Transportation system abandoned

The local transportation authority of a USA state capital wanted to provide a better service for their customers. To help commuters plan journeys and get realtime travel information, they developed a new website together with new Android and iOS apps. Then they received a letter from a lawyer.

Not everyone was happy with the upgrade: the new apps were lacking accessibility controls and were unusable for the visually impaired. It wasn't just a simple matter of adding voice controls either, the apps needed a complete overhaul. To avoid having to go to court, the company had less than 12 months to bring in a new team and roll out completely new apps. So they did. The works started in January.

The new team then left in September, just after 9 months in, and leaving a little more than 3 months to find a solution. The project was abandoned, and so close to the deadline, the only choice seemed to be to remove the transport apps from the app stores altogether. In the end of the day, if there's no app, there's no need for it to be accessible either.

We joined the team in October with the promise to roll out the app in the very end of December. We applied two massive changes to the project.

1. Changing the programming framework to Facebook's React Native, we could develop the app only once but still generate full-feature, truly native Android and iOS apps. This helps rapid development without giving up on features like extending the app with e-ticketing.
    
2. Shifting project management from waterfall to agile methodologies. The previous development team was waiting for the transportation authority to first sign off each and every wireframe, layout design and feature request, before the actual development started. We changed it around: we came up with the schedule, and released a new test app every Friday and collected feedback that got incorporated the next week. We also made sure to test the app with a big group of actual commuters, and most importantly, with visually impaired users amongst them.

The changes above allowed us to move really fast, and provide our client with more than just weekly progress updates: they could test the actual app developed, and had a huge impact in changing it with their feedback for the better. The apps were both released on schedule and in budget, in the end of December.