 Welcome everybody. This is Brian Rowe from LS NTAP. We've got a special presentation here today. It's kind of outside of what our normal webinar series is on. It's on building mobile apps, connecting with students. It's very interesting organization. I'm turning it over at this point to YC who is going to give a presentation on diverse. Please let me know if I'm pronouncing that correctly and kind of what you guys have done for projects and how you may be able to connect with the legal services community and work with some of the great nonprofits here in doing mobile app development. Thank you so much for the introduction. So first of all, I want to say thank you for everyone putting your time on tuning into this webinar. And thank you for LS NTAP for hosting us today. So my name is YC. I'm the client relationship manager for diverse. And here with me is Lambrashal and he's our lead Android developers. So first we'll be going through just very briefly Lambrashal will tell you guys who we are and what we do. And then we will spend a lot of time talking about what exactly is the app development and what does it mean for nonprofits to be an app development and how the app and also how they need to prepare for it. And then we'll just at the end very quickly describe how we do it. So our core team consists of six people three of us are seniors at Boston University, and the rest are alumni. We have mixed specialties and technology and business with development. I am a, I'm one of the seniors. I major in business with concentrations and finance and information systems, and also minor computer science. And this next summer I'll be starting full time as a technology advisor for Ernst & Young. YC has experienced working with nonprofit clients. For example, she worked with us. She worked on the, she worked with the Peace Corps Northeast of Recruitment Team for one of our apps and worked with the Boston Tax Help Coalition. So she really has a deep understanding about what nonprofits might need. So overall, I'll just go through this very quickly. We believe that why and the question of purpose is more important than what. So why we do it is because we want to change the way that social organizations work. One issue that we see is that social organizations might not be able to keep up with the very fast, very quickly changing technological world. Like Mois off, for example, every two years possibly power doubles. And so we want to help like the passionate people who devote their own time and effort to really make an impact. And we want to give developers a chance to use their own expertise, because it's sort of, it's very rare for them to be able to help a cause through the skills that they've developed over how, however many years they've been programming or if they have had no experience, we want to teach them how to do that. And so what we do is app development and teaching. So we specifically empower those organizations with technology that helps them run better. We provide students a chance to get real world opportunities and feel like they're helping those around them. Some organizations that we've worked with in the past are Boston Tax Help are the Peace Corps and Boston Tax Help Coalition. So before we get into the process, we're going to just talk about the overall back end and front end. We're going to define what it is, and we're going to sort of talk about the cycle as a general overview. So the front end is basically the pretty looking outer shell that users interact with directly. It's the buttons you press and the text boxes you type into. An iPhone, for example, is so successful because its user interface is so easy to understand that a toddler can use it. And the front end is all about the aesthetics and basically the usability of the app. The back end is another beast entirely. To clear up a common misconception, a back end is not the equivalent of back office. So the front end is the button. The back end is how the button works. It's basically the brains of the entire operation. An example of a back end is the ability to search for an app on the App Store and find it among the millions of other apps. And then the ability to press a button and get all the information of the app onto your phone. Without a back end, the front end literally does nothing. Pressing the button will do absolutely nothing. It'll probably just change an animation, but you won't get any information. So the back end, because it's all about information, it emphasizes the security, the content management, and the actual information that you see. Because it needs to come without being interrupted. You don't want to get any sort of viruses from downloading something. And so that's sort of what the back end itself emphasizes. This is a brief overview of the entire mobile app development cycle. There are five main steps. It starts off at the top with analysis, where the nonprofits and the developers are trying to figure out the needs and features that will be included in the app. Basically, you're trying to figure out the actual functions that you're going to want to see. And basically, we want to also prioritize that list for you to think about what are the most important features and uses that you're going to get out of this app. Next step is the design, where the developers design the front end of the app, the actual aesthetics, and they're going to brainstorm what it looks like. At this point, they'll also think about who the users are and how they'll use the app. Implementation is the actual writing of code, where they take the brainstorming function from the analysis phase and the brainstorming of aesthetics from the design phase and make the full app. This is where they take the analysis and design and they put it together and they actually code it out. But after that, it might have a bunch of bugs. And so afterwards, you need to test it to make sure it'll run, it'll do everything smoothly and efficiently. So the last step is basically just the idea of continuous improvement because depending on what kind of software development life cycle you're looking to do, you may have multiple iterations, you may have multiple features that you're adding on with each and every cycle. And so that's why there's a continuous improvement. You want to make it even more efficient, even better. And so you and your developers will continuously improve it. Well, so for now, before moving on to the next phase where I'll be talking about what it means for the non-profit, does anyone have any questions? Okay, moving on then. Well, I guess we'll move on to the next part. I mean, what is the timeframe for this development cycle? How long do you guys typically spend putting together an app? Is this a year or a month? What does this mean in real time? So would this be targeting the general processing, like the general app development, or specifically to us? Specifically to you. To you guys and working with students and that type of stuff. What's the timeframe look like? It depends on the program because we are going to be educating a student at the same time. It will be roughly around six to seven weeks. I can talk more about us and what we do at the end of the presentation. Would that be helpful? Because that will give you a better picture of what we do. Yeah, but does anyone have any questions on the front end back end and this general app development process? Well, I'm assuming we will move on to the next session. You can also take questions at the end if you think of anything new. Yeah, so the next part. So for social organization, since I'm the client, basically the non-profit, the client relationship manager, there will be quite a lot of non-profit. And I find out that the main question a lot of organizations don't really get is how can a mobile app really help them because sometimes they might want it, but they don't know what it's for. So one thing you have to understand about mobile app, especially app development for non-profit, is what is the reason why you need it. You have to understand why you need this app. Otherwise, if you just want a mobile app just because everyone else is having one and it'll be a cool to have one, then mobile app might not be for you. Because if you don't understand the fundamental reason why you need it, you might have difficulty trying to work with your developers or whoever will be developing your mobile app. And then there will be a lot of miscommunications just because no one understands the main reason why you need this app. So this picture is a little bit quite a lot of things, but this is the overall app development process in terms of what non-profit needs to get. So the very first step is the need analysis. So what Brett was talking about is the analyze part. So you have to understand what exactly are the problems that your organization is having and how can a mobile app solve that problem. So that is the wide part of the entire app development, and this is the fundamental of the entire mobile app. And then after that, you need to work with a lot of logistics before you start building up the coding part because this is what Brett was talking about, the backend system, which here will be basically the database. If you don't have a good database, then it will be very difficult to actually have the front end system, which is the mobile app. So the main question about database is whether you already have one in-house existing database or you outsource it to a third party. Because if you have your own database, it will be much easier to work with. You can just simply share this database and give access to the developers and they can just make a mobile app using the same database. But if you outsource it to a third party, then that's where it could be a little bit tricky. You and your developer will need to speak with your third party, outsource the party to discuss what other limitation or what other obstacles of actually getting access to your data. Because in the past, that's actually something that we have to work with that they cannot give full access to the developers to use it for the mobile app. So that would be something you have to keep in mind if you have a third party, if you outsource your database to a third party. But then if you actually don't really have a good database right now, so having this mobile app, you will definitely need one. So maybe this would be a good idea and good timing for you to actually design one and have one for your organization. So the next is wire framing. So the wire framing part is basically like a blueprint of what your mobile app will look like. And at this process, you need to understand who the people will be using your mobile app. You will not understand the user. That's because imagine you have a firm, just a firm A. They have around a thousand volunteers and all they want is around middle age or retirement age. And your primary communication is through email and text messages, pretty inefficient. And this firm A is trying to have a mobile app so that they can actually talk through the app instead. So when you do the wire framing part, what you think about maybe, for example, you think about that since they're on the, these volunteers are older, you will want to design your app to have thicker font or button that's relatively bigger. So it would be easier for them to use because you need to think about how your user will interact with this app. This is the phrase where you have to need to have a good understanding of who are the user. So after this, having a blueprint of your mobile app, now we'll go to design. And the science where you make the blueprint into something really pretty and something that like, it would look like you want to use it like with colors and everything. But with this design part, so for you as a nonprofit, if you have any like branding material or any existing logo, you should get it to the developer so they can use it or have a standardized like color theme. Otherwise, it might look a bit weird and awkward if the app doesn't look like something that your organization will own. So this is the part where you still have to work a lot with your developers. But afterwards, starting around the programming part, you can, it's where you get a little bit hands off. And the developers will be taking over and they will be writing a lot of like lines of code and actually doing the magic of app development and making it into an actual app. And then toward they will have the quality assurance and that is the part where they will do a lot testing, making sure there's no bugs and you can publish it and user can use it like on a daily basis. So that kind of some of the entire process, like just very quick overview of the entire process of the app development and what the nonprofit need to do. Esper was saying that we actually adding value to both parties for the students and for you for the nonprofit. So for the students, we teach them a lot of the fun and mobile app development education so they can actually make the mobile app that will be the one who's programming it. But what we add value to the app development process is that we are the one who will try to help you out and walk you through to figure out what exactly is the reason on the purpose of the app, the wide part that I was talking about. And also have this app integration support between the front and the back end. So making sure that whatever you have for the back end system, whether you have a third party, or you have your own database, or you don't have a database that will work with you, making sure that you will have a good database for your mobile app to use. And last, last but not least, the last I will add to is the quality assurance, making sure that what the student make for the mobile app is good quality, there's no bugs so that you can use it and publish it. And we also have a project repository so that you can, we can actually keep track with your mobile app and then we can, where you can come back and we can fix any bugs you have and give updates and you can also come back to add more feature to your app. So it will be a continuous partnership or relationship that we'll have. And that is probably. That basically concludes sort of our own process and basically the way that we do it. I guess to add a little bit more detail we have, we can go into some of the programs that we've done in the past so for example the Peace Corps I believe that was 10 weeks right. It was around, yeah, it was around like nine to 10 weeks. So we worked with the Boston College students and I actually met with one of the guys from Peace Corps North Eastern recruitment team, and they were, they were already having their own database and they know what they want for the app but they just really need an app so that their recruitment can actually go and use it. So we spend around like, we spent around, I would say, seven weeks or so working with the students teaching them the mobile app development education, and then we spend like extra like two more weeks to do all those like quality assurance making sure all the there's no missing and deliver the app to Peace Corps. And then the second nonprofit that we've worked with before is Boston Tech Supply Coalition. So in, for people who don't really know what it is, they provide, they actually provide free tax preparation help for a lot of low income family in Boston area. And we just kind of did a prototype for them. It was like a first short around four weeks summer program, just creating a prototype so they know what to get out of like an app and later on they'll probably make an app out of it. So those are the two programs we have in the past and we are having another one right now at Boston College. But since right now our team, we do have a lot of members. So basically right now for what we're doing for the Boston College right now is sort of a more, it's like a small project or community based project where we're making an app for a club on campus. This is sort of another idea that we had where we want to sort of basically reach out into the college and into the community around them and see what they can do from that you know this is more of what we're trying to basically just sort of get involved in what's happening around there right now and trying to give a little bit more control to the Boston College little chapter that we have there and see how it goes. Yeah, so I'm having does anyone have any questions. So the time commitment for a nonprofit and working with you guys it sounds like is the two to three months on the initial development side. What what is the cost for the nonprofit. And what is really the staff dedication that they or hours that they really need to put in and set aside for working on something like this. Yeah, so in terms of the cost is actually going by case by case. So, well I'm actually go back to this slide. So we, you will have to contact with me I have an individual talk and we'll decide what with the price be, but what you'll be paying won't be any of the app development part, because we're teaching a student and student is providing for you guys for free. And you will, you'll only be charged for what we added value to that's why it would be significantly cheaper than what you have outside. So that would, if you want to know about the price you will probably need to send me an email later on and we can talk about this presentation. In general app development is a very like unique thing because of how, you know, one app might need like a login feature or another app might need a calendar is really. And each of those each little different feature would take a different amount of time so it basically just it's very, very case by case. Yeah, and time commitment. So if we look at this slide over here about like the general process. So what we this entire process of what you need to think about in the like just in general, but with us. Since I'm the client relationship manager, I'll be working with you for like the week, the understanding why you need the mobile app or like who are your user and what your database, I'll be working with you. You before the program will start before the program with the student will start. So your commitment with me will be mainly like maybe one to two weeks beforehand. And then it just it will be nice if you like, and we have one member from your team to work to come in or like to Skype in with the student once a week, just so that we can keep track with the student making sure they are not making something that you don't want. But it will be like a brief check in maybe like once a week for like, like a update for like 15 to 20 minutes. But then it will be just to the main the time that you have to spend is mainly the beginning part, and then just like around 10 to 15 minutes each week. And then also at the end when the student have to present to you of what they did and you can give them feedback as well. Yeah, so it's very heavy and the delivery phase and then in the middle, it's basically just a check in of like, you want to make sure that we're giving you what you want to get basically. Okay. So to reiterate the cost is there. There's a small amount in working with you guys kind of as project managers and oversight, but the development time from the student is all basically free at that point. They're working as a volunteer and they gain some mentorship from you walking them through the app development process. Yep. The only thing who charges in case it would definitely be more the support size that have integration between the back end of front end that is one of the biggest part. And also understanding why you need it and making sure everything is set up for the front end development that part is what will be charging for but not the front end developing part. Okay. What could you walk through one of the apps that you've already put together and tell me why you ended up going with an app over a mobile website. A lot of people in our community have said, hey, maybe we should just do responsive design mobile website. That's where we want to put our time. What, why would you consider an app over mobile website responsive design. Yeah, certainly so. So for one of the example, I don't think I can really give like the past clients too much detail, but I can give like, just a general example with like fake names and everything. So one of the biggest thing why you would want a mobile app over like a responsive web is because like, depends on how the user will use it this is where you have to understand why you need to like what is the problem that you have and who are the user and why you need the mobile app. So for example, when like one of the biggest reason why a lot like in general for what I've seen the past, the main reason why a lot of nonprofit one mobile app is because maybe for the volunteer and scheduling reasons. So for example, like if I want here like they will run here like once a week already like no they will come in like we weekly go by weekly. Like it's very inconvenient for them to actually need to go on the website and then like log in and sign up. Whereas it's like on the mobile app they already like locked in and then we won't click away for them to like sign in check in or like just register or anything. So I have seen a lot in the past that like the a lot of like nonprofit will want mobile app just so that it'd be easier to communicate or easier to schedule that was one of the biggest biggest thing. So I guess when you think about your problem is you have to think about whether like it'll be more appropriate for an app or responsive web. So for example, I've also have spoken with another nonprofit they wanted an app and they want to have the volunteers or the potential to sign up through their website but they're the sign up form is like five pages long. So in that case that would not be appropriate on the mobile app because it's too long and it will be much more efficient if you'll have a website to sign up and the app is purely for like just signing in instead of registering. So the things you have to think about you have to think about who are your user and how would they be using it. You shouldn't have a mobile app just because mobile app is cool. That is definitely not the reason you should have. Having a mobile app should be able to solve the problem that your organization should have and it should be making more efficient and help you do your job better. That's definitely the reason. One of the bigger arguments that I've heard for mobile apps in our community is that the access to web is definitely limited in some locations, especially when you get into rural locations. If you have a significant amount of information that can be downloaded onto a mobile app, then when a client is not directly connected to the web they still have access to that information. Additionally we definitely have people in the community that are looking at the possibility of using apps to do document assembly to create legal forms that could then be filed later. There is some advantage in keeping private information on your own device until you share it intentionally externally. It's an interesting space. It's definitely one that legal services has not done a lot of yet, but there is some interest here in looking at how we can explore this area. We did make a mobile app where one of the features was being able to save the information to your phone. Again, I won't go into too much detail, but this is specifically for offline use. One of the parts of it was basically an instructional sheet, for example. That was if you won't get any signal there at all. It's right there in your hand. You don't have to do anything for it. That's basically another convenience measure. Yeah, and also I'll just bring up some of the good point of mobile app. Of course mobile app might not be for you. You have to think about it. But some of the good point is that if you want your user to be, if you want the interface to be able to tailor to the user, and the user can just kind of decide how they want to interact with the app or interact with whatever platform that you have, mobile app will be better. They will give you the ability for the user to actually customize their own interface and everything. Versus on the website, you can't really do that. It will be standardized for all the users. So for example, let's say if you want an app that the demonstration will have one motion of it, doing different information, and versus the user have a different one, and then sometimes it just might be easier to have on the mobile app than on the website. So it depends. This is Matthew. When you guys build apps, do you program them individually for Android and iPhone, kind of in their own native languages, or do you use a bridge program like PhoneGap? We program them natively. Yeah, so we will have like two different teams, student teams, working together, but at the same time separate, we'll have an iOS team, and also we'll have an Android team. So they'll be sharing the same design, but it will be different language. So things like Windows phones are then just kind of left to the side. Unfortunately, we don't have much support for that right now. Understandably so. And will you guys support like the updates? I've programmed apps in both languages, and as soon as I rolled them out, you know, iPhone would come out with a slightly bigger phone, and my app would be all kind of messed up, and I'd have to go and reprogram it. Do you guys kind of continue that support after the app is built? Yeah, we do intend to. It's sort of a case by case basis again. Yeah. So maybe it's also about like what I was mentioning about that we provide right here, we provide the project with repository so that we can actually help the app to update later on. But then it will be case by case, we'll have to speak with the nonprofit itself just because mobile app is so different for every organization when you want to tailor it, they are different. Also just a quick developer tip. If you change it to like DPI, it should scale with the screen if you change the way that you're like, and change the way that you're actually working. Yeah, I thought so too. It's still, you know, buttons were suddenly in a different spot and do you guys, is that support kind of free or is there like a recurring fee for major upgrades but then kind of just cheap fixes are free or how does that work? It would not be completely free against by case by case, but it will be well it won't be too expensive but it depends on what kind of update you need. If you need like a major update, then like it will be different. It may be if your major update or adding a new feature, most likely will have you join another program with the students so that we can have like from like it's not from scratch it's building on what you have but adding a new feature. Like so it will take around seven weeks but it was like a very, very quick space for like just changing the size and our in-house developer can probably just help you with it but it will be at a very low cost. All right, and we can't work to redo it. It would be working with another group of students and that's very interesting. I like that idea. Would you guys make it compatible with iPad and and the Android tablets? If you guys were like if you guys intend to have the iPad, we will have a team working on the one that was the iPad size. So it depends on what the organization. Yeah, it's very case by case again. Okay, so you guys have the technology and power to do everything if need be kind of. Yeah, basically. Does anyone have any other questions? Do you guys keep the code or would the code then go to the nonprofit if, you know, they brought on a developer to do it in-house or make updates in-house? We do keep the code. This is why we have the project repository just so that we can update. But if you do want the entire ownership, that would be a separate conversation we can have on the side as well. So it's also case by case because when we make the app, there's a different difficulties. Like for example, if your feature is very complicated, then there'll be a different stories than someone who just won't understand or lock in because there are like, there are a lot of different features that was like different difficulties. That's why we cannot just give you like one answer yes or no or like expensive or not, or like we are not. So these are the things that would hog all that. I definitely know that this community would be interested in some way to kind of access that code collectively so that if there are other projects or replication grants, the type of thing that someone else could look at taking and building on that. We've definitely seen issues where closed proprietary code ends up not being maintained over time and then the community has to start from scratch when doing something again. Anything that can put that in an open repository would be viewed very positively from this community. Yeah. And also we do have an option of like open source and closed source depending on the what the nonprofit need as well. Because in the past when we work with the Peace Corp, they require their organization require open source because they're the government organization but we also have some are going to be interested in the future so that for security reasons and other reasons. So and also like this ownership is finding chance in the future you guys want to maintain it and take it. It is like a positive. It is an option. So it is pretty flexible in terms of that answer your question. Yeah. Any other questions. Thank you guys for coming on. I greatly appreciate it. I hope that at some point we're able to get out with the legal services community and possibly work with you guys on a project and with some students. The idea of how you're really empowering students and teaching them as part of the process is what made this interesting to me. Well, I guess I'll just thank you guys. Contact information so we can either email hello at diverse.org or you can email thoroughly to me if I see at diverse.org if you guys have any other questions as well. Okay. Thank you guys. This video should be up in a week or two up on our YouTube channel. We've got three more training scheduled through the end of the year. We've got one on basic Excel tips tomorrow. We've got one coming in November on visualization through dashboards. And then we've got a specific dashboard one on Google analytics custom dashboards for statewide websites coming up in December. That one was just added to our training schedule today. Thank you guys so much. I greatly appreciate it. Thank you. We'll be posting slides, contact information, all that stuff up on the website. Great. Thank you. Thank you.