You're a serious startup or established company that has an awesome idea, demanding need, or opportunity. Now you want to have it built. You want to see it in action, you want to test it out, and you want to show it to your audience. That’s awesome, and we want to help.
We're an experienced design and development firm. We’ve produced dozens of apps that have been released into the wild. We’ve streamlined the process and tested the results. We’re nerds, and we love our smartphones.
First, we get to know each other and see if we’re a good fit. We'll hang out and discuss your project together over some coffee, or chat through the inter-webs to get to know your idea, business, and team, and tell you more about TSEVO. Here are the first logistical questions we ask: project analysis.
Time to organize a plan of attack. First, we make sure we thoroughly understand the idea, the vision, and the motivation. It’s just as important to understand why something is being built when defining how it will be built, so we can better align together. We’ll organize ideas and functionality into user stories.
Next, we’ll outline a project timeline and define who will deliver what, and when. You’ll know when we’ll be working on each feature, when you’ll receive test builds, and when we’ll look for feedback. Each segment gets broken down and ordered into sprints, throughout which we’ll interweave test builds, QA, and feedback along the way. This planning guides the rest of the process.
We understand that ideas and requirements continually grow and evolve over time. You’ll get user feedback and find new opportunities. We’ll brainstorm with you, and we’ll make suggestions. We might think up a great new feature; you might make a pivot. That’s business, and we want to help you build the best possible product, not just check off a list of requirements. Your wins are our wins, together. We love being an agile group, and we’ll analyze those ideas together to optimize the plan.
We’ll setup at least weekly check-ins with your team, to touch base and report updates. Most projects kickoff with a project discovery phase. Then we use Basecamp for project management, DropBox for file sharing, and Skype for communication.
This is the fun part. Here, you’ll start to see the project materialize as we lay out wireframes and mockups.
Wireframes sketch out the skeleton of the app and define the visual flow. We use these to develop the best user experience (UX), as we work through the wireframes to define where each button is needed, and how users navigate from screen to screen. Balsamiq is one of our favorite tools.
Once all the UX is perfected, our design team transforms those wireframes into beautiful mockups. Here, they illustrate exactly how your app will look and feel. These are a great preview, and you can start showing these off to your audiences.
Lots of magic, fairy dust, and coffee turn these ideas and plans into real software. Ok… not really, but definitely the coffee.
Development is organized into agile sprints, where we target subsets of features and user stories to implement each week. Our agile team meets for scrums and status updates. Developers collaborate to solve the technical side, designers review the interfaces, and our project managers keep everyone on-track and sane. Each sprint you’ll receive a build viaTestFlight that will install straight to your device for testing.
The source code is securely stored under lock and key in Github. Project files and graphic assets are tracked using DropBox.
Once we build it, then we try to break it. Alongside of development, we’ll continually verify that the software is working as planned.
Mobile testing is it’s own beast. There’s over a dozen different types of testing methodologies out there. We’re practical. We’ll unit test individual pieces when appropriate, and then we’ll perform acceptance testing to verify each user story and function. We’ll write test cases which mirror the requirements, and step through each case.
Automated testing? Yea, and we also like to use real humans. The best way to test user stories and user interfaces? With real users. Our test team reviews each build, and submits their results.
It's Showtime! - This is the exciting part. We’ll show you what messaging and marketing content you’ll need to prepare for each app store. For example, choosing the official name, description, categories, and keywords, just as it will appear on the App Store. Then we’ll walk you through iTunes certificates and provisioning, and Google Play key stores.