Networking Mobile Apps for a Fashion Media Company

The customer had already had mockups for mobile apps, so before proceeding to development, our team conducted a UX/UI audit of both the mockups and the web platform. Drawing on the results, we came up with a set of recommendations on upgrading the platform’s and the future apps’ usability, such as: 

• Optimizing the screen layout and buttons placement in the Search and Account tabs
• Decluttering the registration form by removing unnecessary information and fields
•  Adding paid plan selection to the signup form to inform users about the platform’s premium features
• Removing superfluous yet unskippable steps from the user onboarding process
• Unifying button typography across the apps
• Increasing the font size and contrast in the login form to highlight primary buttons

Built by Iflexion’s mobile developers with React Native, the iOS and Android mobile apps support the core functionality of the web platform (except for user registration, password reset, and several other features available in the web version only) and replicate its design. 

The delivered iOS and Android mobile apps offer users the following capabilities: 

• Search for models, photographers, agencies, and other fashion industry professionals in the common database
• An advanced search system with such filters as Ethnicity, Rank, Location, Gender, Represented by Agency Only, New People Only (pages created in the last 12 months), and Active People Only (updates in the last 12 months)
• Account management, allowing users to edit profile information, settings, and membership level
• Creation of public or private lists of models’ and photographers’ profiles
•  The news feed with the latest projects of the listed artists
• Navigation through the news, articles, public user lists, and latest brand advertising campaigns

Through the WebView component, the apps display content depending on its volume. If a page contains much information, like model or agency profiles, articles, or fashion events pages, it opens in a web view. The user can continue viewing the content in the app or open it in the browser by clicking the corresponding icon. However, when the volume of information is moderate, the page is displayed directly in the app. This arrangement helped us save time on the design, development, and API creation for custom components.

Apart from developing mobile apps, the customer also sought Iflexion’s assistance with feature-level enhancements of their React-based web platform. Our team consulted the customer on the best ways to upgrade the solution and carried out the following development tasks: 

• Developing the product page
• Designing the UI for the direct messaging feature
• Improving and optimizing API calls
• Rewriting the scrolling logic from jQuery to JavaScript
• Refining the UI for the Lists tab
• Creating the Drag & Drop logic for the list editing feature
• Adding the “Allow list to be featured by the platform” switch for public lists and implementing the API for it

Iflexion’s team consisted of a project manager and software developers who were responsible for building the mobile applications and the web platform functionality enhancements as well as manual functional testing of the apps on emulators and iOS and Android devices. 

The customer’s team included the company’s president and editor-in-chief, technical director, and UI designer/creative manager. The president and editor-in-chief assumed the role of Product Owner and formulated the project requirements. The technical director was responsible for ensuring the apps’ interaction with the database via an API. The UI designer/creative manager was in charge of the UI design and provided our team with mockups for the apps. 

Due to the varying frequency and scope of the product requirements, we chose the Kanban methodology with periodic delivery of updates (approximately once a month) in the form of a ready-to-test app build along with the source code. Based on the build testing results, the customer provided their feedback, including any detected bugs and improvement ideas.