Loops

Start date

2020

Team

2 software developers
1 Project manager

Technologies

Flutter

Firebase

Push notifications

About project

Loops is a visual learning app used by thousands of educators and leaders. It enables everyone who wants to teach or share knowledge to modify and create inspiring learning journeys called "learning loops" using a set of activities you connect on a map and share with your class or team. The app enables users to: - create material that can be used and updated infinitely - combine the material with open resources from the web - create visually engaging learning journeys for the team

Main goals

Create web app

Instead of rebuilding the full-fledged app, we would like to create an app that addresses the needs we see and can benefit from the mobile web for the parts we don't want to build and where we send the user to the web-based product for all other aspects.

See live

Challenges

Loops had an app designed for iPads. It was a full-fledged version of the UI, natively implemented in Swift. Because our client didn't have the necessary competence, developers, and the time to maintain two entirely separate implementations of the frontend/UI, the app was lagging and didn't provide a good user experience. However, the company needed various apps because:

2 / 3
Existing users can quickly start the app with a click on an icon without the need to create a shortcut to a web page.
3 / 3
Users want to get notified when things happen in Loops without logging in. Web Push Notifications is a stable technology but is not yet available for iOS. The challenge was to bring the user to the web experience, achieving a balance where the app both preserves the feeling of working with loops without decreasing the user experience.
1 / 3
It makes it easier for new users to find the app.
2 / 3
Existing users can quickly start the app with a click on an icon without the need to create a shortcut to a web page.
3 / 3
Users want to get notified when things happen in Loops without logging in. Web Push Notifications is a stable technology but is not yet available for iOS. The challenge was to bring the user to the web experience, achieving a balance where the app both preserves the feeling of working with loops without decreasing the user experience.
1 / 3
It makes it easier for new users to find the app.
2 / 3
Existing users can quickly start the app with a click on an icon without the need to create a shortcut to a web page.

Solution

The app was removed from the app store while we focused on making the web UI much more mobile-friendly. We believe the typical user is a participant/student in a started loop. Teachers and others might use the app, but creating and updating loops is best done on a computer. When getting into the app, we want it to provide the user with a similar experience as they would on the web, but slightly "amplified." To solve all the challenges, we decided to use Flutter's tools, designed to create native, cross-platform mobile, computer, and web applications. However, we did not want to make a revolution too big, so we largely used what the application's web version contained and the existing URLs.

Linda Höidal

Loops Education - Head of Product

We had a good experience with AKRA Poland as they built two mobile apps for us. The job was well executed by the developers and the start up time was short. The communication with AKRA Poland around the project has been good and the employees are very polite and helpfull.