DevelopmentNow
About DevelopmentNow
DevelopmentNow is a Portland-based creative digital development company founded in 2005. We have years of experience in creating mobile, web, emerging tech, and hardware solutions.
Our process involves discovery and strategic planning, creative ideation, project management, development, hosting, and continued post-launch support and consulting.
Our team has provided solutions using a variety of platforms and languages to best fit our partner goals. We are proud to serve a wide variety of clients in a number of countries, from small entrepreneurial startups to Fortune 500 companies such as Microsoft, Intel, Zyrtec, Avis, Amerifleet, Kelly Services, Manheim, AT&T, BBDO, Thermo Fisher Sci...Read more
DevelopmentNow is a Portland-based creative digital development company founded in 2005. We have years of experience in creating mobile, web, emerging tech, and hardware solutions.
Our process involves discovery and strategic planning, creative ideation, project management, development, hosting, and continued post-launch support and consulting.
Our team has provided solutions using a variety of platforms and languages to best fit our partner goals. We are proud to serve a wide variety of clients in a number of countries, from small entrepreneurial startups to Fortune 500 companies such as Microsoft, Intel, Zyrtec, Avis, Amerifleet, Kelly Services, Manheim, AT&T, BBDO, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Ogilvy, Remy Cointreau, Sherwin-Williams, and Time Warner Cable.
We partner with Brands and Creative Agencies as technology experts, helping them realize what is possible with technology through ideation, scoping, and completion of technological projects. We provide innovative and effective technology solutions to help businesses engage users, clients, and vendors regardless of device or location.
Key Insights
Services & Focus
Industry Focus
Client Focus
Portfolio
InsureTech
How do you make insurance interesting, captivating, and educational?
Creative Agency Citizen wanted to create a technology-driven sales tool that could make Whole Life insurance easier for customers to understand. Our goal was to help Citizen execute an augmented reality (AR) “coffee table” experience to bring insurance to life and engage attendees in conversation at the InsureTech Connect 2017 conference.
For this project, Citizen asked us to help them create a marker based AR app which would consist of six cards with different life scenarios. Users who visited the booth could pick up the display iPads from Citizen and select the active persona on the app. Then, the user could hold the iPads over the cards that were set up around the booth. Using the iPad’s camera, the app would scan, move, and interact with the card through augmented 3D visuals.
NurseGrid
Helping Nurses Take Charge
Just about everyone knows a nurse.
Whether they’re a friend, a family member, or even a medical professional that helped you through a trying time. NurseGrid is an app that strives to help those whose life work is to save and help others, by alleviating the external stress of scheduling and communication into a simple format. The goal with NurseGrid is twofold: make a simple, engaging app that declutters the chaos of a nurse’s schedule, and aid communication among coworkers and managers so nurses can keep doing the work that matters most.
NurseGrid is an app that strives to ease the lives of nurses by providing features such as colleague messaging, an interactive calendar, and live updates on schedule changes. NurseGrid approached DevelopmentNow with the goal of expanding their current product to include additional platforms; specifically Android. Having a native Android application would give their application more firepower, and create an expandable foundation for future features.
Robust, Collaborative, Interactive Calendar
The chaos of a nurse’s schedule is distilled down to a simple, easy-to-read calendar that not only allows nurses to keep their schedules organized but makes scheduling shifts easy for managers. Along with the calendar, other scheduling features such as swapping shifts and picking up open shifts allows for nurses, their colleagues, and their managers to have quick, seamless communication instead of a jumbled back and forth over texting, phone calls, and emails. By centralizing this communication, NurseGrid strives to ease the chaos of scheduling so nurses’ can spend less time stressing over shifts, and more time giving wonderful care to their patients.
The central feature of NurseGrid is its minimalistic calendar that allows full customization, making it even easier for a nurse to see their full schedule in a glance. Adding batches of shifts can be done in a matter of minutes, and can be edited just as quickly. Along with the calendar, individual events have their own detail screens that allow a user to add notes to a specific shift, see other colleagues working the same shift, and even swap or giveaway a shift.
Real-Time Connections and Shift Exchanges
Along with the calendar, other main features of the app are colleague connections and shift exchanges. Coworkers and managers can be easily added based on hospital and department assignments. In-app schedule sharing and shift exchanges remove the stress of keeping coworker’s phone numbers and emails, making it a reliable and easy way to adjust schedules. Swapping, giving away, and taking open shifts become a simple task. Notifications such as cancelled shifts, needed on-call, and shift hour changes come both in the form of push notifications, and an internal activity log for a nurses’ own reference. By centralizing these interactions, there’s no need to go between a myriad of different apps to know when and where shifts are.
User Profiles, Personalization, and Security
In conjunction with scheduling and messaging, NurseGrid provides profile features that allow users to input credentials, keep track of upcoming renewals, edit current worksites, and more. By incorporating all these features, NurseGrid strives to simplify the administrative side of nurses’ careers by having everyone in one place.
A Transparent Process to Stay on Track
Agile Scrum was a great fit for this project. DevelopmentNow and the NurseGrid team conducted daily stand-ups, weekly sprint planning meetings, and team retros, which kept the project organized and improving with each sprint. With a specific deadline needed for launch, leveraging backlog grooming and iterative release planning kept Product Owners up-to-date on the project scope, and gave them the power to make necessary adjustments to hit budgets, deadlines, and features as needed. Since work typically expands when looked at in detail, story points, team velocity tracking, and transparent communication kept everyone on the same page.
A Platform to Simplify Lives and Data
NurseGrid Android is up to over 15,000 active users and climbing quickly. Post-launch, DevelopmentNow worked with the NurseGrid development team to hand off the source code in a seamless and flexible fashion, enabling them to provide immediate user support and maintenance.
Overall, NurseGrid aims to help nurses help more. The app’s concept and functionality were created by nurses, for nurses – DevelopmentNow helped pull the Android pieces together. By alleviating the tension of scheduling, inter-work communication, and keeping up-to-date with an ever-changing schedule, NurseGrid’s goal is to let nurses save time, and to focus on providing the best care possible.
Citifyd
Stop circling, start living: take the frustration out of finding your next space by using Citifyd.
Igniting Local Startups with the “Airbnb of Parking”
Citifyd, a local Portland digital start-up, incubated within Ziba Design, was looking to ignite a parking concept revolution with the “Airbnb of Parking”. DevelopmentNow was engaged during the initial stage to build a digital solution prototype to provide more choice and control for customers seeking parking while also allowing the company to efficiently manage their inventory of parking resources in real-time.
A Solid Foundation: Agile Yet Enterprise-Ready
DevelopmentNow crafted the initial code for the prototype to allow Citifyd’s parking providers to manage their inventory by setting windows of availability and a custom price. On the server side, DevelopmentNow made sure that this original digital solution was PCI compliant so that customers could be assured that their financial data was safe. Furthermore, because DevelopmentNow understands that startup equals growth, a key priority for the engineering team was to make sure that the system could scale and remain stable during periods of heavy use.
Because customer credit card information was at stake, security was a top priority. DevelopmentNow’s custom-built API conformed to Level 1 of the Payment Card Industry’s Data Security Standards (PCI-DSS). In addition, to make sure that the server could handle extreme numbers of concurrent users, DevelopmentNow continually performed tests of system performance under load.
Real-Time Hyperlocal Features Matter
Because parking for popular events can be very competitive, DevelopmentNow’s custom RESTful API guaranteed up-to-the-second accuracy for parking reservations. This let customers rest assured that their parking space would be available when they arrived.
Nobody wants a parking space that’s far away from their destination. DevelopmentNow’s system included a custom algorithm to make sure that customers were shown those parking spaces that fell within an acceptable range of distances from the event.
A Successful Beta Launch and Transition
The original code, first created by DevelopmentNow was used for beta testing for proof of the shared parking concept. After continued design and digital development within Ziba, Citifyd launched in 2016 and currently has 7,000+ registered users, 5,000 of whom make regular transactions. Citifyd is also the official digital parking platform of the City of Pasadena, the Rose Quarter Venue, Portland Trail Blazers, Portland Timbers, Cirque du Soleil at AT&T Park, ImPark and StarPark.
Avery Dennison
Boosting Brand Loyalty with a Frictionless User Experience
Avery Dennison needed an innovative solution to boost brand loyalty and customer satisfaction in a competitive market.
DevelopmentNow converted the company’s physical color swatch books into a mobile app for iOS and Android that allows customers to order color samples directly from the app after carefully comparing selections. Customers can swipe through collections to view collection colors, then tap to view an individual color that will fill the screen. Customers can also tap to select additional colors to compare choices, or view more information about the single selected color.
Flexible, Fast Product Updates to Streamline Processes
The digital format allows for a deeper and broader view into Avery Dennison’s 650 color collection. DevelopmentNow developed a flexible solution that allows the team at Avery Dennison to update new color collections fast, without the overhead of reprinting physical sales materials.
"The response from our customers has been great and they are impressed with the high tech solution and how easy it is for them to now order samples from us. Our sample demand has increased which has resulted in more selling opportunities." – Avery Dennison Team
Innovation in a Traditional Industry
DevelopmentNow created JSON to serve the Android and iOS apps that the agency created. With this format, Avery Dennison can easily store and update new color collections as they become available. DevelopmentNow also designed a frictionless user experience that helps customers select and order their color swatches faster, on their own time – no retail store visits needed. Additionally, the DevelopmentNow team built a unique effect to showcase swatches with glitter or filament textures. The effect gives the user a more accurate product experience, and matches real live vs. digital versions of each swatch.
VisionME by Netop
Managing a Digital Classroom
Netop needed to design a user experience that created a more connected classroom. The experience needed to allow teachers and students to interact in a live classroom setting with real-time multi-way feedback and learning assessment capabilities. The average teacher had 5-50+ apps plus 2-20+ membership sites available for them to use in classroom management, and no way to streamline all of that information.
DevelopmentNow created VisionME, an easy to use and implement classroom tool, helping teachers do more in less time, enhance learning, and keep students safe.
Monitoring Student Screens
With VisionME, teachers are able to see what’s happening on all student screens. The distinct teacher and student user experiences worked together to improve the classroom dynamic. Teachers immediately know if someone struggling with a lesson, on social media, or cheating on a test by seeing live views of all student screens on their computer. VisionME also offers students a new way to be engaged in their classroom experience by offering teacher/student real-time chat and live presentation displays. Teachers can even customize their view to match the classroom layout, and simply press a button to lock student screens to redirect attention.
Facilitate Learning by Sharing Screens
No need for whiteboards or handouts – Every student gets a front row seat by sharing teacher screens on student devices.
A Top Educational Application
Both the teacher and student versions of VisionME are considered among the top apps in the educational space for classroom use. Scholastic named VisionME as one of its latest and greatest education-friendly tech tools of 2015. Netop also showcased VisionME at the Bett educational conference in London to over 35,000 attendees from 113 countries.
Girl Rising
Inspiring Visitors and Capturing the Story
Girl Rising is a global movement to change perceptions about girls around the world. Educating girls can break cycles of poverty in just one generation, yet millions of girls aren’t in school. Girl Rising uses storytelling to inspire action that gets girls into classrooms worldwide. The Girl Rising film features stories of these girls told by Hollywood legends, including Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway. The film follows 9 girls from Haiti, Nepal, Ethiopia, India, Egypt, Peru, Cambodia, Sierra Leone, and Afghanistan on their journey to education.
The team behind Girl Rising wanted their film’s companion site to encourage users to take a series of actions: learn more about the movement, reserve a screening ticket, and join a community that is rallying around the cause. The PR push for this celebrity-packed film ensured that traffic to the site would spike around a few key media blitzes, including media coverage of the premier. The premier was a star-studded affair in NYC.
DevelopmentNow built an impressive responsive companion site for the Girl Rising film that had to withstand the estimated traffic load and inspire users to support the Girl Rising movement through storytelling.
Building a Responsive High-Traffic Website
The multimedia site features behind-the-scenes clips from the movie, the Girl Rising store where supporters can purchase merchandise, movie screening request capabilities, and information about the Girl Rising movement. The Girl Rising companion site is visually striking, inspiring visitors and capturing the story behind the movement.
The media-rich site compels users to contribute in multiple ways. Educators, companies, and partners can all easily find resources that will help them spread the word.
Boosting the Success of the Girl Rising Brand
The Girl Rising site that DevelopmentNow built garnered over 300,000 users across the world, including the UK, Netherlands, Australia, and India. The site was able to effectively handle spikes in user traffic, various platforms and devices, and helped the Girl Rising brand effectively reach and promote to a wide audience. With help from the DevelopmentNow-built website, the Girl Rising launch was a huge success. The film was nominated for an Emmy award, as well as an Image Award, and second place at the Winnipeg Real to Reel Film Festival.
Girl Rising was released to DVD in March 2014 and is available now for order. Visit www.girlrising.com to watch the film and join the movement.
Time Warner Cable
A Dual ECommerce and Support Experience
American telecommunications giant Time Warner Cable approached the DevelopmentNow team with a tricky two-fold challenge: Create a seamless mobile experience with the functionality of a desktop site, and create a Customer Support portal that will increase user satisfaction and reduce overhead costs.
Time Warner had performed a majority of their sales and service via desktop site and in-person. Recognizing that many of their users preferred a mobile experience, the team tasked DevelopmentNow with creating a mobile experience that would help increase sales for Small Business, Medium and Enterprise, and Industry Solutions while boosting customer satisfaction and experience. With millions of customers, Time Warner also needed to provide mobile users with an easy way to troubleshoot and communicate with Customer Support.
Fast Data Aggregation to Boost Customer Experience
With such an array of services, important information in lived multiple places in the Time Warner system. The DevelopmentNow team had to consolidate all of this information into one place that could be easily digested by millions of Time Warner Customers. Our team built a scalable data platform using a proprietary data translation and aggregation engine whose main job was to gather data from a blend of APIs, databases, and digital properties and provide consolidated, understandable content to the company’s 100 million mobile users.
The final mobile experience included lead generation, a mobile chat client, customer support, and sales capabilities.
Expanding User Base and Customer Satisfaction
Time Warner Cable secured millions of dollars of additional revenue from mobile users. The mobile-friendly chat platform, plus a comprehensive content and cross-selling strategy generated millions of dollars in sales while saving Time Warner Cable six figures in customer support costs.
DevelopmentNow deployed a proprietary A/B mobile advertising platform to promote the new Time Warner Cable mobile experience to over 100 million users.
In 2015, the company reported the strongest subscriber growth since 2009.
Over 20,000 unique Time Warner Cable customers visit the mobile experience per month.
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