Philosophy

Before designing or defining the feature set for any application, we like to first step back and identify the core philosophy behind the application. Why would users want to use your app?

Our research and market analysis shows that some iPhone apps are only used two or three times before being deleted. We can help you create applications that users will not only want to reuse, they’ll want to show their friends as well. Whether the application is for enterprise, B2B, B2E, B2C, is part of an ad campaign, or is part of a larger brand strategy, we’ll work with you to determine what the ultimate goal is and what the best approach will be.

Our mantra behind every application and mobile strategy is in line with Apple’s own commercials: “Say you’re X and you want to Y. There’s an app for that”. This should immediately resonate with the target demographic of the application.

The design should be familiar to iPhone users, but stand out and connect to the user’s emotional connection with your brand.

Discovery & Brainstorming

The first step of our process is discovery and brainstorming. We embrace your existing business model where it makes sense and adapt it to work better in the mobile space. A successful web strategy is not always a successful mobile strategy and we can combine your business assets with the latest technological possibilities.

After we discuss the initial app idea, we work with you on high level ideas. Do all of the ideas proposed make sense in the mobile context? Would your users want those features? What about other pie-in-the-sky ideas? Some of the best features come from when someone says “I’m sure this isn’t possible, but it could be great if we could…”. Before we finish, we like to understand which sorts of features would represent your brand well and which features you explicitly do not want.

Whether you only have a rough idea of what you want or you have already prepared fully fleshed out workflows designs, we believe it’s always crucial to have a formal discovery phase.

Field Research

Before putting pen to paper and setting any ideas in stone, we believe in immersing ourselves in the product and fully experiencing what the product is aiming to achieve. This can include going to a baseball game as a team to better understand the venue and the fans, clipping and using coupons at multiple locations to completely understand what mobile coupons should be, or going to a retail outlet to see what the brand is all about. Many ideas sound great in a meeting room, but quickly fall apart when you are out in the real world trying them out.

High Fidelity Designs

We provide high fidelity photoshop comps to show what the final application will look like. This is often valuable to upper management to quickly illustrate what is being built, gives the client’s design team a direction to follow, and helps the client visualize the workflow and feature set. We are happy to drive design or work along side your designers to create the best application possible.

Architect

Once we have completed the discovery phase and agreed on the direction and feature set of the app, we begin app development and even create early prototypes if necessary. This is done in house by our senior architects and engineers. Once development has begun, we provide biweekly builds instead of screenshots or movies so you and your clients can try out the application as it is developed, provide feedback, and request changes as early as possible. These builds provide the opportunity to really iterate during development which ultimately increases the app’s quality and design.

Test & Deploy

We have in house quality assurance to make sure your software is solid and we can provide a formal test plan so your teams can test as well. We perform automated testing and stress tests throughout development and ensure your product is stable before shipping. Apple’s approval process can often take weeks and with our application submission best practices we can help you avoid common mistakes that can result in rejection. We will take care of preparing and submitting your app so you don’t have to.