BRIEF

MBS Search is a mobile app app used by healthcare professionals, to look up Medicare billing information for procedures they’ve performed.

Originally an iOS app, Blue Cottage was brought on board to create the complementary Android version of the app.

DATA DRIVEN

Though simple in its design, the app’s complexity lies in its large database of medical benefits and business rules calculations.  As the calculations were already performed on the iOS app, a large amount of tests were created to ensured no variation in results occurred between the iOS and Android apps.

ANDROID DESIGN GUIDELINES

With the iOS app already created, time was set aside to ensure the Android app did not look like an iOS app, but instead fit within the design guidelines of the Android platform. This meant not only changing elements like the look and feel e.g. the tab bar, but also changing behaviour e.g. the search bar, which is not only positioned differently on Android, but has wildly different behaviour – especially when “find as you type” behaviour is activated.

AGILE DEVELOPMENT

An agile methodology was also put in place, which allowed releases to be scheduled weekly. This included set up of bug tracker and centralized version control software for both iOS and Android apps, which increased transparency and made collaboration and decision making easier.