PicturePilot

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Developing an experimental drawing application that helps people of all ages learn how to draw

Helping people how to draw on the go

PicturePilot helps people express their ideas through drawing. Our team partnered with PicturePilot to build an MVP of the mobile app in which people can learn how to draw.

industries:
Education
technologies:
Flutter
UXCam
services:
UX/UI Design
Mobile Development
Feasibility Workshop
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Roland Siegenthaler, Picture Pilot’s founder, believes that ideas are understood faster when we put them into drawings. To help people learn how to draw, Roland organizes one-day workshops, where attendees draw simple yet powerful drawings to illustrate what they mean.

When we draw, we process information using many senses and codes. The integration of multiple cognitive processes improves memory formation and retention. Learning through drawing also simplifies the understanding of even the most complex ideas.

Roland organizes visualization workshops where he helps people learn how to tell stories, boost creativity, and create infographics. During workshops, Roland discovered that users could benefit from having an option to learn how to draw everywhere, on the go.

Scope of Work

The project consisted of two phases: discovery and development. First, we performed a feasibility study to determine if Flutter could be used to enable the drawing functionality. Next, we moved to the delivery stage.

Feasibility and Technology Validation

At the start of the project, we had to validate how easy it would be to use Flutter to build the drawing application and how convenient it would be to draw on a smartphone. This included assessing the ease of drawing on a smartphone through a three-day proof-of-concept session conducted by our R&D department.

Scope Refinement for MVP Development

After a comprehensive analysis, we advised on narrowing down the scope to focus on the MVP. This involved removing non-essential features and focusing on the core functionality to validate the product idea effectively.

User Experience Design and Development

Following the scoping sessions, we ran a design workshop to create an intuitive and user-friendly UX for the app.

Development

Flutter let us build the application swiftly while also giving us an easier way to extend the application to other platforms in the future using a single codebase.

Solution

To bring drawing abilities closer to users, PicturePilot needed a user-friendly and intuitive solution that ran on a smartphone. The application would enable learners to learn how to draw simple objects.

Ideally, the mobile application would guide users through a series of drawing tasks with an increasing level of difficulty and detail.

“From our first call, nomtek showed real dedication to this project. And not only did they consult me on technical aspects of the app, they also provided very valuable business advice on how to establish the app on the market. Their holistic approach really convinced me. Another reason for working with nomtek is their true understanding and implementation of the agile methods,” says Roland Siegenthaler.

Labs, our internal R&D department, organized a three-day proof-of-concept session. The R&D validation proved the idea was feasible technologically and delivered on the user experience.

Cutting the scope

Roland came to us with a considerable scope (i.e., a frontend and backend with user accounts). After deeper analysis, we advised Roland not to pursue the whole scope. Building an application that includes numerous features without first validating the idea with an MVP is too risky.

“The current app helps a lot to test the idea in a small market and show the case to potential enterprise customers. It’s a very important step towards the visualization platform it should become one day,” says Roland.

Testing the minimum viable product version of the application with initial users would give us the necessary insight as to their behaviors and the potential success of the idea.

We organized scoping sessions to remove all the features that weren’t key to validating the product idea.

We worked in a typical SCRUM setup, with a demo after every two weeks. Once a week, we also touched base with PicturePilot to talk about the progress and voice any issues.

Team Composition

PicturePilot was an inspiring project where a full-cycle team worked to go from the validation stage through design to development.

2

Developers

1

QA

1

Project Manager

1

Designer

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