SAVIAN

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm a communications coordinator and project manager for the Women and Children's Health Research Institute.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with SAVIAN?

Our old website wasn’t very good. It was on a pretty flimsy web server, and it got hacked quite often. In terms of design, the fonts were terrible, and it was difficult to navigate. Information categories weren’t placed correctly and visibly — it wasn’t obvious where our users should go depending on their needs, whether they were conducting research or were a member of our foundations. It was also on an outdated version of Drupal, and we wanted to create an entirely new site on WordPress.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

To kick things off, we gave SAVIAN a detailed proposal. We had a good idea of what we wanted — we had spent some time delving into analytics, interviewing stakeholders, and coming up with an overarching architecture for the site. From there, they then worked on the actual web design. We paused their work on our main site at some point because we wanted them to work on a more high-priority website for our research. Once that wrapped up, they started working on the main project again.

They built the website from scratch using WordPress, handling its development, overall design, look and feel, and navigation. They also hosted it on our own server as opposed to the one we used to share with the university. 

One of its major functionalities is the ability to communicate directly with REDCap, an online database where our researchers can input their data. We wanted our site to harvest data straight from the database in real-time, allowing it to update whenever our researchers upload their findings. 

What is the team composition?

I worked primarily with Devin (Managing Director) and Chad (Senior Web Developer). They had other teammates who I didn’t personally work with, like the designers.  

How did you come to work with SAVIAN?

We sent out requests for proposals to around five local companies. We specifically sent SAVIAN a request because of mutual connections, as well as recommendations by faculty members.

How much have you invested with them?

For the two projects, we spent around $25,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from March 2020–February 2021. They only started working on our main website in October until the end of the engagement.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

SAVIAN produced a state-of-the-art website that is unique among other research institutes. They implemented certain interface design elements, options, and functionalities that nobody else has. The interface is very clean. We have multiple foundations that give us money to do research, and they really like using it because they can easily filter their search to only show stories related to the research they funded. 

We don’t have any metrics because we've only been live for less than a month, but I know that we've had a lot of good anecdotal feedback from our staff and upper management. Everyone loves the site, and I personally really like it, which is crucial because I’m the one who actually has to work with it — it’s now effortless for me to update the website. In contrast, it was frustrating to tinker with our previous site. 

How did SAVIAN perform from a project management standpoint?

In terms of communication, we kept in touch primarily through email and the occasional phone call. They were very responsive — every time I’d send an email, I’d quickly get a response through email or a phone call, or we’d jump on a Google shared screen session. We had weekly update meetings to go over their progress, the next steps to take, and minor changes from our side. 

The team would deliver their work directly to me, but several people had to approve it first — it wasn't really up to me, and a lot of the design decisions were actually based on feedback from our upper management. After getting feedback, I would then have a meeting with Devon to let them know what our team liked and didn’t like, and they’d relay our response to their graphics team. 

I kept track of the project through a personal spreadsheet that detailed the development process and the timelines. We had access to the project management tool they used, but I didn’t really utilize it because my tracker was enough, and I didn’t know how to work the data on theirs. I was the one who reported to my boss directly, so I chose to stick with my method.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We felt as if there was a personal touch because they were a small company. Although they were busy with multiple clients, they always made time to interface with us and see how things are going. I could directly reach out to certain teammates without going through a project manager who would respond that they'll get back to us in a week. 

They were pretty adaptable. We ended up making a lot of last-minute changes and minor pivots whenever upper management suddenly wanted to change something. When I went to SAVIAN with their feedback, they were completely okay with making modifications. The team was also highly skilled and had some of the most experienced WordPress development programmers that I've seen. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I was pretty happy for the most part, but there were small things they could’ve done differently. Towards the end, our team would catch minor bugs just by using the site. They did do some testing, but it could have been a more rigorous phase involving more than just the programmer. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I definitely can't recommend SAVIAN enough. They were skilled, flexible, and responsive. We had such a great experience that we've decided to bring their team on for a third project.