Tens of thousands of users. Millions of requests per month.
Barely a marketing budget - the growth of this app was unexpected. Word-of-mouth mixed with collaboration opportunities for the users saw the app grow at a surprising rate.
My involvement was on the server-side API building the functionality to support the apps.
Allowing writers to share ideas, right within the context of their story.
Users could start their own books, consisting of chapters, and could even collaborate with other users. Feedback could be given on each chapter, allowing users the potential to write their own novels knowing that they have already passed public opinion.
Intricately old-fashioned
The design is clearly skuomorphic, because it was written before Jony Ive brought us iOS 5, which overhauled the design paradigm.
Oauth2
The API was built using Codeigniter. Not my choice these days but the framework is simple, and quick to get going with, and certainly proved itself.
Key takeaways
- Skeomorphism was impressive at the time and the design budget was serious. Getting all the effects and graphics in place, and UX interactions with the limits of Objective-C took longer than building the actual app and API functionality. It seemed a good idea at the time until the industry very quickly shifted to flat design, making the app look very old fashioned.
- I started re-writing the API in Lithium (#li3) framework. The idea was to scaffold the existing API with functional tests and then build the new version to get the same results. It was a waste of time, even more-so with that framework being discontinued not long after.
- The app and API was barely updated in years following 2013, and yet people carried on using it at a notable pace. It was easy to see development had stopped due to the design but the system did not suffer any security breaches despite the longevity and lack of development investment.
Stills
