EIC Agency

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization, role, and responsibilities.

I am the project coordinator for a private university in New York City. I work for the certificate program and research hub. I do most of the online communication, updating the website and social media.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with the EIC Agency?

When I started, we had been using a CMS [content management system], which we couldn’t do much with. That’s why we decided to switch to something that we had more control over, including the design and how to update it. The CMS was preset, but you are allowed to use your own program. We used WordPress, so we're able to edit and update the content.

We were working with another consultant and had originally her start to do the creation of the website using WordPress, but she didn’t have the technical skills to do a lot of modifications and to do a lot of the backend work. We asked her for a design, and she didn’t do anything close to that design. We wanted to work with people who had developers that knew what they were doing as well as designers.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

This was a challenge for me because I hadn’t worked on creating a website before. I had created a scope of work, thinking it included everything, but it didn’t include half of what we needed. Originally, they edited the website that the other consultant started. Then, it changed to them creating a new website, and then it changed to us scrapping everything that we had started so we could work with a designer to start from scratch, and then creating that website.

If I had had more information about what the process was like, I would have known what to expect and what to ask for. It went from asking them to do a couple of edits, such as moving pictures and columns, to starting over and doing several mockups. They also created an interactive timeline function. Most recently, they implemented a widget that allows me to monitor how many views the site gets.

What was your process for selecting the EIC Agency with which to work?

EIC was referred by a contact that I know, and I reached out to them. They were able to provide us with developers and people to advise us about the design. They had more skills in the area than the consultant we had worked with had.

I had also contacted a few other people and interviewed them. One person had visa issues, and somebody else had developing experience, but not design experience, and we wanted somebody with both. We went with EIC because they had both skill sets and a deeper team.

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

The cost of the site was about $15,000 and took about a year to complete. If I have small requests, they don’t charge me to take care of them. The work is complete, but they provide support as needed. The main launch was in late 2013.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

My boss is happy, so we got what we wanted and we have the website that was approved for design. I’m able to edit everything, so it makes it easy to work on as well. I can update it, change the pictures, and keep it dynamic. With the CMS, I wasn’t able to change the content or how the website looks. Some of it was set. Now, it connects with social media, and it meets all of our needs. It's a good website.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out, compared to other companies?

I don’t have enough experience to compare firms, although I know that there are some people who are more involved in the developing side, and some people are designers. At EIC, people are one or the other, and some of the consultants I talked to knew both, but are better at one or the other. I think it's better to separate it so you have expertise in the area that you are working in.

For me, working with a designer who knew about design, and working with the developer who is good at developing made sense in terms of getting what we wanted, and making it look the way we wanted it to look.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

I would have wanted to know more about what I should ask, such as the services they provide. I learned everything as we went along. At the beginning, I would have asked for a designer up front and mockups upfront. I assumed you could change your website and make it look however you wanted with whatever you had. I understand now that it's much easier to start from scratch and go in the direction you want from beginning to end, rather than undoing someone's work and trying to make it new. That type of information I would have wanted to have for myself.