Case Study: Android app for national investment firm in same time required for iPhone app, but with one-third the resources

The Challenge

A leading financial investment firm was in need of enhancing its enterprise mobile presence for its expansive user base. Its mobile web presence didn’t offer users a strong enough user experience or any of the advanced functionality the client desired for its application.

In order to offer trades of stocks and mutual funds, as well as mobile deposits via users’ photos of their checks, a native application was required. With an iPhone application already in development through another technology partner, the firm sought a new partner to simultaneously develop its Android presence.

The client engaged Magenic's Android application development practice to create an application that could handle thousands of simultaneous users in order to help the client stay competitive in the financial marketplace.

National Investment Firm Case Study

The Solution

Working with the client’s requirement documentation, Magenic’s five-person team implemented a pre-determined design that met the client’s specifications for its Android application. Through sound principles and good code separation into multiple libraries, Magenic was able to provide code stability and set up unit testing that would greatly accelerate the project’s timeline.

Magenic’s unit testing allowed for our development and quality assurance team to run 110 tests simultaneously on one of the application’s key features with the push of a single button; this level of testing was unparalleled within the client’s business. Because all transactions from the application are relayed through the master server, Magenic also provided an off-site resource from one of our other locations to work with the client’s master server, located over 1,000 miles from its corporate headquarters.

Accelerate with simultaneous unit testing

The Result

National Investment Firm Case Study

Magenic’s work on the Android application added to what was already a successful mobile effort by the client. While their iPhone application had been a successful endeavor, Magenic’s team was able to implement the same functionality with 33% of the resources due to successful unit testing and reduction of bugs. Nearly 500 bugs were filed over the course of a key feature’s development on the iPhone application. Magenic’s Android project saw less than 5% of that number. Our ability to simultaneously run 110 unit tests reduced feature testing time to less than 25% of the testing time of iPhone features. This method of testing was initially only utilized for that key feature, but since its development time was half that of the same feature on the iPhone, the unit testing quickly expanded throughout other features of the Anrdoid application.

The end result of the client’s engagement with Magenic was reduced cost and time to market for its enterprise Android application, which was downloaded 1000 times per day with a 4.5/5 star rating over its first week in the Android Market.


Reduced cost and time to market
Download PDF

Click to download the National Financial Investment Firm case study as a PDF.

Seamless Mobile Development

Magenic’s unit testing procedures integrated with the development cycle and requirements changes and allowed the client to run over 100 tests simultaneously. This greatly enhanced the speed of both the development and quality assurance cycles, while eliminating the overhead associated with running tests on an individual level.

Summary

Looking to provide users with a superior mobile experience, a national financial investment firm needed a technology partner to develop a native Android application. Magenic delivered an Android app in the same timeframe that another vendor successfully delivered an iPhone application, but with 33% of the resources. Magenic’s unit testing practices, sound development principles, and code library separation reduced both cost and time to market.

Technology Used
Copyright 2013 Magenic, All rights Reserved