Halo Lab

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the Founder and COO of Playful Pineapple, a revolutionary new Social Network for the 21st Century Swinging Lifestyle.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Halo Lab?

We hired Halo to design and create a prototype of our webapp for our Investment Pitch. Halo also helped us with branding and designed our Company Logo.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We interviewed between 5-10 UX/UI design companies and Halo impressed us the most. The great quality of their previous work along with their professionalism in our first meeting made our decision easy to make.

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

The team conducted project research to analyse our competitors and created a Moodboard to determine the colour palette, typography and design style. We worked together on our User flow, but at the same time they helped us with our branding and designed our company logo. Halo then created a design concept before working on our Wireframes, then applied our design to complete the UI before tying it all together in a fantastic animated prototype.

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

We worked directly with the Project Manager, who was clear and responsive during the entire process. She would pass on our feedback to the UX/UI designer at Halo who did a fantastic job.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are very pleased with the deliverables from the Halo team. We are meeting with investors in the next few weeks, so we hope the UI designs and prototype will help us secure the necessary funding for us to continue with the full web development.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The project manager was very easy to communicate with and provided us with frequent updates. We communicated mainly via Slack but there was also messages exchanged via email. Everything was delivered on time and we received more than enough warning that there was the possibility we could miss our deadline. In the end we didn't miss a deadline but it was great to have enough warning so we could prepare.

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

Their UX/UI and general design skills were very impressive, but they also had a very good operational process which was executed perfectly. They were very patient but also receptive to our queries and comments, which they would take the time to analyse and respond with considered and evidence backed feedback.

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

As an experienced programme manager, I find comfort in knowing and understanding the steps of a process so maybe knowing the project milestones and stages would be good, but it is by no means a criticism, more of a personal preference.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of a development platform that helps companies build social features, particularly chats and calls, into their own applications quickly and easily. We target startups and growing companies in North America that are developing online communities, healthcare apps, and online marketplaces. We also help their development teams speed up the process of building the chat features.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Halo Lab?

We were trying to increase our conversion rate, and as part of that, we wanted to focus on youth acquisition. We had developed our current website in-house, and it had been up for over a year. Since we launched the website, we cleaned up our messaging and refined our value proposition. Thus, we wanted to redo our website to better communicate with our buyer personas, like CTOs, directors of product, and technical decision-makers. Thus, we hired Halo Lab to help us create a modern, expressive, and easy-to-understand site.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Halo Lab helped us redesign and redevelop our website. We worked closely together during the design process. Halo Lab showed us different versions of what our website would look like, and we picked one of those options. Then, we provided them with feedback to tweak some aspects of the design to meet our requirements. After that, they were in charge of the development process until completion.

What is the team composition?

We had two main points of contact from Halo Lab: an account manager and a product manager. Additionally, they had developers working behind the scenes, so we didn’t communicate with them.

How did you come to work with Halo Lab?

Halo Lab reached out to my co-founder via LinkedIn even before we decided to redo our website. Once we decided to start looking for a contractor for this project, we reached out to different companies, including those who had reached out to us in the past, and evaluated our different options.

Ultimately, we decided to go with Halo Lab because their team seemed to have high technical expertise, and it felt like they knew what they were doing. Additionally, during our call with the account manager, this person proved to be very friendly; we had a warm discussion. I also looked at their website, portfolio, and client reviews, and I was convinced that they were the perfect fit.

Still, given that they were from Ukraine and were dealing with the Russian Invasion, we hesitated a little bit because we didn’t know where the situation would go. However, they reassured us that their team was remote and had processes in place to handle any possible scenario.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $6,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We contacted Halo Lab in March 2022, started working together in early April 2022, and the project was completed within three weeks. Now, we’re ready to go live.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our new website will help us project a more premium experience for our customers — a product manager friend even told us that our website looked like a million-dollar site. On this site, we were able to add our messaging and style to project this premium experience. We wanted a site that reflected who we were better, and Halo Lab successfully achieved that.

How did Halo Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

The deadline by which Halo Lab delivered the site was exceptional, considering the situation they were going through. Throughout the development process, the product manager was very helpful and communicative. Although some things got a bit delayed during this process, we didn’t care about them because we wanted them to be done well.

Halo Lab’s overall communication was very good, too. They set expectations very well, and they were very transparent about everything. We added them to our Slack channel, and we collaborated on Figma for the design.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Halo Lab was very collaborative; it was great interacting with their team. They were a very warm group of people, and they were very involved in the process. They also had great creative ideas.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Our site presented minor technical issues that I ultimately fixed because I’m the technical founder of my company, so it wasn’t a big deal. Those issues would’ve been avoided if I had had the opportunity to talk to Halo Lab’s developers. However, those were expected issues.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear with your requirements and provide specific details about your branding.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the UX Strategist for WTFast, we have software solutions for Gaming related to gaming connections

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Halo Lab?

We needed a very sharp designer for several projects at the time, the main idea was to have a 24h working team sort to speak, we at wtfast worked from the day on UX and at night Halo would deliver UI designs and some other graphic design needed.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

They were hired by our last Product Manager, I had no part on this, however they have an amazing portfolio!

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

Confidential

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

1 designer full time 1 project manager

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We were please with all the designs provided and we still are to this day, they are a really sharp team and their designers amazing. We managed to release 2 products and update 2 more in a very good time frame.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It wasn't perfect but it was very good and efficient, it is true that having different timezones may affect communication, they were always responded to our need (under acceptable hours of course hehe)

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

Their design was fast and their skills very good! A mix that usually companies don't have, they were fast and delivered high-quality designs

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

Not big deal but maybe getting designers on other timezones, clients may have others needs and what not

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder of a health technology company. We are developing a solution to disrupt digital health.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Halo Lab, and what were your goals?

Finding pixel perfect UI developers was challenging, Halo Lab have the right skills and attitude when it comes to UI development. The staff are very professional and skilled for the task on hand.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

We interviewed 3 shortlisted companies and put them through a test task, Halo Lab's team was able to deliver the test task in a timely manner. We were impressed with the pixel perfect UI development that their staff delivered.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

The project is an ongoing one and through daily calls and sprint planning we brief the team for the work on hand.

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

We have 1 project manager, 3 UI developers and 1 QA Tester engaged on our project.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Project is still under development.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We have daily-standup with the project managers and the team and make use of Microsoft DevOps to manage the project.

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

All team members from Halo Lab have shown great skills and commitment to the project which we highly appreciate.

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

Being a multi-platform application getting the UI working on different devices has been challenging, however with further testing and bug fixing we are close to having the application work well across different devices.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Dotcal, a scheduling platform similar to HubSpot.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Halo Lab?

We’d worked with other designers in the past, but we weren’t happy with the templates for our booking pages. We reached out to Halo Lab for a small contract and kept extending that contract.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We started with template designs, but Halo Lab also helped us redesign the admin panel of our website and social media. If we asked them for a template design for a booking page, they’d rethink what a booking page could be. Then, they moved on to the UX wireframes and UI.

The booking page was a core part of our product, and we offered different UI templates to choose from.

What is the team composition?

We worked with four people from Halo Lab: two UX/UI designers, one project manager, and one business manager. We talked to the project manager every day, and we spoke to the business manager about contracts and other administrative issues.

How did you come to work with Halo Lab?

We knew the aesthetic we wanted as a company, so we reached out to many design firms. We came across Halo Lab on Dribbble and let their designs speak for themselves. The other design firm we considered was pretty good, but Halo Lab nailed the template designs. Since that’s the core differentiator of our company, we needed to nail it.

We gave Halo Lab a chance, and we immediately knew they were the ones we wanted to work with.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $6,000 per month with them, and we worked together for three months.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Halo Lab in mid-December 2021, and the engagement stopped in mid-March 2022. We’ve paused the work to implement everything. I fully expect us to continue working with them in the future, probably in the next couple of months. However, we’re overloaded with their designs right now.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ll launch in about a month, so we don’t have metrics to share yet. However, it was super refreshing to work with them. We’ve never had a design firm output such a high volume of high-quality work. Halo Lab made every single design in our app — they basically redesigned our whole application, except for the homepage. We thought our admin pages and dashboard were good until they redesigned them. Now, they’re just much better.

How did Halo Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

They gave us designs and iterations every single day. It was amazing how fast they could work. We’d worked with designers that were honestly five times slower or even worse. We talked to them on Slack every day, and they gave us what they’d worked on the night before. We’re in San Francisco, and they’re in Ukraine, so they worked while we slept, and we’d wake up to new designs. We’d also go over everything in Figma.

Additionally, we had calls with them two days a week, on Monday and Friday, and shared looms back and forth if we needed. Overall, the quality of their work paired with how much they gave us. Halo Lab set a new bar for us, and we were very happy with them. They never missed a deadline, but most importantly, they gave us a higher quality product than what we expected to get. They went above and beyond, delivering more than expected.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The combination of quality and speed of work was unparalleled. We’d never seen anything like it.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing off the top of my head.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Be prepared to provide feedback quickly because Halo Lab works fast. Also, not talking to them every day would probably waste time. They work on a contract basis, so the minimum someone can book them for is one month. Therefore, it’s best to give them feedback and communicate in real-time. We dedicated someone on our team to talk to them, and I think we got the most out of the engagement.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m an executive of a community communications company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Halo Lab?

We needed help designing our website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Halo Lab did the UI/UX design for our web and mobile interfaces. We provided them with wireframes and extra documentation so they could jump-start the project.

What is the team composition?

We worked with two members of their team, including a project manager and a designer.

How did you come to work with Halo Lab?

I found them via Google, and we gave them the project based on their portfolio.

How much have you invested in them?

We spent around $50,000 with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from January 2015–January 2020.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The work they did for me had my approval.

How did Halo Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management was good, and we used ClickUp as the main tool. In addition to that, we communicated via Zoom.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their design skills were outstanding.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could improve their English communication and understanding.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the founder and CEO of Baamboozle, a game-based learning platform. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Halo Lab?

We wanted to redesign our marketing website. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Halo Lab provided two primary services over two months. During the first month, their team used our original site design and conducted market research to develop several new site concepts. Before settling on a new design, we went through several research stages — they repurposed our old site for the new design. Once the design was finalized, they spent the second month of our engagement developing the site in React. 

What is the team composition?

I worked with a designer, and a team of developers worked in the background. 

How did you come to work with Halo Lab?

I posted an ad on Dribble and had over 100 applicants. I decided to hire Halo Lab because they were trending as a top design agency on Dribble and had past experience. 

How much have you invested with them?

I invested $16,000 with Halo Lab. 

What is the status of this engagement?

Our partnership with Halo Lab was from November 2021–January 2022. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve received Halo Lab’s deliverables, but we haven’t released them to the public yet. I have very high standards, but their deliverables completely exceeded my expectations. 

How did Halo Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

Halo Lab had fantastic project management and was easily contactable via Slack. They provided me with daily project updates, and I was allowed as many revisions as needed. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Halo Lab delivered a unique and original design that makes my company stand out from the competition — they didn’t provide a template-based design or something trendy. Their development is world-class and perfection itself. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’m very satisfied with Halo Lab, so I have nothing for them to improve. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d advise customers to provide Halo Lab with as much constructive feedback as possible during the design process — their team listens to customers and will make drastic changes to deliver what the customer wants. It feels like they’d do anything to make customers happy. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder and CEO of Liinks, a bio link app. Our customers range from musicians, influencers, small businesses and more.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Halo Lab?

I hired Halo Lab to re-design the Liinks landing page and supporting pages (pricing, features, etc).

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I found Halo Lab through Behance, and was impressed by the work in their portfolio.

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

After an intro call, I was introduced to the project manager. We had a discovery call to go over my needs. The Halo Lab team then put together a moodboard with a bunch of inspiration to get a sense of my taste. After providing feedback on the moodboard, the team put together 2 design proposals for the landing page. I was very happy with the work and after picking a direction, had very little feedback through the process as the project manager, designer and I were very much aligned.

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

I worked with a project manager and a designer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

I am very happy with the designs created by the Halo Lab team. The style is very original and they worked quickly. As the developer who will be implementing the designs, I am confident that implementation will be straightforward.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

The project manager was lovely and easy to communicate with. I am very busy and she was able to accommodate my schedule. We had weekly check-ins over video chat and also communicated frequently over slack. Expectations were well set and the team ended up getting got through a lot more than I anticipated we'd be able to get through in a month.

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

We were impressed with their communication skills, fast turnarounds, and amazing designs. They were reasonably priced as well.

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 a co-founder at Vondy, a software startup. Our main product is a website builder, and I largely spend my time on software development and running the company. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Halo Lab?

We hired Halo to augment our engineering efforts.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Initially, we bought Halo in to come up with more professional designs that we could incorporate by ourselves. Our team then realized how beneficial it was to keep everything within the Halo ecosystem. 

At present, their designer comes up with designs while interfacing with the project manager. That way, we don’t have to worry about the details and the communication between the designer and developer. Once the designs are good to go, their developer implements them. 

The design work is all in Figma, and we go back and forth on iterating the Figma designs. Once the designs are good, they flesh them out in the form of clickable prototypes also within Figma. On the development side, the code is on GitHub. We then collaborate on the same GitHub repository, where we can make comments and changes as we see fit.

What is the team composition?

In total, we work with four people from their team. We’ve been working with a project manager and decided to bring on an in-house Halo developer to accelerate the engineering process. We also interface with a business development representative. She’s helped us sort out the terms of our engagement in relation to the number of resources we use and how much they cost. She’s also been our point of contact for payments and administrative tasks.

To elaborate, the project manager’s role is to ensure that everything gets done. We communicate with her about timelines and project updates. Meanwhile, the designer comes up with the UI/UX designs of the app we’re building. Then, the developer implements whatever the designer comes up with; this is for frontend development — the developer mainly works on the app’s UI. 

How did you come to work with Halo Lab?

Our team found Halo on Upwork. We saw their portfolio online and were impressed by their past work. Their designs caught our eyes because they were beautiful. From there, we reached out to the team. At that time, we were still in the early days of our startup, so we couldn’t afford their services. After we raised money, we got back in touch with them and sorted out an agreement. That was the start of our engagement. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested around $20,000–$25,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2021, and the engagement is ongoing. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Quantitative metrics are difficult to find because our app isn’t in production yet; we’re still essentially in the MVP prototyping phase. However, in the relatively short time that we’ve worked with Halo, the team has already come up with many good designs for our app. They’ve come up with 10–20 templates, and the developer has completed our entire onboarding flow within a week or less.

How did Halo Lab perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is a differentiating factor for Halo. For context, with our previous development agency, we had to interface with the designer and developer individually. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. As a result, when Halo told us that they’d assign a project manager to us, we were skeptical at first. We thought that things would get lost in translation. 

Luckily, they’ve assigned a solid project manager to us. She always understands the assignment and is great at communication. She ensures that everything is done well. The fact that we don’t worry about how the work gets broken up means she’s doing a great job. We simply give her a high-level view of what we want, and then we see results. She’s also extremely responsive. 

Overall, we’re paying per performer, but the price has a unique project management component built into it. In other words, we’re getting more than just simply a developer and a designer. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Halo stands out through their designs, which are beautiful. Incorporating them in our app elevates the perception of our product. In other words, bringing in the professional design team of Halo has been a worthy investment for us. Their work has resulted in a more professional-looking product. 

Moreover, their resources are creative. My co-founder and I don’t necessarily have the most concrete idea of how the product should work or what it should look like. We simply give the team our best rough idea, and they run with it. They’ve pleasantly surprised us in ways we never imagine. Overall, creative design is where they shine the most. 

Meanwhile, we’ve only started working with their developer, so we haven’t had the chance to truly understand the quality of his work. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

At least for a startup like us, Halo is on the expensive side. To be fair, the payment is worth the quality of their work; they bring in value. However, they can bring in more clients if they drop their prices a little. That way, they can appeal to a wider variety of startups.

Moreover, the whole payment process can still be streamlined. They insist on prepayment on a biweekly basis. While they’ve been flexible with us in terms of payments, we’ve still had issues with the whole fee structure. That said, this might be a problem that’s unique to a startup of our size. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If you’re a startup that’s looking to do design and development work, it’s imperative that you leverage the whole project management component of Halo. You can gain a lot of value by keeping everything within their ecosystem. The communication between their designer and developer is seamless, and the project manager ensures that everyone’s on the same page.

More generally, it’s helpful if you can get into the weeds with them. You can mess around with the Figma design or look through the code that’s been produced. Simply put, you can get more out of their designer and developer when you speak their language. Getting into the nitty-gritty of the product is better than just verifying whether or not the app works. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO of a digital health startup.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Halo Lab?

We were developing the initial version of our product, and we needed graphic and UI design support.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Halo Lab has helped us design the prototype of our product. We started the project by providing them with a product requirements document, which described all the different features and details of what we wanted to build.

Throughout the project, we would typically meet with them every day to go over the requirements, and they would get back to us with design mock-ups. After we give them feedback, they would give us the updated versions of the designs. 

The final deliverables included high-fidelity mock-ups of our feature requests.

What is the team composition?

Halo Lab assigned two project managers to our team, and they’re our main point of contact. They’re in charge of understanding the requirement documents and passing them over to their primary designer, with whom we’ve only interacted once. They also have a senior design lead, who’s in charge of making sure that their work is up to their quality standards before they pass it back to us.

How did you come to work with Halo Lab?

We found Halo Lab on a freelance designer portfolio website. We reached out to them via email and scheduled some initial conversations before we started working with them.

How much have you invested with them?

We pay them $6,000 per month, so I’d say we’ve spent around $15,000 in total so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in November 2021, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We don’t have any metrics yet, but Halo Lab has been really consistent in providing us with high-quality deliverables. Their support has been very crucial in helping us quickly get our prototype into a logical state — without their help, we’d probably be two months behind in terms of getting our product out to a bigger audience.

How did Halo Lab perform from a project management standpoint

Halo Lab has performed really well in terms of project management — they deliver on time and communicate well. We have daily meetings with them, wherein we go over the requirements, features, and revisions. So far, they’ve been excellent in establishing and meeting deadlines.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The fact that Halo Lab assigned a team to us instead of a freelancer is a big differentiating factor for them. One of the advantages of working with their team is that they have a senior design lead who enforces their quality standards to make sure that the deliverables are of high quality. 

Aside from that, having their project managers analyze the requirements documents and ask clarifying questions ensures that their designer has everything they need to deliver designs that reflect our vision and makes communication between teams as smooth as it can be.

I also appreciate their effort in adding their own creative spin on the deliverables.

Are there any areas they could improve?

At the beginning of the project, we had trouble getting the raw source files for the design because they wanted to stick to the payment cadence before giving us the mock-ups. This delayed our engineering efforts in the first month or two, which caused some frustration on our side. We’ve since decided to prepay them so that we could get the source files more easily.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

When working with an international vendor, it’s always helpful to make sure that you’re as specific as possible with the product requirements document and your content strategy to ensure that you get what you expect.