eProfiling iOS & Android App

About the eProfiling iOS & Android App

eProfiling came to Kintek looking for some assistance with a mobile application for their business.

They were after an iPhone and Android application that would integrate with their existing website database to assist RTOs and their students in managing competency tracking via mobile devices.

The system we created stores details offline so that people who are out on work sites can enter in multiple cards of information, and then when they are next connected to the internet synchronise these with the online application.

Planning

The first step was to wireframe the entire application to understand exactly what we were building and how it was going to flow. It took a few iterations to get things right, but without these wireframes in place it’s very difficult to make sure everyone is on the same page. It is an integral part of our planning.

Multiple Platform API Integration

From the start we had to carefully plan our design decisions because the app was to be built on both the iPhone and Android platforms. Both the iOS and Android apps were built in their native code, Objective-C and Java. Given the technical nature of the applications and needing to utilise custom built API, we needed full control to make sure the experience using the app was flawless.

Custom Design

eProfiling didn’t come with a 30 page style guide like some of our other customers, so we needed to come up with a custom ‘feeling’ for the application. Their online system is very functional, but not much time has spent on the actual visual design. We came up with a compelling dark theme to the application, and then made key points of information brighter colours so the application still worked well in high sunlight.

Adding Cards

The eProfiling system works off adding ‘cards’, so on iOS we used the in-build UiPickerView, and on Android we used the HoloDark theme with a list of the cards. eProfiling use a ‘week number’ system, rather than the standard date format most systems uses, so we designed to app to cater for the users preference rather than just their actual week number.

Validation & Required Fields

When building the application, and after some testing and talks with eProfiling, we agreed one of the main functions – adding information to the system – needed some validation. Originally we were showing errors when you submitted an incomplete card, but this felt clunky. Instead we came up with a solution in which each section of the application was validated on the spot by the app so that when submitting a card to the server we never had problems and didn’t need to show users errors.

Submit, Summary, & Edit

We had a page that served a few purposes in the application, which was a summary / submit screen. If you were still adding content to a card you could see a quick overview here of all the information, rather than drilling into each section individually. Once you submitted a card this information was locked off, but you could still access it to see an overview of exactly what you had sent through. Once a card is submitted the account owner checks the details you gave are valid, and then approves or denies your card.

Managing Account Details

We built into the app account management tools. It’s a little unorthodox, but after some discussions with eProfiling we realised some people would rely on the mobile versions of eProfiling exclusively. Thus we made the decisions that users should be able to change their account details using their phones.