MOBILE AND NONPROFITS

Matt Bowen MAY 26, 2015

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WHO WE ARE

• A research & development group at the American Legacy Foundation.

• We look for ways of using new technologies to help people quit smoking and then studying the effectiveness of these new interventions

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WHAT WE’VE MADE (QUICKLY)

We  build  apps…  for  science!  

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WHAT WE’VE MADE (QUICKLY)

The apps • Ubiquitxt, a SMS system to help people quit smoking • This is Quitting, a mobile app for young adults who are trying to quit

◦ Android and iOS hybrid-mobile app

◦ Responsive Marketing Site

We  build  apps…  for  science!  

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WHAT’S THE TEAM LOOK LIKE

• Attractive, youthful, fashionable • …

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WHAT’S THE TEAM LOOK LIKE

• Lead by Dr. Amanda Graham, a researcher with multiple NIH-backed grants • Team itself is two PMs (one science-y and one technical) and three devs

◦ Technical background is mostly in traditional CRUD webapps and content management

◦ Design is partially outsourced, partially done by PMs or PMs collaborating with devs. No dedicated designers on the team though.

THE APPS!

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UBIQUITXT

• An SMS app that walks people through a plan for quitting and gives them an outlet when they have cravings • According to several studies, SMS programs do help people quit in the long run • Strangely, feels like the simplest mobile offering in a lot of ways

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UBIQUITXT

• It's nice because people actually read their texts. They’re even better than push notifications! • It's simple because there aren't a lot of display issues or app-stores • It's complicated because you need to respond to really random things people send you • It's obviously pretty limited in what lends itself to being delivered over SMS

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THIS IS QUITTING APP

• A mobile app for Android and (soon) iOS • Trying to offer both a sense of community and a variety of ways to quit smoking • Been under development for about a year, just went live on app stores

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THIS IS QUITTING APP

• We used web technologies to build the app --- it is "hybrid mobile" • In some ways simpler because you have some control over the "browser" • In a lot of ways much more complicated than what we're used to --- very different from traditional web dev

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THIS IS QUITTING SITE

• Responsive marketing site for the app • Made it so people might find our app via Google • Flexes from small phones to big monitors • Designed out of house but implemented internally

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THIS IS QUITTING SITE

• Pretty much a static site • Hardest part was getting old browsers (IE8, IE9) not to choke on code for the mobile responsive stuff. • Responsive because we expect people to look for our app by goggling using their phones AND their desktops

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APP VS SITE: MAKE AN APP IF…

• You expect people to be coming back specifically to YOUR property to solve some problem

◦ For us, quitting smoking is a process

◦ We expect users to come back to our app repeatedly as they try and fail and finally success

• You have some plan to for people to find out about your app (we use ads!)

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APP VS SITE: MAKE A SITE IF…

• You expect people to find your resources as they solve a problem and to not care about who you specifically are • Be honest with yourself -- the reach of the web is incredible, and if you can leverage it, do!

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ADD SMS IF…

• You can imagine your program delivered as a chat bot/choose-your-own adventure • You have some method for signing people up (e.g., an existing registration process, or in-person intervention) • You have a system for delivering the messages :/

THANK YOU