Revend Group challenge: strengthening the design team through partnership. A case study with IceBreaker.
Can we strengthen the team, streamline processes, and accelerate the time to market for client products in a short timeframe through collaboration? Today, the Revend Group team completed over half of IceBreaker company’s design projects. How we achieved this is detailed in the case study.
Partnership details and project scope
Client: IceBreaker (Estonia) is a web design agency specializing in WordPress development with more than 20 years of experience. In 2023 alone, the company has been awarded as TOP WEB DESIGN AGENCY and TOP WORDPRESS DEVELOPERS by Clutch.
Contractor: Revend Group (Ukraine) is a web design agency that specializes in strengthening and increasing the expertise of design teams in a short time (outstaffing). The company’s activities include the development of websites, mobile applications, and other products such as SaaS, control panels, CRM, eCommerce, and NFT.
What’s the challenge?
As a company that specializes in WordPress development, IceBreaker often comes across projects that require a higher level of complexity in UI/UX design. The client wanted to increase the speed of project implementation and improve the quality of the design team’s work, which required additional resources through outstaffing.
In addition, the client had a request to create a UX/UI design for a grocery and food delivery service from partner stores (UAE). For the effective implementation of the project, the support of experienced IT specialists was needed to strengthen the design team and accelerate the time to market of the product (the initial deadline for the project with an estimate of 300+ hours was about a month).
The client hired the Revend Group design team to solve the following tasks:
1) development of a website for a service for the delivery of products and food from partner stores (UAE);
2) strengthening the design team;
3) accelerating the time to market of the product.
Our strategies and approaches
- Gathering requirements
Before starting work, we held a series of online meetings to clarify the details of the project, team requirements, and various organizational issues. These were both meetings with the customer’s representative and project managers. This approach allowed us to create a strategic vision and understanding of the goals that the Revend Group team had to achieve. Having experience working with similar projects in the Ukrainian market, we had to take into account the peculiarities of ecommerce projects in the UAE market (features of ordering and delivery). - Formation of a design team and a quick start
Based on the requirements we had previously collected, we formed a design team. Thanks to Revend Group’s specialized team, the client did not have to spend weeks or months hiring the right specialists, as we took care of these responsibilities. In addition, the future team already knew how to quickly get involved in the workflow and adapt, requiring little time to coordinate as a team. - UX/UI design part
The project implementation process was organized in such a way that our managers immediately took over the entire range of project management from a design perspective. At the same time, a team of 5 designers worked on the project, each with their own pool of tasks. The project was organized in five interconnected milestones, each of which contained a specific set of tasks, which allowed us to systematically achieve our goals and ensure the high quality of the final product. The team began by forming and establishing cooperation between team members, including the development of a design system and integration with the client’s existing processes.
This stage of the project included the following implementations:
1) Introducing a status system — to make it easier to separate approved parts of a design, a status system was introduced. This system allowed developers to track the status of pages or flows by indicating the main statuses: ready for approval, already approved, approved, and ready to go.
2) Transferring the design system from Zeplin — the next step was to transfer the existing design system from Zeplin to Figma to facilitate expansion and scaling. Creating design systems in Figma is a standard step in our work on every project. However, for this particular project, we received a request to create a separate library file for the design system in Figma.
3) File integration — tight integration between different design files was set up to ensure seamless team collaboration.
4) Creating a sitemap and user story — preliminary segment analysis and competitor research allowed us to create a detailed site map, which was presented to the client.
5) Creating and approving key wireframes — given the scope of the project, the team started by developing detailed prototypes for the website, admin panel, and mobile versions, which allowed them to efficiently move to the design stage with a clear structure and components.
6) Home page design and approval — in order to optimize time, immediately after the first wireframes were approved, we started developing the design of the home page, which played a key role in the project. The Revend Group team presented up to 4 different options, from which 2 final ones were selected and presented to the client. However, during the approval process, the client chose a mixed version of both options.
7) Detailing and approving the design of the remaining pages in accordance with the defined milestones.
Feedback from IceBreaker
Their ability to handle complex design requirements allows us to take on more challenging projects. Revend Group has helped us improve the user experience and customer satisfaction. The team’s attention to detail and ability to work with complex design ideas allows them to translate the client’s vision into a functional design. The flexible collaboration model also allows the client to scale their services…
Partnership results
At the start of the cooperation, the client had high requirements for the level of design and short deadlines. Revend Group fulfilled the client’s requirements by quickly assembling a team of 5 specialists who worked on the project for about six months.
During this time, our team has effectively accelerated the project’s implementation time, while taking over the management of the design part. We not only accelerated the process but also took full responsibility for the quality of its implementation. We quickly integrated into the existing workflows of the IceBreaker team, ensuring a smooth and efficient course of joint work.
The project has now been successfully completed, and we have already planned further cooperation. Our goal is to make IceBreaker even more scalable, reliable, and functional.
