Webitects

<p><span style="font-size: 13px;">Webitects, a web design and development firm, started in 1995 with belief that the web would be more than just a flash in the pan. It took several years for business leaders to become convinced that this was the case.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 13px;">We are also the Chicago node of the Tim Berners-Lee founded, UK-based,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.opendatainstitute.org" style="font-size: 13px;">Open Data Institute</a><span style="font-size: 13px;">.</span></p><p class="heading-subtitle"><strong>A few organizations with which we've partnered</strong></p><p><strong>Obama 2008 campaign</strong>—We redesigned <strong>my.barackobama.com</strong>, the campaign's social networking site, and conducted user research in swing states on the software used to run the field campaign (five weeks of warm beer and cold pizza). You can download a PDF of a paper <u><a href="http://webitects.com/content/images/files/Improving_Obamas_software_Belchev_Baker.pdf">Improving the Obama campaign software by learning from users</a></u>, which accompanied our presentation at the Agile 2009 conference.</p><p><strong>Wikipedia</strong>—We helped double annual fundraising through user research, user testing, designing 20 variations of fundraising pages and rating the effectiveness of each design based on site analytics. We discovered a couple of factors that significantly affect whether people will give to Wikipedia. To learn more about our methods and what we learned, watch our <u><a href="http://livestream.com/techweek/video?clipId=pla_8e8a5179-31ce-4852-abc0-48c9b3757eff">2011 TechWeek presentation</a></u> (livestream starts about 13:30).</p><p>The <strong><u><a href="http://artinstituteshop.org">Museum Shop</a></u></strong> of The Art Institute of Chicago—We designed and developed their high volume ecommerce site that sells many products based on items in the museum. We also run their very successful AdWords campaigns, create customized tools for sending segmented emails based on buyer purchasing behavior, sift through analytics data, and suggest strategies for increasing sales. Museum Shop staff can control most aspects of their site appearance, inventory, sales, promotions, and pricing through our content management tools.</p><p><strong><u><a href="http://benevolent.net">Benevolent</a></u></strong>, a nonprofit startup that makes it easy for people to give to individuals who have needs that make it difficult for them to overcome hurdles on the way to self-sufficiency—We brainstormed with founder Megan Kashner for several months about possible site functions and strategies before creating a site using a minimally viable product (MVP) approach. Megan presented about Benevolent at the White House in winter of 2012 and has been the subject of several stories in Chicago media, and has received foundation funding.</p><p><strong style="font-size: 13px;"><u><a href="http://casi.cjcj.org/">California Sentencing Institute</a></u></strong><span style="font-size: 13px;"> is a project of the Center on Juvenile and criminal justice in the Bay Area—We created data visualizations in order to demonstrate that the more you spend on locking people in jail the less effective you are at reducing crime and the more damage you do to low income communities. We compare counties based on factors such as prison population, costs, incarceration rate, and new felony admissions. In a time of decreased tax revenue, criminal justice reform is a hot topic. The site has received much press coverage and seems to be influencing the thinking of legislators and the public.</span></p><p><strong><u><a href="http://modelsforchange.net/index.html">Models for Change</a></u></strong> sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation—We interviewed many juvenile justice experts in order to design and develop the leading US-based juvenile justice reform website. The design is clean, modern, and responsive—it displays well on multiple devices.</p><p><strong>Children's Memorial Hospital</strong>—Early 2003-June 2012. We conducted design research with parents, doctors, and staff; designed a new website and mobile site; and provided an easy-to-use content management system that enabled doctors and staff to write about the innovate treatments they were providing children. Pursuing a "long tail" strategy, the site greatly increased traffic and hospital admissions and won many national design awards.</p><p class="heading-subtitle">How we are active in the open data movement</p><p><span style="font-size: 13px;">We have worked in open data since 2007, including co-sponsoring the first Chicago City Camp at which Tim O’Reilly launched Code for America. To help keep the OpenGovChicago meetup going through a dry patch in 2010, we hosted, programmed, and organized meetings in our office.</span></p><p>In early 2011, CEO Paul Baker came up with the idea for <em>ChicagoLobbyists.org</em> and put together a team to build the&nbsp;site at the first Google/City of Chicago hackathon. Former&nbsp;Chicago CTO John Tolva frequently used it as an example of designer/developer/government collaboration around open data. Four people in this group, including three from Webitects, went on to form <em>Open City,</em> which organizes Tuesday hack nights at 1871.</p><p>Last year, our employees provided design and technology, and wrote some of the blog posts, for <em>SchoolCuts.org,</em> which was nominated for a Moxie award and is considered by many in the open data movement the most influential open data website of last year in Chicago.</p><p>Last summer, Webitects alum Demond Drummer created <em>Englewood Codes!</em> to train high school students in web technologies, financing it through a Kickstarter campaign. &nbsp;</p><p>For more than 10 years we worked with Local Initiative Support Corporation, creating websites to support the <em>New Communities Program</em> in 16 underserved Chicago communities and, in 2009, created a demonstration web portal in Pilsen which helped the City raise about $7 million in Federal stimulus funding, much of it matched by local foundations. This led to the creation of the <em>Smart Communities program,</em> for which we created community websites that encouraged residents in many Chicago communities to tell their own stories and get interested in, and involved with, Web technologies.&nbsp;</p>

Transparentrees

<p class="p1">www.transparentrees.com</p><p class="p1">If you wanted to understand an organization AND each person in it, where would you look? Seriously, how would you find out who the decision-makers are, or what someone is like to work with? We've created a platform where everyone can share (anonymously if they like) information about the organi

Viewpoints

<p><i style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: proxima-nova-1, proxima-nova-2, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23.799999237060547px;">Viewpoints (</i><a href="http://www.viewpoints.com/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); outline: 0px; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 600; font-family: proxima-nova-1, proxima-nova-2, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 23.799999237060547px;"><i>http://www.viewpoints.com</i></a><i style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: proxima-nova-1, proxima-nova-2, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23.799999237060547px;">) is the only customer product review platform where people can engage transparently with brands and with each other to gain insights that help them discover the best products to meet their individual needs. Viewpoints features 600,000+ consumer reviews on 37,000+ everyday products for the kitchen, home and garden, health, bath and beauty, baby and kids, plus e-commerce and money categories. The&nbsp;<a href="http://www.viewpoints.com/reviewers-choice/about/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); outline: 0px; text-decoration: none; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: 600;" target="_blank" title="About Reviewers' Choice ">Viewpoints Reviewers’ Choice awards</a>&nbsp;recognize exceptional products based on the strength of consumer sentiment. Both reviews and ratings are available free of charge and without registration.</i></p>

Savor

<p>Savor is passionate about improving the experience of saving money when you shop online. Whether flipping through the beautiful pages of our easy-to-browse catalogs or reveling in recommendations selected especially for your style, every user enjoys a personalized experience. We combine the best deals, offers and coupons from hundreds of retailers and brands — helping you cut through the noise so it is easier to save time and money. Savor is the perfect savings site whether shopping for yourself, your family or your friends.</p>

Dolly

<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-4080082c-3a50-b2ff-b401-465ceb5f0c3c"><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(33, 33, 33); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dolly </span><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(20, 24, 35); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is an on-demand moving and delivery service currently available in the Chicago market. F</span><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(33, 33, 33); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ree on iOS and Android devices, </span><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(20, 24, 35); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dolly helps people and businesses get big, bulky, heavy items where they need to go by connecting them with reliable background-checked Dolly Helpers–people who own pickup trucks, vans, or SUVs who do the moving and lifting for you. </span><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;">The company is headquartered in Seattle and was founded in 2013 by Chad Wittman, Jason Norris, Kelby Hawn and Mike Howell. For more information, please visit </span><a href="http://getdolly.com/" style="text-decoration:none;"><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(17, 85, 204); text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;">getdolly.com</span></a><span style="font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; background-color: transparent;">.</span></span></p>

AIM Local

Discover and support the best artists, inventors and makers in Chicago, collected into perfect, gift-ready boxes sent to your door.

HomeFinder.com

Chicago-headquartered, HomeFinder.com is an innovative tech company, real estate search site, and provider of digital marketing solutions for real estate agents. Co-owned by leading media companies, Gannett Co. Inc., The McClatchy Co. and Tribune Co., HomeFinder.com is a top-10 real estate listing portal with more than three million monthly home

Beau

Beau offers $28 haircuts at home for men in Chicago. Book a high-quality cut in a minute or less.

Handster

<p>Free and paid cool Android apps. Great chance to download for free or to buy good Android games cheaper.</p>

Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.

Britannica today is essentially a 247-year-old startup. If that sounds like a paradox, consider the transformation we’ve undergone in the past 20 years and what we’re doing today. We’ve not only made a successful transition from print publishing to purely digital products, but our portfolio has mushroomed way beyond encyclopedias and reference works—which we still have, by the way, online and for mobile devices—to include a range to classroom curriculum products, e-learning solutions, language-instruction programs, and others, all in digital form. &nbsp;We have a streamlined product-development process that operates on lean-startup principles. &nbsp;We are on the forefront of the revolution taking place in educational and classroom technologies, and we’re developing “responsive design” products that deliver value to teachers and students, are device agnostic, replace apps, and enable easier updates across all devices and one core product stream.&nbsp; &nbsp;At the same time, and just as important, we maintain the same high standards of editorial accuracy and reliability for which we’re been known for over 200 year.Bitannica is online, in e-books, and on mobile devices. Britannica is math, science, and social studies. Britannica is for the 2nd-grader learning math, the teacher explaining the laws of gravity, and the lifelong learner trying to understand the latest political crisis.We invite you to get to know us again. Please take a look at our company site, enjoy it, and let us know how we can help you.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Sharp Skirts

<p>Network for Women Entrepreneurs</p>

ShelfLuv

<p>A place for book lovers to share and discover books.</p>

gtrot

gtrot shows you the best places, deals, and events in your destination -- instantly personalized for you based on recommendations from Facebook, Foursquare, and Twitter friends. Easily save and store the things you like most.

Favo.rs

<p>Favo.rs is where founders and professionals broadcast and fulfill each other's requests for help.</p>

Vouched

<p>Vouched is a next generation professional network and recruitment platform built around trust and appreciation of the talents we have.</p>

GamedayHousing

We help groups of fans going to the big game have as memorable an experience as possible by renting a house instead of a hotel, and we make the process of renting out one's home as easy and safe as possible for property owners around the country.

Soundoff.fm

<p>SoundOff.fm is for musicians and music lovers alike. As voters unearth new music, artists gain the exposure they need. It</p>

Digital Diva 2.0

<p>Digital Diva 2.0, a startup community for women entrepreneurs, experts and future founders of female online and technology companies.</p>

Gis.to

<p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Gis.to is a aggregator of abstracts for the long-form web. It is a venue for all of us to share the valuable nuggets of information held within long-form non-fiction content which often gets overlooked or ignored due to the massive amount of information produced by our society each day.</p> <p>Gis.to is a directory of well-written abstracts (or Gists) that summarize the key points that offer readers a glimpse into what a further investment of their reading time will yield without skewing the original source article with a great deal of editorial opinion.</p> <p>Gis.to is a prototype. This page is just the begining for us. Consider what you see 0.0.0.0.1 Alpha, but also consider this site Kaizen as it&#39;s constantly changing. You will see errors. You will see design issues and you will see a less than ideal UX. You will also see constant change, constant improvement, and constant growth as we continue to build on this project.</p> <div> &nbsp;</div>

Zigmail

<p>ZigMail makes email less of a headache for consumers and more impactful for marketers by automatically capturing, sorting and summarizing transactional communications from companies, such as offers, deals, account summaries and receipts.</p>