Today we launched the Mr. Crabtree mobile app to the android market. The apple version is on its way but the good folk there take a little longer than Google to publish these things.
This was a lovely project and a perfect opportunity for us to audit the main Mr. Crabtree Goes Fishing website which we also devised, built and maintain. It’s all too easy to allow a site to grow and grow to the point that it becomes unwieldy and no one can find anything anymore, and whilst that’s not the case with Mr. C’s site, it’s a good reminder to use a regular audit as a prevention rather than a cure.
Here’s a quick run-down of the approach we took to creating the mobile version:
It all begins with ‘The Client Brief’
Team Crabtree wanted a mobile app that enabled easy mobile entry to their national talent search. The Quest for ‘Peter’ is a competition for all children aged 8-14 to star in Series 2 of Fishing in the Footsteps of Mr. Crabtree. We incorporated all of the background info to the comp, the T&Cs and the all-important entry form, as well as a mobile-exclusive (see below).
Once we’d incorporated the Quest for ‘Peter’, we started looking at which key elements from the main site we needed.
We interrogated the site’s analytics to see which pages were the best performers and we spoke to a focus group of regular site users to find out which elements they felt worked best and worst in the full version. We decided on a home screen with a total of 16 options for V1, so we were as ruthless as a full Cowell of X-Factor judges during this phase.
Mobile exclusives – Why should users WANT to use the app? Of course it’s more accessible than trying to view a full website on a phone or tablet, and we’ve squeezed lots of the best features in, but we wanted something new and exciting that you can’t do via the main website.
That came in the form of the live gallery. Anglers like to share their triumphs and what better way than the ability to upload your trophy pic right from the bankside? We’ve kicked off things with two albums – ‘Crabtree Catches’, and ‘The Quest for ‘Peter’ – this one gives the competition entrants the option of uploading their pics direct, rather than emailing them in.
Useability and Styling – We decided upon a clean and simple app that incorporated existing graphic elements and was complementary to the main site and social media pages. One that gives the user fast access to everything they need from a single screen, providing the option to convert to the main site if the user wants to go deeper or to view in a different format.
We incorporated access to Team Crabtree’s main social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, and took the opportunity to include Instagram to encourage growth in this popular community.
Final Tweaking and Letting Go. There comes a time when you’ve got to stop stop tweaking, start testing and then finally let it go. We arranged and re-arranged the hierarchy. Moved, deleted, reinstated and re-deleted until we were completely happy, and then we tested it. And we’re as happy as we can be with V1. *Sits on hands*
So that’s it for now. We’ve got lots of ideas for both the website and the mobile app as our content creation drives forward and these will be implemented over the next 6 months. For now we want to less things settle and see how the app gets used and seek and incorporate feedback before we start tweaking for V2.
