1850 BV has asked us to design and develop a new simple phone app for Android and iOS, aimed at helping people who have difficulty using modern smartphones. After all, not everyone is excited about the hundreds of features provided by a typical smartphone. They just want to make calls. It’s hard for those who lack the technological skills to figure all this stuff out. And, of course, many find tiny screens challenging.
Who is 1850 BV?
After long experience in the Telecoms industry, 1850 BV call centres now operate the 1888 service, alongside the 1850 service. In addition, the company is active in the customer services market (email, chat, phone) on behalf of third parties such as local government, Webshops, and answering services. When you call 1888 (or 1850), you get an employee on the line who will help find the phone numbers you want, either national or international. 1850 goes even further. You can request travel information, business addresses, and opening hours. Experience gained from working with their many clients led 1850 BV to think about designing an app that helps consumers use their smartphones more easily.
Why a simple phone app?
Not everyone can keep up with the pace of technological change. And some physically have problems reading small screens with old eyes. Of course, both Apple and Google include numerous accessibility options and customization settings that can make smartphones easier to use. These can create larger buttons, increase font sizes, add helpful shortcuts, and even hide extraneous features, notifications, and apps. However, anyone who has ever tried to help an elderly relative with setting up all these options will know it’s often an uphill struggle.
A helping hand
There are some guides and videos online that can help. And numerous options available on Android and iOS/iPadOS to help you get started. But what if the user finds all the gadgets, contact books, cameras and all the various options overwhelming? What about just providing them with a simple phone? Perhaps that’s all they want?
That was the idea that 1850 BV brought to BSL.
Designing a simple phone app: 1888 Info
There are already phones available for technophobes. But ironically, these ‘simple’ devices are often more expensive than the latest high-tech smartphones. So what 1850 BV wanted was an app for iOS and Android mobiles, which helps users make phone calls easier. We worked with them to design an app designed specifically for elderly or technically challenged users. The 1888 Info app:
- Connects to your contacts so that you can populate a simple phonebook with significant numbers (doctor, close family, neighbours) in just a few minutes
- Let’s you drag and drop contacts for ease-of-use
- Uses icons and images for each contact
- Secures the phone set up so that users can’t accidentally delete or lose numbers
- Offers quick and easy access to 1888 info
Rapid, agile development of a simple phone app
We initially produced designs and animations demonstrating the app interface and navigation. We used feedback from 1850 BV to tweak the design until the product owner was happy. And in just three weeks, we completed the first app release for Android. We’re testing the app in-house on a range of mobiles, checking it fully supports accessibility options – as they are likely to be enabled by the app users. Shortly we’ll make the app available for testing by the client while we get on with creating the iOS version.
We hope this isn’t the end of the story. Both BSL and 1850 BV see the first release as a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Once we release the app, we’ll work with 1850 BV on designs for new features. There’s no shortage of ideas!
React Native – for quick and easy cross-platform development
We chose to develop the app with React Native, using a single JavaScript code-base to deploy the app on Android and iOS with minimal changes. React Native is an open-source mobile application framework that makes it easy for developers to build mobile apps that can fully use native platform capabilities. And if you need to use other languages such as Swift, Kotlin, Objective C or Java for specific tasks, it’s easy to use these languages within your app framework. React Native saves us a lot of development time – and reduces costs for our clients. Supported by a global community of developers, it’s one of the most popular open-source platforms. No matter how complex your application is, React Native makes your application lightning fast. And React Native is future-proof. The standardised components and structure mean that applications are easy to maintain and extend with new features.
Are you looking for your own app?
Our development of the 1888 Info app has gone quickly, so if you’ve got ideas for an app and want it in the stores as soon as possible, why not get in touch? We’ll help you with the design, provide you with a cost estimate and a development plan.
