Admittedly, our scheme for creating an application is somewhat different from what is written in smart development books, and therefore questions, tips, opinions and other comments are welcome in every possible way.
Let’s look together with us at the stages of creating our latest application — “Tongue Twisters on cardboard”.
The software development process for the project “Tongue Twisters on Cardboard” should follow the following steps: 1. Gather Requirements: The first step is to understand the requirements of the project by talking to the stakeholders. This would involve understanding the purpose of the project, the features and functions that it should have, the timeline and budget, and other details. 2. Design: After gathering the requirements, the next step is to design the project. The design should include a detailed plan that outlines the architecture, user interfaces, and other components. It should also include a timeline and budget that should be followed. 3. Implementation: Once the design has been finalized, the project can be implemented. This involves coding and testing the project, as well as developing any necessary user interfaces and other components. 4. Testing: Once the project has been implemented, it should be tested to ensure that it meets the requirements. This includes manual testing, as well as automated testing using tools such as Selenium. 5. Deployment: After the project has been tested, it can be deployed. This involves releasing the project to the stakeholders, as well as any necessary documentation and training materials.
Idea
As we wrote, most of our employees are happy and loving parents. From their own experience, they face problems in the field of learning and know firsthand how difficult it is sometimes for a child to get acquainted with a new world of sounds and words for him.
To improve speech skills, many turn to speech therapists or specialized books.
But is it so easy to find a really good specialist? Can everyone afford expensive classes? How long can a child sit at a book?
Unfortunately, the answer here is the same: no.
Therefore, there was an idea to create a training application for speech correction, with which the child will be able to improve speech skills in a playful way.
Market analysis and target audience identification
In this case, everything is simple — at the request of “tongue twisters”, a couple of books that are not directly related to tongue twisters were found in iTunes, and in Google Play there is one application at all, which is a simple text list of tongue twisters.
But the target audience turned out to be more extensive than it seemed at first glance. Tongue twisters are useful not only for kids who train pronunciation, but also for adults whose occupation is somehow connected with public speaking — these are announcers, lecturers, speakers, TV presenters and all those who work with people.
Functional definition
Since the main audience is children, the main and most difficult task is to keep the attention. In addition, the application should be really useful, developing.
It was decided:
choose one tongue twister for each letter of the alphabet (well, almost every one — remember about the soft sign, yes);
there is a separate screen with an illustration for each tongue twister;
use accelerometer capabilities to make animations interactive;
voice acting should be done in the form of two recordings of the announcer for each tongue twister; one recording at a slow pace, the other — faster;
implement the ability to add your own audio recording to each tongue twister.
Choosing a platform
First of all, we develop an application for iOS, then we port it to Android. Why is that?
We were convinced by our own experience: The App Store brings 3 times more profit than Google Play. App Annie statistics speak for themselves:
Technology selection
Adobe Air was taken as the base technology. It was supposed to be a large number of animations that were convenient to draw in Adobe Flash, + the already existing experience with this technology allowed us to make the project fast enough.
As usual, there were minor inconveniences with graphics quality and performance (the algorithm for encoding recorded audio to mp3 on iOS was especially slow), but on the whole we were satisfied. Again, porting to Android took only a couple of days with all the testing and debugging, and voilà — “Tongue Twisters” appeared on Google Play.
Design and horrors of Adobe Flash CS6
The application would have been released earlier if the developers of the aforementioned software had not made every effort to make it impossible to use the editor. The licensed version with all the latest updates (v) was used for drawing graphics and animation..12.0.2.529). But when simply drawing shapes and lines, as well as when using fill, the editor freezes regularly. Sometimes it just disappears and that’s it… no answer, no hello. The only thing that saved was frequent saving to different files, using svn, disabling the auto-save function (so that it wouldn’t work while hanging) and strong nerves. But all the same, it was not without a strong word.
As for the design — frankly, it is controversial. This is not exactly what most users expect from a children’s app. But that’s what makes it interesting, and most importantly, children like it.
How did it all start? A piece of paper, a cup of coffee, a general meeting, throw-throw-throw ideas… And here is the very first picture — a wolf cub, which marked the beginning of the general style. Of course, we could also take a ready-made drawing, process it in the style of “but the same thing, but it’s like drawn in pencil,” but it’s hardly interesting to anyone. Only real, only hardcore!