Color Therapy
Turn-key development of relaxation and mindfulness coloring mobile app, including graphic engine modernization by covering all stages from preliminary tech consultancy, full business analysis, design, client and server development, team management, QA to post-production support.
- Custom Software Development
- 2016 – ongoing
- Industry: Social Networking, Entertainment
- 8th on App Store in „Books“
- 8 mln active users
- x4 application performance increase
Initial Task
Description
The client approached us with a request to build a modern product on top of an existing indie coloring app.
First version of the product had been among pioneers of the genre, but in a couple of years it was already losing to bigger players.
We were asked to extend the painting engine with freehand drawing tools, create a custom social network and improve the app’s general look and feel.
Technology stack
Frontend
Backend
Process
Phase / 01.
Discovery, Tech Consultancy and Team Formation
-
Our team has taken a thorough review of the existing app, its functionality and code base to understand the starting point.
After having conducted an extended client’s interview to understand the needs, plans and pain points we have come up with a detailed plan and road map of the project development, including covering aspects of team composition and tech solutions to be implemented. -
Since Color Therapy was a complete turn-key project, we formed a solid team of 11 various experts, including iOS and backend developers, UX/UI designers, and QA testers to perform the required tasks and to introduce their fresh vision and ideas, including as to graphic and video solutions, as well as to cloud choice.
Phase / 02.
First Steps
-
Brand New Engine
Our initial approach assumed building a new app on top of the old coloring engine. However, the addition of freehand drawing, SVG support and requested performance capabilities forced us to create a brand new engine from scratch, only using some of the legacy parts as a guidance.
-
Freehand Drawing. First Approach
After several months of development, freehand drawing performance was still insufficient. Our first attempt relied solely on CoreGraphics, which turned out to be incapable of handling the desired mix of high canvas resolution, strokes quality and device support. It was a turning point.
-
Freehand Drawing. Ultimate Decision
In close cooperation with the client, we decided to extend the graphics team and look into lower level programming. We introduced a fully custom graphics framework built in C / GLSL / Objective-C, with manual memory management and integrations of CoreGraphics, SpriteKit and Accelerate which remained competitive till today.
Phase / 03.
Highload Backend
-
Given vast functional diversity and millions of active users, our architect ended up with 3 subsystems: Content, Social, and Voting.
-
Content Subsystem
CONTENT contemplates art templates transmission layer taking advantage of Azure’s CDN to instantly synchronize and deliver large chunks of data to users worldwide.
-
Social Subsystem
SOCIAL comprises a REST API backend responsible for common social network functionalities.
-
Voting Subsystem
VOTING is a set of scheduled workers responsible for complex logic calculations that determine winners of various in-app contests daily.
Phase / 04.
Final Steps
-
Monetization
Touchlane has helped the client with the research and development of monetization approaches to fully address the client’s needs, be financially efficient and preserving the impeccable user experience. As a result, with the help of AppLovin MAX we incorporated several apps monetization tools.
-
Testing and Updates
Our team put a lot of efforts to integrate various A/B tests and analytics, as well a gather and process users’ feedback to continuously update and polish the UX/UI design.
-
Release and Further Updates
Upon implementation of all steps above, we assisted the Client with the app's release and now proceed our close cooperation by maintaining the app and testing new features.
Overall Result
Our fruitful partnership and the launch of the renewed Color Therapy app resulted in the following outcomes that we stand proud of:
Task summary
01.
x4 Performance Increase
Our efforts led to x4 application performance increase
02.
8 mln Active Users
With almost 8 mln of active users proves to be one of the best relaxation and mindfulness coloring mobile app
03.
8th on App Store
With the help of our team the app has hit the target of being one of top 10 apps in the relevant App Store category.
Client Review
Touchlane’s open-minded team is willing to work on issues with clients and takes their feedback effectively.
The application has all the requested features and is continuously monitored for issues. Touchlane’s receptiveness to input and their dedication to the project spurred continued engagement. Customers can expect an approachable team with exceptional QA services and project management stylings.
