Pixelmatters

Please describe your company and your position there.

I helped start Terraformation and initially lead the Marketing, Product, and Design teams.

For what projects/services did your company hire Pixelmatters?

We gave Pixelmatters a massive, ambitious task: create a website that announces Terraformation's launch as THE solution to global climate change. We wanted the design and interactions of the site to be as ambitious and audacious as the company's mission.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I had previously worked with Pixelmatters and knew that they would be able to balance audacity of design together with implementability.

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

We shared an initial design briefing which Pixelmatters refined into a design document that guided the rest of the project. Through discussion, we identified project scope which was set to a number of webpages and the interactions on and between each page. The team shared a number of Visual Design palettes with us and we discussed risks and benefits of each in order to select one.

We then began a series of weekly Design sprints with each week concluding with demonstrations of prototype site designs. Early sprints focused on wireframes and mockups. Sprints proceeded into layout and font choices. And ultimately we spent a lot of time on later sprints working on finalizing animations, interaction timings, and imagery.

This project involved technically sophisticated work that involved animating vector drawings in Javascript. The Pixelmatters team worked directly with our Engineering team to create a test and deployment process for animation packs. After initial shipment of the website, we continued working with Pixelmatters on a number of additional webpages to fill out the website.

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

Head of Design, Designer, Animation Artist, and Project Manager

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

We shipped a stunning homepage to announce Terraformation's global launch that quickly drew praise and over 40K visits through social sharing. People on LinkedIn shared our website simply because it was cool and fun to scroll through.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Despite being 11 timezones away, collaboration and workflow was expertly managed. The Pixelmatters team took direct feedback well and were a pleasure to work with.

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

Breadth of technical design skillsets and integration into productionized deployment workflows.

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

Hard to press on any areas of specific improvement. We were pretty happy with the outcome!

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a digital project manager for a telecommunications company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Pixelmatters?

We needed a new design for a specific website.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Pixelmatters handled a full design of the website as well as frontend development for part of the website. They worked with our IT team on integration with a new CMS platform.

What is the team composition?

We worked with a project manager, designer, and developer. We had some interaction with the CEO and design director as well.

How did you come to work with Pixelmatters?

I had seen their work and known of them for years. I liked their work and reached out to them for this project.

How much have you invested with them?

We invested €100,000 (approximately $120,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from August 2020–February 2021.

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

They helped us accomplish our goals on building the website and integration, all within our deadline. We’re satisfied with them.

How did Pixelmatters perform from a project management standpoint?

We used Basecamp primarily and had access to Jira.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re a young team that likes to get things done. We were all on the same page and had a good vibe working together.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The project was a little more expensive than we expected.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re easygoing and will do their best to help you.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO and co-founder of our organization. We’re an online, accredited graduate university that’s unique in that we’re not lecture-driven. All the learning is interactive within the platform. Courses are taken by students making decisions and interacting with the software on a mobile device or desktop. We offer an MBA and an executive MBA degree. Both degrees take 13 months, and we’re able to offer them at radically affordable prices due to our model. We’ve been around since 2013.

What challenge were you trying to address with Pixelmatters?

We’ve been working with them since 2015 as partners for marketing and website design implementation work.  

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started out on a design and development project for our marketing website and continued to use their services for a number of smaller projects. For instance, they operate on the icons representing our courses and tasks of that nature. They also handle small design projects, updates to the site, and implementation work on the platform itself. Their deliverables range from the design and development of the marketing website and graphic assets. The platform was hand-coded in JavaScript and hosted on AWS. We’re transitioning to a Gatsby JAMStack approach currently. They’re helping 

In 2020, we signed them onto a retainer agreement with us. We have four developers functioning as a permanent part of our team in our arrangement. They’re working on our blog, marketing work, and more. When we have new work for them, we often provide a Word Document with parameters or a PowerPoint wireframe that envisions the information hierarchy. We typically have a hypothesis and wireframe for them to work with when we begin a project. 

What is the team composition?

They’ve always assigned us a project manager for each of our projects to make sure our teams are aligned on progress and updates. We also currently have two developers on retainer and an additional two on their way to us. There’s always been a dedicated project manager, a delivery manager, and a designer. We’re also able to grab time with their head of engineering to weigh in on issues.   

How did you come to work with Pixelmatters?

We found them through Folio, a curated designer service. Because we were impressed with their portfolio work, we reached out to them for interviews. Ultimately, we selected them to be our partner for our first revamp of our marketing website. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working with them since May 2015.

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

We’ve been happy with how well the website performs. Their results are excellent, so we continue to work with them. In our estimation, our engagement has been very successful. 

How did Pixelmatters perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve always had a very strong project management and communication focus. We see that as a differentiator. They’re a great team, it’s easy to get access to their various resources for projects.   

They’ve done well with hitting deadlines because they’re very forthright in communicating anything that may throw off the schedule. Especially as they’ve grown and matured as a company over the past few years, deadlines have never been a problem. 

Of all vendors I’ve worked with, I’ve been most impressed with their project management. They use modern tools with knowledge of trends in the web design community. We communicate using Basecamp and Slack. As they’ve integrated into our team, we’ve also added them onto our GitHub and other systems. Our communication is becoming a bit more centralized as we make this transition.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’re working with a team that understands how we think. They’re intentional about their communication, management of the project, expectations, and implications of our requests or changes. They operate in a very open and positive way, which makes it easy to work with them.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

A few years ago, they experienced some growing pains with new developers and designers that weren’t necessarily as talented as their initial team. When we communicated our feelings, they adjusted very quickly and put different people on our projects. At one point, they may have even comped some of their fees. This hasn’t been at all a problem recently, just when they were adjusting to their own growth. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re great for a small to medium-sized business. With any third-party vendor, make sure you enter the relationship knowing what you want. When we didn’t know what we wanted until about four weeks into the project, it threw the development into disarray for a bit. Don’t assume that a vendor will do ideation and thought work for you.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I lead the digital products team at VilCap, an organization that supports startups looking to have a positive impact on the world. I’m building a new startup inside the organization that is designed to help companies find capital and resources to grow and help them understand their own investment readiness.

What challenge were you trying to address with Pixelmatters?

We wanted to take what we'd been teaching entrepreneurs in a very analog way for about five years and turn it into a highly interactive, attractive online tool that we could offer not just to the two hundred or so entrepreneurs that we work with directly each year, but also to thousands online.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Pixelmatters provides product design and development services. Our team does a lot of product management in terms of the vision for the product, what features we want, and who we’re selling it to. 

We work really tightly with the product designers on UI/UX to turn the feature ideas into actual functional products. They handle the entire development process as well. Our system is partially a two-sided network where people can match and connect and also an educational tool where entrepreneurs can learn about their business. 

The first thing we built was a self-assessment tool where entrepreneurs score themselves according to eight different categories. We have slider interfaces where they pull through these categories and see the criteria in each one. We also have charts and results on that assessment.

On the matching side, we have a series of questions that we ask of entrepreneurs and of investors, and for investors, we also ask for their criteria and their preferences for how much they care about each of those. 

All of that feeds into a matching algorithm that matches these entrepreneurs with investors and other support resources. Pixelmatters has entirely built all the social profiles there, all the matching algorithm, and all the question interface.

They built the backend in Python on Django, predominantly using AWS with some third-party servers that help us manage that. The frontend is in JavaScript using Vue.js.

What is the team composition?

We worked with Bruno (Lead Product Owner), Miguel (Full Stack Developer), Eunice (Product Designer), Tiago (Front-End Developer), and Andre (Delivery Manager). They also bring in other individuals as necessary.

How did you come to work with Pixelmatters?

We were looking for a team predominantly outside the US that was more cost-efficient but still had extremely high-quality design and development. What we'd seen is that, in a lot of the lower cost environments, the engineers were top-notch but the design language wasn’t on par with the cultural tendencies we have in the US. 

We were really impressed with the quality of Pixelmatters’ design and it also closely matched the kind of look and feel I wanted to have with the app in terms of being bright, modern, and colorful.

I began speaking with their CEO probably almost three years ago and found that our work styles matched really closely in terms of the way we collaborate and the systems we use. Some of the other teams told us that we could hand the project off to them and then they would come back to us once a month for feedback. 

That's really not what we were looking for; we were looking for a team that would be deeply integrated with our company and would become an extension of our team. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spend about $330,000 a year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in July 2018, and the engagement is ongoing.

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

We look at the quality of the design and development. Internally, we’re happy with the design, and virtually all of our partners and clients gush about it. On the development side, we’ve built a number of sophisticated and non-commodity features that we thought would be challenging.

Despite having only two developers, and sometimes only one, we’re quite impressed with the scale of work that Pixelmatters has been able to do on the development side with consistently good quality. The fact that we’re still here several years later and continue to grow the relationship speaks to our confidence in what they’re delivering.

How did Pixelmatters perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management may be their strongest suit. Bruno and the team do an exceptional job of planning out all of the dependencies of release and helping to think through all the intricacies, how different features might play off each other, and how we can cut scope here or there to make a strategic release.

They do a really excellent job. We feel simultaneously deeply connected, but I also don't have to micromanage or be hands-on about what they’re doing week by week. They just handle it all.

We use Slack to communicate, Basecamp to document product decisions and, Jira for the features and development. We also occasionally used Google Docs and Notion, and we also build prototypes in InVision and Figma.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We've built a really good relationship where they're able to contribute thoughtfully not just in terms of how we can get things out faster, but also in terms of how we can provide more value to the users and do so efficiently. 

Pixelmatters has gotten to a point where they understand what we're trying to do very well and can tell us when certain features won’t work well and recommended better ways to do certain things. 

Their input about how we can achieve something better and faster in a way that drives value for the users is not that common when you're outsourcing design and development, so we're really proud of the way we've managed to build that relationship with them. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

When we first started, the estimate about how quickly we could get our prototype out was very ambitious, and it turned out the scope was a lot larger than maybe they originally anticipated. We ended up spending a lot more money and time than expected for the first release.

Since then, it's been things on the composition of the team that maybe they could have pushed back on us for earlier. We found that we wanted to increase the amount of QA time we were spending, and that was our decision earlier to not have as much on that as we should have.

So, Pixelmatters could be more opinionated on how we could add some of these complementary elements to the team. They are becoming more vocal about that, which is a great development. I would encourage them to be very forward with other clients in the future about the time and resources needed.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you're looking for a highly flexible team that can really integrate with you and work through the problems with you, Pixelmatters is a really good choice. If you want a more hands-off approach, you will find that more of a frustrating experience. 

It's not really intellectually engaging and doesn't provide any trust in your team. You won't get the level of buy-in and commitment that we have with our team where they're really excited to work hard and produce something awesome. Trust Pixelmatters and work closely with them.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a senior web marketing manager at a cloud data management company. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Pixelmatters?

Over the course of five years, we’ve engaged with Pixelmatters on a regular basis for our website management, design, and content production needs.

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Pixelmatters handles all of our web needs, from full stack support to UX/UI needs. We used to run our websites on WordPress, so they created a custom WordPress instance for us. To uplift our SEO game, they did on-page changes and put all of the technology and tools in place so that my team could add the proper meta tags. 

Recently, Pixelmatters transformed one of our events into a digital experience over the course of eight weeks to deal with COVID-19. They created a brand new site (our conference site) along with a cohesive and streamlined web experience for our 8,000 registrants. It essentially became a digital event venue so to speak. The solution integrated with third-party tools like ON24, which helped ensure smooth sailing during our event.

What is the team composition? 

About 10 people work with us on a regular basis. That’s three web designers and UX specialists, two web developers, two project managers, and a customer success manager.

How did you come to work with Pixelmatters?

I inherited the partnership when I joined my company two years ago. By then, they had already been our partners for three years. I believe we found them initially through community outreach.

How much have you invested with them?

Their work on our corporate site is about $100,000 per year, and our conference site is about $150,000. The latter has a different look, feel, and branding.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working with them in October 2018, but they’ve been with us for five years. They’re still doing ongoing support work for us.

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

In terms of metrics, we measure traffic drops related to site issues and look at our content engagement. We haven’t seen any major incidents like outages and have steadily increased our traffic. As for our engagement, we’ve been able to increase conversions on our site from 1% to 1.25% on average, just by putting in some tweaks and enhancing our user flow. 

The quality of their design and UX work is great, too. Sometimes it takes multiple iterations for an agency partner to put your vision on paper as a mock-up, but that wasn’t the case with Pixelmatters. We rarely have to go through numerous iterations to get what we want.

How did Pixelmatters perform from a project management standpoint?

We have a great relationship. Because I don’t have any internal development or design resources, I heavily rely on them to meet our needs. It really feels like they’re an extension of my team.

What I value the most about our relationship is how on top of everything they are. We use Basecamp to communicate, and the projects are very fluid. Adhering to timelines has never been an issue since they’ve always delivered on their commitments. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’ve been our partner for three website redesigns, so we’re able to understand each other without any issue. Again, the quality of their design and development work is impeccable, so we really value their help.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we haven’t had any challenges. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Having a clear vision of what you want for your website and being able to communicate that vision is critical. Otherwise, you’ll run into a situation where you kick off the engagement with a lot of empty handwaving. That just delays the process and results in multiple iterations. 

It’s best to have an ultimate vision in place or even just to provide some examples. We give them low-fidelity mock-ups or rudimentary wireframes, which has produced the best results for us.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a healthcare technology startup in the oncology space.

What challenge were you trying to address with Pixelmatters?

We needed to build our products.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Pixelmatters helped build our patient app using React Native. Their team also helped build our oncologist dashboard. Their team exclusively worked on the products’ development, not their design. I closely worked with them to review the tickets that had all of the design requirements on them.

Our app enables cancer patients to monitor their symptoms during treatment. When their symptoms need attention, the product sends alerts to their care team. The care team uses the app to review the information and respond to the patient. Oncologists use the dashboard for clinical decision support.

What is the team composition?

We had up to 10 Pixelmatters engineers working with us at one point. Bruno (Project Manager) and Andre (Founder & CEO) worked as product managers and shifted responsibilities during the project.

How did you come to work with Pixelmatters?

One of our early employees worked with Pixelmatters at another company that he started.

What is the status of this engagement?

Pixelmatters helped us between January 2019–July 2020.

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

We’re satisfied with our experience working with them. We had our own product metrics but didn’t have specific metrics for the Pixelmatters team. However, they were integral to our product’s first release. We were impressed with them.

How did Pixelmatters perform from a project management standpoint?

We used Pivotal at one point but transitioned to Jira. Pixelmatters used Basecamp for their documentation, which was incredible. Our internal engineering team wasn’t as organized, and Pixelmatters helped us to put processes in place and drive our own documentation. Working with Bruno and Andre, their daily communications via Slack made it easy for us to collaborate across borders.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We appreciated how much Pixelmatters cared about the product, especially knowing it’s a product that impacts patients. Their team took patient safety seriously and went out of their way to make recommendations around best practices, code, and features. They felt like a part of our team.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t think so.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I definitely recommend working with them. They make offshore collaboration easy.

We had daily standups that helped us become familiar with one another and remain aligned. Make sure you always have more work in the backlog in the event that they encounter a block. If their team’s blocked, it may be a day until you can give them an answer because of the time difference.  

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a former UX designer and researcher at Lastline, a security software company. The company network traffic analysis as well as network detection and response.

What challenge were you trying to address with Pixelmatters?

They worked with me as a supplemental UX team.

What was the scope of their involvement?

As a startup, we brought Pixelmatters on board to redefine some of the initial UI we had, which was fairly roughed. They engaged primarily with product management and the UI development team. 

Pixelmatters was responsible for the entire UX component. They did mockups, wireframes, visual design, as well as some development work.

What is the team composition?

I’m not sure what it looked like before I joined, but after I got there, we rotated through a couple of different UX designers doing wireframes and working directly with me. We also rotated through a couple visual designers, working with one at a time. On top of that, we had a project manager who managed the whole engagement very nicely.

How did you come to work with Pixelmatters?

I started after the engagement with Pixelmatters began, so I’m not sure how they were chosen.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost over the course of the engagement was about $550,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Pixelmatters started working with the company in February 2018, but I didn’t start working with them until I joined in March 2019. The engagement was ended in September 2020 after Lastline was acquired by another company.

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

I drove a lot of the design, and I really appreciated their team’s professionalism and very strong visual design background. Their suggestions were spot on. It was a joy to collaborate with Pixelmatters as my UX team. The team is very talented and creative, and the fact that they had been on the project for several years meant they had a good sense of where to go directionally, and how to keep everything consistent.

How did Pixelmatters perform from a project management standpoint?

It was very good. We met twice a week to plan and discuss progress. We had some difficulties with the time difference, but even then, I could Slack them a question and expect to see an answer the next day, or even sometimes in the middle of the night. The team was very dedicated, and the tone of the engagement was always very friendly and very collaborative.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Pixelmatters puts their clients first. The team bent over backwards to accommodate changes in our schedule or other challenges. They really went the extra mile.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I would have liked to engage more of their team. We had been planning on increasing our involvement with their UX team going forward, but it wasn’t possible with the acquisition. I was very happy with the engagement and they had a lot of competencies we didn’t get the chance to explore.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would definitely recommend they work with the team to come up with a plan to manage the time difference. Get feedback to them as quickly as you can, because while you’re sleeping, they will actually get to work. If you can maintain a good cadence of feedback and work, then the collaboration will go a lot more smoothly.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of product at an equipment rental inspection mobile app. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Pixelmatters?

We’re a small team without in-house design resources, so we used them as our product designers.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We put together a brief of user interviews we had already done but hadn’t executed on. They delivered complete wireframes for the project and passed them off to our in-house engineering team.

If requirements change or our engineers ran into questions, we could always go back to their team for updates or answers to specific questions.   

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with about seven people, including the founder, product manager, and a rotating lineup of designers. 

How did you come to work with Pixelmatters?

We were recommended to them by the founder of another business.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent a total of $50,000 on all of our projects together. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since April 2019, choosing not to hire a full-time designer in favor of keeping up our partnership.

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

I’ve been impressed with their UX abilities and capabilities of thinking through the information hierarchy at hand. They feel like a true partner for me as I work through UX challenges.  

How did Pixelmatters perform from a project management standpoint?

They have a phenomenal project management style, using a variety of tools such as Slack and Basecamp. Our project manager has been the same throughout the engagement, and he’s great at keeping us updated on all progress.

We hear from them at least every other day about project updates, so I’ve never had to reach out to them about project statuses. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The founder has been personally involved with the work, which I always appreciate. Their communication and deliverables were both very impressive. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Timelines slipped regularly last year, but it’s been a totally new experience with my projects this year. They’ve been much faster, often ahead of schedule. Something may have changed internally to correct timeline problems. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Their work may take longer than you think, but it’s worth it.  

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of a small SaaS business that sells a customer support and issue tracking product. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Pixelmatters?

We were initially looking for a redesign while we were aiming to rebuild the brand to align with our team taking the company in a new direction.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They were focused on design and frontend development for the new, rebranded application. I handle all the backend work myself, so we coordinated our work together. We had existing designs for the frontend of our marketing site, so they used those to design and develop the app as well as complete the frontend development for the marketing site itself. 

What is the team composition?

I worked with a project manager, design lead, and about 4–5 developers. 

How did you come to work with Pixelmatters?

They reached out to us with the opportunity to collaborate. We were interested in hiring them, knowing that they’d be able to provide us with everything from design resources to project managers and developers. We saw that they were invested in helping clients build and develop products as opposed to just handling client work. They were also willing to negotiate price, which was important for us as a small business.   

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent about $200,000 over the course of two years. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We collaborated front March 2018–April 2019.

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

We’ve seen good growth on the new app, however, our revenue is flattening a bit. Our team has been satisfied with their work overall. We haven’t experienced anything being lost in translation. With a general design framework, they’re able to build independently without relying on us for frequent guidance.

How did Pixelmatters perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re very available and responsive on Slack. The logistics were smoother than I was expecting. We used Basecamp and Jira for communication and workflow. It wasn’t a traditional agile process, but we conducted our work in sprints. We worked fluidly together.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have a product-oriented mindset, which allows them to develop products soundly and relatively independently. I’ve learned a lot from the developer as well because they’re using coding languages that I don’t have as much experience with.  

Their design was strong and was completed pretty quickly. They were able to bring new ideas to the table for the app design. We achieved a comfortable pace and rhythm while working together, so we always understood their progress. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Because we were operating on a tight timeline, I ended up having to do more cleanup with their code than expected. That’s likely a result of growing pains within the agency, as they train less tenured developers on projects. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

It’s important to give them a big-picture idea of your company’s mission, instead of expecting them to develop based on wireframes alone. They’ll add more value to your team if you’re able to get them strategically involved in the project.  

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the IT & Project manager of an e-commerce company that operates multiple CBD e-commerce websites.

What challenge were you trying to address with Pixelmatters?

We needed the frontend design of the GrassCity website done.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They're our design company and have done several projects with us.
For this website, we explained our vision. They completed the design wireframes. 
Once we approved, they produced the frontend design of the website, serving both mobile and desktop users.

What is the team composition?

There were 4-5 people from their team, including two frontend designers, a project manager, CTO, and CEO. There were some others present during meetings, as well.

How did you come to work with Pixelmatters?

Several years ago, we saw their designs online and reached out to the CEO. We did a project with them, and have worked with them several times since then.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked on the project from September 2019–April 2020, when the website went live.

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

We are very happy with the design they delivered. Due to COVID-19, there has been very little activity on the e-commerce sites, but we expect that to improve by the fall. 

How did Pixelmatters perform from a project management standpoint?

They are very good. We use Basecamp for tickets and issues, Invisionapp for design purposes, and another app for them to send finished design files to our development team. We have weekly meetings and communicate primarily via Slack. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The quality of work, attention to detail, and their love of creative design set them apart from the competition. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

They are one of the more expensive companies, so lower prices would be nice.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Know what you want to achieve, and communicate that clearly with the team.