Wimble

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm a project manager at a startup that provides software solutions to property management companies.

What challenge were you trying to address with Horizn?

We needed a vendor to help us develop our platform.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We wanted to have a platform that is visually pleasing and easy to navigate. Horizn created the wireframes and built mockups for different portals and different native apps that we have. They mostly helped us with the design and the user experience. We have a web-based platform that has one portal for residents and another one–for property managers. We also have apps that are similar to the web platform in their functionality.

What is the team composition?

We mostly work through a project manager.

How did you come to work with Horizn?

I joined the team after the partnership had already started.

What is the status of this engagement?

I started working at the company in May 2017. Horizn was already part of the program and they had done quite a bit of work. We continue working with them on a regular basis.

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

We like the work that they do. Sometimes, we don’t exactly know what we want, but Horizn is able to take our ideas and turn them into something more concrete and visual.

How did Horizn perform from a project management standpoint?

We mostly use Skype chat to communicate and they're very responsive.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We have a lot of things going on and sometimes we're a bit ambiguous about what we're looking for. Horizn has been very flexible, working with our process and our tight deadlines.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Horizn could improve on scoping and setting realistic deadlines. We have a lot going on and it can be an issue when we miss our deadlines. With that said, it's a partnership, and we do our best to provide them with the details that they need. If there are any issues, we discuss them and both teams are always working toward continuous improvement.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about what you're looking for and your process.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the marketing manager at Kepler Communications, a satellite telecommunications company.

For what projects/services did your company hire Horizn?

We needed a partner for full-stack web development with a two-month deadline.

What were your goals for this project?

We needed a functional site that would support animations.

How did you select this vendor?

We found them on Behance and emailed them, then chose them because we were impressed with their performance on a design task.

Describe the project in detail.

They did layout, design, and UI/UX. They also coded support for our animations.

What was the team composition?

Horizon team was composed of two people, plus a graphic designer and a frontend developer that both worked for them.

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

They started quickly and met our deadline, and we were highly satisfied with the result. We received a lot of positive feedback from industry partners and clients.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

There were times when the time zone difference caused difficulties, but in general, they handled communication well. They were very responsive.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They understood our objectives and desires and translated them into a good and practical design.

Are there any areas for improvement?

The frontend could have been better. We ended up sacrificing some design features in order to make the site more mobile-responsive.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the co-founder of PetSquare.club, we’re a platform for people interested in pets. Our users include, but are not limited to, pet owners and vets, dog walkers and cat sitters, and even pet insurance providers and charities.

For what projects/services did your company hire Horizn?

We needed an agency to design the UX/UI for a breed selector feature on our application.

What were your goals for this project?

Ultimately, we wanted to offer a user-friendly method of choosing a pet breed based on personal lifestyle, encouraging people to pick pets that they’re actually capable of providing for.

How did you select this vendor?

We made our initial selections based on vendors’ portfolios of past work. Of those we reviewed, we contacted Horizn, described our project, and requested that they submit initial sketches. From their provided designs, we could tell that they were imaginative thinkers that focused on the end-user experience.

Describe the project in detail.

Using an agile methodology, we structured the project with bi-weekly sprints, dividing the workload into several sections. Throughout the design process, we scheduled regular demo sessions to review sketches and finalize UX/UI design elements.

What was the team composition?

I worked with a project manager, a lead designer, and other background designers.

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

The team delivered a great design, and we’ve successfully implemented it into our app. Now, it’s one of our most-appreciated and widely used features.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Overall, the collaboration was very effective. We communicated daily throughout the engagement.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their approach to designing our solution was driven by imagination and creativity.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Submitting very basic sketches in the initial stages of the process would speed up the overall project. The team only wanted to show us fully developed sketches, which we didn’t find necessary because only a small percentage of that work would make it to the final design anyway.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We are a cloud platform function as a service company that offers video surveillance tools and services on a fast and secure platform. I am the founder and CEO.

What challenge were you trying to address with Horizon?

We needed some help with UX and UI on our backend that we were building. We wanted a company that could provide a modern clean look while keeping everything very secure.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had other developers in the United States that were building our backend and cloud platform while Horizon developed the UX/UI around the solution. We provided them with design requirements that they used to mock-up some UX wireframes before they fully rendered them in HTML. We then had them work with our other developers on integrating the UI/UX with our APIs. We had very strict requirements on how we wanted everything built, but they followed them well.

What is the team composition?

Our first point of contact was their CEO before we were moved over to a project manager that has helped us throughout the process.

How did you come to work with Horizon?

We did an online search before initially hiring them through Upwork. We really liked their design offerings and capabilities, so we decided to hire them full time after about a month.

How much have you invested with them?

We have spent around $27,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in August 2017 and just achieved minimum viable product (MVP) this May. That was just the first milestone for now as we prepare to do more work with them.

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

We have run everything through code testing tools, and while there are a few bugs, things look good overall. I have worked with a lot of overseas development teams before where the code quality has been really terrible, but so far we have had a really great experience with Horizon.

How did Horizon perform from a project management standpoint?

Our project manager has been great and he impresses me by consistently keeping me updated. He is good about making sure they are taking the right approach and insuring everyone is on the same page. We use Trello to track and execute ticket items, and Slack to communicate with all of our developers across the U.S.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I really like their design. I think it has a nice, clean, European aesthetic, and they have very dedicated people working on it. Their developers really want to help, and I very quickly came to feel that they are a part of our team not just contractors. It has been a really nice experience.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I think their strongest area is design and HTML, but I don’t think they had done much enterprise application integration before. However, they really stepped up and worked with our full stack developers to quickly learn what they needed.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure you have collaboration tools and work to keep the team working together. You can’t expect an outside party to do everything for you and read your mind. It is important to lead and facilitate.