Smooth Moves is an application built for a local client that needed a custom web application for tracking and managing moving jobs, customers and workers. It was created entirely by Mann.Engineer and was completed on time and on budget from specification to going live last August.
Technology
The application was built using a cutting edge technology stack starting with Ruby on Rails. Bootstrap is used to build up the front-end, Devise for authentication. Code is stored on Github, and deployed to Heroku. The end result is a ruthlessly fast app that does exactly what the client needs at a cost well within their budget.
Design Principles
Provide Value Early, Iterate
Development on the application started by focusing on the users and what tasks they needed to perform. We built out functions in the application that we thought would be immediately useful to them, distributed a test version of the application to start getting feedback. Feeback then guided everything from then on. Daily builds helped keep the client in the loop on what was happening during the entire development process.
Keep The Stack Lean and Fast
For many developers and clients the temptation to start developing an application by determining what sorts of flashy design or functions their application can employ is a real problem. We focused instead on what was necessary to make the application useful to users. This meant we kept javascript inclusions to an bear minimum. From day one the application was kept unshackled from things like loading hefty javascript libraries, web fonts or assets from third party servers. Bootstrap ensured that the final designs worked as well on desktops as they did on tablets and phones. Using native fonts avoids having to load fonts from another source, and ensures readibility from device to device. The advantages of this approach are that load times are super fast, and development time was as fast as possible.
Web Apps vs Mobile Apps
Originally the client had wanted mobile apps for users of the platform. But two things changed their mind. One was cost and time to develop, but another was seeing just how fast and usable a properly built web application can be. For applications where constant communication with a database is necessary and users will have constant internet conductivity there aren’t many advantages to a dedicated mobile application.
Modern Development Processes
This project is a perfect case for the power of entrusting the process to the development team and using agile methodology. We were able to keep the project cheap and finish quickly. Turn around time on each feature, from specification to deployment, was usually kept within a few days. Daily builds, and communications kept everyone on the same page.
Conclusion
This application was the first project developed independently by Mann.Engineer and it was immensely rewarding to see it through start to finish. The client went live with the application in August and has since served their users very well.
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