table of contents 2...table of contents 2 #03 meet bear group #09 our capabilities #23 the process...
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 2
#03 Meet Bear Group
#09 Our Capabilities
#23 The Process
#29 Before You Launch
#33 Meet Our Clients
(206) 973-7940 | [email protected] | www.beargroup.com
AN INTRO TO BEAR GROUP
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LET’S GET STARTED
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We are excited to provide you with an overview of Bear
Group’s capabilities and potential to provide
development support for your project. We partner with
clients to help them achieve long-term success, bringing
both big picture strategic development planning and
tactical implementation, supported by coding skills that
are unsurpassed in the Northwest.
This document serves as an introduction to Bear Group,
explaining our approach to development and basic
structures for retained development work.
WE LIGHTEN YOUR LOAD.
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Since 2007, our eighteen-person web development firm has been based in Seattle, Washington. We specialize in open source
platforms for enterprise level content management systems, eCommerce, and digital marketing technology integrations.
The heart of Bear Group is our web development team—skilled senior developers, senior front-end developers, technical
PM’s, web operations experts, and everyone else it takes to make sure your website looks the way you want and works the
way it should.
For over a decade we have worked together with marketing teams, specifically developing an approach for collaboration that
guides clients through the landscape of marketing technology and places them at the head of their own web development.
Our clients are both marketing directors and marketing teams at well known companies in the Northwest. We are well
aligned, understand marketing principles, and can provide the technical expertise our clients need to successfully compete
in the digital landscape.
MEET BEAR GROUP
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As a group of developers that lives and breathes computer
code, we know that coding is an art form. Like a composer
or an author, we approach our projects with the goal of
creating something living. And the web provides an
interesting canvas, able to interact with users in a way
that’s unlike anything else. For those of you who have ever
visited a true industry-leading website, you’ll know what we
mean.
We’re just the right size. At eighteen strong, we’re not a
couple of freelance developers or a large multi-service
agency.
Our experts will always be accessible to you.
With experience gained across our expansive client base
and hundreds of similar projects, we know how to manage
multiple initiatives simultaneously for our clients.
FOCUS \ SPECIALIZATION \ DEPTH
– Seann Bardell
“The experience of working with the Bear Group has been one of pure pleasure. Bear’s skill level for design and development are at
the top of their game.”
ROAD MAPPED DEVELOPMENT &
INTEGRATIONS
ECOMMERCE SYSTEMS
MAJOR CMS PROJECTS
Clients engage with us in three main contexts.
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MAJOR CMS PROJECTS
/ This can include total
company website redesigns,
major new integrations, or
significant new features. These
are typically one-time, multi-
month initiatives.
CLIENTS PARTNER WITH US ON
ROAD MAPPED DEVELOPMENT
/ A retained services model where we
provide dedicated monthly technical
support to handle the ongoing
development roadmap. This includes items
like new landing pages, theme
adjustments, light integrations, platform
maintenance, or general website issues.
These are typically ongoing projects, and
structured to the appropriate support level
and team size.
ECOMMERCE SYSTEMS
/ eCommerce is unique in that
support is typically more time
sensitive. This can include
release patches, transactional
support, system security, and
eCommerce supply chain
integrations. We provide support
for the entire team, from
accounting and fulfillment to
customer service, marketing, and
merchandising.
OUR CAPABILITIES
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The web moves quickly, and with our team’s exposure to a
wide spectrum of technology we want to ensure that our
clients are given an excellent view of the industry, and see
things very early.
WHAT TO EXPECT
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Greg Bear serves as the ongoing Account Manager with
clients. We meet at least quarterly to discuss the team at a
high level, ensuring that projects are flowing well, making
any necessary adjustments, and evaluating the roadmap to
align resources for upcoming projects.
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We strive to provide innovative customer experiences on the web, supporting marketing initiatives with a backbone of strong
development, security, and an understanding of SEO.
Some aspects of web development will be obvious to customers, like improved UX, new product lines, marketing campaign
development, or new site rollouts. Others will be proactive, the essential, unseen work that prevents negative customer
experiences caused by online issues. Preventative measures will include web operations best practices, site speed, system
stability, and core security updates.
With over eighty API integrations behind us, we have an understanding of marketing technology that covers email systems,
CRM, ERP, and analytics. Additionally, we’ve completed integration work with most major third party tools that drive
eCommerce strategies today.
WHAT YOUR CUSTOMERS SEE
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Planning and Consultation
This includes collaborative scoping sessions between you and Bear Group solutions architects, project managers,
developers, and other vendors. Typically, outputs from this include documentation (and task lists) that will serve as a
blueprint for development.
Technical Design Support
Bear Group’s front-end developers will collaborate with your team on planning your website’s user interface around key
areas of functionality. This includes providing you and your team with site maps, information architecture, wireframes, and
finished PSD layouts.
TECHNICAL GUIDANCE
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PROJECT LEADERS 14
Digital Project Management
Our Project Managers are the glue between our team and yours, mediating communication between our development staff,
clients, design firms, and anyone involved in the project. Digital Project Management (DPM) throughout project lifecycles
includes daily task management, ticketing, internal dev stand-ups, sprint planning, weekly client meetings, weekly demos
and reviews, scheduling, status reports, and resource planning. Always maintaining oversight and ensuring that deadlines
are met and your priorities are addressed.
Our PMs are service-oriented, positive, proactive, and are able to react swiftly to meet client expectations. They wear many
hats and are dedicated to strong project coordination, transparency, and getting the project to the finish line on time. The
PM will work closely with your team to clearly communicate progress, manage expectations, highlight obstacles, coordinate
meetings, and facilitate trainings.
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15CONSULTATIVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Project Reviews
The DPM will organize and schedule an iterative review process throughout the project. We recommend iterative reviews of
completed sections rather than waiting to review the full site once code is completed. Our DPM will solicit feedback from
relevant stakeholders, working with your team to help prioritize, escalate, and evaluate changes.
Status Reports
At the beginning of each week, the DPM will send out a status report highlighting the project’s development progress,
current tasks underway, risks and considerations, a review list, budget, milestones, and an assessment of the project’s
overall health.
Meetings
The DPM will coordinate weekly check-in meetings with your teams. They will send the agenda ahead of time to make sure
the meeting is run in a timely manner. Meetings will be conducted using Zoom’s screenshare and audio conference tool. We
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CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
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We are experts in Drupal, the open source, widely adopted,
enterprise scale Content Management System (CMS). We can
provide support from the base installation to the setup of
content types, menus, categories, blocks, administration
theme, contact forms, on-page search optimization tools, file
attachments of any type, all necessary core and contributed
modules, user roles, and access levels. Support for Google
Tag Manager and an unlimited number of web forms are both
provided via stable community modules. Media types from
photography, audio, and video content will be embeddable in
all content areas.
CONTENT MANAGEMENT
SYSTEM EXPERTS
Custom Content Management Systems with Drupal
Since its release in 2001 Drupal has become the platform to define the industry standard for content management systems
(CMS). Drupal is a modular, supportive system currently in use by a wide-ranging clientele, from smaller non-profits to
industry giants.
ABOUT DRUPAL
– Samuel Warren
“Honestly, the level of detail and effort the team showed during our upgrade to Drupal
was exceptional.”
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ECOMMERCE DEVELOPMENT
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For an eCommerce site, there are post-transaction
integrations often required to support operations. These
might include pulling inventory from a POS system, dynamic
pricing, availability lookups, delivery pricing, tax, payments
and post-order fulfillment and order management tools. We
have experience with building the entire eCommerce
experience, including working on custom layouts, conversion
optimization, gifting and gift card programs, and many more
initiatives that all stem from marketing concepts. We have
supported our clients’ pursuit of eCommerce success, and
have been their development partner throughout their growth
phase.
eCommerce EXPERTS
Custom eCommerce Solutions with Magento eCommerce
Magento is an eCommerce platform that, since its release in 2008, has set the eCommerce standard for online business.
With its scalability, open source code, and intuitive user interface, Magento is now the most widely used eCommerce
platform on the web for branded storefronts.
ABOUT MAGENTO
– Jesse Kruchoski
“Responsiveness and professionalism–we love working with Bear Group and all the top
notch people we get to work on with Magento projects.”
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MARKETING TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION
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Bear Group can provide additional development for
integrations with third-party platforms to achieve operational
or marketing goals. We have completed more than eighty
integrations between client websites, third-party systems, and
internal systems. These have included common tools such as
email marketing, split testing, marketing automation, social
widgets, SEO tools, and contextual personalization.
SYSTEMS INTEGRATIONS
PROFESSIONALS (DMI)
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Integration work is 40-45% of our business revenue, becoming a significant part of our work with marketers over the last
five years. For many of our clients, their website is at the center of their marketing strategies. Developing custom
martech integrations are a normal aspect to all projects.
When a client comes to us with a tool or platform they would like to see integrated into their website, we first have a
kickoff meeting to discuss the project in detail. From there, we lead the integration work, write any scope documentation
needed, review the API, have technical calls with the integration’s engineering teams, and work through the mechanics.
We then complete the integration and test in sandbox environments before it goes live on your website.
MARKETING TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION
– Dawn Miller McKimpson
“Bear Group works as your partner to make the design and development process simple
and straightforward.”
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Responsive Website Configuration
We only build responsive websites these days, typically using
the twelve-column Bootstrap.js grid-system, HTML5, CSS3,
and LESS. We have also adopted Angular JS as a structural
framework for complex front-ends.
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Front-end Development, Responsive Theme Development
We use HTML, CSS, Javascript, and PHP coding to build the
look and feel, and establish all necessary features for the user
experience. Generally, we’re provided a graphic design based
on a Photoshop file.
THEME LAYER DEVELOPMENT
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Most of our clients have internal design staff or are already working with a preferred design agency or partner. Generally, we
work with the chosen designer on the creation of various UX technology. We code in these technologies every day and have
experience with the latest Javascript techniques, interaction design, grid systems, as well as alternative platforms like
Angular to build the front-end, which may open up many possibilities for design.
As the web has become more technical—requiring more system integrations and complex front-end coding—the split
between design and development is becoming very common.
Periodically, we have done original design work for clients such as Oiselle, WorldVision, Tableau, and others. Typically, this is
because they have very strong brand guidelines and are looking to us to take those guidelines and provide fresh layouts.
OUR APPROACH TO DESIGN
– Charity Hestead
“I always feel like they are listening to any issues we may have, taking the time to understand our thoughts before just
jumping straight to a solution. I also love that they have valuable feedback on both
technical and aesthetic subjects.”
PILOTING YOUR PROJECT
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HOW WE MANAGE WORK
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We do not believe in the “big reveal” approach at the
end of a project. Instead, we strive for 100%
transparency in our work, constant communication, and
Agile building blocks that lead to successful
development projects.
You will always know the exact status of your project
during the building phase, and you will always have
access to a member of our team.
100% Transparency
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We will have detailed tickets outlining use cases and stories,
followed by all granular level tasks for accomplishing that
user story. Tickets are moved from the backlog into two-
week development sprints. This planning is done every day
by the Technical Project Manager and reviewed on a weekly
basis with clients.
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We rely heavily on the JIRA project management system
from Atlassian to organize development work. At the
beginning of your project, you will be given a JIRA login that
provides complete access to sprint boards, tickets,
comments, attachments, and a view of code commits—it is
used for task level scoping and planning.
DEVELOPMENT ROADMAP
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31AGILE DEVELOPMENT
We provide a resource-based model for development; these are small teams dedicated to your work who can accelerate
your project. We mainly follow the Agile development philosophy combined with a development roadmap that typically
follows a milestone calendar. Features of this style of development include: • Ensuring a base level of dedicated time to focus on highest-priority functionality
• Simplifying administrative work and budgeting, since we agree ahead of time on monthly resource costs
• Avoiding a long scoping phase at the beginning or task level budgeting
• Minimizing project risk, as we are never more than a single sprint in
• Allowing new features to be continually rolled out, as we employ a flexible, Agile-based development approach, often
pushing new releases every two weeks
• Avoiding in-scope/out-of-scope conversations
• Supporting fluid communication and a strong partnership between our development team and our clients
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Change is expected during development, and the Agile approach embraces that reality. There is rarely a “not in scope”
discussion to be had, we expect features to be re-prioritized and evolve. JIRA enforces a good Agile project methodology, and
allows for a vibrant communication channel throughout the course of the project. We use ticket “types” to identify new
feature requests, bugs, general tasks, and have a four-step workflow for all tickets. The Agile approach minimizes risk, as
there is never a time when developers do not have clear direction, and they can not be more than five days into any one
feature before it is reviewed.
Although we believe in Agile, we do not take a 100% Agile approach to project management. This is because we have seen an
issue with sprint-overflow as tickets are carried forward between sprints. We still maintain a calendar with major milestones
—a workback schedule approach from the marketing arena. We also do still scope projects upfront when larger features are
being discussed in order to outline options. These typically result in 3-5 page scope documents.
DEVELOPMENT ROADMAP
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TASK MANAGEMENT 33
We use the Jira project management system from Atlassian to organize development work. Your team will have a log-in
providing visibility to sprint boards, tickets, comments, attachments, and project progress.
We will have detailed tickets outlining use cases and stories, followed by all tasks at a granular level that will accomplish that
user story. Tickets are moved from the backlog into typically two week development sprints. This planning is done every day
by the Digital Project Manager, reviewed on at least a weekly basis with your team.
Jira enforces a good Agile project methodology, and allows for a vibrant communication channel throughout the course of
the project. We use ticket “types” to identify new feature requests, bugs, general tasks, and have a four-step workflow for all
tickets.
– Dessie Lunsford
“They were able to create functionality that didn’t exist before, we challenged them and
they came through.”
BEFORE YOU LAUNCH
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The core functionality of the base platform (typically Drupal
or Magento) is well built and road tested over the last
decade, so testing the basic functions, such as testing how a
field is stored in a content type, will not be necessary. We
are not starting from scratch.
Pre/Post Launch Testing
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In standard software development, unit-testing, regression
testing, and automation rule the field. In a website project
there are often many team members and roles who review
and test. For example, having a traditional software test
team member QA accuracy of the front-end graphic design
interpretation is not as efficient as having the graphic
designer review the build.
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QUALITY ASSURANCE / ACCEPTANCE TESTING 37
THEME/TEMPLATE LAYER
During the build, we will work with your design and UX team to test your website’s front-end elements.
SITE CONFIGURATIONWe systematically run through your website’s structure, with an eye towards the site editors who will manage content daily.
CONTENTWe can provide support for migrating content, or recommend reliable content managers in our network.
CUSTOM DEVELOPMENTAny custom work we have done for your website is thoroughly tested in a Local, Dev and Stage environment prior to launch.
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The deployment process—moving code from staging environments to live production—is the highest-risk process for any
website. Our development environments encourage best practices and safe places for developers to work out the details.
• Our code is all stored in the version control system Git for easy rollback. We track code with tickets.
• Developers work in local environments and commit code to the repository, where it is pushed to a staging server
for testing and client review.
• We use automated build systems and dev/stage/production tiers with exact replica environments.
• We use a hands-free, repeatable process for deployment to ensure reliability, with several check-and-balance
points.
However, a code update on production can still trigger database updates, permission issues, misconfiguration, or caching
issues. There are many ways for things to break in a highly visible way. We use deployment verification tests—usually
manual—to spot-check the important parts of the website just after deployment to ensure that all key areas of the website
are functioning perfectly.
DEPLOYMENT MANAGEMENT
BEAR CASE STUDIES
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CASE STUDY: DIAMONDBACK
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Initially founded in 1977, Diamondback has since become an
internationally recognized cycling brand. In addition to their innovative
racing models, Diamondback is a producer of all things cycling,
manufacturing a wide range of bicycles, individual parts, and accessories
for any enthusiastic cyclist.
When issues with Diamondback’s website began slowing down their
marketing team, they reached out to Bear Group. After assessing their
current website and project scoping the backlog of items they needed
our assistance with, we saw an immediate win by putting a more modern
CMS platform in place.
DiamondbackWe migrated the Diamondback website to a fresh Drupal 8
install. With an updated CMS, the Diamondback team was
able to build out more custom pages to support their “Let’s
Ride with Bill Nye” and Andean campaigns.
We also assisted Diamondback’s team with their
eCommerce, consolidating their product content to a new
primary navigation, and the entire management of the
catalog to their Magento platform in the process. Now, all
bikes and accessories are together under one shop–some for
direct sale, some via retailer partners–so that all are
managed as a single set of inventory in their Magento
eCommerce platform.
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CASE STUDY: FORTIVE
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Fortive is an industrial technology company comprising many brands,
including leaders in the Northwest like Fluke and Tektonix. After
separating from the Danaher organization to form their own
independent company, Fortive needed a new website that would
represent their brand’s core values: innovation, rooted in deep expertise.
After meeting together with their team, we scoped out plans for a
website that could support their content creation, online marketing, and
act as a point of communication between themselves, their customers,
and their investors.
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Fortive’s marketing team needed a website capable
of handling an ambitious content marketing
strategy–which meant the ability to create and
manage custom content. The Drupal 8 platform was
their best choice, it’s state-of-the-art modular build
enabling their team to take advantage of features
like custom blocks to design unique web content.
Fortive admin and editors could update and
customize global and section-specific content
regions.
Fortive’s website was integrated with PR Newswire
to display investor, featuring a live feed of Fortive
news updates and stock quotes on their homepage.
Fortive
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CASE STUDY: OISELLE
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Since day one, our mission has been the same: to create a sisterhood of
support at a variety of levels from beginners to professionals, from the
roads to the trails to the track. So in the end, the question became not so
much why a new running apparel company, but why not?
—Sally Bergesen, Founder + CEO
In 2012, the Oiselle team realized that, although their site looked great,
they had outgrown their eCommerce system. The Oiselle marketing team
had a long list of new store features they were after—and would need an
entirely new website to get them.
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After assessing their current eCommerce
limitations, we recommended that Oiselle migrate
to the open source platform, Magento. Once we
had migrated their store, Oiselle utilized Magento’s
features to grow their online business. Their
integrated Drupal CMS was also updated to support
branded content creation.
Oiselle’s updated website was a resounding success,
and since our initial engagement our partnership
has continued over the years.
Oiselle
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CASE STUDY: TABLEAU
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Tableau, an industry leader in data visualization software, hosts annual
conferences offering attendees the chance to network and become more
knowledgeable about the functions of Tableau software. For 2016’s
conference schedules, Tableau needed an updated CMS in which to build
out and leverage their event pages.
Tableau was already running on a Drupal CMS for their main corporate
website, and their event pages would be built in Drupal as well. They
wanted to post their event pages as quickly as possible, and asked that
our Drupal experts finish the project within a three week sprint.
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As with any conference, speaker bios, sessions, and hour-
by-hour schedules are key features. Tableau expressly
wanted to manage their schedule from within the CMS,
and we supported this by creating a schedule builder in
Drupal. Tableau wanted to make sure their event site was
fully accessible by their diverse audience of attendees. We
enabled translation toggling for their users by
incorporating the Drupal internationalization module.
With the Drupal context module, we made sure Tableau
could export menu and block features to other websites if
they needed to.
Tableau
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CASE STUDY: SEATTLE CHOCOLATES
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Seattle Chocolates’ extensive line of gourmet, all natural chocolates can
be found at more than 8,000 grocery stores nationwide. In addition to
their main product line, they also operate a large online store for JCoCo,
their premium brand. The Seattle Chocolates marketing team has always
had a strong vision for their web presence.
Seattle Chocolates had previously contracted with a digital marketing
agency for their development but found that it wasn’t quite the right fit.
The internal marketing team had their vision and strategy well in hand,
they just needed a technical partner to execute their plans. They reached
out to us in 2009, and after meeting with their team we got straight to
work.
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Seattle Chocolates decided to transition their
webstore to Magento, and integrate it with a Drupal
CMS for custom, content marketing purposes. They
also requested that we integrate their Magento
eCommerce websites with third-party tools that
would allow them–and their customers–to navigate
commercial processes.
Since our initial work, Seattle Chocolates’ online
business has steadily grown over the years.
Seattle Chocolates
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CASE STUDY: IDEX HEALTH & SCIENCE
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IDEX Health & Science is the world’s leading provider of fluidic systems
and components. IDEX’s website represents the company’s digital
presence online, and as a B2B website, it was vital to the IDEX team that
they created a seamless eCommerce experience for their clients.
After meeting with their team, we scoped an approach to IDEX’s website
that included a series of maintenance and update tasks on IDEX’s
Magento eCommerce platform.
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IDEXInitially, what IDEX needed was for our team to
address their backlog of tasks that would
normalize and stabilize their website systems,
making sure everything was consistent across
the board. Once that was accomplished, they
moved into expanding new aspects of their
website, working together with our developers
to create new site features, improve
performance, and modify their integration
with JD Edwards, their ERP tool.
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CASE STUDY: KCTS9
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Since their first broadcast in 1954, Seattle’s KCTS 9 station has been
supplying the Washington and British Columbia areas with uplifting
television for more than half a century. What began as a broadcast
for classroom instructional programs has changed over time into the
Northwest region’s PBS member station. In addition to television
broadcasts, KCTS 9’s website has been used as a resource for local
art, recipes, and news.
In 2015, they embarked on an ambitious initiative towards a digital-
first strategy for content development.
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As a stepping stone to this redesign, they engaged our Drupal
development experts to update their platform to improve the
admin experience, and overall site performance.
KCTS engaged an external design team to improve the UX and
web design, and had our team work closely on technical specs
with their internal web design team.
The result is a new focus on program content, a great new TV
schedule lookup, new navigation, and general site organization.
At the end of the project, KCTS9 had a completely refreshed
website.
KCTS9
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THANK YOU
For New Client Inquiries, Contact
Greg Bear
(206) 973-7940 x1001
2302 Nob Hill Ave N.
Seattle, WA 98103