Eleken

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the product manager for a software development firm. We have more than 13 products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Eleken?

We needed help with UI/UX improvement. Our products are mainly made for Korean users, which implies different requirements than the global standards in the UI, element sorting and listing, and the design itself. We wanted to internationalize our products and had in-house developers, but we were weak in design, so we partnered with Eleken.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Eleken provides us with UI/UX design services. Our products are complex because they involve metadata management and data quality management. Therefore, the first thing we did was train Eleken's designers. After the training session, we did a product tour to show them the different functions, and then gave them access to our products. They're now helping us improve our SaaS product's UI/UX design to meet international requirements using Figma. The team has redesigned the skins, color,  themes, and the arrangement of menus within the software. Meanwhile, 2-3 UX architects from our company are doing the planning.

Although they propose other options if they feel something shouldn't be a certain way, their main role is to design the UI screens. The final deliverable will be a UI kit for our developers with the components to be used, including colors and themes. Additionally, they've worked on a collaboration tool within the product. This feature allows different users to leave comments and communicate with each other through the product. We've also requested Eleken to add visualizations such as charts.  

What is the team composition?

We've worked with a project manager, an account manager, and one designer. We mainly interact with the designer.

How did you come to work with Eleken?

I checked some rating websites, including Clutch, and looked at several companies. What was really appealing about Eleken was their portfolio because they've done SaaS-based work, which made us comfortable working with them. The team was also affordable and flexible in their communication. We decided to start with one product and see how the engagement went. 

How much have you invested with them?

We pay them $5,000 a month.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2022, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Eleken’s designs are well done and beautiful. The team is very detail-oriented and does everything within the same scale. Since they don’t take multiple steps to achieve their goals, they deliver quickly. Thanks to their work, we’ve been able to improve and globalize the UI/UX of our product in a short period of time. Moreover, the feedback from our higher management has been good. 

How did Eleken perform from a project management standpoint?

They have good communication with short response times. We use Microsoft Teams, where we discuss all the deliverables and outcomes. Additionally, we have 3–4 meetings almost daily through Microsoft Teams. We use Figma to comment and communicate about the design outcomes.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We appreciate that Eleken does quick work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’d like to see them more involved in the development phase.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Just go for it! Comparing the cost and the work Eleken does, they’re worth it.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of a software company based in New York City.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Eleken?

We hired Eleken to advise on, and develop, the UI/UX for the basic (MVP) version of our software.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We interviewed 3 design studios to understand each studio's process, strengths, and examples of previous deliverables. We also considered our timeline and the amount of resourcing that we had. Eleken had the best track record and we felt most certain that they could deliver what we needed.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

Eleken helped us go from concept to reality. For each interface that we were attempting to build, Eleken presented different design options and helped us to understand the positives and negatives of the approach. Eleken also reviewed the design of a competitor's product to help us understand what the strengths and weaknesses of their design would be.

Eleken's collaboration has also helped us to have a more organized workflow -- seeing how the different pages would fit together, and what the user journey would be. Overall, I'm highly confident that they would be able to help with additional features as well. This is the advantage of working with an agency that has previous experience from dozens of clients.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

My team worked with a UI/UX designer, and also the head of Business Development at Eleken.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Our engineering team has had an easier time in their work since they are clearly able to see how the user will interact with the product. I would say the biggest difference is that, as a team, we're able to think more clearly about what the final output should be. Design has therefore been a thought partner for us as we attempt to answer key strategic questions about how the product should look.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow has been very versatile. They are able to work across Figma, Slack, and email. Our designer at Eleken also showed great initiative in setting up videocalls and being available despite the difficult timezone difference. We really haven't felt that there was any negative effect of being six hours apart.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They were extremely professional and easy to work with from day one. We are a bit informal at times, as an early-stage startup, so we were expecting some difficulty in integrating the design work into our regular workflow. However, the team at Eleken are true professionals and I felt as though we were immediately getting value from our collaboration.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

The two-month minimum commitment is a bit heavy for us, but not a huge issue since we're satisfied with the excellent outputs. I understand why it's better for Eleken to plan out resourcing in monthlong increments.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Datawisp is a 100% Visual, No-Code Data Analysis & Exploration for Web2 & Web3, designed with non-dev's in mind! I'm the CTO of Datawisp, and lead our product team.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Eleken?

We built a pre-seed prototype of the next generation of data analysis software. It felt great, but it didn't look good, so we reached out to eleken to provide UI / UX design for it. We were primarily looking for UI design, as we felt this was one of the bigger hinderances to get seed-stage fundraising, and UX rework was mostly secondary.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We searched online for UI/UX agencies, and eleken landed on the shortlist alongside 5 other companies. Some of them had no capacity, but of the three that did, eleken's offer - especially the free 3 day trial - was extremely compelling.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

After reaching out to eleken, we scheduled a meeting the same day with Mari, and less than a week later, the three day trial with Kseniya, the main designer for the project started. In the three days, she did a complete redesign of the main screen of our product, and it looked good enough for us. We decided to scope out the screens to redesign, and Kseniya redesigned every screen and every detail of our application in an amazing and efficient manner.

Once we started implementing some of the changes, she gave quick and accurate feedback to how well the changes were implemented. Every part of our application had to be redesigned, from a "developer design" to a modern, easily approachable design, with better UX.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We primarily worked with Kseniya, an amazing UI/UX designer an eleken. She was absolutely wonderful to work with, there was little need for project coordination from our side, and the results were great.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

User feedback of our software has changed from "this looks complicated" to "this looks easy", and our software progressed from a prototype, to actual, real, usable software.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It was generally a very good workflow, where we discussed work to be done, what limitations there were, and how to prioritize different pieces of work, and a couple days later we'd have a meeting to discuss feedback and make (usually small) changes In short, the assigned designer felt like a competent part of the team.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The three-day trial was very unique, giving you a risk-free chance to try working with them. The approach to assign one main designer to our project, that worked full-time on it was very unique, but it allowed them to build a very detailed understanding of our - sometimes a bit complex - product. Essentially having a competent full-time designer on your team was very valuable to us.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Sometimes there were a couple of disruptions, e.g. when our designers laptop died, but I understand that things like that a very unplannable. Additionally, it was in some rare cases a bit hard to get a hold of their business team, where they didn't respond for a few days (e.g. about the exact date of the end of the assignment).

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Favorably, a software company providing SaaS products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Eleken?

We needed wireframes done for our new products.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Eleken has provided us with UI/UX design services to create the wireframes for our new products. They use Figma for the designs.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with Mari (Head of Sales), Oksana (UI/UX Designer), and Maxim (Lead UX & Product Designer), who was on two initial calls to offer other services that we ultimately didn’t require.

How did you come to work with Eleken?

I found Eleken on Google while I was looking for UI/UX designers. We had a call where they explained how they operated and talked about the UI/UX designs they had done for SaaS companies, also showing us some examples of their work. We had a couple of days of trial to see how their design team worked. As they seemed to work well, we signed them.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $5,000 so far, and we foresee spending another $5,000 soon.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together towards the end of May 2022, and our engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

Eleken has been delivering great wireframes at a good pace. Overall, we’re happy with their work, and we will continue working with them.

How did Eleken perform from a project management standpoint?

Eleken is very responsive and turns things around very quickly. Additionally, they take direction quite well and move through the components of the project very efficiently. We use a Google document that lays out what we need from them, and they work following that document; we don’t use any project management tools. We communicate via Slack and Figma.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Eleken is very fast and efficient. Whenever we ask them for something, they have it ready by the next day. If we can’t provide immediate feedback, they keep working on other things to avoid wasting time waiting.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing comes to mind; they’ve done what we’ve asked them to do.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make sure that you’re happy with the designer they provide. In the end, their business model is providing UI/UX designers, so it is really important that the designer you work with understands your project and establishes a good working relationship.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the Chief Technology Officer at Fruitful Source, which is a Canada based software development company. We are building a scalable web-application platform to provide managed SaaS Services.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Eleken?

We have a cloud-based software but didn't have a lot of design direction. Our existing web-app was bare-bones and needed better UX. We wanted to improve the flow and make it work better.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

After doing initial research on both freelancers and agencies focused on UX/UI design across the world. Based on references from other companies who appreciated the broad access to high-caliber, English speaking and cost-effective talent available in Ukraine, we interviewed and assessed proposals from several agencies and selected Eleken based on their process, communication and quality of previous work products.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

Over the course of several months, we had daily calls to build up to a high-fidelity prototype. We initially started with a research phase to focus on the problem, outline the core value propositions and understand the market landscape both in terms of competition and trends. We then focused on creating a user persona and user journey map to help guide the information architecture.

Using SWOT analyses of various competitors, initial wireframes were created to start laying the initial frameworks of the app. Then we focused on UI design that eventually led to a high-fidelity, clickable mobile prototype.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

The Eleken team consisted of one senior and one intermediate UX/UI designer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The prototype has been shared with our network and we have been able to gain valuable feedback. It easier to describe the work that was completed to our developers once we moved from design to development.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The daily calls and constant communication over Slack facilitated a smooth process where information and updates were continuously shared between both parties. There were healthy debates and feedback sessions that improved various features and flows of the final product.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

We appreciated their responsiveness. They went the extra mile to make sure the client was pleased with both the process and product.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

From a client perspective, I believe we could have done a better job communicating and providing feedback faster and helped better articulate certain core aspects of the service. Once we was able to do that, the team quickly adapted the service to meet our vision.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the VP of Product for Astraea. We are building a platform for acquiring, managing, analyzing, and distributing geospatial data and analytics. We are also building tailored applications on top of this platform to enable specific industry verticals such as Real Estate, Finance, Agriculture, and Conservation.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Eleken?

We hired Eleken to design all of our user interfaces and our company website.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

I research several UX design companies and narrowed the list based on companies that had specific expertise in SaaS. After interviewing several of them we selected Eleken and created a pilot project to evaluate whether or not the designers were a good fit.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

We conduct market research by talking to existing and potential clients to understand how they use geospatial data, what they are trying to accomplish, and what their existing pain points are. We assess these practices internally and develop concepts for how we could solve them.

Then we work with our design team to design interfaces that would expose these solutions to our customers. This is an iterative process with daily interactions. Once a design is vetted and approved internally, we break the design down into implementation iterations and deliver it to the Engineering team.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We have worked with one resource from this vendor for the entire period of the contract and we brought in a second resource for 6 weeks. The additional resource served as a web designer to update our webpage design. The primary resource is our companies UX designer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We have radically improved the quality of our user interfaces, the consistency of our design, and the ability to sell our tools. As a startup, we have been working towards product market fit. This involves demonstrations to potential users and investors. The improvements to our UI have led to new business as well as interest from investors.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The workflow with the Eleken team is seamless. They work as an embedded member of our team.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

It is unusual to find a designer who has experience building applications with geospatial data - especially imagery data. We found that in Eleken. The value proposition is very high with Eleken — their rates are fair and their team is excellent.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

We did a pilot project to build a slide deck in powerpoint and I think this was not really their expertise. They are web UX designers and do that very well.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am a co-founder of a new FinTech platform based in the UK.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Eleken?

We had a idea and initial concept of the platform but had not experience in UX/UI design. We therefore need a resource to be dedicated to ourselves to create initial wireframes, designs, website/landing page and clickable demo.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Received a recommendation from another firm who had previously worked with Eleken. Had a weeks trial and went very well and smoothly.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

Our firm has created a concept and basic idea and Eleken were about to understand the target audience. After this priorities were set with a couple of days a weeks having catch-up calls. Eleken were able to guide us through the UX/UI design process from wireframes, user stories, personas, designs and clickable demo.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We worked directly with one UI/UX designer. At times their designer was able to speak to others within Eleken to provide addition information.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We are very pleased with the results, which have help to bring visually our initial concept. Some of the wireframes took longer than initially thought however this was due to our complex financial platform. It was easy to communicate with the designer, spoken good English and very responsive.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Good communication between our firms and was able to chat and share documents easily. We used Slack as a forum for chat which was great and also has a couple of calls each week. In addition, we were able to reschedule calls quickly and easily.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

We were impressed with their responsiveness and ability to work independently when necessary. They also understand the requirements and did their own research as well as look at ours.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

None.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Cheerity, a marketing technology platform that serves enterprise customers. We also offer a SaaS platform for smaller customers. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Eleken?

Last year, we started working on the small business version of our product, so we needed to update both the design and look of our marketing website and internal products. We also had to implement SaaS, subscription-based best practices for our external website. That way, people could sign up for our new product directly on our website. To do these things, we needed a designer that could build the website under our direction. We also wanted a provider with a good grasp of  SaaS platforms both internally and externally. That was when we hired Eleken. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We worked directly with Eleken’s designer for our existing marketing website, and our team provided that designer with examples of what we wanted the site to look like. Creating this new marketing site was part of our requirement structure. 

On top of that, we went through a comprehensive process of mapping out the new functionality of the new product. Our team created a large set of specifications for this. We then provided these requirements to Eleken, and the designer started simultaneously implementing these requirements and creating the marketing website. 

We focused on those things in the first couple of months, and then we transitioned to the elements that we needed for marketing the new product and the existing enterprise platform. Our team worked closely with the designer to identify which sections she should improve. Among the things we needed were new pages for our pricing, enterprise customers, blogs, and other support content. Their resources provided the designs of those elements through Figma.

Over the next six and a half months, they provided us with new designs as we went down our list. We wanted to look on par with the current crop of SaaS platforms in the market. Given that, we also needed animations on the website and more comprehensive designs that showed our product in action. Moreover, Eleken highlighted the notable customers we had in the past. They also took on the task of building out the actual website through Webflow. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with one designer, and she was our main point of contact. 

How did you come to work with Eleken?

I personally started searching for partners in March 2021, and I spent about a month researching firms that worked specifically in our vast space. We didn’t want a big US agency that would charge us excessively and give us a rotating cast of designers — that was the last thing we wanted. As a result, one of our main requirements was to have one main point of contact.

With that in mind, I went through hundreds of potential partners. I zeroed in on Eleken when I visited a site that promoted them along with a couple of other agencies that worked exclusively with SaaS companies. I eventually talked to Ilya (Founder) and was quite impressed with their approach for two reasons. First, their price was at least half the cost of what some US firms were charging. Then, they planned to assign an individual designer to work full-time on our project and exclusively with us. We also had a direct line of communication with that person without an account manager getting in between us — we could work with her to our heart’s content for as many months as we needed.

I did have some worries, such as our time difference since they were in Ukraine. However, they assured me that that wouldn’t be an issue. Finally, they gave us a week with the designer as a free trial. If we didn’t like her, we would have a way to switch the assignee up. That was another reason we decided to hire Eleken. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent just under $30,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement lasted from May–December 2021. We launched the marketing website in September 2021, but we haven’t launched the product. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

From an internal perspective, our team, board of advisors, and even our investors were all thrilled with the way the marketing site looked, which was a huge upgrade from what we previously had — it looked much more modern. 

It also highlighted our customer base and showed the product’s functionality in a comprehensive way. Customers could also see the product’s cost based on its versions. Overall, from the internal stakeholders’ perspective, we had nothing but the highest praise and response for the site. 

We haven’t released the product yet, so no quantitative metrics are available. I won’t be able to tell how the website converts customers until we launch the product, flip on the site’s new functionality, and allow people to sign up. However, I’m confident that it’s going to do well because it meets the standards we’ve set. 

How did Eleken perform from a project management standpoint?

Eleken stuck to our schedule, and they met our standards. We didn’t feel like the project took an excessively long time to finish or that they were inhibiting something. Moreover, our communication was great. We had a kickoff meeting on Zoom with the designer and Eleken’s design head. From there, our conversations took place on Slack. We could talk to the designer through it as many times in a day as necessary; she was always responsive. 

Meanwhile, I didn’t know what other tools they used on their side to manage the engagement, but I managed it on our side through Trello. We gave the Eleken team access to our boards to let them know what we needed.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

The designer that Eleken assigned to us was truly talented; she was young but not green — she had a firm grasp of the designs that we wanted. In fact, she was dedicated to scouring the samples we sent to make sure that we were satisfied with her outputs. On top of that, we didn’t have to hire a separate firm for our marketing and platform pieces. That was Eleken’s specialty. 

Overall, having one designer and main point of contact working on our products was a huge time- and money-saver. Ultimately, this created a more consistent look across all of our properties. Eleken was excellent in doing that. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there weren’t any. Whenever we identified anything that needed to be corrected, the team took care of it immediately; they always prioritized their responses to me.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Do your homework upfront and come to the engagement with a well-thought-out project specification. Apart from that, provide a good range of examples of what you’re trying to achieve. If you give Eleken good inputs upfront, their team will be highly capable of creating something in the same vein for you. In other words, know what you want; don’t just leave it to them. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

CEO of stealth mode startup

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Eleken?

UX design and clickable prototype development for MVP

What were your goals for this project?

Build a prototype for the product that we could use for customer validation, testing and getting early feedback.

SOLUTION

How did you select Eleken?

We found Eleken through a referral.

Describe the project in detail.

Our engagement started with a free trial that Eleken worked with us on for a few days, which was great to get started with and gave us confidence in working with the team. The designer assigned on our project was incredible, very thorough and committed.

After the free trial, we immediately extended our project working very closely with our designer on a daily basis. We had daily standup calls with the designer, with very close collaboration almost as if we are all one team.

What was the team composition?

For the short project our size, we were working directly with the designer dedicated to us.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The designer was able to very quickly learn about what we wanted to build, even though our product was very specific to our domain. She asked the right questions and confidently pushed us until she was crystal clear in her understanding of what needed to be done. The end result was a prototype that was very functional and created a very thoughtful design.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very good collaboration, with daily standups and collaborative discussions over slack.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Eleken has designers that are motivated to do a great job. They don't think of this as just any other temporary contract, and you can see their passion and commitment come through in the high quality work they deliver. We will continue to work with them for future work.

Are there any areas for improvement?

None

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder of an early-stage startup that is focused on helping people navigate the savings needed to buy their homes.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Eleken?

We had a functioning web prototype that we were looking to develop into an MVP. We hired Eleken to design a fresh user interface and design some new features.

What were your goals for this project?

The goal was to progress our prototype to an MVP, which involved redesigning the interface and creating a more intuitive user experience based on previous user feedback and changes in our business strategy. The sections worked on included a landing page, onboarding flow, and an interactive dashboard.

SOLUTION

How did you select Eleken?

We researched various startup-friendly UI/UX firms listed on the Clutch website, predominately situated near and off-shore. Eleken stood out because of their impressive design portfolio as well as their emphasis on working with early-stage startups.

We then spoke to a shortlisted set of firms that included Eleken. Eleken’s CEO left a positive impression as he seemed to understand our needs as a startup. He then offered us a short trial, which we went ahead with.

This gave us a good sense of how they worked. We also found them to be competitive in their pricing. We decided to move forward with them based on the above.

Describe the project in detail.

First, we discussed the objectives of the project, both from a user and business perspective. We walked them through the flow of our existing prototype. They then independently reviewed our existing designs and findings from our previous user research and tests.

They came back to us with questions to clarify their understanding of our product. Given the breadth of work and the complex nature of our product, we had several calls to explain and clarify the business logic applicable to our product.

The designer assigned to us then began creating basic wireframe concepts for each section of our platform. The designer later introduced visual and aesthetic elements after multiple iterations and feedback sessions.

The designer then created a clickable version of our product to test on select users before it was coded. Following this, further iterations and refinements were done based on collective feedback before the screens were finalised. Mobile-friendly screens were also worked on in conjunction with Web.

What was the team composition?

We liaised with Eleken’s CEO initially and had one designer working with us full time.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Whilst our product is not yet live, we are pleased with the overall look and feel of the design and flow. The output is clean, friendly, intuitive, and appropriate for the nature of our business and target consumer.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We were in constant communication with the designer. This direct and open form of communication and the designer’s flexibility allowed for a very fluid workflow.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Eleken made a concerted effort to understand our business requirements and the ins and outs of our product. The designer was great to work with! She was thorough and disciplined in her approach to applying best practices and design principles.

She was committed, proactive, and turned around deliverables very quickly. Furthermore, she provided useful suggestions and even challenged us to consider other ideas and approaches.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Although communication was fluid, we could have benefited from a bit more structure in terms of centralised tracking/documentation of key tasks, discussion points and decisions.