Since we’re based in the same town, we visited their offices before hiring them. I met with them on all my monthly visits to my offshore team. They’re a modern boutique design shop. Compared to my domestic design partner agencies, they’re filling an underserved market niche.

We added them to a new channel in our Slack account for daily communication. Each work-product review was done in Google Drive. We used their custom project management tool for collaboration. We had daily standup meetings and weekly status meetings, with email for quick questions.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I admired their design talent. Divami is a UI/UX company, which is a new area for the Indian market. Divami is made up of very young and creative resources. The team brainstormed out-of-the-box approaches for our logo design.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They need to improve the UX design skills to correspond with their UI prowess.  As they attempt to expand into the U.S. market, they’ll need to tailor their offerings accordingly. Learning a bit more about American demographics and UX style will help them succeed in this endeavor.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

N/A.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of product management for a leading mentoring software company with offices across the globe. We offer a software as a service (SaaS) mentoring platform to enterprises and universities.

What challenge were you trying to address with Divami Design Labs?

We needed to enhance our products with various features based on our R&D and required help on the UI/UX design front. We were looking for designers that could translate our ideas and vision into products.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve worked with them on multiple projects. In some cases, we needed to enhance existing product pages, while, in others, we threw away the existing designs and started from scratch. Divami helped on both fronts.

We’ve only required the creative aspects of their work. We take their designs and convert them to HTML in-house. Divami had a different set of processes to begin with, but they adjusted to our agile-focused methods. We started with a process-heavy approach but adopted a lightweight model by which we could interact with them often and deliver what is required from us in an easier fashion.

What is the team composition?

We didn’t want to work with several people because learning our context takes time, so we requested to have a single designer assigned. They also provided a project coordinator and a person to verify the work. Our main interaction has been with the designer and coordinator.

How did you come to work with Divami Design Labs?

A friend of ours referred them to us a few years ago. We gave them a sample project to propose a design for and were satisfied with the results.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend around $25,000–$30,000 per year with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Divami in April 2014. It’s an ongoing relationship.

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

Because we are a B2B firm, customer feedback is very important to us, though we also track metrics and conversion rates. Divami recently worked on a new admin dashboard and we’ve heard several compliments about it from some of our most important customers. Some of them have even got in touch with us right after its release to tell us that they love it.

How did Divami Design Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

We used Basecamp, to begin with, especially for larger projects that spanned a couple of months. For smaller tasks, we simply have email discussions, calls on Google Hangouts, and face-to-face meetings. I’m happy with their level of availability and communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

What distinguishes them is their ability to adapt to different organizations’ working models. Every company has its own style and requirements in terms of the level of the detail, clarity, and creativity needed. Divami’s adaptability is one of their greatest strengths and I really appreciate this about them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We give them feedback immediately after a project is complete and they’ve been responsive to it. When it comes to making improvements on existing pages, they need to keep the existing design in mind rather than being too creative. This would help reduce the number of roundtrips during our work.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We have a unique product in the ad-hoc, self-service search and analytics space. We do analytics using Business Language Querying (BLQ) and leverage industry domain knowledge to drive analytics. We provide analytics for both structured data and unstructured content. I’m the senior VP of technology operations and delivery.

What challenge were you trying to address with Divami Design Labs?

We had a fairly outdated UI/UX that had been designed eight years ago. People had a tough time trying to navigate through the platform and use it effectively. We wanted to update the entire UI/UX, the interaction, and the whole way the platform worked.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They revamped the complete look and feel, the design, the UI, usability, and the interaction for around 150 screens. It’s a Java-based platform for user analytics, and they worked on the search bar, the landing screens, and login screens. Everything was revamped and reengineered for the whole platform. It was a big job.

What is the team composition?

They were based in our center for four to five months. Once they finished the design, they integrated. The project lead was the CEO. Under him was a project manager and a chief designer. Then there was a complete delivery team consisting of three or four people who delivered the product. There was a similar team on our side to interface and integrate.

How did you come to work with Divami Design Labs?

We did a global exercise, selecting some U.S. based companies and about four Indian companies. We asked for commercial proposals from all of them. We then shortlisted three candidates to give us a presentation on how they would handle the whole assignment. Divami Design Labs was the final choice in terms of pricing and location. They’re located where my product technology group sits. The work was fairly complex and would need very close interaction almost on a daily basis.

How much have you invested with them?

$70,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April 2017 until October 2017.

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

We’ve done beta testing with some production clients of ours and they all seem to be over the moon with it. They’re very happy and keen to switch over to the new UI/UX.

How did Divami Design Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

I’m happy with the communication and their dedication. They sat in our offices and fully integrated into our team. They were very flexible and dynamic. They had an objective in mind to deliver a successful UI/UX project.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very flexible at meeting what we wanted in terms of design, making changes, and working with our team. Our technical team is very demanding because they’re project engineers. Divami did a fantastic job working with the team and meeting all requirements based on quite a lot of changes that we did.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could have a slightly better understanding of the entire end-to-end nature of the project and what they delivered for us. There were certain times they said they didn’t sign up for this and we thought they had. There was a bit of back and forth on some of those things. Maybe they need to be far more transparent in terms of what they expect with a buyer. There were some disconnects, but the relationship was pretty good and we could overcome certain working issues.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the CTO of CoreCompete, a data analytics company. I’m based in Dallas, TX, but our offices are located across the U.S. and internationally. We offer digital transformations and analytics solutions at the intersection of the cloud and big data. Most contemporary decision making is manual or ad-hoc. We help retail, healthcare, and banking companies unify this process to become more data-driven.

What challenge were you trying to address with Divami Design Labs?

Our company has experienced rapid growth since we launched five years ago. We needed a developer to build an internal tool that manages the infrastructure of our cloud-based services. As we launched, we requested a strong UI for our clients and internal teams to differentiate us from competitors.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Divami Design Labs mostly focuses on the UX and APIs, but also informs the UI. They assessed the health of our existing infrastructure, apps, and billing parameters. We're currently working on product called A.3 2.0. It's the second version of our cloud managed services offering. Initially, we use whiteboard drawings to illustrate our initial concept. They interview us from the UX goal perspective, as opposed to the specific feel.

The team establishes both the purpose and what we aim to display for the UI. Using an iterative process helps us declutter, prioritize, and ultimately craft the ideal design.  They provide options for specific aspects like color schemes in line with branding guidelines. One of the technologies they use is Angular.js. Subsequently, they find the right APIs to gather, show, and update data. Limiting data to the most critical metrics produces a better UX/UI.

What is the team composition?

The team varies per project. A project manager is included in the cost of other purchased services. For this engagement, we have one designer and 1-2 UI developers. In the past, I've worked with a much larger team.

How did you come to work with Divami Design Labs?

I've partnered with Divami Design Labs since 2014 at multiple companies, including my own startup. I had evaluated a few vendors and chose them based on their portfolio, specific skills, and the teams they were able to assign.  Since I’ve had consistently good experience working with them, I hired them for our latest project, as well.

How much have you invested with them?

The first project was in the $60,000 range. Smaller engagements like our current project cost about $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our first project began in the first quarter of 2014 in either February or March. We have an ongoing relationship in my current role.

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

I don't currently have a KPI metrics to share, which are harder to measure. Overall, our customers are happy with product usability. In all three engagements, the deliverables wowed our users.  Enterprise clients aren’t used to seeing this level of design quality. They usually work with solutions that feature a simple layout and off-the-shelf parts.

In at least two of the three cases, we started with virtually no internal UX/UI resources. Divami Design Labs guided us through a comprehensive design phase and fully executed the build. Their iterative, hands-on process yielded the best possible deliverables and implementations. It was great to see our initial whiteboard drawings manifest in a highly functional UI.

How did Divami Design Labs perform from a project management standpoint?

Even though they assigned a dedicated resource, we have internal project management methodologies, as well. Divami Design Labs is always flexible about using a model of our choice. They function as an extension of our overall project plan. We’ve used both Agile and STLC type lifecycles based on specific customers.

We usually use Jira and have two-week sprints for delivery. An iterative style works best for UX tasks. It's critical to incorporate feedback regularly throughout the process, as opposed to having one major release after two months.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Divami Design Labs’ team members are their strongest asset. The resources we interact with are knowledgeable and productive. They help us solve important problems. Design proficiency is a special attribute that's rare if not impossible to find in the developer community. There’s usually a notable difference if the UI is done by a UX team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don't have any input for that.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Letting them autonomously create the design has worked well for us so far.  Divami Design Labs' unique perspective casts our projects in a fresh new light. Don't give them drawings. It's much better to just describe what you have in mind. I've discouraged my in-house staff from trying to steer them in a certain direction.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a digital transformation officer for the e-Pragati Authority under the IT&C department for the Government of Andhra Pradesh in southern India.

What challenge were you trying to address with Divami?

We were trying to build a unified platform that would integrate the 33 departments of our government. We also wanted to integrate 745 citizen services and that required a certain kind of design thinking. We needed to keep citizens at the center of the platform, using the right technologies and solutions to build a solid and consistent UX. We needed a partner for this task, which was a unique collaboration for a governmental entity.

Our state has a population of 40 million and the portals we were building needed to accommodate a range of different user personas and technical capabilities. Our partner needed to empathize with users and keep design at the center of it.

What was the scope of their involvement?

One of the projects they worked on was the revamp of a dashboard used by our chief minister to monitor performance. It has a responsive frontend based on AngularJS, Node.js, and jQuery components. The dashboard was built keeping in mind that its users are not the most tech-savvy people.

As part of the digital transformation effort, we built around 200 applications across all departments, as well as a portal for citizen services, using different system integrators. We wanted to build a uniform design and consistent UX across all those portals. We decided to create a repository of brand guidelines that could be used by all providers in the future.

What is the team composition?

The team size fluctuated between 8 and 30 people. We interacted with their project manager and lead designer.

How did you come to work with Divami?

We looked for UX shops that were not too large and had hands-on leadership. Smaller agencies would give us more attention, listen better, empathize with users, and have a more dedicated approach. This was a unique project so a lot of groups showed interest in it. Divami stood out through their responsiveness and dedication to understanding our problems. They focused on presenting solutions, rather than discussing contracts.  

How much have you invested with them?

The cost of their work has been $125,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in October or November 2017. The collaboration is ongoing.

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

Our work was reviewed by my CEO and the chief minister of the government. Our dashboard received rave reviews and was loved by everyone. We’re working on a new version of it, which will include analytical views and actionable insights. The president of India was present for the launch of our government portal, which is the best feedback we could receive.

Our brand repository is constantly being updated, but it was launched in record time. Taking the design out of the equation allowed the development teams to focus on their work, which meant that delivery times were halved without compromising quality. We were able to create the UX we wanted.

How did Divami perform from a project management standpoint?

Our chief minister got closely involved with the project. We were able to schedule meetings on short notice—the team was completely dependable. We used RealTime Board, Trello, and Asana for project management.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They listen, avoid pushing their own thoughts, and put themselves in the shoes of the user. Divami is a dependable company.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They should learn how to say no. The team can be too nice at times, but the customer needs to be pushed back at times.