Ever wondered what it's like to take on an app development project as a software developer at a company like Foodello-Fiksuruoka? Would you like to get a sneak peek at what kind of projects software developers do at Fiksuruoka–Foodello looks like? Meet Kasperi Karesvuori, who recently took on an interesting project to develop a brand-new mobile app for our store, that had significant importance for the business. How did the app development process go? What was Kasperi’s experience on it? Read on to find out!
Working with our web store focused on selling surplus batches offers interesting challenges for software developers. Especially when you work in a fast-growing scaleup like Fiksuruoka–Foodello where testing out new things and focusing on growth is our second name.
One of the latest challenges that our Fullstack Developer Kasperi Karesvuori took on was a mobile app development for our store, taking ownership of a project that had significant importance for the business.
“We recognized that the customers, especially in our markets in the Netherlands and Belgium, preferred to make purchases through mobile apps. Now, we wanted to make their experience of saving food from our store as easy as possible with a new mobile app”, Kasperi explains. Before, there had been a native app to store that had worked as a very straightforward solution.
Kasperi works as a part of our nine-person Product team. Together, they decided that Kasperi should take responsibility for this project due to his personal and professional interest in app development.
“Before this project, I had already tackled the onboarding functionality for the original native app, which got me curious about what it would be like to do a full-scale app development”, he explains.
Well, how do you successfully execute a project like this?
The first step in any project is to form a team and in this case, it meant our Designers Katja and Liisa-Lotta, and Kasperi as a developer. “I was responsible for developing the whole app and for managing the project timeline from a developer's perspective”, he says.
Next, the designers did a lot of digging. “Our design team conducted thorough research on e-commerce stores that already had apps, benchmarking features, and functions, and examining how users interacted with them. This helped us to shape ideas for the design and functionality of our app”, Kasperi says. Kasperi and other developers in the team were also involved in planning the app design and brainstorming ideas.
When the designers had a plan ready, it was Kasperi’s time to shine. “My primary goal was to create an industry-standard app that offered a user-friendly experience”, Kasperi says.
“As I had been focusing mostly on the backend while working at Fiksuruoka but also earlier in my career, in this project, I got to delve deep into frontend development”, Kasperi says.
When Kasperi rolled up his sleeves and got to work, he noticed that even though they had carefully created the plan together with the team, there were some unforeseen challenges when translating design plans into functional features. This didn’t stop him.
“Not everything can be planned in advance, at some point you just have to start working and refine things as you go. That’s when you learn the most”, Kasperi says.
Looking into the industry standard in iOS and Android development offered a fun challenge to Kasperi. “I had had to quickly learn how to, for example, smoothly navigate between different views, stick to operating system’s development standards, and create an app that seamlessly integrated with a mobile device, ensuring it felt natural and intuitive to use”, he explains. Luckily our designers are true experts in this area and he got a lot of support from the team.
What would be the one most exciting skill you learned in this?
“The developer tools in the web browser allowed me to manipulate elements in the app in real-time”, he says.
Basically, Kasperi could make live changes directly on the app version to run on the device, making the modification process highly efficient. Also, changes to the web element's CSS were quick to transfer to the codebase. “This was particularly beneficial when we could test potential changes to the designs right away”, Kasperi explains. Testing the app and making improvements in a shorter control cycle made the app testing process quicker.
“It was also fun to impress the designers with this”, he laughs.
As the mobile app was almost ready, the team took a closer look at the user experience. After all, the ultimate goal was to make fighting against food waste as easy and enjoyable as possible for the customers.
“Our Lead Designer Katja invited some of our native app users, our customers, to the office to test and give feedback on the new app”, Kasperi says. This was done to ensure that the app was as user-friendly as it could be.
According to Kasperi, it was really eye-opening to get feedback from the customers when they performed different tasks on the app.
“They paid attention to various features in a completely different way that I had. It was very beneficial to get their point of view so that I could make it better. I also learned that some features I had really struggled with were not a problem to the customers”, he explains. So, it definitely became clear that sometimes on-site user testing is very effective in gaining valuable insights.
Looking back, was there something he would have done differently?
“Well, at the same time, our team was working on migrating our VUE framework-based store to a new version. This involved essentially rewriting the entire online store code. As the app was near completion, we realized that we would need to rewrite a lot of the updated components again to align with the changes introduced by the app”, he says and continues with a smile: “But as we are moving quite fast to scale things, sometimes this happens and you just learn from it. Not a problem!”
#1 Developers + Designers = dream team: Emphasize the power of collaboration between developers and designers. The sweet spot is finding the balance between functionality and aesthetics to create an awesome app.
#2 User testing is essential: The importance of diving into your users' minds is going to give you the final touch to your app. Real interactions provide deep insights, ensuring your final product is not just user-friendly but also resonates with your audience. Pro tip: doing user testing at the earlier stage helps you to figure out what's most important. This way you can focus on the right stuff and get your app ready on time.
#3 Enjoy the learning journey: Have fun trying new things and learning as you go. Don’t be afraid to try new things or start just testing different ideas. You’ll get there!
📲 Curious to know how the app turned out? Go download it below!
👉 Fiksuruoka: Google Play Store or App Store
👉 Foodello: Google Play Store (NL & BE) or App Store NL, App Store BE