Now about 80 employees,
EffectiveUI is experiencing "tremendous demand" in 2013, says President and Founder Anthony Franco. The growth curve is steepening after a plateau in 2012, he adds.
The company will be looking for both creative and technical skill sets, Franco adds. "We have this cool mix of creative design talent and technical folks."
Franco launched EffectiveUI in 2005 as a software company focused on user interface. Things changed almost immediately.
"I quickly realized it can't just be code -- it has to be code and design," says Franco. The company was soon labeled a user experience, or UX, agency. "Forrester Research coined the term on our behalf," says Franco. "We were the first in this space."
"The systems you have to use at your company are probably awful to use," he adds "Companies hire us to make it easier for their customers." Clients include Level 3, Adobe Systems, CenturyLink, eBay, National Geographic and Microsoft.
But the task at hand requires a special breed. "What we do, there's no college degree for it," says Franco. "We can only hire people who have experience designing complex transactional websites or software."
To this end, EffectiveUI recently announced a partnership with
Galvanize on a UI curriculum at its gSchool "to bring designers to the level where we'd need them to be to hire them," he says. "We're helping lead the charge not only in the doing but also helping develop the next generation of experience architects."
Advertising-focused holding company WPP acquired EffectiveUI in March 2012. EffectiveUI acts as an internal agency for all of the company's assets, including leading advertising and PR agencies Ogilvy, Young & Rubicam and J. Walter Thompson.
Contact Confluence Denver Innovation & Jobs News Editor Eric Peterson with tips and leads for future stories at eric@confluence-denver.com.
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