“The team at DiUS were first class. Their flexible, collaborative approach enabled us to build trust super quick and build an App even better than we had imagined!” 

 

– Stuart Gill, Partner, SecondMuse

For the launch of their new smartphone, Intel partnered with TEDx to develop a mobile app to support the TEDx community. Facilitated by global innovation and collaboration agency SecondMuse, DiUS was brought in to deliver the iOS and Android apps. With a team spread around the globe and an ambitious two-month timeline and a tight budget, a traditional project structure and delivery approach wasn’t going to work.

To speed up delivery, DiUS proposed an Agile and Lean development approach that would embed design into the development process and incorporate feedback from stakeholders to facilitate faster iteration. DiUS also chose to build hybrid apps to maximise the efficient use of the limited development resources, whilst still giving users the rich experience expected from native apps.

Then before starting development, DiUS and SecondMuse took a close look at what the app was trying to achieve and came up with a refined concept that could be delivered within the project deadline while staying true to the vision of the TEDx community: spreading ideas to change attitudes, lives and, ultimately, the world.

“We wanted to support change by providing the TEDx community with a simple process for taking actions in response to talks or ideas they find inspiring.” 

 

– Stuart Gill, Partner, SecondMuse

Embedding design into the development process meant the app user experience was designed in an iterative fashion. By pairing designers with developers, the team went from sketch to on-screen prototype quickly, allowing rapid iteration of the product design. And by using low-fidelity prototypes, the team pivoted when something didn’t match their vision for the product, with minimum waste.

As the app took shape, it was continuously made available to a larger group of stakeholders via a secure beta program that increased the breadth and depth of feedback, and grew support for the project within the stakeholders. The product owners were empowered to evaluate and give feedback on interactions, visual elements and the overall experience of the product.

Setting up the application infrastructure to enable Continuous Integration and automated testing gave the team the ability to make frequent changes in response to user and stakeholder feedback with confidence that the code quality would remain high.

The Ideas to Action mobile app was delivered on time and to budget and successfully provides a simple yet powerful process for placing the ideas worth spreading within the TEDx community into action.

While the app is targeted at the audiences at the locally organised range of TEDx events around the globe, anyone can use it. A user starts by articulating the central thoughts and concepts in a TEDx talk. Then, they can associate each of the ideas with a simple action that anyone can take. Next, they share these ideas and register the micro actions as they are completed. Finally, people can share their reaction to taking the action.