Guidea

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am an executive of Proov

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Home hormone testing for fertility and perimenopause

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Guidea to accomplish?

• User experience design and research
• Ensure users respond well to the designed app through user research
• Understand more about a new market

SOLUTION

How did you find Guidea?

Referral

Why did you select Guidea over others?

Company values aligned

How many teammates from Guidea were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

A women's health company was launching a new product. We engaged Guidea to help research this new segment of users who the product is intended for, and design a new app experience to set up the physical product, use the physical product and receive the results. 

Deliverables:

• Frameworks for thinking about this new product in the context of the women's health space
• User interviews with customers in the target segment
• Overall user journey with the app
• Design of screens within the app for the new product

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We were able to work with Guidea's designs to deliver the app experience in a very tight timeline. The product has sold well in the market so far and we have received high net promoter scores from users.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Guidea knew we were on a tight timeframe and worked with us to be able to deliver on time. They were able to incorporate feedback from all team members on the designs. Our product is one of the first of its kind in the market so we were starting from scratch in a lot of respects from the design we appreciated their willingness to iterate.

What was your primary form of communication with Guidea?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Working in the women's health space as we do, there is usually such a knowledge gap working with other companies. However, Guidea's women's health experience is so extensive that we felt that we were talking the same langauge and it was fast to get started. They already understood the mindsets of our users as well as basic biological concepts. 

Are there any areas for improvement or something Guidea could have done differently?

Given our tight timeframes, I'm not sure that anything else could have been accomplished. They were great communicators and we appreciated the depth of their experience in our industry.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Director of Design of an IT company 

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Multinational technology company that creates enterprise software 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Guidea to accomplish?

• Expand the current design system with UX patterns and to support mobile
• Accelerate the UX modernization of 20+ year old enterprise products
• Rapid validation of business opportunities, design concepting, and delivery of innovative user experiences.

SOLUTION

How did you find Guidea?

Referral

Why did you select Guidea over others?

• Great culture fit
• Referred to me

How many teammates from Guidea were assigned to this project?

6-10 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Research and UX/UI design for enterprise asset management, real estate and facilities management, and systems engineering software.

Guidea came into my company to augment the existing product design team and lead a varierty of design projects. We worked tightly together over a period of 4 years.

The first project was to development a Pattern and Asset Library to extend the existing company design system, including  set of mobile design patterns.  With many years of enteprise design expertise, they were able to deliver on this ask rapidly. 

Over the following years, their team worked across various product portfolios in different capacities (Design strategist, Design lead, User Research lead).  The project primarly focused on taking 20+ year old market leading asset management software and defining a roadmap to modernize and launch new user experiences to market.

Deliverables included the following:

• UX research roadmap and studies to validate opporotunities and inform requirements
• Information architecture, journey maps, and interactive prototypes for redesigned workflows
• Mobile design system and redesigned work management mobile experience for technicians, including the integration of AI capabilities to differentiate in the market

In addition to project deliverables, the team at Guidea brought their years of experience, leadership and coaching to my team. They help us define best practices and provides repeatable frameworks that can be used in the future. They truly became keys members of our team.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

By collaborating with Guidea we were able to launch modernized user experiences in a rapid pace:

• Pattern and Asset Library assets accelerated our design speed  in creating new product experiences by 10x
• New re-desigend mobile user experience was launched in less than a year and won a Spark Design award.  These new capabilities has improved client retention and expanded the client and revenue growth of our new software version. 
• Modernized user experiences delivered in three of our product suites (which services over 3000+ clients) has improved client satisfactions and enabled us to continue to grow our client base.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Three words can describe Guidea  - organized, reliable, and professional.  Every proejct had a clear set of project deliverables, timelines, and decision points. 

The team took the time to understand the ways of working within the company to ensure they were effective at communicating and engaging with key stakeholders. When issues arose with specific skills, collaboration challenges, or quality of project deliverables, Theresa and Jess were prompt with intervening, coaching, or taking corrective action. Feedback was always a two-way street and I really appreciated that collaboration. 

What was your primary form of communication with Guidea?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

• Talent is always top notch, highly experienced researchers and designers who have worked in the industry for many years and have proven enterprise experience. 
• Every user research study was well done and provided very actionable insights to drive straegic decision making. 
• They bring tried and true methods and playbooks for approaching even the most complex problem spaces, but are  always looking to evolve and bring new innovative approaches to the table

Are there any areas for improvement or something Guidea could have done differently?

My experience with Guidea was one I look fondly on; we did some really amazing work together.

The only thing that I think we could have done a bit differently in the beginning was to have sessions with the leaders on my team so we could strategize together how to best frame and approach the working relationship.  I believe that would have worked better to improve some stumbles we had along the way in the beginning.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a senior manager at Evernorth, a pharmacy solutions company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenges were you trying to address with Guidea?

We wanted strong staff augmentation for a UI/UX design project.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Guidea provides UI/UX design staff augmentation for us. We’re looking for strong designers who can contribute to our team and help our culture. Based on those requirements, the team finds resources, sees if they’re a good fit, and signs them.

What was the team composition? 

We’ve worked with 5–6 members of Guidea’s team throughout the process, including Darrell (Principal UX Designer).

How did you come to work with Guidea?

Someone referred Guidea to me.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2023, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Guidea's work has helped us save time and money. The design system they've implemented has a ton of benefits, which Darrell has done a great job working through. The team has also helped us with research to have a greater footprint in our organization, which leads to savings because they've found the right problems to solve. 

How did Guidea perform from a project management standpoint?

Guidea has delivered on time and within budget. Regarding communication, we use Jira, phone calls, and emails.

Are there any employees from the service provider's team that you would like to give a shout-out to in this review? 

Darrell is one super strong teammate who is amazing and has helped us a lot. Darrell has built our design system and helped upskill our entire team on UX best practices. He has also made himself the expert on the team to reach out to us with a very thoughtful approach.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Guidea's staff augmentation has been great in other capacities. I've had minimal oversight since they're pretty self-sufficient, which is helpful because I don't have to be so hand-holding compared to other vendors. The team is good at engaging me when they need me or just keeping me updated on their work and telling me how to support them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don't think there's anything they can improve on. We've rolled off some resources and rolled on some others who were slightly better, and we could've reduced costs by just getting the right person from the get-go. Still, Guidea has been pretty receptive to that and has gotten the better candidates for us.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I recommend being upfront and candid about what you need. That way, Guidea will be able to provide support from their design perspective.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Head of Product Design of Finix

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Finix Payments is an integrated payments platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Guidea to accomplish?

• Help re-design the existing Finix dashboard
• Run large scale usability refresh projects
• Design and help build new features

SOLUTION

How did you find Guidea?

• Not sure

Why did you select Guidea over others?

• High ratings
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from Guidea were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

1. Design key features for the Finix payments dashboard, including settlements, disbursements, disputes etc., that allow Finix to acquire more customers and scale. Jes worked on the designs, user research, and usability testing for each feature, and supported the front-end implementation after hand off.
2. Dashboard usability refresh: Jes and Claire planned and executed a month long user research initiative to understand customer pain points and build a repeatable UX pattern across the dashboard. Their work led to a significant improvement in the user experience.
3. Design and deliver a design system: Jes designed Finix's first full-fledged design system from scratch, thoroughly documented all specs, and supported engineering with the implementation in the front end.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

While we do not have a quantitative way of measuring success on design projects, the team from Guidea was instrumental in designing the dashboard that our customers use and led to hundreds of thousands of revenue dollars. They also played a key role in building the design system which has made the design and engineering teams about 30% more efficient than they used to be.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Jess was always thorough and incredibly detail oriented in her work and always managed to finish projects and deliver items on item. She went above and beyond what was asked to deliver high quality work while managing her own timeline and priorities really well.

What was your primary form of communication with Guidea?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

My primary contact at Guidea checked in with me regularly to ensure the projects were progressing smoothly and that the partnership was working.They also supported us in finding the right designer with prior experience that matched our needs well.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Guidea could have done differently?

No, everything went very smoothly, and I could not be happier with the deliverables.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Vice President of Product of an enterprise software provider

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Our company provides enterprise software to automate your database change process, supporting continuous delivery.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Guidea to accomplish?

• Provide a design roadmap and framework for a new product
• Validate market and product assumptions with key stakeholders

SOLUTION

How did you find Guidea?

Other

Why did you select Guidea over others?

• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Guidea were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Guidea worked closely with key stakeholders and subject matter experts to map a future product vision and define a design roadmap for a new product focused on bringing Database schema changes into the DevOps workflow. The final deliverables included a vision prototype, high-fidelity screen designs and a UI Kit.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Guidea provided full analysis and context maps for internal and external stakeholder interviews. Guidea also provided a core design and React UI Kit for product development. All deliverables were mapped into phases and supported with strong data-driven research.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Guidea always delivered on time and exceeded expectations. They helped manage the entire process and interview and follow-up processes.

What was your primary form of communication with Guidea?

Virtual Meeting

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Guidea was able to quickly understand our market and value proposition and were able to hit the ground running. Overall, they were quickly engaged and effective at hitting milestones.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Guidea could have done differently?

Nothing comes to mind.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a department manager of Rx Outreach, a nonprofit mail-ordering pharmacy serving patients in all 50 states of the US.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Guidea?

We recently rolled out a new ordering software to order patient prescriptions through. In doing so, we had to recreate our online patient portal so that patients could log in, manage their own profiles, and place refills. As part of this project, we had the idea of redesigning the entire frontend flow of our patient portal, so we needed help with UI/UX design.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Guidea helped us revamp the entire UI/UX of our patient portal. Initially, we had a couple of meetings, during which my team showed Guidea our current design assets. Then, they created some UI/UX design mock-ups based on what we wanted and focused on the platform’s ease of use.

Throughout the project, we went back and forth with Guidea’s team to discuss things we wanted to change. Guidea gave us different variations and versions of the UI/UX designs and let us pick between them.

What is the team composition?

We worked with two teammates from Guidea: Nikki (Associate Director of Research & Strategy) and Natalie (UX Researcher & Designer). Nikki acted as the project manager, while Natalie was in charge of designing all the mock-ups.

How did you come to work with Guidea?

Another person in the pharmacy industry recommended Guidea to us. Thus, we reached out to Guidea and took it from there.

How much have you invested with them?

I wasn’t part of the negotiations.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in the middle of March 2023. The project was four weeks long, so the design delivery was exactly one month after we started, in April 2023.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We recently finished implementing the UI/UX designs that Guidea created for us, so we launched our new patient portal recently. Thus far, we’ve received a few positive reviews from our patients on it. They’re very happy with the new platform, as it looks much nicer and much cleaner, and it’s also easier to use. Additionally, we were absolutely pleased with the quality of the work we received.

How did Guidea perform from a project management standpoint?

Guidea was very communicative throughout the entire project. Their team was open and detail-oriented, so we never had doubts; everything was upfront and forthcoming. Whenever we had feedback, Guidea implemented it within a day.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Overall, everything was absolutely phenomenal.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There was nothing Guidea could have improved on.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don’t hold back any questions; be completely open and honest with Guidea regarding your expectations. They’ll take your input into consideration when they create your designs.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the President/CEO of Rx Outreach

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Rx Outreach is a nonprofit pharmacy that uses automation to provide more than 200,000 prescriptions annually to people in all 50 states.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Guidea to accomplish?

• create process flow for pharmacy customers
• create easy to use templates
• ensure templates worked for desktop and mobile

SOLUTION

How did you find Guidea?

Referral

Why did you select Guidea over others?

• Good value for cost
• Referred to me
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Guidea were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

We worked with Guidea to determine priorities and develop a timeline. This included evaluating and selecting which activities were the most important for our clients to be able to use in the online patient portal. Once we determined what activities we wanted the clients to be able to do, Guidea created the process flows and screens. Guidea delivered the project as identified and on time. Their communication and timeliness was excellent and they brought ideas and suggestions for best practices.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Completion of screens for several work flows. They created high quality designs in the timeline that was created at the start of the engagement. They were wonderful to work with!

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Delivered on time. Very responsive to needs - and even changes.

What was your primary form of communication with Guidea?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Commitment to excellence. In work product and professionalism.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Guidea could have done differently?

No suggestions for improvement. They are an excellent company that provides excellent results.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Design Program Director for a large IT company, specifically responsible for the UX of our Data Storage products and services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Guidea ?

We needed a deeper understanding of the consumers and users of Container-based data storage so that we could deliver products that are easy to use and meet the clients' needs.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Guidea was referred to me thru a colleague who had used their services in the past. After interviewing and discussing our needs, they were the top fit for our project.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

Two researchers from Guidea worked closely with the product team, VP, and subject matter experts to research users’ needs and feature priorities in order to guide designs for Container-based data storage products and services.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We worked closely with two of Guidea's best, Alicia and Brian.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

By using Guidea's user research capabilities, they were able to recruit and interview potential users and customers much faster than our in-house design team could have. This gave us user insights within 2 months that we could use to inform our designs and drive quick, iterative mock-ups and prototypes.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very effective. They worked as if they were one of our own designers, completely aligned and interlocked on the task at hand.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

We were impressed with their ability to quickly understand a very technical space to conduct meaningful UX research. Also, ensuring alignment and agreement across many stakeholders throughout the process, in order to stay on track at all times.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Nothing to note.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a growing portfolio of pharmacy software companies focused on improving operational efficiency and streamlining how pharmacies communicate with their patients. As the the VP of Product, I lead the Product Managers and the UI/UX Designers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Guidea ?

Our challenge was to completely redesign the UI/UX of our two-sided platform for pharmacist and their patients.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

GUiDEA came highly recommended to me from teammates that had worked with them at two prior companies that I worked at.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

We worked closely with GUiDEA to map current state experience; identify, prioritize, design, and test a large volume of high-fidelity screens from an elaborate set of B2B and B2B2C scenarios; and establish a new visual design direction based on revised product branding to launch a new integrated pharmacy and patient experience. The final deliverables included:

• development-ready assets
• UX design specifications
• Visual design direction
• white-label “translation” kit
• scalable information architecture

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We worked together with:

• Claire (Principal UX Designer)
• Selma-Rachel (Principal UX Designer)
• Ivan (Principal UX Designer)
• Erik (Principal UX & Visual Designer)
• IX (Principal UX Designer)
• Karin (UX Director & Strategist)

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are close to releasing our new and improved pharmacy platform. When shown mockups, the initial feedback from customers and prospects has been extremely positive.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The Double Diamond design approach helped keep the entire team aligned and organized throughout the creative process. Artifacts created along the way enabled new team members to join the project and quickly ramp up.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They were able to distill a complex set of requirements into a cohesive UI/UX experience.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Nothing comes to mind.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the interim Head of Product Design, working at a growth-stage fintech startup.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Guidea ?

I was hired to build out our product design team, but in the mean time we bootstrapped our department with 1-2 (at various times) designers from Guidea, who worked with me full time.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We spoke with a number of design agencies and individual contractors. Guidea stood out by having both top-notch people as well as the ability to dial their involvement up or down as our needs changed.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

While working on my design team, Guidea's designers did the full range of product design:

• contextual research
• information architecture mapping
• prototype development
• user testing
• UI design
• engineering handoff

They also worked closely with both product management and engineering to make sure they understood product goals and delivered fully buildable specs. They've integrated into the team beautifully and have taken direction well.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We worked with 3 designers from Guidea in total.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The UI designs Guidea delivered were leaps and bounds better than what we started with: grounded in user research, systematized, and beautiful. Our users loved the updates to our web app and the internal team was really excited by the momentum that work delivered.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Guidea's designers were fully integrated into our design department, reporting to me and participating in all internal product development activities. I met with Guidea's management every two weeks to discuss how the engagement is going and address challenges and plan future work.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

1. Top notch talent. These are some of the best designers I've worked with.
2. Management's involvement in the work as a second layer of design review, which was really helpful.
3. Management's attentiveness to our needs and flexibility in sourcing the right people at the right time.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

I wish I'd known sooner how productive a frank conversation about project challenges could be. This is on me, though.