Understand

The Business Needs

At Woodridge we understand business and custom software. The goal is to make your business more competitive, drive down costs, increase revenue and improve customer loyalty. You may come to us with a new business idea or need an application for your existing business. We have built custom software for 100’s of businesses, have run several business ourselves and we’ll help you align your software project goals with the business objective. Sometimes that even means not going forward with the project, but usually it means we give good advice to make your project more successful.

The Users

The technology we create needs to be user centric, meaning we build the technology to work for people, we don’t force people into technology. While we’ll often perform standard research such as Persona Development, Journey Mapping & Usability Testing, we also put great value on the client’s understanding of their user base. These combined with our knowledge of how to make technology work well, leads us to the next phase of design.

Design

Create a User Experience

The core focus of design is to create a better way of accomplishing a task; it’s not necessarily the most visually appealing design that works best. Before you can develop a great User Interface(UI), you need to understand how to create a User experience(UX). Our team creates user flows, that show the hierarchy of pages in the app, the flow of users through those pages, and the sequence of actions outside the application, such as a user getting an alert sent from a backend server. We produce high-fidelity wireframes, with much of the graphic design built in. These are iterated with the client several times.

UI Design and Application Styling

After UX work, a graphic design and styling phase begins along with development. We define the typography, color palette, photography, and artwork. A style guide is created to aid in development and to document the visual decisions and interactions that are unique to the application. The style guide will also be there to influence future enhancements. The end result is a pleasing UI that drives usage and acceptance of the app.

Develop

Custom software development comes next. We choose the technologies based on the requirements, but they almost always involve mainstream choices such as PHP, Java, JavaScript, or Objective C. We use frameworks, libraries, and commercial components where leveraging the work of others saves our client money. We front-load the technically risky parts of the solution, sometimes doing a proof of concept while the wireframes are underway.

We create great code; readable, reusable, high performing code. There’s no magic to this– hire great developers and put them in an environment that encourages success. Using techniques such as peer review where we ask hard questions: Why did you make this technical choice? Is this in the best interest of the client, worth our time and their money? The end result is a reliable, scalable, high performing application.

Launch

Finally, the launch phase is client-focused, meaning we work closely with the client to launch the app in the way they want. The business strategy that we addressed in the first phase is executed. We monitor the project for success and remain ready to implement future enhancements and phases. We are partners for the long term.