TuringLabs

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the marketing director at AiSensum. We are an AI and big data analytics company. We provide an analytics platform that is an AI/machine learning system that creates additional revenue streams for businesses through data monetization partnerships. 

For what projects/services did your company hire TuringLabs?

We hired TuringLabs to create the UI/UX for our retail dashboard. 

What were your goals for this project?

We envisioned a system that could reflect large data sets in an intuitive dashboard.

How did you select this vendor?

Our original vendor had to leave our project halfway through for personal reasons, but we were not in the position to delay the release of our dashboard. I contacted several design companies trying to determine a new course of action. TuringLabs was the only firm to respond shortly after my initial message. I spoke with Ankit (Founder, TuringLabs), and he exhibited a solid understanding of our data. He steered us in the right direction from the very beginning. 

Describe the project in detail.

We were faced with a tight timeline, so Ankit provided tangible deliverables shortly after each of our meetings. We offered our feedback, and Ankit made the appropriate changes. The process repeated until we had a final product. 

What was the team composition?

We only communicated with Ankit. 

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

With Ankit’s assistance, we managed to meet our deadlines and put together a valuable product. Ankit’s rare insight to data analysis improved our dashboard’s presentation. He brought a fresh perspective to our project, and his ideas ended up becoming valuable additions to our product.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We had short but fruitful meetings. Ankit exhibited a strong understanding of our data and our goals, which allowed him to work quickly. 

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They were professional and transparent. Ankit never missed a deadline, and he gave quick responses to our queries. We never had to chase him to learn updates on his progress. He made his work available to us at all times. 

Are there any areas for improvement?

TuringLabs provides excellent work, but I wish they were more cost effective for startups. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder and president of PocketConfidant AI.

What challenge were you trying to address with TuringLabs?

We needed tech design and support in areas such as brand design for marketing collateral.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’ve mainly worked with them on software design, but also on branding and UX. They designed our architecture and a way in which our machine learning system could work with the programs we were building with our chatbots. There were no reference points as our system is something new. We’d built a technological infrastructure with our first product, but we needed to bring it to a higher level of design for more efficiency and reproducibility.

TuringLabs researched, made sense of it, asked the right questions, and brought suggestions for the best possible design for our infrastructure.

What is the team composition?

We were working with only one resource from their team who worked with us full-time.

How did you come to work with TuringLabs?

We were looking for a design resource, and we reviewed multiple vendors. We had a back-and-forth with TuringLabs and another provider. They showed a good ability to adapt and understand that we were working on something new. Their resource produced some initial work for us to assess, and we evaluated him in three areas— based on his past work, which was structured and high-quality; on his background in software design, which included the relevant expertise we wanted; and in terms of creativity and communication, which was as expected.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent $40,000–$45,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with TuringLabs in November 2017, and the work is on pause right now. We’re currently gathering new budgets and are still interacting in order to provide new guidelines and strategic directions.

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

Every time we show something to stakeholders, we receive positive feedback. In terms of how the design thinking was done in real life, they helped us move forward with good feedback, which we’ve built upon. They delivered on time for each of our two-week sprints.

How did TuringLabs perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed pretty well. We were in touch with our resource daily through a messaging platform, and the work was done mostly on time. He was proactive and efficient when investigating issues and reporting back with possible solutions. Most of the time, he gave us multiple possibilities to choose from.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They have a strong passion and love for design, and they’re a structured and professional team. We may turn down people with more experience in favor of ones with good structuring, behavior, and communication skills as it makes the work much more efficient.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’ve matched and surpassed our expectations. Given that this is creative work, I could go back and identify something we could’ve done differently, but nothing comes to mind.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

It’s important to give them feedback on the work and on how communication occurs. They can question how they’re working, and they have a personal development approach for their members. Working with them on the vision and mission is important.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a co-founder of sCoolMeal Food Ventures. We are a school lunch box service. We provide healthy, nutritious, and wholesome meals to children. Parents can order online, and we deliver to their children at school.

What challenge were you trying to address with TuringLabs?

We needed digital marketing as well as rebranding, but we didn’t have the bandwidth to do all of that internally.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They initially helped us with digital marketing. They set up our Twitter and Instagram channels, as well as Facebook, including trying out Facebook ads.

We also decided to do a rebranding, which they took care of in its entirety. The revamped the website and mobile application UI [user interface]/UX [user experience] and designed a new logo. Ankit [Art Director, TuringLabs] also helped us with the SEO for our website, as our ranking wasn’t very good at the time.

What is the team dynamic?

We worked with 2 people, and our main point of contact was Ankit. I’m not sure how many people were on the team that worked on our project.

How did you come to work with TuringLabs?

We attended the Stanford Ignite course that Stanford University offers in Bangalore every year, and Ankit was one of our batch mates. We received quotes from other agencies, but they didn’t have a focus on branding and UI/UX.

We felt that TuringLabs was best suited for the work we needed.

How much have you invested in them?

We have spent less than $10,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with them in October of last year, and the relationship is ongoing.

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

After they set up our SEO, we ranked much higher than before, and the number of hits and inquiries we received increased drastically. Our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram followers increased organically, and the way everything looked and presented was much better.

TuringLabs also designed our business cards, and we have received positive feedback. Whenever we hand them out to potential clients, they tell us how professional they look, and it’s obvious that we’re a kid-based business.

How did TuringLabs perform from a project management standpoint?

Ankit sets the deadlines, and they deliver everything on time. We’re very happy.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I really like the logo they designed for us. Ankit truly understood what we wanted, and it suits both parents and children. It brought out the soul of what we do.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Anyone looking for UX and branding services should definitely go with TuringLabs.

It’s important that they understand the essence of your company. Work with them to get across what you’re trying to achieve in a clear manner. From there, they can take over.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

The/Nudge is a non-profit organization based in India, working on poverty alleviation in a sustainable and scalable manner. We're still in startup mode. I head the marketing.

What challenge were you trying to address with TuringLabs?

We wanted to start a fundraising campaign called, "Run to the Moon," and get different people to contribute to our cause. The distance to the moon is 384,000 km [238,600 mi.], and our idea was to bring a city together to cover that whole length. We would need 13,000 people to run for one kilometer [0.62 mi.] per day, on average, to reach that distance in 30 days. We had to have a high-energy brand, rather than the empathetic ones typically seen for non-profits.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We created a brand and communication plan with them for the campaign. We started with basic branding, including logo design, font, colors, and so on. We went through 3 iterations and selected one of the logos they made. The communication plan was a smaller part of the project, since we mostly developed this part in-house.

What is the team dynamic?

We worked with Ankit [Founder, TuringLabs] and 2 other people from the team on the branding part. Communication was mostly handled by their principal.

How did you come to work with TuringLabs?

We are recognized in the non-profit sector because of all the news we’ve generated, and their team approached us about any projects they could help with.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with TuringLabs in February or March 2017. The project has been completed, and we plan to launch the campaign early in 2018, around mid-February. The initial communication took 1–2 weeks, and the branding part was completed in 2 weeks.

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

We haven’t launched the campaign yet, so there's no feedback from larger crowds, but we've gone through a number of 20–25-person focus groups and studies with marathon runners in Bangalore. The branding part has been tested, and we’ve received very good feedback so far. The target segment is quite happy with the representation of our brand.

How did TuringLabs perform from a project management standpoint?

The project was done within our timeline and budget. We were sometimes surprised by their fast feedback. They emphasized documentation and explained their choices clearly. We used email, phone, and Google Hangouts for discussing designs.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They aren’t excessively creative people; what they do is analytical, taking the customer into consideration first, which is something I haven’t seen with many design agencies. They went through the research part first and made the design at the end.

The most important thing was the delivery timeline. Every iteration took only 2 days on average. Besides speed of execution, process and research were also good.

They stood out in terms of being receptive to our requirements and understanding our point of view, as well as that of the final consumer. They were quick to make necessary changes and quite socially conscious.

Are there any areas they could improve?

This was a short project, so I couldn’t dig very deep into their abilities. The design, timelines, and responsiveness were good. They had an idea of who our end-consumer was and did the appropriate research.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Clients need to focus on the deliverables and see if those are the right output or give the appropriate comments. We’ve noticed that taking too much time to give a reply will lead to losing the thought process.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Nwook provides shared work and study spaces in India. We have meeting rooms, conferences rooms, and all kinds of spaces. I’m the CEO and founder.

What was the scope of their involvement?

The current live version is the first version of our website. Soon after we launched it, we realized we wanted to change some things and redesign it. We wanted to try to build something advanced and complex. TuringLabs has redone the entire UX [user experience] and they’re implementing the UI [user interface]. They are pretty much redoing it from scratch. They provided sketches, wireframes, and prototypes for us after we engaged them and took care of the design. We have our own frontend developers. 

Due to the nature of our remote team, we were very clear from the start of our relationship with TuringLabs that we would have a lot of changes.

What is the team dynamic? 

It’s been good working with them because they’re a small team. They are very accommodating. We’re smaller startup so it’s hard for us to follow a lot of processes, but they’ve tried to help us follow as many as we can.

How much have you invested with them?

It’s a very good amount for India.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working with them for 3–4 months and are still currently working with them. It was an 8-month project, but we are probably going to extend it because we’re running behind schedule.

The biggest issue we faced with other agencies was that they don’t want to accommodate our requests. We regularly have requests for changes and that’s one thing TuringLabs has been accommodating of.

What challenge were you trying to address with TuringLabs?

They are helping us with a redesign of our booking engine which is our progressive web app. People can book a seat by the hour at a cost of $0.50. We only had a very basic first version.

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

We were supposed to launch this month, but it’s been delayed to next month. I don’t have any metrics yet because of that. They did a great job and we’ve received good feedback on the overall design. I work very closely with them in terms of design. It came out the way we wanted it to and we are very happy.

How did TuringLabs perform from a project management standpoint?

We used InVision which is a collaboration tool to get constant feedback from the entire team. We could get feedback on the design in real-time. It’s much better than screen sharing because both sides can make edits to the design and leave comments right on the screen.

If they were going to be busy, they would let us know in advance. The communication has been straightforward. They haven't been available 24/7, but they’ve informed if they weren’t going to be available. I don’t have any complaints.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’ve been accommodating. One of the biggest problems in India is usually a lack of clear communication and people not accommodating change requests. Often, even bigger companies are not accommodating of change requests, but TuringLabs has been good with that.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They’re pretty swamped with work. They could grow their team which would help them and their clients. They’re a small team, but their work is good.

Do you have any advice for potential clients?

Be very clear about what you want as most customers don’t know what they want. We were clear from the start. Before getting the design work started, we spent more than a month discussing what we wanted and bringing them on the same page so they know what we want to build. They could pretty much think for us. There were times we didn't have to tell them what we wanted; they know what we want. My recommendation would be to spend time discussing before starting the work.

Documentation is another thing that helped them a lot. We had everything documented that we wanted. Everything was pretty well documented before we got them to start the work. We had also given them sketches of what we had in mind.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m the director of operations for a big data company. We monetize retail, telco, pharma, and finance data assets through a revenue share agreement.

For what projects/services did your company hire TuringLabs?

We hired TuringLabs to provide UI/UX support.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to have a complete design for the UI/UX for one of our platform.

How did you select this vendor?

We looked online and followed a reference to work with TuringLabs.

Describe the project in detail.

They created the UI/UX design for our retail dashboard according to our requirements.

What was the team composition?

Our main point of contact was Ankit (Founder, TuringLabs).

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

They completed the project as planned and produced an excellent UI/UX design.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Their team was easy to coordinate with. We could call Ankit whenever it was needed and the team communicated well.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Their level of knowledge and comprehension were valuable to us. They understood our needs.