When searching for Top Flatirons Solutions Alternatives, it’s important to first clarify which company you’re evaluating. There are two distinct companies with similar names: Flatirons Solutions (an aerospace technical content management platform) and Flatirons Development (a web development and product design company based in Boulder, Colorado). This article focuses on alternatives to Flatirons Development’s creative agency services—specifically their design, branding, UI/UX design, user research, and web development offerings.
Flatirons Development provides services including product strategy, UX/UI design, project management, full-stack development, user testing, and quality assurance. The company is noted for delivering good value for cost, with project investments ranging from $50,000 to over $200,000. While Flatirons Development offers solid web development and design capabilities, many marketing leaders, UX directors, founders, and digital transformation executives are exploring alternatives that provide broader creative agency services, predictable pricing models, faster turnaround times, and integrated conversion optimization and AI capabilities.
This comprehensive guide explores the Top Flatirons Solutions Alternatives for organizations seeking creative agency partners who can deliver branding, graphic design, UI/UX design, web development, conversion rate optimization, user research, and AI implementation services. Whether you’re a Chief Marketing Officer seeking brand differentiation, a UX Director pursuing conversion breakthroughs, a startup founder establishing brand identity, or a growth marketing director scaling through experimentation, understanding your options is critical to making the right partnership decision.
Understanding What You’re Actually Looking for in Top Flatirons Solutions Alternatives
Before diving into specific alternatives, it’s essential to understand what creative agency services you need. Flatirons Development specializes in partnering with early-stage software companies and providing them with innovative web development and full-service design through product strategy, UX and UI design, user research and testing, full-stack development, project management, and more. However, the company primarily focuses on software development rather than comprehensive creative agency services like branding, motion graphics, video production, conversion optimization, or AI implementation.
For marketing executives and UX leaders, the gap becomes apparent when you need:
- Comprehensive branding services beyond basic logo design—including brand strategy, visual identity systems, and brand guidelines
- Motion graphics and video production to simplify complex product features and create engaging marketing materials
- Conversion rate optimization (CRO) with dedicated specialists who can run A/B tests, analyze funnels, and implement data-driven improvements
- Advanced UX research capabilities including qualitative and quantitative methodologies to validate product decisions
- AI implementation and automation to personalize user experiences and streamline operations
- Predictable, subscription-based pricing that eliminates project scoping uncertainty and budget overruns
- Rapid turnaround times (1-3 days) to support agile development cycles and growth experimentation
These are the core considerations when evaluating Top Flatirons Solutions Alternatives for your creative, optimization, and digital transformation needs.
Key Criteria for Evaluating Top Flatirons Solutions Alternatives
When assessing creative agency alternatives, decision-makers should evaluate partners across several critical dimensions:
Service Breadth and Integration
The most effective agency partners offer integrated services that work together seamlessly. Integrating CRO and UX creates a seamless customer journey, improving user satisfaction while driving measurable conversion improvements, and combining conversion rate optimization and user experience strategies can help to create a website that drives conversions and provides value to users. Look for agencies that can handle design, development, optimization, and implementation within a unified workflow rather than requiring you to coordinate multiple vendors.
Pricing Structure and Predictability
Some clients experienced challenges with budget and timeline estimations, indicating potential areas for improvement in project scoping and initial planning phases with traditional agency models. For organizations running continuous experiments or requiring ongoing design support, subscription-based models offer significant advantages over project-based pricing, eliminating estimation uncertainty and providing predictable monthly costs.
Team Experience and Specialization
Flatirons Development’s average employee has 10 years of professional experience in their field, which represents solid mid-level expertise. However, organizations with complex conversion challenges, sophisticated AI requirements, or enterprise-scale needs may require access to top-tier specialists (top 0.5-1% of talent) with deeper domain expertise in CRO, UX research methodologies, or AI engineering.
Delivery Speed and Agility
For growth marketing directors running 20+ experiments monthly or product managers working in fast-paced agile environments, delivery speed is paramount. Traditional agencies often require weeks for creative assets, while modern alternatives can deliver in 1-3 working days, enabling rapid iteration and testing velocity.
Scalability and Flexibility
Your agency partner should scale with your needs—from a single designer for ongoing brand work to a full team for a website redesign, then back down when the project completes. Look for flexible engagement models that allow you to adjust resources without long-term commitments or complex contract negotiations.
Passionate Agency – Passionates: A Comprehensive Alternative
Among the Top Flatirons Solutions Alternatives, Passionate Agency – Passionates stands out as a comprehensive subscription-based creative, optimization, and AI agency founded in 2019. Operating from London and New York, Passionates serves high-growth startups, mid-sized companies, and enterprises with a fundamentally different approach to creative services.
Subscription Model with Progressive Tiers
Unlike traditional project-based agencies, Passionates offers three progressive subscription tiers that provide unlimited requests with dedicated full-time or part-time senior resources:
Grow Tier ($8,000/month full-time; $5,000/month part-time): Access to senior designers, motion graphics artists, and web developers delivering graphic design, branding, website design, UI/UX design, motion graphics, video production, 3D/AR/WebXR, and WordPress, Webflow, and Shopify development.
Optimize Tier ($10,000/month full-time; $6,000/month part-time): Includes all Grow services plus senior UX researchers and CRO analysts delivering qualitative and quantitative UX research, CRO hypothesis generation, A/B and multivariate testing, advanced analytics and reporting, funnel optimization, and experimentation strategy.
Innovate Tier ($12,500/month full-time; $7,250/month part-time): Includes all Optimize services plus AI analysts and engineers delivering custom AI agent implementation, user journey automation, AI-powered chatbots, dynamic content personalization, customer data-flow automation, and custom LLM fine-tuning.
This tiered approach directly addresses the pain points of CMOs seeking brand differentiation with cohesive design efforts, UX directors needing conversion breakthroughs through data-driven optimization, and digital transformation directors requiring AI solutions with measurable ROI.
Senior Talent and Rapid Delivery
Passionates employs only senior professionals with at least five years of experience, representing the top 0.5% of talent. This ensures enterprise-grade quality across all deliverables. The agency delivers completed requests in 1-3 working days, enabling growth marketing directors to maintain aggressive testing schedules and product managers to validate features rapidly without research timelines conflicting with release schedules.
360° Skill Coverage and Scalability
Each subscription resource can alternate between specialists within its service area, progressing one task at a time. For example, a Grow-tier resource might deliver graphic design in the morning, switch to motion graphics in the afternoon, and work on web development the next day. This flexibility addresses the friction startup founders face when needing consistent branding across multiple touchpoints without hiring separate specialists.
For higher volume or tighter deadlines, clients can stack multiple packages—acquiring five or more full-time resources—to scale instantly. This scalability is critical for e-commerce managers implementing optimization improvements across thousands of products or growth directors executing multi-channel campaigns.
Proprietary CRO Platform and Technology Integration
Passionates developed Crolytics.ai, a proprietary AI-powered CRO platform, eliminating dependency on third-party tools. You can improve your site or app’s conversion-rate optimization greatly by using specialized tools, applying best practices, and doing a lot of A/B testing. The agency also integrates seamlessly with extensive technology ecosystems including WordPress, Shopify, Webflow, HubSpot, Salesforce, Google Analytics, Optimizely, and major marketing automation platforms.
Transparent Pricing with No Hidden Costs
Both monthly and annual plans (10% discount on annual) offer identical service levels with no hidden fees and no cancellation penalties. This predictability contrasts sharply with traditional agency models where scope creep and change orders frequently inflate costs. For startup founders concerned about comprehensive rebranding costs, this model provides budget certainty while delivering enterprise-quality work.
How Top Flatirons Solutions Alternatives Address Specific Persona Challenges
For Chief Marketing Officers and Marketing Directors
CMOs struggling to differentiate their brand in crowded markets and frustrated with lack of cohesion between marketing and design efforts need partners who understand strategic brand development. While Flatirons Development offers competent design work, comprehensive brand transformation requires deeper branding expertise, strategic positioning capabilities, and the ability to create cohesive visual systems across all touchpoints.
Alternative agencies offering dedicated brand strategists, comprehensive visual identity development, and ongoing brand management ensure that every design decision reinforces brand essence. Subscription models are particularly valuable for CMOs who need continuous creative support for campaigns, content, and collateral rather than one-off projects.
For UX Directors and Heads of User Experience
Conversion Rate Optimization UX is an interdisciplinary field that focuses on how conversion rate optimization and user experience design work together to drive conversion rates and increase your business’s ROI, and even though CRO and UX design are fundamentally different disciplines, they share a common goal: help users get things done with the least amount of effort possible.
UX directors dissatisfied with current conversion rates need partners who blend creativity with rigorous data analysis. UX is about overall user experience and CRO is about specific conversion rates by analyzing user behaviors and optimizing key conversion points. Agencies specializing in CRO bring methodologies for hypothesis generation, experiment design, statistical analysis, and iterative optimization that pure design agencies lack.
The most effective alternatives provide dedicated CRO specialists who can dive deep into analytics, conduct qualitative research to understand user motivations, design and execute A/B tests, and translate findings into actionable design improvements. This integrated approach delivers the conversion breakthroughs UX directors seek.
For Startup Founders
Founders of fast-growing B2B SaaS startups need to establish strong, memorable brand identities and create engaging marketing materials without breaking the bank. Project investments ranging from $50,000 to over $200,000 can be prohibitive for startups with limited runway.
Subscription-based alternatives offering comprehensive branding, design, and video capabilities for fixed monthly fees (often $5,000-$12,500 depending on tier and time commitment) provide predictable costs and the flexibility to pause or cancel without penalties. This model allows founders to access enterprise-quality creative work during critical launch and growth phases, then scale down when priorities shift, without the learning curve challenges of onboarding new team members.
For Digital Transformation Directors
Digital transformation leaders tasked with modernizing customer interactions and implementing AI solutions face a critical challenge: most agencies offer either creative services or technology implementation, but rarely both with equal sophistication. This fragmentation forces organizations to coordinate between design agencies, development shops, and AI consultancies—creating integration challenges and slowing time-to-value.
The most valuable alternatives combine AI engineering capabilities with design and UX expertise, ensuring that AI-powered features deliver intuitive user experiences while achieving business objectives. These agencies understand both the technical requirements of AI implementation and the design principles that make intelligent experiences feel natural rather than gimmicky.
For E-commerce Managers
E-commerce managers frustrated with low conversion rates and high cart abandonment need partners who understand e-commerce-specific conversion factors. Generic design agencies often lack the specialized knowledge of product page optimization, checkout flow psychology, mobile commerce best practices, and platform-specific constraints (Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento).
The best alternatives bring deep e-commerce experience, conducting comprehensive conversion audits, implementing personalization strategies, optimizing product discovery, and continuously testing improvements. They understand that every optimization needs to be backed by data and designed to unlock hidden revenue streams without disrupting current sales.
For Product Managers
Product managers struggling to balance feature development priorities with delivering intuitive user experiences need partners who can provide UX research expertise and experimentation strategies that inform product roadmap decisions. Traditional agencies often operate on timelines incompatible with agile product development cycles.
Ideal alternatives offer flexible engagement models where UX research can be conducted rapidly (days rather than weeks), insights are delivered in formats that facilitate cross-functional alignment, and validation studies can be scheduled around release cycles. This agility ensures that product decisions are guided by real user data rather than stakeholder opinions.
For Growth Marketing Directors
Growth marketing directors running 20+ experiments monthly across channels cannot afford to wait weeks for creative assets. CRO is a fine-tuning technique for making careful, thoughtful web design changes aimed at increasing conversions, rather than a heavy-handed approach like a full-site redesign or broad design system change, CRO seeks to make precise, measurable tweaks that deliver results.
The most effective alternatives for growth teams offer 1-3 day turnaround on landing page variations, ad creatives, and funnel optimizations. They understand growth metrics (CAC, LTV, conversion rates by channel), maintain brand consistency across rapid experimentation, and integrate seamlessly with martech stacks. These agencies recognize that a 2% lift in conversion rate is worth more than the prettiest design that doesn’t convert.
Comparing Service Capabilities Across Top Flatirons Solutions Alternatives
Branding and Visual Identity
While Flatirons Development offers basic branding capabilities, comprehensive brand development requires strategic positioning, competitive analysis, audience research, visual identity systems, brand guidelines, and ongoing brand management. Alternative agencies specializing in branding bring this strategic depth, ensuring that visual elements communicate unique value propositions effectively.
UI/UX Design and Web Development
Flatirons is a top UI/UX design company and agency offering services such as UX design, UI design, web design, mobile app design, branding, and design systems. The company’s process includes user research, wireframing, prototyping, visual design, usability testing, and iterative refinement to ensure your digital product meets user expectations and business goals.
This represents solid capabilities, though organizations requiring more specialized expertise in specific platforms (Shopify Plus optimization, Webflow development, headless CMS architectures) or advanced interaction design may benefit from alternatives with deeper specialization. The key differentiator is whether the agency treats design as an isolated deliverable or integrates it with conversion optimization and user research.
Motion Graphics and Video Production
Flatirons Development does not prominently feature motion graphics or video production services in their offerings. For organizations needing to simplify complex product features through explainer videos, create engaging social media content, or produce brand videos, this represents a significant gap.
Alternative agencies offering comprehensive motion graphics and video production capabilities enable organizations to maintain visual consistency across all marketing channels without coordinating multiple vendors. This is particularly valuable for B2B SaaS companies explaining technical products or e-commerce brands creating product showcase videos.
Conversion Rate Optimization and UX Research
Flatirons offers expert user research services to help your business understand user needs and optimize design decisions, and the company utilizes a variety of methods including interviews, surveys, usability testing, field studies, and analytics analysis to gather comprehensive insights into user behavior and needs.
However, user research alone doesn’t constitute comprehensive CRO. CRO is a process of testing and optimizing website elements like CTA placement, landing page design, and messaging to drive higher conversion rates. True CRO requires dedicated specialists who can formulate hypotheses, design experiments, implement tests, analyze statistical significance, and iterate based on findings.
The most effective alternatives combine UX research with dedicated CRO capabilities, ensuring that insights translate into measurable conversion improvements. Both CRO and UX require ongoing analysis and optimization to help you adjust to the changing user needs and maintain high conversion rates, starting by formulating hypotheses based on the data you collected and pain points you identified.
AI Implementation and Automation
Flatirons Development has begun incorporating AI development services into their offerings, but this appears to be an emerging capability rather than a core competency. Organizations requiring sophisticated AI implementation—custom agent development, LLM fine-tuning, complex automation workflows, or personalization engines—need partners with proven AI engineering expertise.
Alternative agencies specializing in AI implementation bring data scientists, machine learning engineers, and AI product specialists who can translate business requirements into practical AI solutions. They understand prompt engineering, model selection, integration architectures, and the UX considerations that make AI features feel natural rather than forced.
Pricing Models: Project-Based vs. Subscription-Based
Traditional Project-Based Pricing
Flatirons Development is noted for delivering good value for cost, with project investments ranging from $50,000 to over $200,000. This project-based model works well for discrete initiatives with clearly defined scopes—a website redesign, a mobile app build, or a specific product development effort.
However, project-based pricing presents several challenges:
- Estimation uncertainty: Some clients experienced challenges with budget and timeline estimations, indicating potential areas for improvement in project scoping and initial planning phases
- Scope creep and change orders: Requirements evolve during projects, leading to additional costs and timeline extensions
- Coordination overhead: Each new project requires proposals, contracts, kick-off meetings, and onboarding
- Feast-or-famine resource allocation: You pay for a full team during active projects but have no support between projects
Subscription-Based Pricing
Subscription-based alternatives offer fundamentally different economics. For a fixed monthly fee, you receive dedicated resources with unlimited requests, paying only for the time commitment (full-time vs. part-time) and tier of services (design, optimization, or AI).
This model provides several advantages:
- Predictable costs: Fixed monthly fees with no hidden charges or scope creep
- Continuous support: Resources are always available for new requests, revisions, or ongoing optimization
- Flexibility: Pause or cancel without penalties; scale up by adding packages; scale down when needs decrease
- Faster onboarding: No proposals, contracts, or project kick-offs for each new initiative
- Better alignment: Agencies focused on long-term retention rather than maximizing project scope
For organizations requiring ongoing design support, continuous optimization, or regular content creation, subscription models often deliver 2-4x cost savings compared to project-based agencies while providing faster turnaround and greater flexibility.
Delivery Speed and Agile Compatibility
Traditional agencies typically operate on project timelines measured in weeks or months. The timeline for website creation varies depending on the complexity of the project, but typically ranges from a few weeks to several months. While this works for large-scale initiatives, it’s incompatible with agile development methodologies and growth marketing experimentation.
Modern alternatives offering 1-3 day turnaround on individual requests enable organizations to:
- Maintain rapid experimentation velocity: Launch new test variations daily or weekly rather than monthly
- Respond to market opportunities: Create campaign assets for trending topics or competitive moves within days
- Validate product concepts quickly: Test multiple design directions before committing to development
- Support agile sprints: Deliver design work within sprint cycles rather than as separate waterfall projects
This speed advantage is particularly critical for growth marketing directors, product managers in fast-moving markets, and e-commerce managers optimizing for seasonal peaks or promotional events.
Quality Control and Team Stability
The consistency and stability of Flatirons’ team are valued by clients, who appreciate working with familiar faces throughout the project, reducing onboarding times and maintaining project momentum. This team stability is indeed valuable, though it’s worth noting that project-based engagements inherently involve repeated onboarding as new projects begin.
When evaluating alternatives, consider:
- Team seniority: Are you working with junior designers supervised by seniors, mid-level generalists, or top-tier specialists?
- Quality assurance processes: What review and approval workflows ensure deliverable quality?
- Knowledge transfer: How does the agency ensure continuity as team members change?
- Dedicated project management: Do you have a single point of contact coordinating all work?
The best alternatives provide dedicated project managers who coordinate requests across specialists, ensuring consistent quality while allowing you to access diverse expertise without managing multiple relationships.
Technology Stack and Integration Capabilities
Effective agency partners should integrate seamlessly with your existing technology ecosystem. Flatirons Development works with modern development stacks including React, Node.js, Ruby on Rails, AWS, and various CMS platforms. However, comprehensive alternatives should also integrate with:
- Marketing automation platforms: HubSpot, Marketo, Salesforce, ActiveCampaign
- Analytics and testing tools: Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Optimizely, VWO, Hotjar
- E-commerce platforms: Shopify Plus, WooCommerce, BigCommerce
- CRM and sales tools: Salesforce, Pipedrive, Intercom, Drift
- Automation platforms: Zapier, Make, n8n, custom API integrations
- AI and machine learning platforms: OpenAI API, Claude API, custom LLM pipelines
This broad integration capability ensures that design, optimization, and AI implementations work within your existing infrastructure rather than requiring costly system replacements or complex workarounds.
Making the Right Choice Among Top Flatirons Solutions Alternatives
Selecting the right agency partner depends on your specific needs, organizational context, and strategic priorities:
Choose Traditional Project-Based Agencies When:
- You have a single, well-defined project with fixed scope (e.g., initial website build, mobile app development)
- You prefer to pay only for discrete projects rather than ongoing subscriptions
- Your internal team can handle ongoing design and optimization needs after project completion
- Timeline flexibility allows for 2-6 month project durations
Choose Subscription-Based Alternatives When:
- You need ongoing design, optimization, or content creation support
- You’re running continuous experiments and require rapid turnaround (1-3 days)
- Budget predictability is critical and you want to avoid scope creep
- You need access to diverse expertise (design, video, CRO, AI) without managing multiple vendors
- You want the flexibility to scale resources up or down based on changing priorities
- Your organization operates in agile sprints and needs design support that matches that cadence
Choose Specialized Agencies When:
- You have highly specific needs in a niche area (e.g., pharmaceutical packaging design, financial services compliance)
- Your industry requires specialized certifications or regulatory knowledge
- You need the deepest possible expertise in a single domain rather than breadth across services
Key Questions to Ask When Evaluating Top Flatirons Solutions Alternatives
Before committing to any agency partner, ask these critical questions:
Service Capabilities
- What specific services do you provide, and which are your core strengths vs. secondary offerings?
- Can you handle branding, design, development, optimization, and AI within a single engagement?
- Do you have dedicated specialists for CRO, UX research, and AI engineering, or are these handled by generalists?
- Can you show case studies demonstrating measurable conversion improvements, not just aesthetic design?
Pricing and Contracts
- What is your pricing model (project-based, retainer, subscription)?
- What’s included in the base price vs. additional charges?
- What are the cancellation terms and penalties?
- How do you handle scope changes and additional requests?
- What happens to deliverables and intellectual property if we end the relationship?
Team and Process
- Who specifically will work on our account, and what is their experience level?
- How do you ensure quality control and consistency?
- What is your typical turnaround time for different types of requests?
- How do you handle revisions and iterations?
- What project management tools and communication methods do you use?
Technology and Integration
- What platforms and technologies do you specialize in?
- How will you integrate with our existing marketing stack, CMS, and analytics tools?
- Do you provide training and documentation for solutions you implement?
- What ongoing support and maintenance do you offer?
Results and Measurement
- How do you measure success and demonstrate ROI?
- Can you share specific metrics from similar client engagements (conversion rate improvements, revenue impact, etc.)?
- What reporting and analytics do you provide?
- How do you approach experimentation and optimization over time?
Conclusion: Finding Your Ideal Match Among Top Flatirons Solutions Alternatives
When exploring Top Flatirons Solutions Alternatives, the right choice depends on your organization’s specific needs, budget constraints, and strategic priorities. Flatirons Development offers solid web development and UI/UX design capabilities with experienced teams and transparent communication, making it a reasonable choice for discrete software development projects.
However, organizations seeking more comprehensive creative agency services—including branding, motion graphics, video production, dedicated conversion optimization, advanced UX research, and AI implementation—should evaluate alternatives that offer these capabilities in an integrated package. Subscription-based models like Passionate Agency – Passionates provide particular value for marketing leaders, UX directors, and growth teams requiring ongoing support, rapid turnaround, and predictable costs.
The key is matching your agency partner’s strengths to your organization’s priorities:
- If you need a one-time website or mobile app build with solid design and development, traditional project-based agencies like Flatirons Development work well
- If you need ongoing creative support, rapid experimentation, and integrated optimization, subscription-based alternatives deliver better value and flexibility
- If you need specialized expertise in a niche domain, seek agencies with deep vertical knowledge even if they’re more expensive
- If you need comprehensive transformation across design, CRO, and AI, choose partners offering all three at a senior level
Ultimately, the best agency partner isn’t necessarily the one with the most impressive portfolio or the lowest price—it’s the one whose service model, expertise, and approach align with how your organization actually works. By carefully evaluating your needs against each alternative’s strengths, you’ll find the partner who can truly drive your brand differentiation, conversion breakthroughs, and digital transformation goals.
Comparison Table: Passionate Agency vs. Flatirons Development
| Factor | Passionate Agency – Passionates | Flatirons Development |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing Model | Subscription-based: $5,000-$12,500/month depending on tier and time commitment (full-time or part-time) | Project-based: $50,000-$200,000+ per project |
| Branding Services | Comprehensive: Brand strategy, visual identity, brand guidelines, ongoing brand management | Basic: Logo design and visual identity included in broader projects |
| Graphic Design | Unlimited requests with 1-3 day turnaround; senior designers (5+ years, top 0.5%) | Project-based design deliverables; 10+ years average experience |
| UI/UX Design | Included in Grow tier and above; integrated with CRO for conversion-focused design | Core offering with user research, wireframing, prototyping, and usability testing |
| Motion Graphics & Video | Included in Grow tier: Motion graphics, video production, 3D, AR, WebXR | Not prominently offered |
| Web Development | WordPress, Webflow, Shopify, and other CMS development included in Grow tier | Custom web development with React, Node.js, Ruby on Rails; full-stack capabilities |
| CRO & UX Research | Dedicated tier (Optimize): Qualitative/quantitative research, A/B testing, funnel optimization, experimentation strategy | User research services available; CRO not a core offering |
| AI Implementation | Dedicated tier (Innovate): Custom AI agents, automation, chatbots, personalization, LLM fine-tuning | AI development services emerging; not a core specialization |
| Delivery Speed | 1-3 working days per request | Project-dependent: weeks to months for full projects |
| Team Seniority | Top 0.5% talent; all senior (5+ years minimum) | Average 10 years experience across team |
| Scalability | Instant: Stack multiple packages to add resources; scale down by pausing/canceling | Project-dependent: New proposals required for additional work |
| Contract Flexibility | Cancel anytime; no penalties; month-to-month or annual (10% discount) | Project-based contracts; scope changes require change orders |
| Hidden Costs | None; fixed monthly fee covers all services in tier | Potential for scope creep and change orders beyond initial estimate |
| Best For | Ongoing creative needs, rapid experimentation, integrated design/CRO/AI, predictable budgets | Discrete software development projects, custom web/mobile apps, defined scopes |