Mobile Development

SITUATION

A large publishing company interested in translating a suite of assessments to the iPad worked with Digital Foundry to create the technical proof of concepts that demonstrated this project could be undertaken successfully.  At this point, Digital Foundry began the implementation project, which involved leveraging the technology developed during the strategy phase to create assessments that could stand up to equivalence testing with the original, paper-based models. 

SOLUTION

Digital Foundry used a variety of tools to ensure that the final iPad application would be able provide a set of tools that equaled – if not exceeded – the flexibility of the original paper-based assessments.  One of the primary tools was a discovery-based planning methodology that surfaced changing expectations and technological roadblocks at regular intervals. 

Often, as a project progresses, the technical landscape changes or the requirements of the project change in some meaningful way, and those changes are addressed in the project goals.  In many cases, projects are planned when the main participants know the least about the work they are attempting, and the knowledge that is gained over the course of the project is not put to use effectively.  However, in discovery-based planning, the project team schedules regular checkpoints to validate the project’s key assumptions and incorporate new learning into the project plan.  This process keeps the project on track even while key assumptions may have shifted.  For instance, in this project, one of the key assumptions was that iOS was the ideal application platform.  Revisiting that assumption at regular intervals helped ensure that the final product would be successful. 

RESULTS

Through close collaboration with our publishing industry partners, Digital Foundry was able to:

• Create working assessments for the iPad that using technical proof of concepts and paper-based assessments models.
• Pass equivalence testing that compared the paper-based experience to the electronic experience. 
• Ensure that the development process was not upset or derailed by upheavals in the marketplace.