UI/UX Design & Development for AI & ML-Focused Startup

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the managing director of Airevo, a startup looking to use AI and machine learning (ML) to improve the commercial processes of airlines.

What challenge were you trying to address with Codepixel?

We don’t have the resources or skills within our team to design and develop an app. We’re using Codepixel to supplement our resources and UI/UX design skills.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Codepixel is developing the frontend of our first product. It contains our second, third, and fourth products, demonstrating our vision. Meanwhile, we’re doing the backend, APIs, and other tasks in-house.

We’ve worked collaboratively, starting with a low-resolution mock-up. They’ve created designs that we can review on Figma. Moreover, our team has conducted joint discussions over what works well and what doesn’t work. Their members have presented us with options, and we’ve selected what we like.

What is the team composition?

We’ve worked with 5–6 people from their team. Our members have worked with their CTO to ensure the frameworks we’re using for the backend and APIs are correct. Meanwhile, their project manager ensures we’re on track in terms of time, budget, and deliverables. Their lead designer helps us visualize what works for customers on the frontend. Moreover, multiple developers have taken our designs and used them in UI development.

How did you come to work with Codepixel?

First, we looked at the price points in countries where resources had good English language skills. Our team knew we couldn’t afford the project using UK companies, so we benchmarked the salaries of UI/UX designers and developers relative to UK-based companies. We looked in countries like Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, Latvia, Moldova, and Montenegro, where the price point was much lower.

For step two, we used Clutch and a couple of other things to search for companies in those countries. Our members needed UI/UX companies with good reviews that weren’t too big or small. This step helped us narrow our choices down to two companies in Montenegro.

Finally, we talked with the teams and asked for proposals while discussing their approach, methodologies, and plans for the specifications we’d given them. In this step, Codepixel impressed us the most. They were technically savvy, responded to our questions quickly, and brought a small team together to talk to us. We believed their responses more and trusted that they could deliver.

How much have you invested with them?

So far, we’ve invested around $27,000. We’ll have spent around $45,000 by the time we finish.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our collaboration started in February 2022, and it’s ongoing. We completed the first phase of the development in May 2022 and started the second phase in July 2022.

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

Codepixel has good design skills and can turn concepts into something nice that end users will enjoy. We have two-week sprints and balance the number of tasks within each sprint based on the man-day budget — we’re mixing the agile and waterfall approaches.

We use these as our success metric; we estimate 10 tasks with two developers in a two-week sprint and judge the time it takes to complete those tasks. Moreover, our team records which tasks require any rework.

Overall, Codepixel’s work has been truly good. By and large, the level of contingency we have to set aside is below 20%. They produce high-quality work on our budget, so everything is great. In other words, we judge them in terms of cost, time, and quality, and they’re great across all three.

How did Codepixel perform from a project management standpoint?

Codepixel’s project management is quite good. We use GitLab to manage tasks within sprints. Apart from that, we’re also using a product that lets us provide high-level specifications. Meanwhile, their resources use Figma to convert high-level designs into prototype designs for developers. We mainly communicate through GitLab, but we use Slack if necessary.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They care about the project and deliver impressive results. While they’re hard to negotiate with as they stick to their pricing, they’ve shown flexibility regarding start dates. On top of that, they keep a lead designer and a lead developer consistently throughout the project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We’ve had to make changes between the first and second phases. Our teams hit a couple of bumps in the first phase. We were slightly more removed from the design and development team. This was good when they understood everything well, but it took quite a while to resolve problems when they didn’t understand some things. It wasn’t because they lacked skills but because the project manager was in the middle, and we didn’t have direct conversations with the designers and developers.

We've requested to do things slightly differently when we started the second phase. As a result, we’ve been given direct access to their chief designer and lead developer. We aren’t losing anything in translation; this method works well for us, and the results come quicker and better.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have good and well-written concepts. Codepixel will take those ideas and make them better. If you simply start a conversation or with a black sheet of paper, you won’t get the best out of Codepixel.