Ideaware

[COMIC] Perfect Sandwich

May 23, 2013 by mariaabello

New Team Members

It seems like yesterday when we were only six at the office! We’ve grown with careful planning and awesome projects up to our team of 25! Today, we’re proud to present our new team members.

Ma Cecilia – Hi, my name is Maria Cecilia Abello, I’m Marketing & Community Strategist (face behind social media and more). Graphic designer that particularly love’s sales, marketing and public relations. Today 24 years old, just a step away of my 25’th birthday. In my spare time I love to read, hangout with friends, exercise, but my favorite hobby is sleeping. See you around!

Jorge - Hi guys, it’s my time to say something about me. I am 23 years old, born at Barranquilla and iOS Developer by accident. In my free time I like to dance, play soccer, watch series and go to the movies. I love to be updated in everything that has to be about technology.

Giselle - Hello! I am Gisselle Muñoz, designer and typographyholic. Tomato lover, or I should say freak. Going to the beach and taking photographs as my favorite hobbies :)

May 20, 2013 by mariaabello | 1 Notes

A Sneak Peek Into Ideaware’s New HQ

We want to give all of you a sneak peek of our new headquarters. We’ve had the luck of acquiring two spaces (with a great view btw) that will end up as one large creative space.

Our team is growing and so our space needs to be more awesome, we will have separate spaces for our creative and development team, management and multiple meeting rooms. Let’s not forget about an awesome game room and a fully stocked kitchen with yummy snacks.

We’re moving soon, we’ll let you know so you can drop by!

May 16, 2013 by mariaabello | 3 Notes

Happy Birthday to us!

We’re officially 2 today! It’s been a great two years, starting from a one man shop up to our awesome team of 24 as of today. We are very lucky and very happy to work with the clients we have, thank you for trusting us with your websites and apps!

If you’re in the area, come join us for a birthday bash at our headquarters 5pm COT.

May 10, 2013 by mariaabello | 3 Notes

Web App: Icomoon

With retina and responsive design becoming more integral into the front-end developer’s workflow, icons and images can become an issue. Maintaining double the sprite sheets, adding more CSS/JS for detection, there are many solutions to the issue at hand, and here’s one more: Icomoon.

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April 29, 2013 by mariaabello | 1 Notes

5 Simple UX Tips (And Questions) To Improve Your App

Building a web or mobile app? The one biggest piece of advice we give our clients is to keep things simple. Simple is good, simple allows you to focus on the problem and forget the tiny little things that don’t add up to the core value of the product.

We like building user experiences, we live and breathe it. We have a set of rules and questions we like to follow in our process. Here are the top 5 tips (and questions) we’d like to share with you:

1. Unclutter

Sometimes we fall in the mistake of adding elements to the interface or functionality that does not add any value to the user, thus cluttering the interface. Ask yourself - is this element really necessary? Will it provide value to my product? 

2. Content first

Colors, pictures, textures and icons will all make your app look nice and like its full of features, but where’s the content? Don’t hide it behind a fancy over designed UI. Remember: you’re building an app, your users will want to see, interact and create content. Ask yourself - How will the UI will look with content in it?

3. A holistic interface

Designing and building an app is a process. Like every process it takes time, how long it depends on the app. Avoid one pitfall though - Don’t introduce UI elements or interactions for every use case. Keep it simple, for example - if you already used a dialog as a confirm box, don’t introduce a new UI element for the same purpose, reuse that dialog. Ask yourself - Can I re use an existing element for this use case?

4. Re use, refine

There are certain types of elements and behaviors that a user will expect from your app. Let’s take a car for example, you get in it you expect to find a steering wheel in front of you. Same applies to an app, sure you can reinvent the wheel to make something different, but will your users find that useful, or will it hinder the experience? A searchbox is still a searchbox, clicking on a logo is still expected to take you back to the start page. Ask yourself - is it really necessary to re invent the wheel with this element?

5. App feedback

Your app should *always* give the user feedback. If you need the user to wait for something, if there is an error, or something was successful, your user should know! Don’t leave people off wondering what is going on, people are impatient and will quickly diss the app. Ask yourself - Do I need to give the user feedback at this point?

Well, there we go a nice list of the top questions we like to ask ourselves in our design & ux process. Hope you will find them as useful as we do!

Feel free to drop us a note if you’d like any advice regarding your app.

April 24, 2013 by andresmax | 2 Notes

Introducing Drinklist 2.0

It’s been almost two years since we launched Drinklist, a free app we made to solve a simple problem: calculate your part on a shared tab on those awesome nights out with friends.

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April 17, 2013 by andresmax

We’re Hiring Web & Mobile Designers!

Here at Ideaware we always strive for creating only the best for our customers. Our amazing team has been delivering top-notch designs and apps over the last year, and the time has come to grow our team!

We currently have positions for Senior and Junior Designers, so if web is your thing and you want to join our team, please apply at:

http://ideaware.co/apply_for_a_job

Send a copy of your portfolio (or link) and we will be in touch very soon.

February 13, 2013 by andresmax

5 Benefits of Designing First, Developing Later

There is no doubt that design & development need to go hand-in-hand in order to create a successful product, but which comes first? This is a question I still get asked more than a few times a week. There is no one-size-fits-all answer of course, but I firmly believe designing first is the key factor to a successful product.

Here are some of the benefits I’ve identified over the years (and daily practice at Ideaware):

1. Shorter Timelines Equals Faster Products

It’s easy to get caught up in an endless loop of developing features and then skinning them with a pseudo-nice design, this usually creates and endless flow of additions that never end. Design first, and create a specific timeline of screens/pages to be designed, code them and then you will know when you’re done.

2. Rich & Easy User Experience

There is just no way to get a holistic view of your app or website if you start at the trenches and work your way up. Create a site map, sketch the application flows, draw screens and pages that tie to common objectives. You will quickly realize how hard/easy you can build your UX and (hopefully) go with the latter road.

3. Plan, Plan, Plan

The best way to get something done is to dive right in right? Well that may be true but plan a bit first! Plan your first release, your second one and third, design these. Get a sense of all the features you’re going to build in, this will allow you to build a holistic interface right from the start.

4. Cut Development Times

I don’t know how many times I’ve seen a stakeholder/product owner ask the developer (or even worse, a development team) to code features that may take days to add in just to realize they don’t want it or it shouldn’t be part of the app. 

Developers shouldn’t be there to experiment, they are engineers, they should get a specific “blueprint” on what needs to be built and execute it. The time for experimentation is the design phase, not the development phase.

5. Clear Product Roadmap

Many years ago when I started building web products we would start coding without a roadmap, this is a big mistake! How else would you set releases, timelines and due dates?

There are many ways to phase out a project and having a clear sense of the interface will help you out greatly!

I strongly believe design should drive development, not the other way around. For me (and us at Ideaware) we find it way more beneficial to approach projects this way.

January 24, 2013 by andresmax | 3 Notes