Get Your Dev and Design Teams Talking—Tips from Tawkon
(Guest Post by Amit Lubovsky, Co-founder and VP of Business Development and Marketing at tawkon)
Our company tawkon is focused on radiation tracking, specifically on detecting phone radiation emission on mobile devices. Especially as mobile devices are being relied on for more and more, radiation is a growing concern among consumers. When you make calls or browse the web, your phone emits radiation in various levels, depending on your circumstances and even the model of the phone. We monitor those levels and offers suggestions for lowering them before and during calls (disclaimer: while no research on this issue has proven 100% conclusive, increasing studies are pointing to clearer risks).
Since different phone models emit different amounts of radiation, cross-platform development was essential from the get-go. We adapted a critical development strategy in order to launch our application across multiple platforms but we also needed a simple, consistent, and attractive UI that successfully carried over the absorption implications for our users.
The key to our success can be summed up in one word: talking.
It’s an understatement to say that communication between mobile app developers and their design teams are important. It’s crucial. When these two teams work together, flaws are more easily discovered, and time is managed much more efficiently, especially when developing across multiple mobile platforms. In other words, by keeping developers and designers talking throughout the process for each platform, you avoid mistakes and save time.
So, how did we get our two teams to ‘talk on’ while building tawkon? Our process involved three steps:
1. Guide the Application with UX
The mobile app market has matured since its inception: it’s never been more important for a mobile app to look and feel as good as it runs. With so many apps to choose from on any platform, users aren’t looking for good apps, they’re looking for great apps. That's why, from even the earliest stages, developers must involve UX & UI experts to use the design of an app to take it from good to great.
We partnered with our design firm, Nascent, from the very beginning of development planning. We all sat down and discussed each of the issues that could arise on any of the platforms.
2. A Well Structured Parallel Process
The communication between designers and developers didn’t end after the initial planning stage. We then had a parallel process that ran throughout the creation of the app, ensuring strong communication between the two teams, fixing many bugs, and making many changes in the process.
Working together as the app evolved also meant letting go – we actually removed 30% of the features we had planned – but when evaluated in cooperation, the teams focused more on the core product values and made some tough calls with input from both the development and design teams. As Steve Jobs said: “I'm actually as proud of the many things we haven't done as the things we have done.”
The process included mutual work on user flow – the process of putting yourself in the users’ shoes, studying user interaction and analyzing scenarios. It also involved schematic design as well. Issues with visual design had to correspond with themes and platform limitations, production and integration stages were simultaneously reviewed.
3. Keep the Native Platform in Mind
There’s nothing like stepping into a foreign culture and trying to pretend your way into acceptance. It’s the same with any culture, whether a distant country or mobile platform. Users can feel the difference when one app just doesn’t fit; so customizing for the platform is a must.
Nick Butcher at Google, mentioned at droidconNL what Android looks for from developers: polished apps with user appeal, unique Android features as well as ratings, comments and ranking, and a sense of seasonality. What the Google team isn’t looking is a straight port from other platforms.
For our app, we had to adapt the app from touch screen to keyboard when we developed the Blackberry version, while for Android, we gave more thought to how the app would run in the background. All the while, for both platforms, we worked to keep our branding and basic design elements in sync.
Our key to cross mobile app success at tawkon? Well, talking on… between teams.
Amit Lubovsky is co-founder and VP of Business Development and Marketing at tawkon.