A Cross Platform Mobile App for Fishing Community
Industry : Fishing
Tech Stack
Overview
They say that the scenery in the ocean is as magnificent as it is on the land in Hawaii. This is 100% true, especially when you can go out in the ocean and catch a wide variety of fish. If you’ve ever been to Hawaii, you might be familiar with the popularity of fishing and the extensiveness of the fishing community in the state.
Jim Hori, a passionate fisherman from Hawaii, who has been fishing since the age of 3, wanted to build a platform that would allow avid fishermen like him to connect with other fishermen in the state. His idea was to build a social network for the fishermen where they could share their new catches with friends and also get insight into different tips related to fishing.
He had been sitting with the idea for several years and was looking for a reliable development team that would help him build a cross-platform mobile application that helps Hawaiin fishermen connect with each other. After scrutinizing for a while, he interviewed several development companies, including RV Technologies, to find a reliable development partner for his app idea - Lokahi Fishing.
Our development team came as a winner at the end and thus began the journey to bring Lokahi Fishing - a feature-rich fishing app for the Hawaiin Fishing Community - to reality.
Objective
With Lokahi Fishing, Hori wanted to help fellow fishermen report their catches, share pictures, and add the location of a specific catch. All these factors would help other fishermen find the right spots to catch a specific type of fish more easily. Users could also report mayday/dead fish spots to help other fishermen save their valuable time.
Looks pretty simple, right? Well, even though the basic idea behind the Lokahi Fishing app was quite simple, it involved several technical factors that made it a challenging project. For instance, our developers needed to integrate several APIs to deliver the expected functionality to the users. Not to mention, an app with so many features needed to have a simple UI so that users could easily access all the features without any hassle.
Our designing team analyzed the app requirements and built an initial mock UI accordingly. The UI got approval from Jim Hori and our development team instantly stepped in to integrate all the app modules with each other and add the required functionality.
Solution
How We Built a User-Centric App that Catered to the Different Requirements of Hawaiin Fishing Community
Hori wanted to add cross-platform compatibility to Loka Fishing so that both Android and iOS users could use it to catch more fish in the Hawaiin seas. So, it was our first priority to ensure that users have the same browsing experience, irrespective of their mobile OS. In addition to this, we integrated several features to turn Lokahi Fishing into reality and make it user-friendly.
- Tile-Structured UI
- Catch Report
- Data Feeds
- Photo Sharing
- News and Videos
- Mayday or Dead Reports
1 Tile-Structured UI
The first challenge with Lokahi Fishing was to keep the UI as simple as possible so that users are only one click away from all its features. To overcome this hurdle, our UI designing team built a tile-structured UI where users could access any feature of the app by simply clicking on the respective tile.
To make the app more navigable, we also added a dedicated navigation drawer that would allow users to find all the features in one place. This enhanced the overall usability of Lokahi Fishing and made the UI more convenient.
2 Catch Report
By tapping the Catch Report tile on its home screen, the app would prompt users to a form where they could add the overall status of a new catch. The form includes different fields such as type of fish, signs, method, weather, fish weight, etc.
As soon as a user adds a new catch report, it’ll automatically get shared with all the people on his/her friend’s list. The users could also add the specific coordinates (longitude and latitude) of their catch so that others could catch similar fish easily.
We used Google Maps API to make the app more interactive. The moment users would share the coordinates for his/her catch, the app would automatically create a new spot on the map, making it easier for people in their friend list to navigate to the spot.3 Data Feeds
One of the primary objectives of Lokahi Fishing was to help fishermen analyze all the parameters of a particular fishing spot before embarking on their journeys. To do this, we added a dedicated “Data Feeds” section where people could check all the reports including Tide & Sun, Weather, Sea Surface Temperature, etc.
Though this information is available on different platforms, we integrated all of them in one place so that users won’t have to browse through different portals to find relevant information. Moreover, we linked this module of the app to different relevant sources such as PacIOOS (Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System).
With all the data feeds in one place, it would only take a few minutes for people to plan their fishing trips and carry all the essential equipment to tackle unexpected situations.
4 Photo Sharing
A fishing app would be incomplete if it didn’t allow users to share pictures. And, since photo sharing was one of the app objectives, we added a dedicated tile where users could post pictures of their recent catches and share them with friends. After clicking on the tile, the app would display a Facebook-like feed layout where the user would see all the photos shared by his/her friends.
At the bottom center, we placed an “Add” button that’d allow users to upload their pictures or videos and share them with the community. Users could share pictures either from the “Catch Report” list or choose one from their Gallery. Either way, we reduced the number of steps by eliminating unnecessary pages and ensured that users could upload the pictures within a few seconds.
5 News and Videos
When Jim approached RV Technologies with his idea, he also wanted to add a dedicated section where users could check the latest news reports on fishing/weather and also find video tutorials from experts. However, to maintain ease of use, we created two respective modules for both these features.
On the app’s home page, users could click the “News” tile and they would automatically get redirected to a list of articles from different sources. After clicking on any of these articles, the app would redirect the user to the dedicated website where he/she could read the entire piece of news.
In the video section, furthermore, the user would find video tutorials on different topics to improve their fishing skills. To help users find the desired videos more effectively, we added multiple categories such as fishing, boat, bait, and leadering.
6 Mayday or Dead Reports
Finally, to make the app more useful for the Hawaiin Fishing community, we also added a dedicated Mayday tile where the user could report dead spots - places where they didn’t find any fish. This would allow other people to avoid these spots and plan their trips accordingly. Like the “Catch Report” section, we integrated the Google Maps API in the MayDay section so that users could pin the exact location on the map.
Results
Did RV Technologies Successfully Build the Lokahi Fishing app Within the Specified Time Frame?
With our time-tested approach and the transparent development process, our developers managed to build the Lokahi Fishing app for both iOS and Android before the deadline. As of now, Lokahi Fishing is a widely popular fishing app in Hawaii that many fishermen use to plan their trips beforehand, catch a variety of fish, find new tutorials, and avoid the dead spots.
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