Guidea - A Theresa Neil Design Company

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the CMO of a company that provides digital credit cards as a service to other financial institutions.

What challenge were you trying to address with Guidea - A Theresa Neil Design Company?

We were originally called differently, and our product offering was a digital credit card for international students studying in the US. However, the company evolved from that point, and Guidea helped us with that transformation.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Guidea provided us with UI/UX design work, which was very helpful in bringing our new brand to life. Over our engagement, they did a couple of significant projects for us.

When we were offering credit cards to international students, we relied on a lot of other ways to score students and predict their creditworthiness because they generally didn’t have a credit history in the US. Given that our evaluation process wasn’t like any other credit card application process, Guidea helped us redesign our funnel and our application.

For this project, we went out to a couple of universities to interview actual students about their financial practices and challenges, as well as about their experience with credit card applications. Our research focused on other things beyond design, but it was still very beneficial for the design work.

After the research phase, Guidea designed a new flow based on inputs from our company and prospective customers. Then, they helped us perform RITE studies (Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation studies), where they had prospective customers go through the flow to provide us with feedback. This process helped us go deeper into the user’s friction points.

After completing the first project, we decided to rebrand and expand our product offering. Guidea helped us by taking some of the design work they had already done for our first product and expanding upon it. Additionally, they helped us design our mobile app. They used the Adobe Suite for their designs.

What is the team composition?

We worked with four main people from Guidea, but more people probably worked in the background. Their team included Rebecca (Associate Director of Research & Strategy), who acted as the UX researcher and provided the reports, Theresa (CEO), who was very involved in the strategy, a primary account manager, and a designer.

How did you come to work with Guidea - A Theresa Neil Design Company?

We got connected to some of the best firms in our area. We interviewed around four of those companies, compared their prices, and tried to understand their different approaches to the project. Of those companies, Guidea was the most research-and-evidence-driven, and they were at the midpoint of the cost range. These aspects made them the safest bet because they offered the best value for the money.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $300,000 across our multiple projects.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from October 2016–August 2017.

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

The new workflow designed by Guidea for our student credit card applications proved to be very successful, increasing our application completion rate from 14%–19%. This 36% improvement not only gave us better results but also changed the trajectory of our business. It was a pivotal time for our company, and the work they did was instrumental in achieving that transition.

As a result of our change in direction, we were invested in by important financial institutions like Goldman Sachs and Mastercard. Although I left the company in 2018, the last valuation I saw was $500 million. The work we did with Guidea set us down this path towards becoming a unicorn, a private company with over $1B valuation.

Additionally, Guidea did great design work during our rebranding process. After our rebrand, we saw a significant lift in our overall business, as well as very little bounce rates. People were able to look for our former company’s brand, find the new one, and understand that they were in the right place. In general terms, we didn’t lose a lot of customers, and we gained new ones.

How did Guidea - A Theresa Neil Design Company perform from a project management standpoint?

Guidea’s project management was excellent. They were very good at hitting the milestones, staying on budget, and delivering on very aggressive deadlines. We had regular meetings with their team, and they always treated us as a priority. The project had good cadence, and we got daily visibility into the progress.

Whenever we were approaching a major milestone, Guidea was very collaborative and available so that everything ran smoothly. They adjusted to our needs and also held us accountable, which I really appreciated.

During the research, we worked with Guidea in-person on-site, and we spent a lot of time in our offices during some of the critical milestones. Inbetween those collaborative processes, we had Zoom meetings and communicated via email and Slack.

We also used Zeplin to collaborate and provide comments on their designs. For the RITE studies, Guidea used a platform to record the users as they went through the flow; we could see their screens and listen to the audio as they asked questions when they found it challenging to continue.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Guidea’s biggest asset is their research-driven design. Other companies might make research part of what they do, but research is the center of what Guidea does. The UXR (user experience research) helped remove a lot of the anxiety around how successful the final result would be because we were able to validate the designs along the way. We were excited to launch rather than nervous, which was a completely different experience.

Furthermore, when working with large firms, clients usually get assigned a B team. Something that really stood out about working with Guidea was that we got their top talents working on our project, which made a huge difference.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any constructive feedback about their work, but Guidea probably could have done a better job articulating what they did during our first interview. Although their pitch was good enough to gain my interest, it wasn’t until we had a second meeting that we understood better what they meant by research-driven design and its value.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear on your objectives, understand your customers, and be honest about what you don’t know. Their research will help you validate your beliefs.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the head of product management for Stem, a renewable energy company. It’s a startup in Silicon Valley that focuses on AI-powered energy storage solutions for distributed energy systems.

What challenge were you trying to address with Guidea - A Theresa Neil Design Company?

We were looking for design solutions for single and multi-use smart energy storage customers, including enhanced data visualization and product value propositions. We wanted to make it easier for our customers to understand their energy usage and how they could get the most out of their energy storage system.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Guidea worked on UX/UI design. They did user research to understand our customers’ challenges and redesigned the overall product dashboard based on the best way to display the information for non-technical users. Our dashboard was a bit technical, so they proposed a few designs to implement to make it easier to understand the data.

What is the team composition?

We had a total of 3–4 people. We mainly worked with the creative director, but there were other 2–3 designers helping us with sketches and designs.

How did you come to work with Guidea - A Theresa Neil Design Company?

I had collaborated with Theresa (CEO) before at another company. When I moved to Silicon Valley and started working at Stem, I already knew their talent and had a relationship with them. Since I needed somebody I could trust, I brought Guidea along to help me with this new challenge.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from March–June 2015.

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

They delivered on time and budget what we asked for, and they were really flexible with what we were looking to do. From that perspective, it was a successful project.

How did Guidea - A Theresa Neil Design Company perform from a project management standpoint?

They did great. A lot of UX engagements can be a little on the creative side, so you don’t know what you’ll get, or it’ll get dragged. However, Guidea was excellent at the project management side. We set timelines to connect, and some of their designers worked on-site with us.

We usually communicated via email and phone. Also, 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were really experienced, and the team understood what business outcome we were trying to get. Also, they had senior and skilled people that helped us figure out our goal, and then they created designs that achieved that outcome. Some other companies have more artistic rendition than an objective perspective. However, Guidea was great at backing up our strategy with their design skills.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything. On the contrary, our team could’ve made things differently to make the project even more successful. Guidea did a great job and delivered what we asked.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you’re looking for somebody to help you clarify and support your business strategy through design, Guide is an excellent option. Just have a clear understanding of what you want to accomplish. They can run the engagement with their expertise if you give them those directions.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of product management technical for MasterCard. We’re a financial institution, and we primarily focus on processing credit card transactions and fraud detection. A lot of our products are on AI modeling and other ecosystems that complete the fraud detection.

My role mainly focuses on product management and product ownership of the features for the backlog. My team is also composed of UX and UI designers.

What challenge were you trying to address with Guidea - A Theresa Neil Design Company?

We had two in-house UI/UX designers, but we’ve tried to grow the team in the past few years. We contacted Guidea to help us kickstart some projects.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, Guidea helped us with Brighterion. We had quite a few different products within the company, and our target customers were financial institution merchant consumers around the world. They provided the fraud detection solution for data scientists, and we had a prime financial investigator in between.

When I started working with them, they were working on UI and UX. Guidea has focused on developing and redesigning a few of our products and applications. We have a machine learning workbench and a case management tool, and they’ve helped us maintain the system and kickstart the redesign of those products.

They’ve been engaged in our entire design exploration cycle. They’ve mainly done stakeholder interviews and come up with detailed UI/UX design or mock-ups, as well as the specifications for the development team. Their team collaborates very closely with us, and it’s like they are part of our team.

We share the mock-ups using InVision, our main tool. They also maintain our design language system, which is Sketch.

Additionally, Guidea has designed the styling and some of the guidelines. Mastercard has some, but they don’t have everything we need because we’re a B2B company, so we have a different customer focus. They’ve made a lot of the styling, icons, branding, and UX patterns.

Before they come up with a design, they help us with usability studies, UX strategies, and so on. We don’t have a UX team in-house, so they basically help us kickstart those initiatives. We’re currently ramping up hiring an internal team.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked closely with Jes R. (Director of UX Strategy & Design), Jes A. (Principal UX Designer), and Khati (Principal UX Designer) in the last two years.

How did you come to work with Guidea - A Theresa Neil Design Company?

They were helping us with Brighterion, which Mastercard acquired in 2017, but I don’t know many details. The people who started the initiative with Guidea have already left the company, so I don’t have insight into the onboarding process. I heard it was a referral.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement with Guidea started before I joined, back in 2018. A lot of the work began in June 2019, and we’re still working with them.

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

They’ve always gone above and beyond. We work closely with them, and we’re really happy. My team basically considers Guidea as our team. They’re very knowledgeable in their field and are experts in usability and UX areas, information architecture, research, and wireframing. They’re top-notch.

Moreover, they’re very receptive to feedback. If we have internal reviews, they’re open to ideas, changes, or updates to the design or wireframes. Guidea also is flexible in terms of pivoting to different priorities. Our product backlog changes at times based on customer needs; they can jump on it and produce the delivery quickly.

Overall, we’re very happy with their work over the last few years, which is why we keep renewing the contract.

How did Guidea - A Theresa Neil Design Company perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re great at managing the UX side of things and chasing us. We work very collaboratively and have multiple meetings with them every week. They’re the whole package, and the team is top-notch at providing UX/UI consultation services.

We use email, Zoom, and Teams to communicate. It has all been remote, and there haven’t been any problems at all. My team is on the West Coast, and they’re flexible with that as well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The expertise that they provide is outstanding. We lack UX/UI knowledge, but we can always go to them and ask for suggestions on the pattern, meetings, or information for the prototype or wireframe.

Moreover, we can rely on them, and we trust Guidea to provide us with their best knowledge, which is the most valuable thing for us.

Are there any areas they could improve?

So far, it’s all good. I don’t have anything I can think of. We rely on their expertise, and we haven’t had any negative experiences or things that we’d wish to change. Working with them has been a great experience.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Communication is vital. Guidea needs to understand the business problem and customer’s needs to provide an innovative solution.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and CEO of Neopenda. We make medical devices for emerging markets. Our first product is a wearable vital signs monitor that was originally designed for neonates, but due to COVID-19, we adapted it for use in adults as well.    

What challenge were you trying to address with Guidea - A Theresa Neil Design Company?

There were two different areas that we focused on with Guidea last year. Our products are primarily used in hospital settings. However, during COVID-19 adaptation, we started to observe remote patient monitoring becoming more relevant. Therefore, we wanted to work with Guidea to develop a remote patient monitoring application that users can use from home instead of in a hospital.

The other piece of the project was to validate our human factors and summative evaluation and help us conduct testing in our target markets, which are primarily in Africa.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Guidea provided us with a mock-up of the app that we used to start the development phase. For this, they did formative usability testing by collecting feedback from 10–15 users. They did an iteration of the app and provided feedback based on their findings. Additionally, they created a packaging prototype because these products were packaged in a different way than the ones delivered to a hospital setting. They came up with a prototype of what the end user might see with a remote patient monitoring device.

As for the wearable vital signs monitor and summative testing, they helped with the generation of the summative test protocol. They also analyzed the data that came out of the summative testing and how to report these findings. Then, they helped us compile the actual report and provided templates. We did most of the writing for this project, but the strategic guidance and documentation was generated by them.

What is the team composition?

There were approximately four people working on the project.

How did you come to work with Guidea - A Theresa Neil Design Company?

I’ve known Theresa (Founder & Creative Director) for a couple of years now. I’m not sure how we got connected, but I believe she found Neopanda through some of our media coverage and crowdfunding campaigns.

At the beginning, we reached out to our network to ask if anybody would be willing to support us as we started to evaluate and work on new ways and opportunities to help in the current pandemic. Theresa was very responsive and provided a lot of feedback on the support that they could provide during such a challenging time for everyone.

We’ve known Guidea for quite some time. We’ve interacted with Theresa on an advisory or mentorship basis. When it came to actually implementing the project, we discussed the scope of it, and their experience and expertise aligned with what we were looking for.

How much have you invested with them?

We were in the $10,000–$50,000 range.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from June–October 2020.

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

A lot of our users emailed me directly afterwards to say how impressed they were with the prototype in the app that we created. We were also excited about the advances we made during the pandemic.

On the summative testing side of the project, it was the culmination of many different documents. We were pleased to receive the CE mark, which is the EU version of FTA clearance, because a big part of getting regulatory clearance is making sure that we’ve done our usability testing and human factors appropriately.

How did Guidea - A Theresa Neil Design Company perform from a project management standpoint?

Guidea had a tool where they managed who was working on what, but I can’t recall its name. However, we had weekly meetings to discuss updates. They sent us questions in advance to make sure we were prepared for our meeting. Their project management skills were really wonderful, and we always felt very up to date on timelines, end goals, and what they were working on.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Guidea did a wonderful job at really listening to what we were looking for. They made sure that whatever they designed was actually applicable and met our needs. We started out blue-sky concepts and just told them that we needed a remote patient monitoring app. However, they took the lead and understood all of the things that we needed to consider and were able to work without much direction, which I really appreciated.

On the summative testing side, I appreciated their patience the most. This was certainly a new concept for us, and they made sure that we understood exactly what went into it so that it created a more repeatable process for the future.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The only areas for improvement are really on our side, such as making sure we are clear with deadlines. I don’t necessarily have any areas for improvements on their side, which is weird —  I normally do.

Any advice for potential customers?

I’d say to future clients to be open-minded because Guidea is very creative and has wonderful ideas. Therefore, if you come in too narrow-minded, it will limit their creativity. This wasn’t something we came in, but it was such a huge benefit for us.

Also, be specific with what you want the end deliverable to be. Beyond that, give them the freedom to explore to the extent of their abilities, and they will come back with a lot of creative ideas and feedback for you.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a company called 2NDNature Software, a centralized digital solution for clean water compliance for state and local government. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Guidea - A Theresa Neil Design Company?

Currently, cities and counties comply with the Clean Water Act in a series of disparate systems and workflows spread across multiple departments. Several people working on data collection, inspections, and management have to consolidate all of that information and provide annual reports to the state regulator manually. 

We’re creating a SaaS product, and we needed Guidea to help with our higher-level UI/UX organization and workflows. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Guidea helps with the centralization of workloads. They help in understanding how a user enters our system, streamlining the onboarding process, and familiarizing them with clean water accounting, which is the output from the data collected.

Our system does analytics to help Guidea evaluate their program performance. We also plan where green infrastructure and clean water investments would be most useful and have the greatest environmental return. 

Guidea helps with our analytical model to create a singular way to move through the system. They help with sorting users out into different types and how the workflow would be consistent across different modules, ensuring we have a system roadmap. 

What is the team composition?

We do a lot of work with Theresa (Founder & Creative Director). She’s had various designers to help us with specific tasks once we know a particular element of the solution that we want to build out. 

How did you come to work with Guidea - A Theresa Neil Design Company?

I stumbled across them by chance. Our children go to the same school. When we were at a kid’s birthday party, we started chatting and hit it off. She offered to help us out. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $25,000–$30,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the engagement in October 2018, and it’s ongoing and iterative. We’d launched the product in 2017, and she helped us with the initial scaling for our comprehensive vision and structure in 2019. She and her team are still helping us with various elements, so it’s been a steady collaboration for a couple of years. 

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

Guidea has provided a huge amount of work, which is super helpful for us as an early-stage technology group. We didn’t have any specific KPIs at the beginning of the project. We were lucky to have her and we’d take the support when we needed it. 

They’ve certainly accelerated our scalability from a product perspective. Once we get the basic workflows, we can fill in the details on the technical side. This helped our product go faster. Having an outside expert design and architecture group to help us has taken a lot of burdens off from our end. 

In terms of costs, we’ve gotten 10 times the value of what we’ve spent. 

I don’t have specific metrics, other than that. She’s always there when we need her and helps us stay two steps ahead of the development team as far as new features, functions, and layouts of the various workflows are concerned. I wish we had more resources to give them more work and time. 

How did Guidea - A Theresa Neil Design Company perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re great in terms of project management. They lay out a timeline, deliverables, and scope. We typically have a weekly meeting cadence and work through it. While we’re not working directly with Theresa, we’re working with one of her designers. 

Guidea has talented designers that ask questions about requirements and help us lay out the product workflows to address our needs and our customers’ needs. They’re always on time and under budget. They’ve been incredibly gracious with their time helping us. The main methods of communication are email and video calls. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The most impressive thing about Guidea is the understanding of patterns that Theresa has. We’re in a unique space. Nobody’s doing what we’re doing and it’s fairly technical, but she has the ability to understand the patterns in our work and workflows. 

All her people are super personable, talented, and responsive. They’ve taken us as one of their pet projects, which has really helped. They’re incredibly talented and responsive to us regardless of the fact that we’re not paying the big dollars and demanding their time. It’s been great, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed working with them. I know my staff also enjoy the partnership. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I haven’t pressed them for improvements. It’s been a gracious relationship, so it’s not like a typical contractor that we have that we’re really pushing to meet our timelines and goals. We don’t have the resources behind the project to demand that output from them. 

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Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and founder of Compassware, a platform that provides services solutions for digital health and therapeutics.

What challenge were you trying to address with Guidea A Theresa Neil Design Company?

We need a team that could help us with design and UX on our platform. That involves working on the backend of the CRM, learning management systems (LMS), consumer-client-facing solutions, and everything else that goes in our digital therapeutic services. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

The team worked on our platform’s wireframes, high fidelity assets, and usability studies. Guidea was also responsible for designing personas, flows, and anything needed to optimize our UX lifecycle. 

What is the team composition?

We work with various people from Guidea, including — creative directors, designers, and researchers.

How did you come to work with Guidea A Theresa Neil Design Company?

We’ve worked with Guidea on other different projects in the past. In my previous job, we needed help on one of our projects and Guidea was recommended to us. 

How much have you invested with them?

Our company invested around $100,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

The engagement ran from August–December 2016.

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

We tested the designers provided by Guidea and the results that returned were crucial. The team’s scores improved over time. Our team measured the MVP’s engagement through user adoption. Fortunately, they were able to consistently hit high results on our metrics.

How did Guidea A Theresa Neil Design Company perform from a project management standpoint?

Their communication skills were amazing and superior. We didn’t have any issues in terms of project management. When it comes to deliverables, Guidea was able to complete the tasks on time. We used Backspace and other UX specific software.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team delivered the tasks above and beyond the design process. Guidea embedded themselves in our team and became great assets to our business. The team was very passionate about the project and they provided great strategic direction. They brought a lot of technical expertise and innovative new ideas and feature sets to the table.

We were impressed with how their business and services evolved with time. Since I’ve worked with them in the past, I saw their growth from creating security solutions to digital health solutions.

Another thing that impressed us was their business acumen — how they were able to deliver more than just the UX research and design solutions. Guidea fundamentally transformed their solutions to fit the competitive landscape. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

We don’t have any complaints regarding their services.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Bring the right people in the room — make sure that you’re maximizing your resources carefully. The quality of their works is magnified by the talent and skills of the people involved. It’s also important to get the stakeholders involved to see and get the results you’re hoping for. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the CEO of a fintech company delivering solutions to the financial services industry that help create more inclusion and develop better financial health for consumers.

What challenge were you trying to address with Guidea - A Theresa Neil Design Company?

We were trying to pursue continued improvements in the financial health of our clients, and so we developed a short-term lending product that lets financial institutions help consumers bridge the gap more easily when they need money in the form of short-term loans.

We pulled Guidea in to help us consult our consumers and brainstorm how we could further address the challenges of the people we were already serving.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Their primary role in our first engagement with them was market research and bringing industry experts to the table so that we could discuss with both our customers and other voices in the industry to figure out what new products we could come up with to approach some of the still unresolved challenges for our clientele.

We worked with them to brainstorm some ideas and then begin to design prototypes of new products. We got customer feedback on those and then launched a pilot program in which they helped us to monitor the feedback we got and understand the successes and struggles in each new step.

What is the team composition?

We worked with 4–5 different members of their team, ranging from strategists to information architects, as well as UI designers.

How did you come to work with Guidea - A Theresa Neil Design Company?

They were referred to us by our parent company, the Washington State Employees Credit Union. When we started our discussions with our primary owner, we just took the lead from them and started working with the Guidea team.

How much have you invested with them?

In total, we’ve spent over $100,000 with them over the years.

What is the status of this engagement?

I believe we first started the engagement in August 2018, and we’ve worked with them on and off since then on an ongoing basis.

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

They really know their stuff and are extremely professional. On top of that, they take the time to listen and learn about your organization and tailor their approach to the client. The team takes an adaptive approach to every challenge they face rather than trying to apply cookie-cutter solutions, which I really appreciate.

How did Guidea - A Theresa Neil Design Company perform from a project management standpoint?

They set aggressive targets and always meet them, and they make use of a very collaborative, simple project management style to keep everybody engaged and on task without being overly authoritative.

We have had a few on-sight visits, but primarily communicate via phone calls, emails, and text. A lot of that depends on the complexity of the topic or project that we are currently working on, and they are very flexible in meeting the needs of the moment, whatever those might be.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Trusting our parent company in working with Guidea was one of the best decisions we’ve made, because of the breadth of experience that they have working in different industries. They brought all of that knowledge and insight to bear and really delivered some powerful insights on specific questions that helped guide how we moved forward on the project.

Their team is able to dive into the situation and understand your business and the problems you’re trying to solve very quickly. There’s not a lot of back and forth, which allows them to get to work finding solutions almost immediately.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I really don’t have any particular areas for improvement with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Connect with Theresa if you can, because she really is a driving force for the organization and will ensure that you have the best people working on your product.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO and co-founder of ClosedLoop.ai, a healthcare data science platform.

What challenge were you trying to address with Guidea?

We hired them to help with a UX overhaul to make our web UI more intuitive for our users. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Their team focused primarily on UX design and the overall information architecture on the platform. They delivered user personas, primary user flows through the application, wireframes, and so forth. 

What is the team composition?

Two people on their team worked with us, including Nikki (Associate Director of Research & Strategy). 

How did you come to work with Guidea?

I’d known Theresa (Founder & Creative Director) for quite a while and had worked with her previously at another company. She’s a published author and is well thought of here in Austin, so she was my first call when we needed some help with UX. 

How much have you invested with them?

I believe we spent around $80,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from May–July 2020. 

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

We haven’t completely implemented their work yet so we don’t have any hard metrics at this point. However, they brought a ton of domain expertise and did a fantastic job. We couldn’t be happier with the results and we’re going to take what they gave us and run with it. 

How did Guidea perform from a project management standpoint?

They delivered within our timeline 100% of the time. Expectations were communicated very well and they helped guide the scope of the project. They used a number of different collaboration and project management platforms, including Miro for an ideation and whiteboard standpoint. We also used Asana for tracking tasks, too, which was great. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Being collaborative and bringing their own expertise and ideas to the table, while still pulling our team’s ideas and knowledge into the project was a strong suit. They didn’t just jump in and tell us how it’ll be done; they asked the right questions and came up with solutions in response. Overall, they had a very nuanced ability to create a collaborative environment, which was powerful and impactful for our project. 

They were extremely knowledgeable on our target personas, who are Ph.D. data scientists who are our primary users. They’d already spoken to people in that niche area. The team was off-the-charts with how professional and organized they were in guiding us through the process. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

From our perspective, it was an A+ project, so I don’t have any criticism. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Doing our homework and showing up to the collaborative sessions was really helpful. They help get the most out of your time by providing things in advance. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for a pediatric behavioral health company that uses machine learning to help identify and diagnose children with autism.

What challenge were you trying to address with Guidea - A Theresa Neil Design Company?

We were in the process of conducting a pivotal trial so that we could submit our product for our first FDA clearance. We needed Guidea’s assistance with human factor testing on the physician portion of our product interface.

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Guidea helped us craft UX tests within a tight timeline so that we could make sure we weren’t slipping in any of our company objectives. 

At first, we engaged them to give an overview of what we hoped to accomplish, providing information on our product. They looked at our risk analysis and went over the user types that we expected for our product.

From there, they created a protocol for user testing and partnered with a group to recruit participants. They finished the tests with recorded interviews, going over general usability questions as well as asking about overall impressions.

Guidea generated a final report and engaged with our regulatory quality group, too, to make sure that the output would be what we needed for our FDA submission.

What is the team composition? 

My main point of contact was Karen (UX Researcher). She would filter any additional information from us to the rest of the team. In total, there were probably about four people.

How did you come to work with Guidea - A Theresa Neil Design Company?

One of my colleagues had utilized Guidea at his previous company and was impressed with their work. He spoke highly of their services because he felt that they were able to deliver for his company. 

When we did an RFP, we evaluated Guidea with two other groups, and they came out on top thanks to their knowledge within the space.

How much have you invested with them?

The project cost about $95,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We engaged them in Q4 of 2019 but didn’t start working on the project officially until January 2020. The total timeline was about 7–8 weeks, ending in early March 2020.

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

The most important thing for us was that Guidea understood the purpose of the tests. We needed to structure the final report in a way that we would require little effort on our part to send through our FDA submission.

As with any type of human factor testing, it was also key that they understood the intricacies of our product so that they could get what we wanted to accomplish with our main features. 

Guidea did a really nice job of putting in the upfront time to review documents as well as sitting through our demos and asking the right questions. That allowed them to create a testing protocol that would pull out what we needed to focus on.

How did A Guidea - Theresa Neil Design Company perform from a project management standpoint?

We had certain timeframes for our company objectives in addition to making sure that we were maintaining our timelines for the overall studies. Guidea was able to meet those commitments well, hitting their initial estimates. Recruiting was also a similar uncertainty, but they were able to find the number that we needed. It wasn’t an issue at all. 

Even within touchpoints through the project, they were communicative. We got an informal report prior to the final, and everything was very clear.

Again, I appreciated that Karen was the face of Guidea for our account. She passed on any messages that I had and responded quickly when needed. She could also move from email to face-to-face, staying flexible enough to schedule meetings on short notice.

What did you find most impressive about them?

It was the upfront effort that they took in really understanding our space and how our product was unique. Using AI to help diagnose children with autism — there’s nothing else like that. This meant that our audience wouldn’t have previous experience to reference.

I appreciated that Guidea took the time and effort to engage with us internally to build a framework before proceeding to create protocols and conduct the study.

Are there any areas they could improve?

When moving into a deal with new partners, you’ll realize that common terminology isn’t as common as you’d think. I’d suggest that both parties make sure they’re on the same page when using certain terms. A term could mean different things coming from the client side versus what they’re used to on the service side.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d highly recommend them. Not only are they easy to work with, but also I was impressed with the consistency and skill level of the team. They’re experts at what they do. My only advice would be to make sure you define the terms you use upfront so that the expectations for the deliverables are clear.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the technology director for a small startup that offers pharmacy discounts for retail and home delivery. I oversee all the technology that powers all digital channels as well as all services for B2B and B2C.

For what projects/services did your company hire Guidea - A Theresa Neil Design Company?

Our user-based has changed rapidly over the course of 3 years since launching. Faced with the rising focus on a mobile user, we felt the best course of action was a redesign that addressed numerous problems and lowered the friction for many of the most underserved populations.

What were your goals for this project?

The biggest thing we wanted to achieve, was improve the mobile expeirence. We also wanted to solve many aspects around clarity of our program, and transparency about prices.

How did you select this vendor?

This vendor was a internal recommendation. Our parent company has an existing relationship. But it was the initial meetings that really sold us it was worth pulling the trigger. They were very flexible with our desire to work cloesly with a designer during the process.

Describe the project in detail.

The project was a baseline usability test of our existing site, through a mobile design. There was design work to reimagine the experience mobile-first. This included validation with an early prototype.

What was the team composition?

We were mostly engaged through the designer. A VP of Strategy was present for many meetings that involved larger topics, like budget or direction. Additionally, the design worked with a researcher during the studies. It also sounded like everyone had larger resources they could pull from when looking for alternate ideas or solutions.

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

Unfortunately, the redesigned product has not launched yet. That being said, all internal testing shows it is the right direction. And everyone loves the new approach to our critical flows.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow was excellent between the teams. They were willing to jump into our Slack and integrate as much as we needed. This greatly reduced any friction, or "throwing" assets over the wall at the end of the project. Because they were open to us being so engaged at every steps of the way, we were able to hone in on the perfect vision quickly, as a team.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They were able to understand a complex problem within a short timeline. The fresh ideas they brought really keyed us into better directions. Overall they worked as a partner with us, and was as excited about our product as we are.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Looking back, we may have wanted to see desktop comps a little sooner, as there was some large delta between the mobile and desktop flows we had to resolve. But overall it was really minor and to be expected given the timeline.