Myplanet

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

If we look at the stats, we basically have had no issues with Myplanet since the project’s launch, and they definitely have exceeded the expectations of the management here. The website looks amazing, and it’s geared perfectly toward its target audience. It also looks great from a brand perspective. We’ve done UX testing across the website, and overall, all the users have had a positive experience. Because our old websites were outdated and not mobile responsive, we were suffering from increasing bounce rates. Also, the average time spent on the site was dropping as well. Since we’ve launched the new site, the bounce rate has dropped by 10%, and the average session duration has increased by 11%. Our main channel for traffic and business is organic search, and we’ve had superb results, with the bounce rate from organic search dropping by 17% and the average session duration increasing by 28%.

How did Myplanet perform from a project management standpoint?

The project management with Myplanet was really good. I’ve worked with a few agencies in the UK before, and Myplanet was by far the best of those agencies. We had weekly catch-up calls, and every two weeks we would assess the work that had been completed, and then plan out what had to be done for the next two weeks. I’ve found in the past that sometimes you have to manage the agency managing the project, but we didn’t find that to be the case with Myplanet. In that respect, I can't really fault them.

What did you find most impressive about Myplanet?

I think Myplanet understood our product, and they understood the goals and the challenges that we had from our first point of contact with them during the pitch. They seemed to understand us, the product, and the customers.

Are there any areas Myplanet could improve?

This is a tough one because they basically ticked all the boxes. There should always be something to improve on, but in this case, there isn’t anything that stands out that we can say, “Actually, it would have been an easier build or project if you had done X.”

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

We've only reached a month past the release of the project, so we're still gathering comparative metrics. In general, we've seen much more traffic to the site and a lower bounce rate. Our bounce rates were hovering around the 60% mark, depending on the page. They've now been basically slashed in half. There is a lot more engagement on the site and more flexibility in terms of the type of content that we can host. We have much more video and short-form content that our users love to consume and share. There is a lot of positive feed-back for the site. People have found it to be much easier to navigate and visually more interesting, which may sound ironic, given that it's a website for the blind.

How did Myplanet perform from a project management standpoint?

Myplanet is very deadline-driven. We haven't had any issues in terms of staying on time and within budget. Both sides of the project felt that there should have been more time factored into it because of our use of Drupal 8. Myplanet has a deep understanding of Drupal, but because that new version was so very new, there were some unexpected things which we came up against. There was the added complication of making the site fully-accessible, which can be difficult to pull off if someone is not completely familiar with the CMS [content management system]. This isn't really negative feed-back for Myplanet. We both learned from the experience.

What distinguishes Myplanet from other providers?

I loved the way in which Myplanet approached the development. They are an Agile company, which can be an uncomfortable thing for an organization which isn't used to it. Working with Myplanet was an easy and pleasant experience. We never felt uncomfortable, and they appreciated that we could make quick decisions because of the work we'd done previously. It was a mutually-pleasant experience with little friction, even though releasing a website can be a high-pressure engagement.

On the personal side, Myplanet had a lot of empathy for what we were trying to do. They felt and understood the mission we had for the site. Myplanet worked with us during the usability testing phase which, when dealing with users with vision impairment, cannot be done in a standard way. We had to invite people on-site or have telephone testing. Myplanet understood this and worked with us.

Is there anything Myplanet could have improved or done differently?

We all thought that more communication in the early stages would have been a good thing. We had an Agile process by which we moved quickly in order to produce code. We should have had a 2-week pause in order to have more conversations, set expectations, and clarify what the roles around the table were. It took us a bit longer to get up to speed, but we got there.