Millipixels Interactive LLP

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are the Co-Founders of StudioPod LLC, a company headquartered in Houston, TX, US. StudioPod is an automated, professional-level photography studio, without the need for a photographer.

It helps professionals and creatives in creating stunning, studio quality professional portraits with a solution that brings together custom software and hardware components in a seamless configuration.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Millipixels Interactive LLP, and what were your goals?

We hired the Millipixels team to help us take our vision from initial ideation to a fully commercialized offering. This included their involvement right from ideating and designing the UX & UI for the solution, custom software development and integration of our hardware with the software, deployment, and ongoing maintenance and enhancements.

The primary goal was to create an on-premise solution that helped us put our vision forward to large corporations as well as the retail audience - both very different in their needs, as well as requirements.

We wanted to build a platform that would help us not only be competitive, but own the space in terms of reimagining 'Headshots', making it painless to shoot headshots at scale.

We wanted to be technology-agnostic in how the solution was designed, giving us the flexibility to choose from a variety of configurations and brands based on the unique needs of each of our clients. And above all, we wanted to bring a product to market that had a well thought-out and scalable user experience.

SOLUTION

How did you select Millipixels Interactive LLP and what were the deciding factors?

Given the nature of the solution, we wanted to work with a team that knew its way through the entire digital landscape and were willing to work with us as we threshed out the details.

We chose Millipixels precisely for that reason. Millipixels had demonstrated experiece with designing, developing, and rolling out complex enterprise solutions, as well as designing stunning consumer interfaces for clients in the US - our primary target market.

They proposed a pilot project for us to get to know their team, and their work style, and the pilot quickly grew into a full-fledged outsourcing relationship.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

The project was conceived to help us bring our idea of reimagining corporate headshots for large enterprises to life. It involved designing software solutions for mobile devices, tablets, large-format LED / TV displays, natively integrating with high-end lighting and imaging systems and then rolling it out in a plug-and-play manner.

Millipixels was involved in the project right from the initial ideation stage, UX/UI design, Front-end Development, Development of the Web infrastructure, Mobile Interfaces, Device interfaces to help us control and manage lighting systems, a diverse set of cameras, and other devices from within the software infrastructure.

The team was instrumental in deploying the system on Amazon Web Services infrastructure, and is now actively managing the infrastructure for us, helping us with ongoing feature add-ons and modifications.

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

The project team consisted of very experienced Project Leads for UX/UI, Web & mobile development, DevOps management, and for configuration management and rollout.

Each project lead was supported by team members specializing in their respective areas. We had access to their entire management team as and when we needed some advice or support.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

This engagement effectively brought StudioPod into existence in terms of defining our key product and delivering it in a market-ready, competitive configuration.

Their support is now helping us effectively scale the solution to serve our customers in different geographies and bring additional value to the system.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

The Project Manager and the Relationship Management team assigned to us was easy to communicate with. We were always kept updated with the progress on key deliveries.

The team was using industry-leading tools like Atlassian JIRA & Confluence environments, Slack and Zoom and that helped keep things organized. We had weekly status calls, regular progress reports and updates.

Overall, we are very impressed by the team and the level of project management we saw.

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

We were amazed by not only the technical knowledge that the entire team has, be it User Experience, Visual designing, programming concepts and handling DevOps, but also the degree of involvement and the buy-in we saw from everyone we were interacting with.

It just felt like we were working with our own team in a remote location. The innovation and suggestions along the process were definitely a big part of helping StudioPod get to market.

They were quite patient and thoughtful and have left a huge positive impact on our product. I would highly recommend their team when someone wants to bring an idea to life.

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

There were times in the process that we had to make a choice between quality and speed.

And there were a lot of irons in the fire - so it felt like Millipixels could improve on the speed of execution. Faster is better in the competitive environment we all face today.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CTO at Eurofins Digital Media Services (EDMS). EDMS is a leader in quality control, technical analysis, and testing for many motion picture studios, TV broadcasters, OTT, independent content producers, and a participant in the Netflix Post Partner Program.

Eurofins is a global provider of analytical testing services to clients across multiple industries, operating in 44 countries. With its headquarters in Burbank, the company operates offices in New York and Japan.

Our expertise areas include Media Quality Assurance, Postproduction, Quality Control, 4K testing, Dolby Vision, Asset management, Master QC, Streaming QC, Optical Disk QC, Transcoding, Broadcast Master QC, Digital Storefront Monitoring, and Workflow Automation.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Millipixels Interactive LLP?

QConDemand UX Design - This project involved reimagining the look and feel of our Media QC environment as well as ensuring the user experience for this project was stellar across all touchpoints.

What were your goals for this project?

Media QC is a complicated, high touch process. Our intention for this project was to develop a frictionless experience for our clients as they engage our QC teams and allow them to collaborate effectively throughout their engagement. For this, the QConDemand portal had to be thought of with a fresh perspective and we needed UX/UI expertise to ensure the creation of a quality product

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Our requirements were rather specific and we wanted to work with a team that had the expertise in designing a user experience for complex projects like this. It was also important for our provider to be able to work through an iterative review process.

We zeroed in on Millipixels after thorough due-diligence of our options primarily because of their strong experience in working on UX design and development of enterprise products. They had the experience and the collaboration skills we needed for the project.

Describe the project in detail.

We were developing a Media QC product for our broadcast and media partners and needed a well-thought-out User Experience strategy for this product. The Millipixels team brought in a fresh perspective to help us with the ideation, simplifying the user journey, and designing the complete user experience for the product, including clickable prototypes.

What was the team composition?

We worked directly with the Principal UX Lead at Millipixels, with a team of UX professionals assisting at different stages in the project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Media QC is an integral portion of the post-production workflows mandated by major television and motion picture studios and OTT providers. Each project in this space requires a great deal of collaboration between our client services teams and our partners.

It is incredibly important for these interactions to be transparent and quick. Based on the work that the Millipixels group delivered, we were able to roll out a product that not only looks good but also offers a seamless collaboration experience for our clients. This has resulted in faster turnaround times and improved the quality of our deliverables.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We collaborated on a nearly daily basis throughout the duration of the project. The team was always available and any information we sought was provided in a timely manner. Regular Weekly status calls ensured we were always on the right track. We used tools like Figma, JIRA, and Slack for ongoing coordination.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

During the project, we saw how competent the team was in the areas that mattered - User Experience Design, Prototyping, and Visual Design. The quality of deliverables was excellent and often helped us look at the same features in a new light.

Millipixels went out of their way to really understand our business, our clients' use cases, and our challenges so as to help us deliver the best possible product

Are there any areas for improvement?

Nothing of note