iOS & Android App Dev for Education Nonprofit
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Mobile App Development
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Learning & Education Mobile App Development Android App Development iPad iOS App Development iPhone iOS App Development
- Confidential
- Apr. 2017 - Ongoing
- Quality
- 5.0
- Schedule
- 4.5
- Cost
- 5.0
- Willing to Refer
- 5.0
"X2 Mobile’s technical prowess is stellar."
- Education
- Alameda, California
- 51-200 Employees
- Phone Interview
- Verified
X2 Mobile has developed four mobile apps thus far. Two of the apps are student-facing, allowing users to access classroom materials. The other apps allow teachers to evaluate and provide feedback to students.
X2 Mobile's efforts have received positive internal feedback, specifically on the increased capabilities that the apps provide. Despite the time difference, the team is responsive and meshes well with the internal staff. Their effective development skills and attentiveness are also noteworthy.
This review is an update by the client company. The original content is located below the new review.
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
BACKGROUND
Introduce your business and what you do there.
Collaborative Classroom is a nonprofit based in Alameda, California. We’re a language arts curriculum company, originally a research organization. I’m the director of technology operations.
OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE
What challenge were you trying to address with X2 Mobile?
We’ve had a longstanding set of web tools, which we started working on in 2012 with another organization. In 2017, we started thinking about native app development, particularly on iOS.
Our CTO started looking for a second development house to work with us, mainly because we were overworking the current one, and we didn’t want to lose throughput on our main web development.
SOLUTION
What was the scope of their involvement?
X2 Mobile has built four mobile apps that are released at this point, and there are more in the pipelines. They work with our technology department as well as with our content creators and digital publishing team.
With a lot of our projects, we’ll have an existing, older web app that we want to reenvision as a mobile-first one. We won’t necessarily come up with a rigid list of requirements, but rather have an organic process, describing in lay terms what the original app was intended to do, what its workflows are, and what we like and don’t like about it.
Two of our apps are student-facing, and they contain the only student-facing material we make. We didn’t want those to require logins or be coupled to the rest of our ecosystem. Those are the first two apps that X2 Mobile created for us.
It was called “WordWorks!.” It’s basically part of our grade two curriculum, and it was originally envisioned as a word sorting classroom activity. Students were working on their own through web browsers, so we thought that it made sense to let them use it on mobile devices. The app was developed for iOS and Android.
The second app X2 Mobile built for us is called “BookRoom!”. It’s been around for about two years. It also doesn’t require a login, and, just like with WordWorks!, using it doesn’t require being in a classroom with a teacher that has one of our products. Anyone can download these first two apps and start using them.
X2 Mobile worked with us to create a simple workflow for letting teachers decide which books students could get, rather than students picking whatever books they wanted, while not making it too restrictive and difficult for a six-year-old or their parents to use. That was important from a pedagogical perspective.
They also created a card deck app for two of our programs. It replaces physical card decks used in our program as a feedback mechanism with students. A teacher might have multiple card decks that are supposed to be randomized, which can become very laborious when using paper cards.
Our fourth app is called “ClassView Pro” and is a mobile-optimized version of the web app by the same name, which is our assessment engine. The engine is teacher-mediated, not student-mediated.
Teachers evaluate the students’ work in collaboration with students. The teacher records how the student responds. We have other ongoing work with X2 Mobile.
What is the team composition?
We’ve worked with George (Founder & CEO).
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working with X2 Mobile in April 2017.
RESULTS & FEEDBACK
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
Analytics is one of the things I’ve been pushing with our organization. We track a lot of information, but we don’t analyze a lot of it. We know how many people are downloading the app, and X2 Mobile has worked with us to ensure that we’re collecting all the analytics.
We haven’t done the analysis to actually see how many of those downloads led to a sale, because that’s not the reason we released those apps. They weren’t released to become a sales pipeline of any kind, but just to enhance the student experience.
We do get some anecdotal responses from teachers. The apps are definitely being used, and teachers are happy with them. We had a web app in the past, which was part of older infrastructure. The reimagining of it, with a new workflow and better feature sets, has been widely praised by our users.
I haven’t looked at our downloads on the App Store, and I’ve been relying on individual testimonials. The use of that app is going to skyrocket when students are back in school because it’s meant to be used in-person by groups of 3–6 students. It’s a bit harder to use in a remote learning environment.
Its true impact isn’t going to be seen until the fall of 2021, but the feedback from our program development team, field staff, technology group, district leads, and teachers shows that it’s going to be widely successful. They produce great work, and they’re part of our team.
How did X2 Mobile perform from a project management standpoint?
We agree on a project scope, cost, and approximate delivery time for each new project, but our endeavor on that particular project doesn’t end with the final release of the app. There are always ongoing improvements.
We treat X2 Mobile as though they are part of our own team. We’re on Slack with them daily, and we get almost real-time responses despite the fact that they’re halfway around the world. They don’t respond at 2 a.m. their time, but the beginning of our day is the end of theirs and vice versa.
They have enough staff members to work in shifts. We have a high degree of synergy with them, and their communication skills are excellent, both in terms of understanding where we’re trying to go, and in bringing added value to ideas that we’re not able to communicate clearly.
A lot of other development houses would build exactly what we told them to, but that’s not the case with X2 Mobile. They use our GitHub and Jira for all our mobile projects.
What did you find most impressive about them?
Their willingness to integrate with our company, including people who aren’t tech-oriented, is great. Some organizations may not want that, but we did, and X2 Mobile has been great about it.
They know how to build modern apps efficiently and quickly, and they do quite a bit of QA. One of the things we appreciate is that they do device compatibility validation. If they’re building an iPad app, they test every variant that exists. It’s much harder to do with Android, but they do it there as well.
They advise us on features that may restrict the kinds of devices the app can be deployed on. X2 Mobile’s technical prowess is obviously stellar, but there are a lot of great developers out there. What truly sets them apart is their communication.
We’ve had George in particular directly interact with our customers. He’s been on webinars to demo our product, and he’s very good at that. We don’t send him every support ticket that we aggregate; just the ones that I feel will improve their team’s morale and the ones with constructive criticism. It’s a great partnership.
He asks the right kinds of questions to really understand what’s going on. This may be a subtle distinction, but it’s an important one for us. On our end, we have multiple departments looking at a project, and they’re sometimes looking through very different lenses. He’s actually helped us communicate more clearly with each other.
It’s always worrying when offshoring work to different timezones, particularly to non-English countries, but the only way we even notice that X2 Mobile isn’t in the US is that when it’s daytime here, it’s nighttime there.
There may be a slight accent or something like that, but it’s more like they’re in a neighboring state than halfway around the world. We have to worry about cost as a nonprofit, and their rates are quite affordable.
UPDATED REVIEW
This review was published on December 10, 2020.
Greg Melancon
Digital Project Manager, Collaborative Classroom
Nonprofit
51-200 Employees
Alameda, California
$10,000 to $49,999
July 2019 - Ongoing
Project summary:
X2 Mobile provides ongoing mobile application development for a nonprofit organization. The team was hired to create a digital version of the client's physical card used in SIPPS and Being a Reader programs.
Feedback summary:
X2 Mobile's output earned great reviews from initial customers and it was energetically welcomed. The team conducts meetings, email exchanges and they utilize Jira for reporting. They delivered the project promptly and on budget.
BACKGROUND
Please describe your company and your position there.
I am a Digital Project Manager at Collaborative Classroom. Collaborative Classroom is a nonprofit organization that improves children's school experience by providing teachers with engaging curricula and ongoing professional development that supports their students' academic, social, and emotional development.
OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE
For what projects/services did your company hire X2 Mobile?
Collaborative Classroom wanted a digital version of their physical cards used in its SIPPS and Being a Reader programs.
What were your goals for this project?
We wanted a tool that would mimic the classroom experience, but also had an interactive quality that would keep students' attention.
SOLUTION
How did you select X2 Mobile?
After extensive research, our CTO chose X2 because of their experience with other projects in the U.S. educational space.
Describe the project in detail.
X2 handled all development for both Android and iOS, as well as some design responsibilities. They created four programs within the app: SIPPS Third Edition, SIPPS Fourth Edition, Being a Reader First Edition, and Being a Reader Second Edition. SIPPS and Being a Reader support new and struggling readers in grades K-12 build skills and confidence for fluent, independent reading.
What was the team composition?
Initially, we worked with the CEO of X2 to support us and serve as the main point of contact throughout the project. Later, I was made aware of their project manager, 3 developers, and a QA engineer.
RESULTS & FEEDBACK
Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?
Reviews by initial customers have been great. The physical card version of SIPPS is already popular and widely used. The app was energetically welcomed.
How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?
Communication wise, meetings, email exchanges, and JIRA reports were enough for us. X2 was able to comprehend what we were trying to accomplish, so they could make helpful recommendations. This helped the project to finish quickly and on budget.
What did you find most impressive about this company?
Their ability to understand what we wanted to accomplish stood out to us. They have quick, excellent development skills and provided regular progress reviews.
Are there any areas for improvement?
We don’t have anything. We’re looking forward to starting new projects with X2 in the future.
Star Ratings
Overall rating: 5
Quality: 5
Schedule: 5
Cost: 5
Willing to refer: 5
This review was published on July 5, 2020.
Project summary:
X2 developed an educational game app for Android and iOS, utilizing both animation and audio. In addition to development responsibilities, they also contributed limited design work.
Feedback summary:
Pre-release reviews have been positive and X2 positioned themselves well to be assigned future projects. They used a hybrid communication style to provide constant accessibility and accurately internalized project goals. Their commitment to transparency was noted and appreciated.
BACKGROUND
Please describe your company and your position there.
I’m the CTO of Collaborative Classroom. We’re a nonprofit organization that improves children’s’ school experience by providing teachers with engaging curricula and ongoing professional development that supports their student’s academic, social, and emotional development.
OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE
For what projects/services did your company hire X2 Mobile?
We wanted supplemental apps to support the implementation of our English Language Arts program.
What were your goals for this project?
We wanted an app that would mimic the classroom experience but also had an interactive quality that would keep students’ attention.
SOLUTION
How did you select this vendor?
After extensive research, I chose X2 because of their experience with other projects in the U.S. educational space.
Describe the project in detail.
X2 handled all development for both Android and iOS, as well as some design responsibilities. They created four games that worked together to teach language, using audio and animation to get students interested in completing the exercise.
Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?
Although the game will debut to a broad audience this fall, reviews by initial customers have been great. We expect a very warm welcome with the wide release.
RESULTS & FEEDBACK
How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?
Communication wise, weekly meetings plus email exchanges were enough for us. X2 was able to comprehend what we were trying to accomplish, so they could make helpful recommendations. This helped the project to finish quickly and on budget.
What did you find most impressive about this company?
Their ability to understand what we wanted to accomplish stood out to us. They have quick, excellent development skills and provided regular progress reviews.
Are there any areas for improvement?
We don’t have anything. We’re looking forward to starting a new project with X2.
Star Ratings
Overall rating: 5
Quality: 5
Schedule: 5
Cost: 5
Willing to refer: 5
RATINGS
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Quality
5.0Service & Deliverables
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Schedule
4.5On time / deadlines
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Cost
5.0Value / within estimates
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Willing to Refer
5.0NPS
