SideStep
An app conceived and designed for people who want to give up bad habits
We learned about SideStep through word of mouth from one of our clients. The SideStep team needed to "translate" their business idea into a technology solution that would allow them scalability and easy management.
Users, after downloading the app and creating their profile (recording the habits they want to eliminate and their moods), will begin receiving personalized feeds on topics targeted to their interests.
For each piece of content proposed by SideStep, the user receives a push notification and can collect 1 Step Up for each activity proposed by the app. By accumulating Step Up the user can increase his level within the app so as to unlock new features.
The journey with SideStep started from defining the functional specification, to identify the most important functionalities that the first MVP should have.
Special effort was required on the specifications in this project, as there were many ideas to be prioritized and brought back into specific functionality.
- Following the functional specifications, the wireframe of the app and dashboard was created, showing the structure of the platform and the layout of all elements;
- The AdobeXD tool was used to produce the wireframe, which is more efficient in sharing with the client and collecting feedback;
- Once the wireframes were approved, the graphic mockups were made, in which all the style elements within the app are shown.
Following the graphical mockups, we moved on to the development phase.
The backend was developed in Python (with the Django framework). There are two backoffice panels (developed with the jQuery and Bootstrap frameworks):
One for the administrator and staff, which allows them to manage content within the platform;
One for users' friends, who can send them personalized content by accessing a panel and entering a unique code representing the user.
An algorithm has been implemented that sends content based on the intersection of moods and bad habits. In addition, a gamification system has been implemented that allows the user to earn points and levels based on the content displayed within the app.
Themobile application, on the other hand, was built using the Ionic3 framework. The application receives push notifications whenever user-appropriate content is loaded.