UX Studio

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a meditation group, I am one of six teachers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire UX Studio, and what were your goals?

We hired UX Studio to create a website for our newly rebranded meditation group. We were interested in a simple, easy to navigate page for our participants to access our meetings and our recorded resources.

SOLUTION

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

We have worked with UX Studio in the past and have a great relationship with the principal, Eric. He knows our needs and our aesthetic. He has always delivered for us in the past.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

We needed a website that would hold our Mission Statement, Links to our online meetings, our Schedule, links to our Affiliated Groups, storage for our recorded Resources and a way to Donate. UX Studio understood immediately what we needed and created the site with weekly input via online meetings.

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

We worked directly with Eric, UX Studio principal.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The website is aesthetically pleasing and each of the functional sections is user friendly. Our meditation group can easily access our online sessions and recorded resources.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Eric is a great listener and knows how to keep a planning session on track. We set up meetings via his scheduling tool and did our planning online. Eric set up a series of options for us to choose from and a timeline for the project. He communicates any changes or new solutions in a timely way.

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

They are a pleasure to work with and make the whole process unfold smoothly. We would not work with anyone else!

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

No.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the research psychologist and meditation teacher who has contributed to developing a theory and set of meditation practices for training in sustainable and inclusive compassion, i.e., Sustainable Compassion Training. Our website hosts material and events related to this training.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

We hired UX Studio to develop a website to host material and events related to Sustainable Compassion Training.

SOLUTION

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

UX Studio came highly recommended to us by others in our field who had worked with this company and were highly satisfied by its work.

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

UX Studio met with us to first solicit our general vision, and then solicited our thoughts through a simple but generative survey. UX Studio worked with our responses to generate templates and branding. Following that process, we had regularly meetings, mostly weekly, to review progress and give input. UX Studio provided excellent service and sound guidance, while being responsive to our guiding values.

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

We worked with one person for the duration of the project, the owner of UX Studio.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our website just launched in the past week. We have heard from several people in our immediate circle about the high quality of the website. We are very happy with it.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Excellent. UX Studio was responsive, kind, professional, and attentive to detail.

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

I was most impressed by UX Studio's ability to work with our unique needs while also providing guidance based on their expertise. They struck the right balance between steering us in the right direction while also allowing us to expression our ideals and vision.

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

No concerns!

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the head of school for Greensboro Montessori School in North Carolina. It’s a private and independent Montessori school that serves children from toddlers through middle school.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with UX Studio?

I needed someone to refresh our WordPress website and train our staff to configure its backend.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I engaged UX Studio to redesign the website and implement a social media component that links to its format. He conveyed the Montessori approach I created into the design templates. They also trained our administrative staff on the backend of the website, so we can make changes ourselves without having to consult them.

What is the team composition?

I just worked with Eric (Owner & Senior UX Designer) directly.

How did you come to work with UX Studio?

For this project, it was the second time I had collaborated with UX Studio. He redesigned the website of a Montessori school where I was previously the head of.

How much have you invested with them?

I believe we’ve invested around $5,000–$6,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked on this project from January–April 2015.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I felt that he responded particularly well to our niche market. The feedback he got from the administrative staff after training them was very favorable.

How did UX Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

We didn’t collaborate with a project management software but it worked out really well for us in the end. Our main method of communication was through email and phone.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We liked the simple and clean designs he created for us. His efficiency in porting the old website to the new one was also impressive.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We could’ve expanded the scope of the work. However, we were aware that it was our fault as we hadn’t conceived what we needed beyond the basic design. Quite frankly, we really didn’t have the money to go further.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of admissions of a private and independent Montessori school and we serve children from toddler through middle school. As the admissions director, I’m responsible for the school’s marketing. My scope of work includes Facebook and website marketing, which targets the existing population of the school and the parents. Externally, I’m also in charge of promoting school admissions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with UX Studio?

I engaged with UX Studio to help us do a total revamp of our website, and work on the branding and identity of our school.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I wanted to refresh our WordPress website with a whole new concept because the old one looked really bad. For the branding and identity, they consulted with us in coming up with a thematic approach to the overall publications and master plan. 

My daughter, who is a graphic designer and a former Montessori student, provided us with a great design concept for the logo. UX Studio tweaked the design by giving it a color scheme to identify the characteristics that melded with the new website.

After completing the website, we hired them to do the marketing launch to raise awareness for the new changes in our branding. They utilized social media and other platforms to communicate with the internal community.

What is the team composition?

I worked directly with Erik (Owner & Senior UX Designer)

How did you come to work with UX Studio?

I first engaged with Eric at a school where I was previously the head of. At the time, Eric was doing entrepreneurial work and didn’t have a company yet. We got connected through a mutual contact and talked to him about designing that school’s website.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent roughly $15,000. Out of that, we allocated $9,500 for web development, identity, and branding, and an additional $4,000 on marketing.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from July–December 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

In terms of metrics, what I looked for was how successful they were in helping me reach my goal—which was tapping into the external market. And let me tell you the results were fabulous. In just a short period of time, they were able to increase the number of contacts created by the new website, as opposed to the old one.

Feedback from the administration staff and the parents have also been generally positive. From my perspective, I knew how effective the website was when I engaged with clients who didn’t ask too many questions about or processes.

How did UX Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

They utilized the Monday software to schedule and create the workflow from start to finish—which made it possible to meet and accomplish deadlines.

Normally for these kinds of projects, you’re waiting for the client to create, deliver, and revise the website’s content. However, since UX Studio didn’t author any of the content, things went a lot faster. There wasn’t any slowdown on our side so UX Studio was able to create a comprehensive website from scratch, in such a relatively short period of time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

What’s impressive about them is they don’t come with a canned approach. A lot of web publishers will try to fit you in their templates to facilitate their work. UX Studio listened and did not come with any preconceived ideas about how it was going to turn out—especially since I had a global concept that was specific to my niche market. 

He was a great listener that was able to take action in a way that I never had to correct him. The Zoom meetings and the Monday software may have something to do with the outcomes, but I also think there’s a creative side to it that he just gets to intuitively.

Eric was also a great teacher. I relied on him to set up the website and help educate me about how I could maintain the backend of it. For instance, he created a pop up that alerts families through the website whenever the school closes. He created a video instruction for me to look at whenever I need to update the website. It was straightforward, understandable, and it made me effective in my job.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I think it’s interesting that over our relationship, Eric and UX Studio are moving towards developing a niche market with Montessori schools. I’ve offered to support and help him better understand what the market is.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of a marine inspection company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with UX Studio?

I hired them to set up a website for our nonprofit organization.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Eric (Owner & Senior UX Designer) took our old website and revamped and updated it. He gives us suggestions on how to improve it.

UX Studio has developed our website. The site has applications like news features and information about our membership. It promotes businesses to our members.

What is the team composition?

I mainly work with Eric, and there are other team members behind the scenes.

How did you come to work with UX Studio?

We set out a bid to update our website, and Eric bid on it. His price was competitive and I knew someone who had worked with them before. They were highly recommended to us, that's why we went with UX Studio.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, the project has cost us $10,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in November 2019 and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I measure success by the number of responses and overall, we’ve been happy with the end product. 

How did UX Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

Everything goes smoothly. Eric responds to all my calls and emails promptly. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

UX Studio’s quick response and good suggestions on how to do things differently are impressive.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, we continually suggest improvements. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I don’t have any specific advice because they’ve been responsive and they give us suggestions. There isn’t anything lacking that I can suggest to look out for.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work for National Dharma Fellowship, a Buddhist meditation organization. We run a retreat center in New Hampshire. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with UX Studio?

Previously, we had two different websites; one site was for our retreat center and the other was for the National Dharma Fellowship. Obviously, that was becoming very unwieldy. We were looking to put the websites together, and this collided with the COVID-19 pandemic, so we realized our meditation retreat needed to be online instead of in-person. All of this led us to make a new website with UX Studio.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Eric (Owner & Senior UX Designer) and another team member listened to us about our needs and made suggestions to help us with this new world of online retreats and meditation teachings. Our end product from this engagement was a new website that combined both of our old ones. 

We also have a very large archive of past retreat recordings, and they helped us make an online learning platform for it. They did a lot of teaching, too — we have an internal website teammate, and they taught her how to use the online learning platform. We now have user accounts for our people, too, which is a big improvement. They’re still maintaining our website for us since there is a lot to do in different areas. 

What is the team composition?

We work mostly with two people directly, Eric and one other team member.

How did you come to work with UX Studio?

Some friends of ours, who also have a meditation center, had worked with them on their own website, so we decided to work with UX Studio.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent approximately $14,000, if not more than that. 

What is the status of this engagement?

They worked with us to develop the site from May–November 2020, but they’re still working with us as our website development team so our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Since we just launched, we don’t have any metrics yet. However, they’ve done a fabulous job and we are happy with the end product. 

How did UX Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

We’d meet with them at least once a week for a long time. They are extremely well-versed in listening to what we need and creating something that will move us forward. They are very responsive to our needs. In terms of meeting our deadlines, they are really good. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They very much care about the work they do. Their responsiveness throughout the project is impressive. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

If there is anything to improve, we talk about it with them. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be really in touch with their team. Ask for what you want and listen to their ideas. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

My company is a lifestyle & apparel brand based on the unique culture and experience of Cape Cod

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

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

Complete design, development, and business strategy for building our on-line store website for our e-commerce platform. This was a start to finish project with additional analytics, branding and marketing, and social media consultation.

What were your goals for this project?

To effectively build our platform start to finish, work with us to help understand the analytics behind the platform and to help us build our brand and marketing strategy moving forward.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

UX Studio was highly recommend to us from our apparel manufacturer OneOff Apparel. UX Studio works with the majority of OneOff's client base building their e-commerce platforms.

Describe the project in detail.

Complete design & development of our on-line store linking all appropriate background software applications necessary to effectively order, ship, and analyze purchases.

What was the team composition?

UX Studios owner and lead designer and support staff of 3 developers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

UX Studios Owner and Lead designer Eric Alves was amazing from the opening pitch call! He listened to our vision for our site and incorporated ideas into results. Eric's technical ability and creativity exemplified in the progress on the site on a weekly basis. Even though, we are a small start-up company, we were never treated as such and UX made us feel like a top priority.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

UX Studios was highly responsive to our emails throughout each day and set up a weekly video conference call where we could see the updated progress and work out additional details. This made the process seemless, and we got the exact results we were looking for.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

* Beginning approach to the project - getting to know the culture and background of our company, as well as, getting to know our company's goals and expectations for this project. * They were able to set a schedule detailing realistic expectations, timeline, and a multi-phase approach. * Patience working with a start up company on their first e-commerce site and communication throughout the project. * They fffectively keep us on track, focused, and guided us through each phase of the process to continue to keep progressing to the end result. * Overall attention to detail - listening to our concerns, adapting and coming up with creative and realistic solutions. * Overall effectiveness and speed of execution. * End product - staying within budget, delivering on-time with a excellent product!

Are there any areas for improvement?

Overall, we were extremely happy with the overall quality and product and can't think of any areas of improvement.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a teacher and president of the board with the Foundation for Acts of Compassion. We are an educational 501C3 nonprofit that teaches meditation and compassion practices, both in a Buddhist context and other secular contexts as well.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with UX Studio?

We had a very outdated website that was not supporting the current practices and extent of our teaching, so we needed someone to basically start from scratch and put a website together that was going to be more user-friendly and capable of a lot more functions.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our media section was poorly organized and didn’t have the capacity that we needed for audio and video. The site’s graphics and aesthetics were too crowded, and Eric (Founder, UX Studio) completely revamped all of those aspects, both visually and functionally, using WordPress.

He made it much easier to figure out where to go on the site, and also created some completely new sections, like an e-commerce portion where people can submit donations and a section where we could feature different news and media at the top rather than having it buried in a long, old list.

What is the team composition?

We work directly with Eric for all of our project requests.

How did you come to work with UX Studio?

Our previous treasurer’s son worked with Eric at a tech company where he had been doing the web design and UX management, and he introduced us.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent close to $15,000 with him.

What is the status of this engagement?

I don’t have the exact dates, but I believe we worked on the website update from July–September 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our blog forum is picking up with increased communication among out teachers themselves with our audience, which is great to see. We’ve started to receive donations over the internet, and also have a subscription option now for people who go on retreats or come to our meditation practice sessions. We’ve gotten positive feedback on those capabilities, and from our end, everything is much easier to use.

How did UX Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

I communicate directly through Eric, but he does a great job delegating to his whole support system and keeping information flowing so that everyone is always up to date about what’s going on. It’s never gone beyond about 12 hours without him responding to any of our questions or requests.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The patience and listening skills that Eric brings to the table really add to the experience with his company. He really takes the time to make sure that we understand how they’re going forward and how everything works. He always sends very detailed proposals for all of our options so that we can make the best decision for our organization, which I really appreciate.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There aren’t any particular areas for improvement that I can think of.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Being as clear and comprehensive with the direction you want to move in and being able to communicate that well is extremely helpful.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of a cabinet company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with UX Studio?

We have a lot of customers who purchase additional accessories for their cabinets that we sell, specifically locks and keys. It takes a long time to discuss all the options with a customer, so we wanted an online solution such as a wizard.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

UX Studio developed a wizard that walks customers through the whole process of ordering locks and keys for their existing cabinets. Then, their team integrated the tool into our transactional website. When a customer searches for locks and keys, they’re taken right to the wizard, which walks them through a process to determine the correct lock and key for them.

What is the team composition?

Eric (Owner and Senior UX Designer, UX Studio) was our main point of contact.

How did you come to work with UX Studio?

A different developer built a customer program to create and build cabinets online. Eric did the tutorial walkthrough for that project too.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project ran from June to August 2019.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The wizard has just gotten up. The product works exactly the way we expected it to work. It’s clear and easy to use, so we’re happy. We’ve received a couple of orders through the wizard but aren’t expecting numbers to grow until we have all of our AdWords campaigns directing people to that part of the website as opposed to the traditional contact us page.

How did UX Studio perform from a project management standpoint?

As the engagement progressed, we had weekly video meetings through Zoom. UX Studio created a proposal, gave us a quote, which we accepted. Eric built a flowchart to walk us through the Wizard. As we got into the actual programming phase, he created a spreadsheet that detailed the needs at each stage and whether or not it was complete. We had the ability to click a link and view that information in real-time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

One of the more complicated parts of the project was at the end when a customer places an order. There’s an option to match a key number that the consumer has already. That gets complicated depending on how many keys they have and whether or not they want them to match existing locks. Eric developed a couple of prototypes of the key purchase page, which allowed us to see what it would look like for a customer. As we progressed, the prototypes became live so we could actually play with them and see how the process of choosing a lock with a specific key number would unfold.  

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. It took a couple of weeks longer than expected because we had artwork and detail sheets to accompany Eric’s work, which held him up.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Eric’s good about extracting what a customer wants, even if the customer’s not clear about it. He takes care of getting the right information upfront to create a clear path as the project moves forward.