Mobile Application Case study

Amori

Consultation

A complimentary consultation is the first step in our mobile app development approach. Below you'll find the results of our conversation with Amori.

Project On Device(s)
Company Name: Amori
Location: New York, NY
Industry: Dating
Development Type: Mobile App
Scope: Design and Full Stack Development

User Stories

After the consultation we ran a story creation workshop with Amori. Below you'll find the results of the workshop and how the stories were prioritized.

Must Have

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Login screen allows user to log in with either Google or Facebook
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Discover screen is a swipe style matching system with a like, dislike and favorite button
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Tapping on a user's image brings up their profile with name, location, age, etc.
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Nearby screen allows users to find friends within a certain distance using a filter
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Spotlight screen to show most popular users with ability to pay for a spot
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Find users by interest through a interest tag search
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Favorites screen shows all favorited users with ability to sort by matches and likes
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Messaging screen that allows you to see all your communications
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Opening a message allows you to text chat and send images within the chat window
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Rating modal popup allowing users to rate the app
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Profile screen that allows users to change settings and become VIP
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Profile edit screen to upload photos, add interests, stats, etc.
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VIP Center screen to allow users to upgrade and become VIP members
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Desktop admin application to manage users

Nice to Have

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Face recognition to match pictures to live person
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Date recommendations in message window
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Profile recommendations to get more matches
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Incognito mode so VIPs can browse anonymously
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Blacklisting users and allowing them to only see other blacklisted users
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Chat bot integration to provide customer support for VIPs
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Ability to add videos in profile
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Push notifications for new matches

Maybe Later

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Free VIP trial memberships
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Inappropriate picture filter
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Virtual video group dates
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Round robin chat sessions
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Add an AI bot to help users with frequently asked questions
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Match through questionnaire
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Staged matching where users go from basic to questionnaire to round robin, etc
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Refer a friend link

Wireframes

Amori required both design and development services so our design team created wireframes to show how the user stories will be integrated into the final product.

Iterations

After sizing up the stories for Amori, we grouped them into iterations that can can be developed and tested in a 1-2 week time frame.

Iteration 1

Week 1
  • check
    Design and development environment setup
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    Database selection and setup
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    Asset collection and review
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    Wireframe review

Iteration 2

Week 2
  • check
    Database configuration for user login
  • check
    Login Screen design & development

Iteration 3

Week 3-4
  • check
    Discover Screen design & development
  • check
    Database development for user profile name and image
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    Create logged in user profile
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    Enable refresh, dislike, like and favorite button overlay

Iteration 4

Week 5-6
  • check
    Match Profile Screen design & development
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    Database development to add additional user profile properties
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    Linked match profile to discover screen
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    Enabled like and favorite buttons

Iteration 5

Week 7-8
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    Created large list of dummy users for testing purposes
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    Nearby search screen design & development
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    Spotlight screen design & development
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    Filter options screen design & development

Iteration 6

Week 9-10
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    Design and develop order summary (shopping cart) screen
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    Develop a local shopping cart state and enable 'Add To Cart' buttons on menu and details screens
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    Connect order summary page and shopping cart state
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    Develop financial calculations for order summary page

Iteration 7

Week 11
  • check
    Find Someone By Tags screen design & development
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    Expanded user profile properties in database

Iteration 8

Week 12-13
  • check
    Favorites screen design & development
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    Favorites filter dropdown design & development
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    Updated database to include favorites

Iteration 9

Week 14-15
  • check
    Messaging centre design & development
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    Database development for messaging and Socket.io integration
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    Online user display

Iteration 10

Week 16
  • check
    Rating Modal popup design & development

Iteration 11

Week 17-18
  • check
    Design and develop Profile Edit screen which includes stats, images and video uploads.
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    Added database support

Iteration 12

Week 19
  • check
    Design & develop VIP Upgrade screen
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    Add backend support to enable VIP privileges

Iteration 13

Week 20-21
  • check
    Design & develop Settings, Likes, Visits, Wallet, and Blacklist screens

Iteration 14

Week 22
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    Profile screen design and development
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    Link previously created screens like edit, settings, etc. to Profile screen

Iteration 15

Week 23-24
  • check
    Desktop Admin web app creation for basic user management

Iteration 16

Week 25
  • check
    Release
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    Emergency support standby as website is tested with live traffic

Technologies used

Once we had the iterations laid out, we were able to choose the most fitting technologies to build Amori a modern, secure, and scalable mobile app. Here is a list of the technologies we used:

Client Side:
html5 HTML5
css3 CSS3
sass Sass
javascript JavaScript
react React Native
redux Redux
Jest
Server Side:
javascript JavaScript
Jest
node-js Node
mongodb Mongodb
Tools:
git Git

Challenges & Wins

As with most projects, Amori had some unique requirements that required creative solutions. Below you'll see how we approached these challenges.

Case study challenges
The Amori Team had many innovative ideas but not enough time to develop them all.
plus

Amori's goal is to develop the most innovative dating application available on the market. From deterring catfish with facial recognition to virtual video group dates through the app, they had a massive story list but not enough time and budget to build them all.

By working with the Amori team, we carefully selected their "must have" stories so they would get an app release that would help them achieve their desired business outcomes.

Using an agile approach we prioritized, sized and iterated their stories so they would up and running within their 6 month time frame. This gave them the ability to build their business, generate profits and plan for the next app release with extended features.

Amori's video hosting platform was providing poor performance with slow video load times.
plus

Amori provided Tactic Apps with a video host that wasn't performing well enough to deploy at large scale. Since video would be available for all user profiles it was necessary to move the video hosting to a more reliable source.

After evaluating many of the top hosting sites, we settled on using Vimeo as the best alternative. This provided stable performance at scale.

The Amori team wanted to go live on both iOS and Android without enough time for development on both platforms.
plus

It is quite common for our clients to want applications developed for both iOS and Android. Amori's tight budget and time line would not allow for this.

However, to save Amori a significant amount of time and money, the Tactic Apps team used React Native to develop their iOS application. This allowed us to build and test their Android application within one month after release instead of starting from scratch.

Amori had a change in management which led to a change in priorities for the application.
plus

Amori brought in new management in the first 2 months of the project. This new team had different ideas on user story prioritization. Some of the requested changes were the ability to add user video and allowing users to blacklist others.

Thanks to our commitment to Agile Project Management, we were able to show the Amori team where changes could be made and how we needed to focus on scope since time and budget were fixed. We were able to swap out some user stories and implemented the necessary changes as requested.

Amori's payment gateway wasn't integrating well enough to provide a cohesive user experience.
plus

After seeing the integration capabilities of Amori's current payment processor, we realized a change needed to be made. It was a frustrating user experience and broke the cohesion of the application.

The Tactic Apps team evaluated other online processing methods and suggest Stripe due to their powerful API and seamless integration. Amori gladly accepted this advice as it also allowed the to easily integrate other avenues of revenue like "Spotlight Activation".

Case study challenges

Project Results

With all iterations completed, we produced a mobile app{" "} that Amori can be proud of. Below you'll see the effort it took and the consequent results.

Team & Effort
users
3
Developers
credit
145
Hourly
calendar
6
Months

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Houston, TX
77433, USA

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© All rights reserved. 2022 TacticApps.com
Contact Us
phone

+1 346-268-7886

mail
location-pin

Houston, TX
USA

Contact Us
phone

+1 346-268-7886

mail
location-pin

Houston, TX
77433, USA

© All rights reserved. 2022 TacticApps.com