Slide UX

Please describe your company and your position there.

Tigera are the inventors and maintainers of Project Calico, the most widely used networking and network policy provider for Kubernetes clusters. Calico is run in over a 1 million clusters worldwide and is offered in some of the most popular k8s distributions and managed services, including Google GKE, Amazon EKS, Docker EE, Rancher, Azure AKS, IBM IKS, and many others. I am a Director of Product Management responsible for Tigera's commercial product offerings.

For what projects/services did your company hire Slide UX?

We launched a new SaaS service and product-led growth initiative and wanted to leverage Slide UX's expertise to improve the UX of our product, make specific workflows more intuitive and easy to understand, and help conceptualize a new visual design that is minimal, modern, and congruent with other best-in-class tools that are in use by our target personas.

How did you select this vendor?

Our VP of Product & BD had worked with Slide UX at a prior company. We also selected Slide UX based on the quality of the team and the structured approach they brought to the project.

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

Slide UX has an existing structure and proven approach to their engagements with clients. At a high-level, this is divided into Clarify, Concept, and Calibrate Phases. The Clarify phase is mostly focused on understanding the needs of the project, our business, user personas, and the specific UX workflows we would like to enable or improve. The Concept phase is about prototyping new designs and and iterating and different approaches to workflows identified in the prior phase. Calibrate is mostly focused on user testing and gathering feedback on prototypes to refine designs and finalize the overall approach.

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

Anywhere from 3 to 6 team members from Slide UX, depending on the phase of the project. Roles included UX, visual design, project management, and user research.

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

We were very pleased with the deliverables and outcomes from our initial engagement with Slide UX, and we've since hired them on retainer to provide guidance during our implementation phase. The new UI and UX has received a lot positive feedback from our team internally and customers, and the visual design does a great job in strengthening our brand and establishing a more modern look and feel.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Collaboration between the teams was fantastic. There were regular weekly meetings in addition to a shared Slack channel. Tools like Miro, Figma, and Asana to facilitate the work we did together, track progress on tasks, and capture deliverables.

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

The team and the people at Slide UX is what makes them unique and and such a pleasure to work with. Not only do they have experienced UX chops, but they also demonstrated an exceptional aptitude for ramping up on a very technical domain. Could not recommend them more highly.

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

No.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Director of Product Management for DataScan in Alpharetta, GA

For what projects/services did your company hire Slide UX?

We were 10 months into building a new product and our focus was on functionality and architecture. We hired Slide UX to focus specifically on the UI/UX for the new product. Our goal was to have a modern, intuitive application with feature rich user interfaces that provided Excel-like functionality.

How did you select this vendor?

We created a list of 4 UI/UX vendors and conducted interviews and presentations with each of them. We then selected 2 of the vendors to do deep dive discussions. Ultimately, we selected Slide UX based on their past experience with banking applications and competitive pricing.

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

Slide UX spent the first several weeks reviewing our product, reading the requirements and design documents, and gathering information from our team about the user personas, product functionality, and desired UI outcomes.

Then they created a project plan to focus on the key areas and modules of the product. Slide UX scheduled weekly meetings where they presented their design prototypes and asked our team for feedback. They produced iterations, incorporating our feedback as well as additional design options until arriving at the final version.

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

Our team worked directly with a lead designer, 2 other designers, and a project manager.

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

We were very pleased with the designs from their team. In several instances Slide presented new ideas and concepts that we had never considered. Each of these add value to the product.

We have demonstrated the application to several clients and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. The UI for this product feels several years ahead of our other solutions. Slide definitely exceeded our expectations and we look forward to working with them in the future on other initiatives.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The project manager was easy to work with and provided us frequent updates, tracking action items and deliverables. We conducted all meetings via Zoom, which was very effective. Slide met all of their deliverable dates and the short turnaround time on changes kept our development on track.

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

Their team is ultra talented and invested in the solutions they design. I was most impressed by their willingness and ability to understand the product we were building and the demands of the users for the product.

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

No

Please describe your company and your position there.

I head product for a privately held media group that owns and operates multiple websites in the financial vertical.

For what projects/services did your company hire Slide UX?

Several of the websites in our portfolio were overdue for a refresh, so we hired Slide UX to work with our product team and lead the redesigns. Under a retainer contract, we also hired Slide UX to assist with product R&D.

How did you select this vendor?

In fall 2020, we searched Clutch for the best UX/UI groups across the United States, then narrowed to three. After considering all three, we decided on Slide UX because we felt they were the best fit for our budget, project goals, and culture. This review covers the third project we've run with Slide UX.

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

Several websites in our portfolio have outdated designs. We submit project specs of what we're looking to accomplish, and in a collaborative manner, Slide UX creates designs based on those specs. We then provide feedback, Slide UX makes the appropriate tweaks, and ultimately the designs are wrapped up.

We then take the final designs, develop them in-house, and then work with Slide to further iterate as user data streams. The keyword is collaborative because Slide's designers are incredibly creative and do a terrific job of challenging our thoughts around the product experience. We rely on Slide's designers heavily to provide their expert opinions on web standards, trends, and best practices.

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

Two UX/UI designers and a project manager.

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

The quality of work speaks for itself. This is our third contracted project with Slide UX. We were so pleased with the first two that we felt moving to a retainer arrangement was the best path forward for continued success.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Communication is paramount to any project, and Slide UX is consistently on point. We use a mixture of email and Slack for day-to-day communication and Zoom for our regular weekly meetings. When meetings wrap, the latest designs are published to Zeplin for us, making the workflow incredibly efficient since we handle our development in-house.

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

Every team member we work with is endlessly passionate about their craft. It makes the working relationship fun and engaging.

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

Not that I can think of. The retainer is still ongoing, and we are cruising along smoothly.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of a startup management company. We help enterprise innovation teams connect with early-stage startups on innovation projects.

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

We were looking to redesign the first version of our platform to improve usability based on client needs.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Slide UX started with a discovery phase to identify our core value propositions. During this time, they go to know our business and our current platform functionality. They divided this information into buckets and supplemented it with the results they gathered during interviews with our clients.

Moving forward, Slide UX’s team created high-level wireframes and provided general directional options to us. Once we chose a direction, they added more pieces and functionalities, as well as integrated feedback from our clients to develop even more specific workflows. UX Slide took three main areas and went deep into them, fleshing them all the way out. 

After that, they skinned the platform based on our choices and created the UX with a beautiful design. We handled backend development internally.

What is the team composition?

We interfaced with two account leads, and there were 5–6 people working under them.

How did you come to work with Slide UX?

Between Clutch and other directories, as well as posts I placed on LinkedIn and other sites, I gathered roughly 20 firms to interview, narrowing it down to a handful of candidates. We chose Slide UX because of reasonable pricing and focus on the B2B SaaS industry.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $30,000­–$40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from April 2020–January 2021.

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

Slide UX worked from what we had and came up with a thoughtful, beautiful new design. It’s a whole separate platform and a whole new way of doing business.

The platform makes our process easier, and it sells itself. We migrated clients from the old platform to the new one, and they love it.

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

They demonstrated wireframes over hosted presentations, showing us the reasoning behind their decisions and their attention to detail. We had internal meetings to talk through the points they asked for feedback on and then provided that input to them.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Slide UX was highly passionate about what they signed on to. When they presented to us, they were as enthusiastic and as excited as we were; they couldn’t wait to hear feedback. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

For the last portion of the project, I felt like their turnaround grew longer. I wish it would’ve been as good at the end as it was for the first three-quarters of the project.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Keep the momentum going and keep the ball in their court. They take their work seriously and have expectations for their clients to be passionate and quick with turnaround. Also, have a single point of contact to interface with them.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of digital marketing at a cybersecurity service company that helps businesses detect and resolve any threats in their environment.

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

We hired them to help us with two projects. The first was specifically for UX and the second was to help us with our rebrand.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Slide UX went through our website and provided detailed UX recommendations based on the current design and navigation. They helped us with best practices. After that initial project, the team helped us to revamp the look and feel of our brand and to create a better website design.

They conducted interviews with internal executives and our sales team to understand our challenges. They also did user research with prospects in the space to help us understand how the users were engaging with the current website. Based on a lot of that feedback and UX best practices, they put forth a plan.

What is the team composition?

My daily interactions were with Megan (Senior Consultant), who served as our project manager, and Brant (Founder & Principal Consultant). They also brought in a content specialist, and we interacted with their designer.

How did you come to work with Slide UX?

My boss had worked with them in the past.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from April–September 2020.

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

On the first project, they made a strong recommendation to change our call to action (CTA) form and we doubled conversion after doing that. It’s much more simplified, which is really good. With the second part of the project, we’re still building out the website. 

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management was really good. Megan was incredibly organized and always kept me updated on the project schedule and the burn rate. I give them high marks.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their overall approach, which was very user-centric in terms of interviewing, was impressive. They really wanted to understand who our customers and audience were. They really dug into our messaging.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I talked to them about this, and it’s probably more of a personal preference, but I would’ve liked to have had project management tools. There were a lot of emails. Everything was so highly organized and they still did a good job of managing the project without any tools.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Set your goals and desires and have those conversations upfront. This will help them understand exactly what you’re trying to do. What set Slide UX apart was that they really wanted to understand our business so that they could custom tailor the designs to deliver a good experience for our customers. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CFO and EVP of a software company that provides analytics to various industries.

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

We’re developing a new software platform and wanted their expertise to improve our GUI design. They also came up with a new logo for the software itself.

What was the scope of their involvement?

First, they took the time to understand our product, industry, and customer base. By understanding our platform better, they were able to design various elements of our dashboard, user screens, and administrative screens to make the UX more ideal. It was an iterative process by which they came out with mockups, showing that they understood that they knew what we were looking for.

They also took the time to understood our branding preferences so they could come up with a new logo that appealed to our customer base.

What is the team composition?

We worked with 3–4 people depending on what we were working on. I spoke directly with Tom (Principal Consultant). He was our project manager and handled everything for the project. Darvinder (Associate UX Designer) was our design guru and he came up with the boards for what we were considering. Then we had a third person who developed the logo.

How did you come to work with Slide UX?

We interviewed various companies but selected Slide UX because of their communication, culture, and past experiences. Their culture was similar to ours because they value openness and flexibility. They also showed us some of their previous work and their examples included elements we were looking to implement in our own solution.  

How much have you invested with them?

We spent $81,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2020 and we expect to finish within a few weeks.

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

They were able to hone in on what we were looking for and came up with a logo that was appealing to everybody, including our senior leadership. At the end of the day, the logo they created was ideal for what we wanted.

We’re very happy with the GUI design we produced; they created a clean and easy-to-use UX. We were also able to move further along in our design capabilities.

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

They were superb when it came to openness, communication, reports, and managing the project. They responded to emails quickly and always were on time for meetings.

If we had any changes, they were very responsive. For example, the logo development wasn’t a part of our original scope, but they were effectively able to add that to our project description.

Their communication was very effective. One of our developers used Zeplin, which streamlined our collaboration.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The quality of their work really stands out. They’re thorough, communicative, and sensitive to our budget. They didn’t overrun our budget and kept within the limit we set.

They also have a lot of integrity. When they said they would do something, they did it. Overall, they have an excellent culture that makes them easy to partner with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There was one instance in which one of their developers became very imaginative for a particular screen mockup. It was a very impressive design, but I have no idea how they would have produced it. So, there was a chasm between reality and desire. They could be more pragmatic.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be forthcoming and communicate openly. Slide UX works really hard to understand what their clients are trying to achieve, but they can be more effective if you plan internally.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a senior web product manager at a cybersecurity software company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

We had no UI/UX design partner, so our website was really dated.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Slide UX did all of the UI/UX design for our website. They did complete site-wide redesigns, and they also worked on optimization opportunities, user research and user testing.

The team provided specs in Zeplin, and they also used InVision for feedback. We’ve done two rebrands with them, and they’ve done full rebrands of our homepage and product pages. Slide UX also built out template pages. 

What is the team composition?

Erin (Founder & Principal Consultant) has been our primary contact. 

How did you come to work with Slide UX?

My boss hired them before I started at the company. We had both worked with them previously and had enjoyed that experience, which is why my boss hired them again.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent on average about $325,000 per year for the last three years, and the total is about $900,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

My boss hired them three years ago, and then I came on six months after that, so I've worked with them for about two and a half years starting in March 2018. They were onboarded in about October 2017 before I started. 

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

Slide UX’s work has improved the conversion on our website. They’ve also done a good job of gaining knowledge for and with us. I’ve always been impressed with their thoughtful approach, but especially their user testing and the information they were able to extract from users.

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

Erin manages everything, and the team’s communication is good.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Slide UX is very thoughtful and methodical in everything they do, including the design, optimization opportunities, user research, and gathering data. I’m always impressed with the questions they ask to kick off a project. They’re data-driven.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing comes to mind.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Come prepared with data and background information. They’re so easy to work with, and they ask the right questions even if you don’t come prepared.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Revionics provides machine learning and AI price optimization software to retailers. I’m the SVP of global marketing for the company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

We were doing a complete rebranding of the company, which started with a brand-new website. We were trying to make the company look more modern and give it fresh messaging. Our messaging and website were several years old, and we wanted to make sure that all of our latest capabilities and value propositioned were properly displayed on the site.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Slide UX built a new website from scratch. It was done on WordPress at their recommendation. We worked closely with them to create wireframes and determine what the necessary sections of the website were. We created the content, but we worked with Slide UX to ensure that what we were creating made sense.

The design phase followed wireframing. Slide UX gave us a number of options, and they worked collaboratively with us to make tweaks and changes. From there, it was a matter of crafting everything. It was a collaborative effort between our two companies to make sure we had the right message and a great design that helped communicate it instead of getting in its way.

What is the team composition?

We worked with four people from Slide UX: a project manager, a design manager, an SEO manager, and a developer.

How did you come to work with Slide UX?

They built the website at my previous company. When I moved to my current role, Slide UX was the first team I turned to.

How much have you invested with them?

My company spent $90,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

This project ran between April–September 2020. We’re launching the site this week.

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

We have internal experts who used to work on the retail side and are now working for us, and they served as a focus group for the site. They gave us some great feedback. Overall, they were enthusiastic about the site.

Our main metric after launch will be increased brand consideration, but we’ll also look for an uptick in brand awareness. One major problem with our old site was a high bounce rate, and we’ll be keeping an eye on that. We hope that an improved design and a more clearly-articulated message will make our bounce rate go down considerably.

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

They were excellent with that. Megan (Senior Consultant) was our project manager, and she was totally on top of things. They set up a Slack channel, and we also used email and had phone calls. Slide UX was open to various channels of communication. We met on a regular basis, but there was still a lot of one-off communication between those meetings.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Slide UX was just a pleasure to work with. They focused on us and our happiness while balancing that with giving recommendations. The team was accommodating, and they spent the time to really listen to us and understand what it was we were trying to accomplish. They reacted to all of our feedback extremely quickly, and they were positive and upbeat.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing really stands out.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Before working with them, clients should spend the time inside their organizations to make sure they understand what messaging they want to relay. They should understand internally what their highest-value propositions are for their audience. Once you have all of those, Slide UX can help do the rest.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the owner of a startup.

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

I had an idea for an app several years ago and worked with another development company. Unfortunately, the app was unsuccessful for a variety of reasons. I decided to give it another go, this time, with Slide UX as my development partner.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The previous version of the app had a poor UI and wasn’t intuitive. We brought on Slide UX a few years ago and they started with some initial wireframes for some concepts. We did a few rounds of that and then they led customer surveys. They used a national database and sent out a description of what they were looking for. Then they screened those responses and selected eight potential users to interview.

After gathering customer feedback from the survey, they reviewed the audio and notes from older customer research that I conducted.

Based on the market data and the conceptual wireframes, we developed more wireframes that look pretty much how the final output would look. The final product will be for both iOS and Android.

What is the team composition?

In the past few months, we’ve worked mainly with Megan (Senior Consultant) and Cat (Senior UX Designer).

How did you come to work with Slide UX?

I searched for UX companies, and actually had a friend who knew one of the owners of Slide UX, and he recommended them. In our initial phone calls, it seemed like they understood what we wanted. I talked to other teams in the area, but we didn’t click with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $67,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in August 2018 and it is ongoing.

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

From the beginning, they were outstanding. We also work with a development and marketing company, and they both have high opinions of Slide UX, not only in their work, but also in how they understand the product and customer. They clearly understand the vision and the brand.

I’ve also shown their work to friends and family, and they all gave Slide UX high marks.

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been great. They’re very accessible and collaborative. We met with some in-person meetings early on. Recently, everything has been on Zoom or we’ve had phone calls.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They understand the vision and our brand. They knew our goals and what we were trying to do, and are able to execute on that. They do a good job of making an intuitive UI as well. Their extra understanding is what sets them apart from other providers.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I honestly don’t know at this point. I’m sure that everyone has room for improvement, but nothing stands out with them.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Spend time communicating with them about the true purpose of the app. Not just the surface description, but also the deeper need you’re trying to address with it. Empower Slide UX to unlock that within the product.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the chief marketing officer for Cerity, a small business insurance company. We’re backed and owned by employers and we offer a direct to consumer model, which allows us to bring significant cost savings to small businesses. We created an online process that makes it easy for small businesses to manage their insurance themselves.

What challenge were you trying to address with Slide UX?

I was concerned that our quote buy flow, so the part of the website where businesses can input their information, receive a quote, and buy a policy, had a lot of room for improvement, particularly from a UX standpoint. It wasn’t very intuitive, it wasn’t modern, and it didn’t display data efficiently. Examining our analytics, it was clear that the drop off rate was too high. I believed that a better UX and redesign of the entire flow was in order.

We didn’t have the expertise or resources internally to handle that, so after doing some research, brought on Slide UX.   

What was the scope of their involvement?

They’re on a monthly retainer. In the first few months, we were focused on redesigning the user flow for the quote-buy process. The conducted user research to better understand our target personas. Diving deep into user analytics, they assessed the fall of rates on each screen and for each button. Then they created wireframes and did user testing. From there they went into the design phase. They delivered final designs that our development team was able to implement.

Now we have them on retainer and we work on various other projects. We’re working on

What is the team composition?

One of the co-founders oversees the project from a high level, but he is on every weekly meeting and contributes to our decision-making process. Then we have a project lead who manages the product and handles deliverables, tracking, and reporting. She also leads the creation of UX and wireframing. She is about to go on maternity lead, so they’re onboarding a new product lead who will play that same role. Then they have a few designers internally that we will engage with for an upcoming project we’re working on.

How did you come to work with Slide UX?

We found them through a recommendation. We did not do a formal RFP but interviewed 2–3 resources and did some background online research and went into a proposal phase.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $20,000–$25,000 per month (approximately $120,000 in total).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in April 2020 and it’s ongoing.

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

We’re about to launch the new quote-buy flow, so we don’t have specific measurements yet. Everyone believes very strongly, having seen the new design and the old design side by side, that the new UX is a huge improvement. We expect to see that in the metrics as well. The difference is night and day.

How did Slide UX perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been excellent. I’d give them an A+. I’ve been in this business for a long time and this is as good as I’ve seen. They’re super organized and efficient. Everything is tracked and reported and that’s all done very efficiently. Still, they balance that well with execution. They spend the bulk of their time on the critical work we need done.

I get a full detailed call summary within an hour of every call. I also receive a weekly project status email which is always very accurate. On top of that, they’ve never missed a deliverable.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I would highlight the project management side. It keeps things moving well. They’re also very engaged. They’ve embedded themselves into our team and they think hard about our project and our business. They do research on their own and are becoming subject matter experts in our space. They put in a lot of effort to figure out the challenges that we have. They put all of their energy into it.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not yet.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Include them in as much possible. I would not keep them at arm’s length as an outside vendor, rather, it’s important to really bring them into your team. They do their best work when they’re holistically involved and aware of what the company is doing. The more information they’re armed with, the better job they will do.