Our Process

Quick Transition

Friendly interface and minimum user’s efforts to get the desired result with the background of recognizable, steep and exclusive award-winning design is a recognizable sign of our specialists.

1. Acquaintance with the client and the project
2. The Preliminary Estimation
3. Research
4. UX Stage
5. UI Stage
6. Style guide / Design system
7. Presentation / Pitch / Video /3D
8. Press materials for platfoms and markets
9. Development
10. Management
11. Final delivery

Acquaintance with
Client and Project

The best way to discuss the project is – face-to face meeting. The personal meeting provides the necessary level of trust and confidence, which is important for making the right decision, without worrying about the future of the project. In case, the customer has tight timelines – the interview will be online. Average call takes about half an hour. During the interview customer explains the project details, asks questions, which we answer in details and in plain English . Also we ask the questions to clarify all unclear moments of the project to proceed to the next step – the estimation.

The same discussion by email can take from 1 week up to a month.

Preliminary Estimation

To make the estimation of the scope and cost of work, we collect as much information about the project as possible – interview, brief, customer’s research (if any), mockups, wireframes. The preliminary estimation we provide as a detailed spreadsheet with a description of work for each page / screen and the timing. The information that we find during the Research is not yet considered at this stage, but the estimation is close to the real product.

The final costs might be 10 to 30 percents more or less.

Main theses from the SWOT analysis

Live Research

In view of the traditions of each country, the most efficient is to make the Research in the users location. We can see their real problems, to identify users’ needs, behavior patterns. And we’re able to have a live ommunication, know useful insights which help working on the project. This is why, we often go and visit our clients to immerse in the future project. Often it is also beneficial for the customer as a live contact builds trust, and we achieve a better integration of the project into the ecosystem that the client wantss.

Comprehensive Product Research

• Getting all available information from the customer
• Become acquainted to the customers business
• Gather information about 5-10 main competitors, and 1-10 competitors in the related areas if available
• Gathering users’ feedback due to competitors and for the customers project if it already exists
• Find previous versions of competitors projects – to understand the mistakes and avoid them in the current project.
• Build persons and archetypes
• Make hypotheses
• Test hypotheses
• Think through the user scripts
• Compose the summary of all result in a spreadsheet in order not to miss anything
• Discuss the Research with the customer

Onboarding Research

• Getting all available information from the customer
• Become acquainted to the customers business
• Gather information about 1 – 5 main competitors, and 0 – 5 competitors in the related areas if available
• Gathering users’ feedback due to competitors and for the customers project if it already exists
• Find previous versions of competitors projects – to understand the mistakes and avoid them in the current project.
• Compose the summary of all result in a spreadsheet in order not to miss anything
• Discuss the Research with the customer

When the Research is done stage we speak the same language with the customer. Show the data and useful insights were found. Suggest improvements of the current project version and make a plan for future versions. E.g. if it is an MVP we probably won’t need the FAQ section with the detailed documentation.

Sitemap / Userflows /
Matrix of Functions

At this stage it is important to form logical groups and structure them in a logical order. It becomes clear how many pages / screens will be there in the project, their functionality. Also we can reduce the level of nesting.

Wireframes

Wireframes – are the future layout of the website which will help solve following tasks:

• Сheck the logic of еру ideas and functionality of each page
• Create a Clickable prototype which helps to check the the navigation
• Make the user-test of the interface to let users identify logical issues
• Understand whether customer’s idea works well and clear for users

At the Wireframes stage the project takes the final form in terms of functionality. We have the clear vision of the final product and how many additional pages / screens we might need.

Corrections / Approval

On each of our stages we gather your feedback and make necessary changes. This might need several iterations.

Once the wireframes are approved we understand the scope of work for the UI stage. And we’re able to make the estimation for the development stage.

UI Stage

From wireframes to design

At the UI Stage the agency get down to the visual part of the project.

First of all, we define the style of the concept to make it fit client’s vision. Most often we start with the Home page or any other which plays more important role according to the customer’s vision.

Moodboard / Look and Feel

To define which style client likes most, or which one fits the target audience we gather a list of works (moodboard).

Here designer might already create some sketches of the future style so that you can feel deeply the direction we’re moving in (look and feel).

Framework / Concept

Based on all gathered data we create and present the full concept of the design.

Corrections / Approval

After the concept presentation we are finalizing the details according to customers feedback on InVision App. This is the quickest and most efficient way to improve the concept.

Other Pages

After the first page or screen is ready, the general style is approved, the agency proceed to the other pages. Usually customer prioritize the pages e.g. to show some to investors or pass to the development team. That’s why we create the priority list and agree the order of the pages we’ll work on.

Same as on the UX stage every screen is discussed with the customer on InVision. And we make necessary correction until he or she is fully satisfied.

Clickable Prototype

Clickable Prototype visually demonstrates the product to all participants in the process. It also has its following advantages:

• A great tool for the user-testing
• It’s a visual presentation to the customer. It’s much easier to understand the interactive prototype than static screens.
• The Visual Guide for the Developers
• Works great as a testing tool to check certain solutions

User Testing

From the final mockups we compile a prototype and provide it for testing. Depending on customers needs it can be light prototype on InVision App or a HTML/CSS/JS prototype in Framer.

The next step is testing of the prototype by the representatives of the target audience, which is collected by the customer or by the agency.

Corrections / Approval

We gather feedback and make changes according to project requirements. This process might have several interactions.

Animations / Preparing Sources

After all the designs are ready, the final stage begins. At this stage all source files are prepared and organized for transfer to the customer or the development team, depending on who takes care of the development.

• Preparing materials for the development stage.
• Compiling source files and organize the layers.
• Transferring the prototypes
• Creating additional animations for developers, if necessary
• Giving feedback to the developers

Style Guide /
Design System

The Style Guide is a detailed instruction on the use of fonts, color palette and brand elements. Style Guide helps the developer implement the designs into the code properly. Further using our Design System customer’s in-house developer will easily be able to make changes to the product without breaking the general concept and according to the style.

The Style guide from one of our cases

Press Materials for
Platfoms and Markets

We help the customer launch the product to the Platforms and Markets in a positive light. Create the presentations for Product Hunt, Kickstarter, Indiego, App Store and Google Play.

Presentation, Pitch Deck,
Video or 3D graphics

When the customer wants to get the investors approval before the project start, or when it’s important to inform about the value of the project for the users before the release – we can design the presentation, Pitch deck, video or 3D graphic.

Sample of the Pitch Deck for one of the conferences

Development

Development process is pretty similar to the Design process. The developer implements the designs into the code. Usually, the process goes not by pages but by logical blocks.

All work is carried out on a test server. Customer is able to view the results and make the comments. The cycles in design and development are about the same, the main difference is that the development itself is more resource intensive process so the team employs more people. Front-end and back-end development usually takes 1-3 times longer comparing to the design stage.

Communications / Reports /
Project Management

Usually we assign daily or weekly calls to provide a work report and coordinate the further tasks.

Time Tracking

The Agency works exclusively on the Time and Material Model – this model showed its efficiency, as the customer pays only for the work that was done. The Agency always use time tracer and provides the customer with a detailed time report about the work we did every two weeks.

Customer Support

Despite the fact that we know very well how to properly arrange the content, create the navigation, etc., sometimes users behave in an unusual and unpredictable way. It is good when there we have an opportunity to improve and modify the design with this new knowledge. That’s why, to create a truly good product, we seek to build long-term relationships, learn interesting insights, and grow with the project we are working on.

Post-Release Testing

After the release we begin the process of gathering data on users behavior. Analyze the scenario of the product usage, fix bags. Test hypotheses created at the research stage. The team analyzes how users test functions, and gather their feedback. Paid interviews are often take place. All the data we collect at the spreadsheet. And subsequently accumulated statistics helps to make decisions in related areas – Branding, Marketing, or SEO.