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Iryna Baranova, UareUx co-founder

Iryna Baranova

I care about how things look. People say that about me as though it settles something. It doesn’t – it is where the work starts. Drawing was how I learned to pay attention, art school made the habit useful, and I still know when something is right before I can explain why. Then I keep going until I can.

Eight years of B2B website design and UX consulting, across three countries and mostly in medtech. Berlin for the last few of them – a city that values precision over noise, which suits me.

I judge everything by one thing: is it still alive two years later? Most products aren’t. Mine usually are.

See for yourself
Portrait of Iryna Baranova
About Me

Outside the work.

I grew up in Odesa, in a family where a creative path was an unlikely trajectory.

It was against the odds, but it felt inevitable – drawing was simply my way of paying attention. My mother is an English teacher, which explains both the language and the habit of noticing when something isn’t quite right with a sentence. I still think of it that way. The sketchbooks are full of things that will never be useful, and that’s entirely the point.

I studied graphic design and fine art, which meant spending a lot of time making things that were allowed to just be things – no brief, no user journey, no success metric. It was the most useful training I could have had for a career where everything has one.

I’ve spent the last few years establishing my base in Berlin. It’s a place that values precision and substance over noise, and I’ve adopted that as my default setting. Germany takes everything seriously, including fun. I find that oddly comforting.

The work and the life are not as separate as they probably should be. I notice composition everywhere – in rooms, in streets, in the way information is arranged on a screen. It makes me good at what I do and occasionally difficult to have dinner with.

The benchmark has not changed since art school: still being used, still making sense, still something people choose rather than tolerate. Most products aren’t. The ones I care most about usually are. I go back and check.

If you’re here because something isn’t working and you’re not sure what – that’s exactly the right reason to get in touch. Show me the product. Most of what needs saying is already visible in it.

If this sounds like the right way to work

Start with a call
On Socials

Find me elsewhere.

I’m findable. Two of the accounts below are painting and sketchbooks, and I would rather you looked at those.

Instagram LinkedIn X Behance Dribbble Medium YouTube Pinterest Hacker Noon Layers Peerlist Are.na
What I do

How I can help.

A product that feels considered retains better and converts better.

It is also easier to trust – the part nobody can put a number against, and therefore the first thing cut.

UX consulting

Audits, strategy, design direction, team feedback. The answer to what’s wrong – and occasionally, what to stop doing entirely.

See More about UX consulting
Iryna Baranova

“Precision is simply how I show respect for your business.”

Clients sometimes ask how long something will take. I give them a number. It’s usually accurate to within a day, which either impresses them or unsettles them slightly. Both reactions are fine.

Recent work
#Travel & Tourism

Tour Partner Group

Four European travel companies merged overnight – the website’s job was to make 300 B2B experts feel like one brand, starting with the photography.

Tour Partner Group project preview
#Real Estate #Technology

Referral Exchange

A mobile-first landing page for a realtor-matching service – the client brought wireframes; the work was making the page convert, starting with the phone number.

Referral Exchange project preview
#Clean Energy #FinTech

YGrene

Brand identity, a prequalification app, and a homeowner portal for a clean-energy financing company – the illustrations made it look simple; the flows made it be.

YGrene project preview

Still standing.

Design is easy to do adequately. Nobody was ever fired for adequate. These went further anyway.

Some of it, anyway

The companies we help thrive

Latest from the blog

The thinking behind the work.

Tanya and Iryna write rarely and on purpose – about UX design, B2B website design, and the gap between how things should work and how they actually do.

The rest of the thinking

UX design brief template your agency actually needs

UX design test: how to run one when nobody believes it

UX design tutorials teach Figma. Not the hard part

Every UX design job board shows the same 200 roles

Is UX design oversaturated – or just the same portfolio?
Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently asked. Actually answered.

Questions I get asked before anyone’s decided anything. Answered the same way I’d answer them in person.

When it looks right and I can explain why. The first part arrives early and is instinct. The second takes longer, and is the part anyone is actually paying for.

More than it should. Art school is years of having your work taken apart in front of everyone in the room, which turns out to be ideal preparation for a stakeholder review.

Yes, and it will be a date rather than a range. Clients sometimes ask how long something will take; I give them a number, and it is usually accurate to within a day. That either impresses them or unsettles them slightly. Both reactions are fine.

It is the normal starting position, and a better one than arriving with a diagnosis. Show me the product – it tends to say more than a brief does.

Because the products are usually better than the websites selling them, and that gap is the most fixable thing in the business. Consumer work is easier to show people. B2B is more satisfying to fix.

Next step

Talk to a UX design expert. Or two.

The first conversation costs nothing, and it usually changes what people think the problem is.

Start with a call

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