Aubergine Solutions

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the co-founder and CTO of Quesmed, a company that focuses on medical school education. Our goal is to make preparing to become a doctor much easier and less monotonous. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Aubergine Solutions?

We needed help in designing our product. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

Aubergine Solutions has designed pretty much every aspect of our product so far. We’ve used their work as a base point whenever we internally work on designs. 

Notably, they redesigned our website during the start of our partnership. We’re currently working on an educational video. They use Figma to create their UI/UX designs. 

What is the team composition?

We’re working with four people, with two points of contact.

How did you come to work with Aubergine Solutions?

A colleague referred them. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around £20,000 (approximately $27,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve started working together in November 2020, and it’s ongoing. 

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

Aubergine Solutions has successfully redesigned our website. Their work has helped increase our sales by 550%. I’m completely satisfied with their work — they’ve exceeded my expectations. 

Their design team has been excellent, and they’ve stuck with us throughout the partnership. As a result, they’ve been really helpful since they already know our product and preferences very well. They can tell what we and our users like, so we’ve been able to work efficiently. 

How did Aubergine Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

Aubergine Solutions is excellent at project management. They ensure our visions are met, deadlines are followed, and our teams are in sync. We communicate through emails and weekly meetings through Google Meet. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Aubergine Solutions’ understanding of our vision is impressive. Initially, we’ve been skeptical by the amount of time they’ve spent studying our product. However, in the long run, that has been beneficial for us. They know our products and needs, and there have been a few back and forths between our teams — we’re thrilled with their work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Aubergine Solutions is very good at figuring out what you need and want. If you don’t have anything to show at the start of the project, provide them with a brief slide of your competitors. Pick the features you like, and they’ll be able to deliver based on that.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CPO of a B2B Machine Learning Platform, based out of the UK.

For what projects/services did your company hire Aubergine Solutions ?

We were looking for a long-term partner to help drive improved UX processes across our platform.

How did you select this vendor?

I had previously worked with Aubergine Solutions in another B2B Software business and I found their work to be excellent.

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

The team have helped us to review our existing UX/UI, as well developing several new areas of the platform, using clear consistent principles and design standards.

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

We engaged with three team members, who embedded with us, to support our Product Design process.

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

Aubergine have helped us to refine our UX, removing unnecessary steps as well as driving innovation in our Front End experiences.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Aubergine communicates clearly, with constant engagement via Slack and Figma, and regular standups to review progress.

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

Their processes and models of B2B UX are excellent, and they're not afraid to ask first-principle questions.

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

N/A

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a product manager at Workforce Development Trust, a not-for-profit charity that works with healthcare organizations across the United Kingdom in a number of different areas related to the workforce. 

We have a consultancy branch, but I work in the digital solutions branch in London, where I manage a roster system that we sell to the National Health Services to ensure that their trusts have the skilled workforce they need. The focus is on ensuring workers are compliant with various working restrictions, including taking sufficient breaks and not working over allotted hours.

What challenge were you trying to address with Aubergine Solutions?

We don’t have any UX/UI experts internally, so we were looking for outside support to help us renovate our workforce roster platform. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

For 18 months, Aubergine Solutions worked on product renovation for the rostering system we sell to the National Health Service to ensure the system could handle a new user interface integration.

We started by discussing how exactly the platform worked and what we wanted to change. They then helped us understand and codify website navigation from the user’s side. Their team came back to us with proposals on how we could improve user navigation — connecting the dots to build a better interface. 

Aubergine Solutions then provided us with several user navigation maps and a set of custom-coded Figma UI mockups for a number of areas of the platform. Our developers then used their deliverables to build the platform’s UI design. 

What is the team composition?

Jui (Senior UX Analyst) was my main point of contact. 

How much have you invested with them?

We invested £8,000 (approximately $11,100 USD). 

What is the status of this engagement?
We worked with them from December 2020–June 2021.  

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

With Aubergine Solutions’ help, we improved our user interface and experience navigating the platform. While there are no specific analytic metrics, users have provided us with positive feedback on the new interface. When we asked our user groups to rate their excitement for it on a scale of one to five, the average score was actually 5.2. We’ve been able to speed up some of the platform’s processes as well — instead of taking hours to run a program, it now takes minutes. 

How did Aubergine Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

Aubergine Solutions was very easy to work with. They were very clear about the requirements for the project and what exactly they needed from us. They were flexible in scheduling — Jui and I would accommodate each other regarding the time difference. 

We predominantly communicated via email and conducted calls through Google Hangouts to arrange and host our meetings. We used Google Sheets for project management. They also used Figma to send their final deliverables.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

There were several impressive aspects of Aubergine Solutions’ work. They were easy to work with on the day-to-day and were able to quickly and intuitively investigate the interface problems we were trying to solve. The quality of the deliverables was also to a very high standard. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

The Aubergine Solutions team could have reviewed the development libraries our development lead circulated in advance of the project and double-checked if their planned components were supported in the development libraries we used. 

Our development lead ended up communicating with Aubergine Solutions to ensure their components would integrate into our platform — it actually required some redevelopment on their end to fit it with our development libraries. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would advise potential customers to be fully engaged in the process — there’s a lot of expertise and support available with Aubergine Solutions and it’s important to take advantage of it.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the product manager at Sponsorium, a SaaS company that helps companies manage their sponsorship portfolio. Our platform allows users to receive, evaluate, and respond to sponsorship requests through an online form.

What challenge were you trying to address with Aubergine Solutions?

We needed help in revamping our platform’s UI/UX. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

First, we had discovery sessions with Aubergine by evaluating our platform, and together we set up the project’s scope. We focused on our tool’s primary functionalities and most used pages to limit the project’s scope. After that, they started working with us, and we had 2–4 meetings per week. 

Aubergine used Figma, an online platform for designing wireframes. Sometimes, they go in-depth with their wireframing and work on details up to 40,000 pixels. We had complete access to all those wireframes, and we were able to collaborate remotely.

Most of our branding had been previously completed, but Aubergine still lent us their expertise. They had built color palette and type guidelines for our platform.

What is the team composition?

We've worked directly with two people, but we've mainly interacted with their senior user experience designer. We also spoke with their other teammates, and we had seen them working on the project through Figma’s chat function.

How did you come to work with Aubergine Solutions?

We found Aubergine through Clutch. I checked about 200 companies on the platform, and I looked at all of their websites. I shortlisted 17 firms that interested us, and we narrowed it down until we picked Aubergine. We decided to work with them due to their portfolio and website design.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $15,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement lasted from April–July 2021. We still have some QA and feedback implementation to do, but they’ve already submitted all of the main deliverables.    

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

Aubergine’s design was far beyond what we came up with as a first draft. Our revamped platform received overwhelmingly positive feedback from beta users. They provided high-quality output that exceeded our expectations.

How did Aubergine Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

Aubergine worked extremely fast, and they used our timezone difference advantageously by working while we were sleeping and leaving us a lot of things to review the next day. Our partnership felt instant. 

We had 42 meetings in 71 business days — they were extremely accessible. Despite our timezone difference, we never had meetings beyond our regular business hours. 

If their designer had any questions, they asked us directly through Figma. Aubergine also used the platform to talk between themselves; we can see all the communication about the project. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Aubergine’s point person was very positive and personable, and they small talked with us a few minutes before we started our meetings. Their team was an excellent fit for us since we weren’t too formal and business-focused on our team. 

In addition, the tools we used and the way Aubergine built their design were really impressive. They gave us access to their work’s CSS, so we don't need to develop the code by ourselves. We were able to reuse a large portion of their codes. 

Lastly, we were also impressed with Aubergine’s responsiveness. Whenever we asked them to redesign something, they immediately implemented our feedback. Sometimes, they came up with their own ideas for improvements. Their turnaround time was less than a day, and it was really impressive.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of any. Aubergine followed our timeline and budget, and they gave us a reasonable quote.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Know your product and come prepared because Aubergine will ask you a lot of questions. Also, keep an open mind — they are specialists that know what they're doing. 

You don’t need to give them strict guidelines, but give them clear guidelines and let them work and suggest new things. They understand the problems in the SaaS space — just allow the professionals to do what they do best. 

Please describe your company and your position there.

CEO of Quesmed.com - an adaptive learning platform for medical students based in London, United Kingdom.

For what projects/services did your company hire Aubergine Solutions ?

We hired Aubergine to design our updated Web platform and accompanying mobile app. Our goals were to update our aesthetic, improve workflow within the app, develop an 'on the go' version of our native platform and add a number of new features for users

How did you select this vendor?

We chose this vendor based on their past projects in a similar space and following a review of their previous designs.

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

We had a number of ideas on how to update our web platform and convert our web platform to an offline app. Following initial briefings from our central team, the team at Aubergine developed wireframes and subsequent full designs with weekly briefings to continually adjust the designs

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

We worked directly with the Chief Design Officer and 2 UX designers.

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

After release of our web and mobile platform, we had a large increase in our userbase with users commenting on how sleek, aesthetic and easy to use the platforms were.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Very easy to communicate, always available, ready to answer queries, responsive and met deadlines. Very flexible to changes in the plan according to our needs

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

Always feels like we're having a conversation on what works best rather than just us telling them what to do. Not afraid to tell us their opinion when they feel a particular aspect of the design could be improved - felt more like a partnership that way!

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

I understand that they are hiring more staff to help out with all the projects they are doing. We welcome this as we would love working with them for future projects

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m one of the co-founders and managing partners of Tikler, a cloud-based SaaS solution conceived in April 2020. We work primarily in the document collaboration space and provide subscription-based services to B2B organizations. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Aubergine Solutions?

We partnered with Aubergine to build Tikler from scratch. They were also involved in the ideation of the product. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

With Aubergine’s help, we came up with the framework, idea, and market for this product. Their UX design team helped us map out how the platform would look and feel. On top of that, they developed the actual product from beginning to end through their front- and backend software engineers.

To kick off the project, we provided the documentation of the frameworks, visuals, and ideas we had, along with some wireframes. We also told them our end goals and the purpose of the software. In turn, they conducted research around the best tech stacks to use. They also did a bit of market validation effort to see if our idea was doable. Essentially, they provided every service that was necessary for building a piece of software.

At present, we’re still working with them. 

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with a team of about 6–7 individuals on a daily basis. We work with two people from their UX team, namely a senior UX designer and a junior one. Their task is to ensure our vision comes to light in terms of the look and feel of the software. We also work with three engineers, two of which are coders, while the other one is the project manager. Our team also communicates with Sarthak (CEO, Co-Founder & CTO). 

How did you come to work with Aubergine Solutions?

Prior to this engagement, we tried to build another product in 2019. We were as green as grass and didn’t know what we were doing. As a result, we found an agency and made a big mistake by not validating or vetting them in terms of their prior work. On top of that, we only talked to someone from their sales team. 

Given that, we did our due diligence for the Tikler project. We interviewed 20–30 development agencies via Zoom calls and conferences. We checked their backgrounds, LinkedIn profiles, and employees. Our team also checked testimonials. In the end, Aubergine was the only firm that didn’t use a salesperson; we talked directly to the people who were going to do the actual work. We even spoke to Sarthak himself. That was the first reason we chose them.

Another reason was their level of service and expertise. Even before we signed a contract or paid a dollar, they demonstrated what they’d be able to do for us by giving us a demo of our initial idea. In other words, they checked our boxes across the board. On top of that, we negotiated with them and received a serviceable rate that met our budget. Overall, they were amazing in terms of getting our business, so we hired them. 

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $20,000–$30,000. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We communicated and vetted them in April 2020, and the partnership is ongoing. For further background, the first line of code was written in June 2020. The product was soft-launched in mid-February 2021, and its official launch was in June 2021.

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

Hard evidence of our success is the product itself; it’s live and running. Between its soft and official launches, we’ve demonstrated the product to other organizations and businesses. In the end, all full demonstrations have received rave reviews. Everyone has praised not only the way it solves their problems but also its sleekness and modern design — its simplicity is a game-changer. 

To top that off, we’ve been accepted by two startup accelerator programs. One of them has provided us with actual funding to help us scale, while the other also helps us scale. Overall, we wouldn’t have received such great feedback from potential customers if Aubergine hadn’t done a great job in designing the product and making sure it worked as intended. 

How did Aubergine Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

We’ve had a highly collaborative approach to the project. Our team has had scrum meetings with 3–4 individuals from their team four times a week. At the beginning of every week, we’ve had hour-long meetings where we discuss our objectives for the week. Aubergine has also given us daily updates on what they’re working on and the hurdles they’re facing. 

Moreover, they’re transparent on every aspect of the development process, including the hours, resources, and efforts that have been used. They’re also accountable, so we have a great idea of how long the project is taking. Overall, they’ve pretty much hit every milestone in the project.

In terms of tools, we use Slack for back and forth communication. When we need to do in-depth presentations and have more people on the call, we use Zoom. For impromptu meetings, we use Google Meet. We’ve also used Gmail. For the design and development process, we’ve used Figma and Jira.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Aubergine’s transparency is the best part of working with them. We’ve learned a lot, and they’ve educated us on every aspect of software development. Our team has never felt that they’re overcharging us or the product is taking too long. They’ve been truly transparent with us from top to bottom. 

Further, the quality of their services has been excellent. They look out for us from the beginning to the end; it doesn’t feel like they only build what we’ve asked them to build. The team helps us validate our idea. Every step of the way, they’ve course-corrected us. As a result, they feel like a part of our team instead of simply being a hired agency. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there aren’t any. On the contrary, our team has become better because of them; they should keep up the great work. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Come prepared because Aubergine knows what they’re doing. They only work with products and solutions that can come to fruition. Their team wants to invest in you, so they want to know if the product will work as designed and if it’s going to be successful. At the end of the day, it’s going to generate returns for them. To ensure that, they’ll scrutinize and validate your business model. In other words, if you want to work with Aubergine, know that you’ll get everything you pay for if you come prepared. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of Navarambh Software Pvt. Ltd., a software development company.

What challenge were you trying to address with Aubergine Solutions Pvt. Ltd.?

We were building a software application and needed professional help with the UI/UX design. We wanted a company that could understand our use cases and what the app was going to do. We needed them to be able to guide us in terms of how to execute our design. 

What was the scope of their involvement?

The focus was on how to make the app user-friendly and simple to use for our end users. They came up with wireframes and then converted them into high resolution mockups.

What is the team composition?

We worked with the founder. We were assigned a senior designer who had 1–2 people working for her. There were 4–5 people total.

How did you come to work with Aubergine Solutions Pvt. Ltd.?

I reached out to 3–4 companies on a freelancer site. I chose them because they asked good questions before giving us a quote. They had some meetings beforehand and then provided us with a quote and it was reasonable. Other companies just assumed what we were looking for.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent 500,000 Indian Rupees (approximately $7,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in January 2020, and we wrapped up in July 2020.

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

My team and I are really happy with the output. Once we had the UI/UX ready, it was much easier for us to move forward with the development. We could still ask them questions if there were things we hadn’t thought about.

How did Aubergine Solutions Pvt. Ltd. perform from a project management standpoint?

We were always kept in the loop. They were responsive and open to ideas. They used a tool to send us wireframes and mockups. They would send us weekly updates. We had weekly calls with them. We didn’t have any problems with the communication. They were really proactive in providing status updates.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re super detailed. They had the ability to dig into a concept, understand it, and ask meaningful questions. Overall, they had a good understanding of the application we were asking them to design.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We were hoping that we could convert the mockups into HTML5. They didn’t have that capability. That was something that I assumed. If they could add that, that would help us get into the mix a little faster.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I definitely recommend working with them.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO for Enclave Networks. We’re a Zero Trust Network Access startup.

What challenge were you trying to address with Aubergine Solutions Pvt. Ltd.?

We wanted a partner who could own the design and put the needs of users first.

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Aubergine Solutions collaborates with us to provide UX design, wireframing and visual design for our product, which in turn provides detailed instruction for our frontend team. When we started the engagement, we already had the bones for a web-based portal that provides customers with a single pane of glass to control the product. Aubergine Solutions has helped us redevelop and modernize this portal, emphasizing user experience as a primary concern during the design process. 

Working with Aubergine Solutions has raised the quality of our product. They provide detailed specifications to our front-end developers so they know exactly what to build.

What is the team composition? 

Broadly, they’ve assigned one senior member who supervises a direct report. The more junior resource undertakes the bulk of the work while receiving supervision from the senior and so is not only cost-effective, but our relationship and understanding is getting better the longer we work together.

How did you come to work with Aubergine Solutions Pvt. Ltd.?

Someone who was close to our business found Aubergine Solutions, so we did a trial piece of work with them. The results were high-quality, and the engagement was easy and simple enough for us to continue the relationship.

How much have you invested with them?

It’s just below £5,000 (approximately $7,000 USD) so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in October 2020 and plan to continue working with them for the foreseeable future.

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

Aubergine Solutions had no experience working in our domain before, but they’ve grasped our concepts quickly and have produced high-quality work that doesn’t require much correction.

They’re very knowledgeable and experienced, taking an active lead when working together. They really help to shape the product decisions we make. The team communicates well, makes suggestions based on their understanding of our operational constraints, and importantly pushes back against ideas that might not be effective and work well with our wider team to help bring our product to market.

How did Aubergine Solutions Pvt. Ltd. perform from a project management standpoint?

They communicate clearly and proactively encourage retrospective evaluations to ensure the relationship provides the best outcomes. Once we complete a piece of work, we look back and evaluate what went well, what didn’t and what opportunities we have to improve the way we work together.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I feel Aubergine is invested in the project and cares a lot about the quality of the finished product. The team is very capable of taking a short brief and ideating on it to ultimately give us exactly what we’re looking for — and they do so with a high degree of autonomy. They’re proactive, diligent, and passionate about producing high-quality work.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I don’t have any negative criticism for them. It’s a very professional engagement and I would not hesitate to recommend them to others.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I’d encourage anyone working with Aubergine Solutions to listen to what they have to say. A lot of tech companies can be quite opinionated, believing that their way is the right way. However, Aubergine Solutions have a lot of experience to contribute to the conversation.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m one of the two co-founders of Sath, and I’m currently the CTO. Sath is a cybersecurity consulting and products company and we have been in business for about 16 years. We do access management as well as cybersecurity projects and we are building our own SaaS solution which will be going live at the end of this year.

What challenge were you trying to address with Aubergine Solutions Pvt. Ltd.?

We have pretty good developers on staff, and they have been working on product development for this product for almost four years. We needed to do a refresh of a new user interface, and we were doing a rewrite of our frontend and optimizing our backend quite a bit. We needed a partner to build the user interface and user experience for our product.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We engaged with Aubergine Solutions to help us out with this project. We were engaging with their designers and their developers to build our UX/UI design. It is a web application and their designers would build the wireframe, interaction, flows, and then give us the visual design. After the visual design, they would go ahead and do the frontend development for it too.

The frontend development is all Angular. I know that they used Swift, Photoshop, and other Adobe products as well. 

What is the team composition?

We worked with three designers initially, but right now there are two. 

How did you come to work with Aubergine Solutions Pvt. Ltd.?

I found them through a reference. A friend of mine from college had already used them and that is how we got to know about them. I went to their offices and met with them and had a good feeling. Getting a good reference was a big part of it and then talking to the owners was something that gave me confidence.

How much have you invested in them?

We have spent about $150,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started in December 2019, and our work is ongoing.

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

They have been great in all aspects of the project. They have been responsive, the quality has been great, and the products and previews have had good feedback. Without them, it would be extremely difficult to achieve what we have achieved so far. They are a critical partner in making this happen.

How did Aubergine Solutions Pvt. Ltd. perform from a project management standpoint?

They are always on top of their communication. Our staff is happy, and the developers are happy. They are responsive, and they have met with us pretty much every time that we wanted. They have been amazing in project management.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I think the leadership is great. Working with their leadership helped to inspire confidence in me. They have been engaged and they have been responsive and amazing. What sets them apart is the quality of their work. They actually put in the time and energy behind making sure that the deliverables and quality of work set them apart.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not really. I have no complaints whatsoever. They have been a phenomenal partner for us and I can’t see us doing anything better than we already are. We are thankful for having them as our service provider.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

I would say listen to them. They have a pretty good hold on what they are doing. They have steered us in certain directions that have been beneficial even though they were not my intention in the beginning. 

Take the time to explain to them what you want because that is important. Don’t rush through the initial discovery phase. 

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the CTO of CherryCircle Software. CherryCircle Software creates software for the life sciences industry to improve the manufacturing of products to improve patients' lives.

For what projects/services did your company hire Aubergine Solutions Pvt. Ltd.?

Aubergine is our UI/UX provider for our flagship product, QbDVision.

What were your goals for this project?

We had received a lot of accolades from clients and prospects on our usability and we wanted to continue that tradition as we added new features.

How did you select this vendor?

We interviewed ~5-7 different candidates and companies. We created a number of metrics and scored the candidates based on those metrics.

Describe the project in detail.

After selecting Aubergine, we wanted to jump into designing screens, but they were great about first setting up the roles of different users, and analyzing the current design. They also spent more time than our previous designer ever did learning about our target market, including interviewing users and learning about their preferences and behaviors.

What was the team composition?

We engaged 1 UI/UX designer from Aubergine as well as their manager.

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

We've seen a many-fold increase in users, activity on the site, and sales since engaging Aubergine. Our product is fairly new to the market, so it's hard to tell if it's because people are just finding out about it or because of the latest functionality added. Either way, the work Aubergine has done has definitely contributed to our success.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Aubergine is outstanding at communicating with us. At first, it seemed a little heavy-handed, keeping notes on every meeting, etc. But I know understand why they communicate so much. It really helps when you're not sure why a decision was made later on or when you're not sure what the next steps should be.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

I'm most impressed by our designer's ability to create engaging UX that is nothing like what exists today in the life sciences industry. The key to their success, in my opinion, is that they understand our clients and what they're trying to accomplish much better than our previous UI/UX designer did.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I have absolutely no complaints. They create beautiful designs in a very efficient timeframe while working with limited knowledge. I'm very happy we found Aubergine.