125 University Avenue Ste 205
Palo Alto, CA 94301
(650) 323-3800
contact@dragil.com
125 University Avenue Ste 205
Palo Alto, CA 94301
(650) 323-3800
contact@dragil.com
For the past twenty years, the San Francisco East Bay based Dental Health Foundation (DHF), headquartered in Oakland, California, has been one of the few organizations in the country dedicated to the vision of “oral health for all”. Its mission is to build and work through community partnerships to promote oral health by, Providing leadership in advocacy, education and public policy development, Promoting community-based prevention strategies, Improving access to and the quality of oral health services, Encouraging the integration of oral health and total health.
“My name is Bruce Boyer. I am the chief business development officer for the San Francisco East Bay based Dental Health Foundation, a non-profit located in Oakland, California.
In 2007, we began a 2-county pilot program to deliver preventive dental services to underprivileged children. These services include oral health screening and evaluation, the application of fluoride varnish and dental sealants and case management of children into restorative dental care. We required a database utility to help administer the delivery of services and allow us to evaluate and improve our intervention strategy.
We wanted a sophisticated tool that was easy to deploy and understandable by our intended users, public health workers and dental service providers.
Our vision was to create a tool that could be used by other oral public health programs across the nation.”
“I sought a web development company for the project. I wanted a medium-to-small sized firm that would give us access to experienced web developers and the attention of a project manager who could understand our requirements and build the tool we envisioned.
I selected a local web design company based in San Francisco. As the first prototype was finished, the project manager decided to leave that firm and start his own company. I thought quite highly of him and decided to follow him to his new company and become a customer.”
“Under Dragil and using the existing prototype as a foundation, the project manager and I met several times to develop a solid specification for an online database that would meet our grander vision.
We created a beta version and as new information was discovered in its deployment, we were able to make changes easily and enhance the product.
The balance of good preliminary specification work and iterative web development process was just what we needed.”
“Good web design doesn’t just happen. It requires the web developer to become intimately familiar with the web application. Dragil was able to do just that. They took the time to listen to me, gained an in-depth understanding of our requirements and translated that into a solid web design.
I am very happy with Dragil as my web development company and can heartily recommend them.”
During the initial phase of this project, Dragil’s project manager met with the client several times over a two month period to discuss functionality and front-end layout of the web application. During this process, our project manager created a prototype that allowed both of them to examine important feedback in terms of user friendliness and functionality.
As soon as the details were hammered out, we began to create the front-end designs that would further allow both DHF and Dragil to refine and revise the initial concepts. This front-end design and adjacent HTML slicing took approximately two weeks before implementation work could begin.
After another six weeks, the web application was successfully launched in beta status and a selected group of end users were invited to begin using the website, which had cleverly been named, “The Health Teeth Toolkit”.
During this initial beta launch, further enhancements and improvements were added to the application so that after another four weeks, the website could be fully launched.
We continue to add new features as needs arise and the project has just received approval for two additional years.
