Versions

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Product Owner of Ecto

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Data collection and analytics software.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Versions to accomplish?

• Mobile and web UX/UI interface improvement
• Rebranding (logo, website, marketing materials)
• Establishment of the design development processes

SOLUTION

How did you find Versions?

Online Search

Why did you select Versions over others?

• High ratings
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from Versions were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

"Versions played a key role in enhancing our digital and brand image. They redesigned our user interface and user experience for both web and mobile platforms, gave a modern touch to our brand identity, and updated our marketing materials. Their proficiency not only refined our visuals but also improved our design workflow, which had a significant impact on our efficiency and market positioning." Their work included: 

• Establishing a clear design system. 
• Crafting a new logo.
• Refreshing our corporate website and marketing collateral. 
• Enhancing our mobile and web user experience. 
• Streamlining our design development processes.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Versions delivered notable improvements in several key areas: 

• Enhancements to our platforms have made navigation more intuitive and user-friendly, and our team and users have noted the improvements. The update to our brand identity and marketing materials has set a strong foundation for us to communicate our values and professionalism more effectively. While it’s early days, the groundwork provides a solid base for elevating our market presence.
• Implementing a new design system and optimized processes has significantly boosted our team’s efficiency, reducing the time needed for design and development tasks.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Versions provided excellent project management services, which allowed them to deliver the project efficiently and on time. They kept us informed with regular updates and shared new deliverables proactively. They listened to our feedback and balanced their expertise with our specific needs. This cooperative approach resulted in a project that was customized to our goals, without compromising speed or quality.

What was your primary form of communication with Versions?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

Versions impresses with their fast and organized approach, coupled with a sleek and user-focused design. This unique combination makes them stand out.

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

Versions excelled in their design and execution. One area for growth is deepening their understanding of the entire product landscape of their clients. This broader perspective could further enhance the impact of their already outstanding designs.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a product director at Space307, an IT company working with B2B and B2C clients. AKMA (akma.com) that Versions worked on is our flagman product. One of our clients is Olymp Trade.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Versions?

We needed a person or a team that would partially redesign the product and give UX support on different product tasks.

SOLUTION

How did you select Versions?

We needed extra help, and we were open to trying a new outsourced work format. So we found Alexey through my сollegue's recommendation (he used to work with Alexey on some other project).

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

One of the website sections (where one could buy stocks and monitor the market) was made time ago and required updating. So we needed to bring it to a common style with other website sections and rethink UX so that everything would work quickly and smoothly. Also, we had some work on a mobile app (dashboard and some Instagram stories-like activities design).

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

We worked with Alexey and his designer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We've checked the work by testing it, and user tests gave good results. So we adopted it, and even though we had to release it without some of the offered advanced features - our users liked it.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We added Alexey's team to our Slack, and our communication mainly was there (with regular video calls). Most of the decisions were well-informed, as we discussed them with our design team in our inner chat.

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

Alexey gave several examples of works for every solution that he suggested. So we could see how things would work and look. All the offered things were based on the best UX practices.

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

No, we were happy with everything. Versions teams showed curiosity and initiative to find new ways of thinking to improve the project performance.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the CEO of a health insurance marketplace. Our company aggregates offers from leading Russian and international insurance companies and clinics so that clients can quickly and conveniently find the best health insurance plan.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Versions?

We are working with a rather complex product from the point of view of clients. We needed to do a complete redesign of the site so that customers could understand what is included and not included in their insurance plan, as well as the differences between offers from different providers.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted clients to be able to independently figure out which insurance plan would be right for them on the website (to reduce the workload on consultants), as well as increase traffic and time spent on the website.

SOLUTION

How did you select Versions?

We were looking for a designer by recommendation, and also looked at all the famous design studios that we knew about at that time. We decided to work with Versions, as they grasped the essence and mission of our project (transparent and detailed insurance conditions) and were on the same wavelength with us. This influenced our choice.

Describe the project in detail.

We worked in sprints and received regular feedback from our clients. Sometimes we had to change everything on the fly (when we received some new insight as to what customers want to see on the site). The Versions were always on time and flexibly changed the design in accordance with our request.

What was the team composition?

3 people worked on the project - designer, product manager and analyst.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The time spent on the site increased from 2 to 4.5 minutes, the bounce rate decreased from 60% to 41%, customers began to independently find answers to important questions for them without asking for help from consultants.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We called each other every day to discuss important issues. The team was always in touch and offered effective solutions.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Maximum involvement in our project. Versions have always offered their own vision of how to make the design simple, clear and convenient for the client.

Are there any areas for improvement?

We were completely satisfied with our cooperation.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of Wicked Reports, we’re the leading provider of marketing attribution for small businesses.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Versions?

We wanted to improve the UX of our app.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They worked with us to improve the UX of our app. We had a lot of data and people were having trouble with it, so they provided support to make it easier to use. 

What is the team composition?

One person from their team worked with us. 

How did you come to work with Versions?

I found them through a personal network and followed a referral. I liked that their approach was very logical and down to earth. They were very matter-of-fact, not just focused on sales.

How much have you invested with them?

The project was between $10,000–$25,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project ran from January 2019–January 2021. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

There were interim steps along the way for pieces of the project to be delivered, and we’re up 100% from where we were before we started working together. That’s not all due to their work, but they certainly helped us. 

How did Versions perform from a project management standpoint?

We spoke on a weekly basis. We used Slack and Zoom. We also used a UX tool for managing the work. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were great at communicating.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about what you want. Follow a prioritization process before you give requirements. Clearly flesh out what you want and make sure you tell them exactly what you need them to do. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We develop a free and open-access platform for online education and scientific communications, enabla.com, and I am the project's co-founder. We started the development two years ago, but a year ago restarted it from scratch because the previously hired company failed the task. Now our team is about fifteen people large.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Versions?

We hired Versions to create all of our interfaces from scratch, including the desktop version of the website, its tablet and mobile versions, and branding.

What were your goals for this project?

We wanted to check our hypotheses by creating an MVP version of the platform, then find investments, make adjustments, and continue the development.

SOLUTION

How did you select Versions?

It was our second attempt to hire someone good enough to implement our idea; the company hired before failed after almost a year of work. I searched through the internet ratings of design studios and also used my personal connections.

After the initial estimates, I interviewed seven different companies and freelancers.

Versions were recommended to me by another member of our team who had worked with them. It was a tough choice considering their high price and our low budget, but they just stood out from all other candidates, and we started the work almost the next day after the interview.

Describe the project in detail.

Our project's heart is a publication page with a video lecture section, a lecture notes section, an inline discussions interface, a community corrections interface, and in-publication navigation. Since this is the most difficult part of the project, which was failed by the company hired previously, we started from this point.

After a series of intensive discussions and ten days of work, we received the first concept from Versions, and already two weeks after that, the concept was finalized and sent to the development team.

This was an insane success, which helped us boost the development in the most suitable moment. After that, we continued on other parts of the platform, such as the search page, publication submission page, user account, course page, and landing page.

My role was to coordinate different team parts, write task specifications, and control their progress. We discussed every valuable detail of the prototypes with Versions throughout the time we worked together, and their contribution to the platform's final look is undeniable.

What was the team composition?

Initially, I worked personally with Alex; he was responsible for the concepts and branding. After these parts of the work had been finished, three more designers were attracted to finalize and polish the work, with Alex watching and coordinating their actions.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

With the help of Versions, we managed to make our first internal release less than two months after the development started, which is even more impressive considering that the company we worked with before that hadn't managed to release anything valuable in the whole year.

Already in half of the year after the project's beginning, we went public and started to attract users, and in yet another three months we had found our first investments.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

In the most intense work period, we had daily team meetings via Zoom, while almost all routine questions had been being solved in Slack. I cannot say anything about the workflow between our teams because they literally were a part of our team.

Versions prototyped interfaces in Figma, everyone from the development team had permanent access to the prototypes throughout all the working process. Everyone could ask any questions to Versions in Slack and, if the question couldn't have been resolved in a few minutes, we left it for the daily meeting.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

It wasn't just a formal collaboration; they really did care about the project's future. Alex and others from Versions had never been just wage-earners ready to do anything we asked; they questioned the value of any of our ideas and carefully improved it or even rejected it if needed.

They strengthened our strengths and leveled our weaknesses, knowing what we needed instead of just doing what we said.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I don't see anything that should have been done differently from the Versions side.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

We are a small boutique consultancy based in Moscow. Our clients are small and medium size businesses which either have no prior experience with buying consulting services or don't want to spend fortunes on such projects. We help companies to devise their marketing strategy, value proposition, brand positioning, and go-to-market routes. I am a co-founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Versions?

We have started operations recently and quickly reached that point when it became clear that we need to have our own website which will help to establish our online presence. We checked out a few website building services (Squarespace, Tilda, Wix) and realised that we would need professional help from someone who can make our website look unique and professional.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was to develop a simple and light one-page website with an intention to use it as a business card rather than a selling landing page. Still we wanted it to look presentable and to communicate our value proposition, our credentials, and our services.

We didn't want to make it content heavy - the goal was to develop a minimalistic and stylish look-and-feel which would help to position us accordingly. We still wanted the website to be developed on one of the mainstream website builder platforms so that we could administer and update it on our own. However, we wanted it to be designed from scratch without employing any standard blocks available from website builder services.

SOLUTION

How did you select Versions?

One of our clients recommended Versions based on their experience of working with them on UX projects. We checked the Versions' portfolio and had a quick chat with their leader and quickly understood that their approach would work for us.

Already during the first meeting they helped us to shape our expectations into a detailed brief and showed us potential scenarios for the project execution. We also liked that we would be given options to choose from at every stage.

Describe the project in detail.

As we already had a draft version of our website built on one of the website building platforms with some content and structure, Versions advised us to record a short screencast with our comments on everything we had by that time. That helped us to reflect on our value proposition and our expectations and served as an efficient starting point for the project.

We got five mock-ups of the first screens in a few days - they were all different in regard to design (colour palette, fonts, structure). We chose the ones we liked and the guys fine-tuned them further. There were a few iterations at this stage.

All communication was straightforward - we used the Telegram messenger for convenience. When the design concept was ready the full prototype was created on Figma. Again we were given a few options for how the website might be structured. And there were a few iterations at this stage as well.

And the final step - the website was built on Readymag in two versions - desktop and mobile.

What was the team composition?

There were two people working on our project - a project leader and a web-designer.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The first is work speed. We completed the entire project in a month. Customer feedback follows. We have received a lot of positive feedback regarding our site from current customers.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

It was very effective due to the iterative way. They start quick and lead the process steadily towards tangible results. Instead of bombarding us with unnecessary communication and wasting our time in daylong sticky notes meetings they give us food for thought with every new iteration.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Versions understand business and the context of business within design. We didn't want design for design's sake, we needed a working tool. They bring added value to the table by being not just contractors but business partners, get an optimal decision and evolve along the way.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, I don’t think there’s much room for improvement.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a CTO of B-152 company based in Moscow. The company provides services that help business to be complied with local legal regulations in privacy data field.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Versions?

We asked Version to completely redesign our existed web-site

What were your goals for this project?

To create new modern design, remove UX obstacles that we had discovered

SOLUTION

How did you select Versions?

Versions was recommended us by our friends who had already work with Versions before

Describe the project in detail.

New UX, design, graphics etc

What was the team composition?

product and project managers, developers and QA

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We are fully satisfied with the results; the quality and getting the deliverables on time and on budget.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

there was an active communication between Versions and dev team

What did you find most impressive about this company?

all above

Are there any areas for improvement?

all is good

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm CPO and responsible person for product, design and development. Our company provide social network for gamers.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Versions?

Our solution started from scratch as a startup.

What were your goals for this project?

We need UX/UI for our mobile app. Complex solution with design system and UI components.

SOLUTION

How did you select Versions?

Versions re-design previous mockups and created user friendly design for a modern social network.

Describe the project in detail.

We had several meetings and design reviews. Company provides us several mockups, then we've chosen the best ones. Plus, company worked on new features before the development start. Every design mockup was described based on common UX patterns and research of other competitors.

What was the team composition?

I've spoken directly to Alex as design lead of the company. Firstly, there was a product and technical requirements for features.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The result is the released mobile app based on the Versions design mockups.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Company design lead easily communicated with us and created all mockups in a few days after our request.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

The team finished the design very fast and qualitatively! It was the right way for us that we've tried to found with other companies before.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Just continue to create cool and user oriented design!