Rocket Communications, Inc.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a VP responsible for information systems and software development at a biotech startup company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Rocket Communications, Inc.?

We are building a web based tool which will serve as a customer portal enabling customers to order custom products and analyze data from a cloud based host environment.

What were your goals for this project?

Come up with clean, modern, accessible design which would make entering/uploading/viewing rather complex data sets as simple as possible while still providing a rich feature set.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Our CEO had previous experience with this vendor and recommended that we reach out to them for some UI/UX advice. After several introductory discussions and a review of some of their previous work we decided to move forward with them for our project.

Describe the project in detail.

We had a series of discovery meetings to show the team what our problem space was and how our existing software had been designed to meet the project needs. Once the team had a good understanding of our technical needs they interviewed a number of internal users who would serve as surrogates for potential customers to get a non-developer sense of the problem space.

With that information, they proposed several initial overview design ideas. After selecting a particular UI/UX there we several more rounds of iteration and refinement covering more aspects of the total software needs. At the end of the project they delivered wireframes, color palettes and digital graphics assets which we were able to incorporate into our software development.

What was the team composition?

We had a project manager as well as a couple of UI/UX experts and a graphic artist assigned to this project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Within the 3 month timeframe allocated to this project we were given a number of mockups and final set of assets which could be directly plugged into our existing web framework. The overall UI/UX of the final product was a much more graphically interesting set of interfaces as well as a simplified workflow for the users. User response was very positive.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The project moved along very smoothly from beginning to end. Deliverables were made on time and project management stayed on top of any change requests made. Weekly video conferencing made interactions easy.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

An experienced group of professionals who clearly know their jobs and can anticipate problems before they arise. There were no major issues in getting the products delivered on time.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Per hour charge for service is pretty high, but this is a senior team and so their rates reflect that.