For the last few months I have been pursuing one of my passions -- Product Development. My husband and I have teamed up and we are excited to take steps towards building our first software product together. While the roadmap to the MVP will take some time, we are taking a different kind of incremental approach to the discovery part of the roadmap by aiming to build several nano-products on the way to prove key critical tech decisions and product concepts. Besides, this is more fun than being off the grid for months with little to share. These nano-products are not related to the MVP we’re pursuing.

The first decision was choosing the right technology to enable a small team to build cross-platform apps in a reliable and modern way. We needed to find a problem to solve and it was right in front of us. Our oldest struggled a bit with first grade math. Like many kids his age attending school remotely, he has a lot of trouble staying focused. We converted his arithmetic problems to an interactive game that we built with two different technologies: React Native and Flutter.

The technology decision became clear with Flutter as the winner in terms of a well designed framework, a modern language (Dart), and opinionated tooling that let us build something surprisingly quick that just worked. React Native, on the other hand, looked very promising at first but quickly set us on an overwhelming journey of competing options and difficult to reverse decisions.

But the most fun part for me was the product. We were striving to follow some of the principles that we set for the MVP down the road:

  • Keep it simple ...
  • Focus on results not engagement level: the ultimate goal for this nano-product is to deliver great results in the shortest amount of time, not the other way around.
  • Your data is not ours to take: if collecting data is not essential to capability, stop collecting it. That means server-side pings or Google Analytics. If a user wants to report an issue they can choose to share the data and screenshots but nothing is collected automatically and without clear and explicit permission at any other time.
  • Reduce apps fatigue by avoiding patterns that create it: 1) sign-up/sign-in when not really needed 2) multi-user for typically single-user device 3) Too many onboarding cards/options 4) Unnecessary gamification elements that promote retention but create anxiety such as fast animations, accenting green/red colors to signify success failure, checks/crosses, sharp/buzz sounds, etc 5) Language automation that does not guide with clues and continuous encouragement.
  • Reinforced learning via repetition using both visual and verbal cues in a form that encourages conversation in a positive way.

The product took several days to design and the weekend to code. The results with the alpha built for an iPad were surprisingly delightful. Our son really enjoys the pace and the level of gamification of this learning without feeling anxiety or hesitation about making the next choice. His skills seem to have improved quickly.

Excited for the next adventure!

#remotelearning, #edtech, #gamification, #earlylearning, #techsolutions