What was the scope of their involvement?
We approached Lollypop for a complete redesign, from the ground-up. They were given a blank slate and needed to come up with new ideas on how the website should look in terms of UI and UX.
Our brief stated that we’re a custom merchandise company, and wanted people from schools and colleges to create custom items on our platform. Lollypop’s first step was to understand our brand better in terms of who our customers were, where they came from, what sort of platforms they used, what sorts of transactions they performed, and what the value of those transactions was. Lollypop asked us a number of questions in this direction, and, once they were able to figure out exactly what our brand stood for and who our customers were, Lollypop created a basic framework of how users would get to our site, choose products, and design them.
They came up with many pertinent ideas which we hadn’t thought of, including creating design groups for schools, where they could save their work as a bundle, and allow students to access those designs and build upon them. The second thing they did for us was build a very nice design around the merchandise platform, allowing users to add text and images. Such platforms already existed across the world, but Lollypop gave a it whole new look and made it simple to use. They even came up with a drawing option, with which users could take random t-shirts, draw whatever they liked on it, and have it printed by us.
Lollypop figured out how quickly a user could get to the checkout, after finishing the design and quoting part, and get their transaction completed. The old website had a 7-step process, which Lollypop brought down to 3 steps.
They handled the frontend part, but I don’t believe Lollypop offers backend development. They were extremely involved with the developers we used, and I know for a fact that Lollypop has partnered with a couple of companies on a regular basis. We brought in a separate developer whom we knew could handle the project.
Lollypop worked hand-in-hand with that team on solving queries and answering questions. They monitored the development on a constant basis in order to ensure that the design would come out exactly as planned.
There is a barrage of apps which have come out in India, and Lollypop determined that, even though an app is easy to make, the probability of someone downloading and using it on a frequent basis isn’t that great if they’re not providing an essential service. People only want to have a limited number of apps on their phone. The team suggested that, instead of making a regular native app, we should redesign our mobile web version to look and function just like an app, with the same user experience. The best part is that users don’t actually have to download anything, but they can visit the website whenever they want.
For our project, there were 5 people involved from Lollypop’s side, 2 for UX and 3 for UI design. Their CEO oversaw the entire process.
How did you come to work with Lollypop Design Studio?
We made a Google search for UI/UX designers in Bangalore, and Lollypop was one of the first results. We met many other companies from the area, but none of them understood UX and UI quite as well. Lollypop’s client list also proved to us that they could handle a project like ours.
How much have you invested with Lollypop Design Studio?
We spent around $25,000 for the design of both the desktop and mobile versions, and not including development costs.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started the web project in 2013. It was done by the end of the year, but we still had a number of add-ons and follow-ups to make, continuing into 2014. The mobile project started in 2015.
Lollypop’s skilled designers produced work that was close to perfect. Working quickly, they came up with creative approaches via a collaborative and synergistic process. Their project management and HTML conversion could be improved.