Technology for life
Vidatec is an award-winning mobile app and web development company, with expertise in native IOS, native Android, React Native and progressive web apps based in central Scotland.
We believe apps not only entertain and inform, but can also improve people’s health, enhance working culture, and produce real behavioural change. And we’re lucky to have worked with some inspiring organisations who have asked us to achieve exactly that. Whether it’s apps for health and wellbeing, social care, workplace engagement, or leisure and travel, everything we do is underpinned by our understanding that what matters is the user’s experience.
We combine technical expertise with the best in mobile app development to create custom solutions that meet the changing needs of your customers. With rapid prototyping our proven approach ensures you see what your buying before we build. Our services are flexible and scalable including a mix of; Mobile & web strategy, UX/UI design, Software Engineering, Quality Assurance, Operations Support. We work with our clients to understand their specific digital goals. From connecting people, to improving efficiencies, generating revenue to facilitating positive behaviour change. Whether it’s user experience, interface design or a mobile strategy we take the stress out of managing your project and understand your digital goals.
With many businesses and industries now putting mobile and web apps at the heart of their digital service delivery, we are ready to collaborate with partners. So if you’re looking for a preferred supplier or need help with one-off client projects we can work seamlessly as an extension of your service delivery team.
Vidatec is part of the Group Insights, a recognised world leader in people development.
headquarters
Focus
Portfolio
Public Health England, SAGA, University of Stirling, Ryvita, St James Place, Value Retail, TUI, GolPhin, UKTV PLay, Insights
Social Good Connect web platform
Social Good Connect creates a digital, meaningful Connection for Good between the sectors
Social Good Connect is a digital search and match platform that connects employees with physical and virtual volunteering opportunities for a wide variety of charities across the UK.
It’s the brainchild of entrepreneurial Scottish businesswoman Caroline McKenna, whose vision for Social Good Connect was “to act as connectors for good, building bridges across private, public and third sectors. We wanted to create a platform that intelligently matches employees from the private sector with volunteer opportunities suited to their skills, hobbies and passions. Much more than a searchable self-serve database, our aim was to offer employees complete freedom to choose activities that feed their soul, develop their skills and allow them to give back on their own terms.”
As a Scottish tech for good start-up, the company is a purpose-led social enterprise. Using a Sales-as-a-Service model, businesses can sign up for a monthly membership on one of three different levels.
"We spent some time researching digital agencies across Scotland. We’d had a few recommendations, but when we came across Vidatec, it was their purpose and values that really resonated and their desire to create ‘digital experiences that improve lives’. It was a perfect fit for our business. It’s extremely important to us that we collaborate with organisations who believe what we believe."
Read the full case study - https://vidatec.com/case-studies/social-good-connect/
GolPhin - MyPathway2Golf app
GolPhin, the award-winning junior golf specalist, needed to digitally transform it's MyPathWay2Golf programme.
With the main aim to educate and encourage more kids from all backgrounds to take up golf. The question was would a mobile app be the answer? And would it offer young golfers and their coaches the complete package of resources needed? The design would need to attract kids in way that would engage, educate and above all be fun.
Golphin’s mission is to inspire golf’s next generation, through a combination of innovative golf clubs designed especially for children, training, education, and age-appropriate competition. The company began by developing clubs which are easier for children to use, but soon wanted to become a leader in coaching and facilitated learning too
The challenge
Golphin’s MyPathway2Golf programme began as a portal on the Golphin website, offering a range of resources such as training videos and challenges. However, few people – whether golf coaches or young golfers themselves – were using these resources. There was little engagement with the platform and the website, which was previously designed for the desktop, as a result it was inconvenient to access immediately after playing golf for young golfers, parents and their coaches.
Golphin didn’t know whether a website redesign or an all-new mobile app was the right way forward, and turned to Vidatec to help.
MyPathway2Golf needed to:
- Engage, encourage and educate children about golf, helping them to improve their skills and prepare for competitions.
- Offer golf coaches a structured platform for tracking students’ progress, uploading their own content and getting their students more excited about the game.
- Be convenient for coaches and children alike to access either during or immediately after lessons.
Read the full case study - https://vidatec.com/case-studies/golphin/
Public Health England - One You Couch to 5k app development
Originally developed by Public Health England (PHE) in association with the BBC, the One You Couch to 5K (C25K) app was created to support and encourage people looking to make positive changes to their health and wellbeing. Targeted at people of all ages and backgrounds from across the country, but especially those that were new to running or less inclined to taking part in regular physical activity. Part of the wider One You program, C25K has by far been the most successful app with users. Designed to turn anyone into a runner in just 9 weeks, the app provides a narrated training programme to build up confidence and ability.
Our in-depth knowledge and expertise in building web and mobile apps that drive positive habit behaviours with the end-user, really came to the fore in this project. Working collaboratively with the PHE team, we were able to add value to ensure the app was developed to specifically drive positive habit formation in a way that’s engaging for the end user with a simple and attractive interface. Since the initial re-development, we’ve continued to provide further enhancements and improvements to keep up with the needs and expectations of both PHE and app users.
Read our full case study - https://vidatec.com/case-studies/couch-to-5k-app/
Granta publications
Granta Magazine and Granta Books share a remit to discover and publish the best in new literary fiction, memoir, reportage and poetry from around the world.
Granta is one of the world’s most respected literary magazines, acclaimed for the quality of its writing, its international reach and its mix of established and emerging authors. From Nobel laureates to debut novelists, each themed issue of Granta turns the attention of the world’s best writers on to one aspect of the way we live now. Published quarterly, the magazine features a blend of reportage, fiction, biography, poetry, memoir and art. Photography essays are also an integral part of the editorial, including visually stunning images printed on premium coated paper. Granta’s ‘Best of Young’ issues, released decade by decade, introduce the most important voices of each generation – in Britain, America, Brazil and Spain – and have been defining the contours of the literary landscape since 1983.
- Circulation: 23,000
- Average readership: 37,000
- Geographical split: UK: 60% ; US: 40%
- Subscribers: UK: 9,823 (6,572 print; 3,251 digital) US: 6,019 (4,546 print; 1,473 digital)
Website traffic information:
- 300,000 page views (monthly average)
- 150,000 unique visitors (monthly average)
Granta is an international partner with The Independent Alliance – The Independent Alliance is a global alliance of publishers and their international partners who share a common vision of editorial.
The challenge
Granta’s key drivers behind the project included;
- Increase subscriptions and lead generation
- Increase monthly revenue
- Grow monthly web traffic across international markets
- Reduce costs by merging both websites into one
Read the full case study - https://vidatec.com/case-studies/granta-publications/
Insights Explore app
A new digital platform to enhance self-awareness, teamwork & communication skills
Insights Learning and Development Company is global people development company offering people development solutions that help companies all over the world get the very best from their people at work, specialising in Leadership development, Team Effectiveness, Leading through change, People Development, Maximising personal effectiveness, and Employee engagement.
Over the last six months the workplace has changed in response to the current pandemic. With the majority of employees now working from home and all face to face meetings restricted, the world very quickly switched to virtual meetings and found new ways to reach their customers and end-users digitally. For Insights Learning and Development this became a real priority for clients, partners and distributors, all have been impacted globally. High on their digital transformation agenda was the idea of creating a web app suitable for using across all digital devices from mobile to desktop. Enabling Insights to reach a wider audience as well as offer an entry-level product that could be accessed on the move, working remotely, at home or in the workplace.
The challenge
The Insights digital project team needed to design and deliver a product that would introduce a simplified four colour model to explore personality for entry-level and front-line employees, including; apprentices, customer service, graduates, seasonal workers. It also had to work as a stand-alone development tool that they can quickly action, or as a gateway to further learning.
It was important to create the end-user experience in a way that enabled the tool to be learner-led. It needed to offer accessible, bite-sized content that can be easily rolled out to suitable areas within your organisation. The UX/UI design had to be kept simple and accommodate internationalisation and localisation for French, German and Spanish.
The product also needed to be accessible across both web and mobile. Offering learners the ability to complete a short evaluator to create an overview of their unique colour energy preferences from any device. With the ability to share their colour preferences with others as well as access valuable supporting content including bite-sized videos at anytime, anywhere.
Read our full case study - https://vidatec.com/case-studies/insights-explore/
Ryvita FibreFit app
Ryvita, the much-loved crispbread brand, wanted to help the nation improve its diet.
Ryvita, which started trading in 1925, has grown to become one of the UK’s best-known food brands passionate about making healthy living enjoyable.
‘What and how much we choose to eat’ is one of the biggest contributors to good health in the UK, according to Public Health England. Lack of dietary fibre is a particular concern, leading to both short and long-term health concerns including bowel cancer. Yet according to the British Nutrition Foundation, most people in the UK do not reach the recommended levels of 30g a day.
During research before the first wave of Ryvita’s FibreFit campaign, they found that only 1 in 10 UK adults are eating the recommended 30g of fibre each day, driving them on a mission to make this 1 in 5 over the next 5 years – which means changing the behaviour of over 6 million UK adults.
Read the full case study - https://vidatec.com/case-studies/ryvita-fibrefit/
Reviews
the project
iOS & Android Mobile App Dev. for Travel Company
"I really enjoy working with the team."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the digital product owner for a company called Crystal Ski Holidays. We’re the UK’s largest ski tour operator. We’re part of the TUI Group Company, one of the world’s biggest travel companies. I’m responsible for the Crystal Ski Explorer App.
What challenge were you trying to address with Vidatec?
We needed help with app development.
What was the scope of their involvement?
The application was built for Android and iOS. The app has information for users to prepare before they travel. It has guides to resorts, maps where users can see where they are in relation to restaurants, bars, and hotels. They also have the ability to see all their flight details, transfer details, and their accommodation.
They also built a ski tracking functionality that records where users have skied, how fast they have gone, and how long they have been skiing for. It sorts that information onto a map so they can see all the different areas of the resort they have skied in.
Generally, we would go to Vidatec and tell them what we were looking to do, and a lot of that is based on our overseas operation. As a company, we have gone more and more digital in our web servicing overseas.
What is the team composition?
I work with three key people from Vidatec. Lynsey (Project Manager) is my main point of contact. I also work with Jordan (Head of Software Development), who is one of their tech leads, and Chris (Head of Customer Delivery), who is head of project delivery.
How did you come to work with Vidatec?
This is going back slightly before I took this role, so I am not 100 percent sure how the collaboration came about. We worked with another company which was then bought out by Vidatec.
How much have you invested in them?
Since we started working with them, we have spent over $200,000.
What is the status of this engagement?
I started working with them in November 2018, and the relationship is ongoing.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
We collect all of the app feedback from our customers. Every one of our customers gets an end-of-holiday questionnaire so we can measure user sentiments toward the app. We can also see if there are issues with the apps and can measure it that way. We also measure the usage stats – how many people are using the app, how many people have downloaded it, which sections they are using, if there are sections that are doing particularly well, and those that aren’t getting much use. We can see if it is going well.
How did Vidatec perform from a project management standpoint?
We mainly communicate over Microsoft Teams, and we occasionally use their system as well. We also utilize email.
What did you find most impressive about them?
They’re very easy to work with, and their pricing is reasonable. They’re generally very easy to communicate with, they respond quickly, and they’re always open to discussion. I really enjoy working with the team. They’re down to earth. They fit my personality and my working style very well. They’re knowledgeable and willing to help.
Are there any areas they could improve?
We have had challenges with high staff turnover on their side in the beginning. However, over the last year, it has been steady, and we are now in a position where we are working very well as a team, and it has been much easier.
the project
Website Revamp for Recruitment Agency
"The partnership was a real team dynamic and never felt like a "them and us" situation."
the reviewer
the review
The client submitted this review online.
Please describe your company and your position there.
Apache Associates is an independent IT & Sales recruitment company which I started in 2009.
For what projects/services did your company hire Vidatec?
To redesign the Apache Website from top to bottom, which had not been changed for about 5 years.
What were your goals for this project?
To ensure it looked up to date, was easy to navigate and reflected a larger recruitment business. Apache was also going to be 10 years old, so we wanted had a timeline to launch before May 2019.
How did you select Vidatec?
I've known the CEO of Vidatec for a number of years and having recruited for him and his teams over the years, it was about time I reciprocated and gave business to his company! :-)
Describe the project in detail.
Brainstorming, discussing general ideas on the look and feel of the site, as well as showing other sites that we wanted to utilise ideas from. Once this piece of taken care of, they started to come up with designs based on colouration, look/feel and we worked together bouncing ideas between the 2 companies until we were happy with the look. The background work then ensued and the team produced a working site within a week for me to test and make changes to. The full site went live a week later - full scope of project was 3 weeks.
What was the team composition?
A Project Manager and Senior Developer.
Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?
We have seen a significant increase in Candidates applying for job roles through our Website. We regularly receive positive feedback regarding the look and feel of the site, from both Clients & Candidates.
How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?
The partnership was a real team dynamic and never felt like a "them and us" situation; they listened intently and made suggestions based on our ideas, whilst adding a lot of input in terms of creativity / design to make the project a success.
What did you find most impressive about this company?
The communication is very good - everyone in the company that I have dealt with are easy to talk to and happy to share ideas with you. It was an enjoyable, collaborative project.
Are there any areas for improvement?
No, very happy.
the project
Web Portal Dev & Design for Voluntary Engagement Startup
"Users love the platform."
the reviewer
the review
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the CEO of a company that helps employees find volunteering opportunities through the use of a digital app.
What challenge were you trying to address with Vidatec?
We needed help building our portal.
What was the scope of their involvement?
Vidatec handled the design and discovery session, and they built the landing pages and the MVP of the portal. The website is built on WordPress and has a .NET backend component.
What is the team composition?
We worked with a project manager, developers, and finance person from Vidatec. There were around six people involved.
How did you come to work with Vidatec?
A colleague of mine did the research and chose Vidatec because of their experience and reputation. We got proposals from three agencies in total.
How much have you invested with them?
The total cost is £136,000 (approximately $175,222 USD) plus tax.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working with Vidatec around March 2019, and the portal officially launched in May 2020. We have some final bits to do, and we estimate to finish the work by next week.
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
The design is clean and easy to use. Our target audience is non-technical, and the platform is definitely straightforward for them. Users love the platform.
How did Vidatec perform from a project management standpoint?
We’ve had a number of project managers, however Vidatec managed this as best they could. Vidatec finished the initial MVP quickly, in about six weeks, which was great but the second part of that has been delayed. We are within budget, and the platform went live on time, but development on certain features has been extended. We’re not technical, so we relied on Vidatec as a technical partner. It was a little difficult to get the process of new features correct but once we worked that through things were much smoother.
What did you find most impressive about them?
Our current project manager really understands us as a business and what we’re trying to achieve. Vidatec has been very flexible with us throughout these issues and difficulties, and I think we’ve come to have a good partnership. We can be honest with them about the shortcomings we’ve had. They’re also great at keeping us up to date on a regular basis. The standups we have with them are really helpful.
Are there any areas they could improve?
Vidatec could have a real partnership approach and collaboration. We’re each experts in our fields, and it’s a matter of how we can work together in a way that’s helpful and adds value. We just assume that we know what we want, but we don’t know what the best way of achieving it is.
Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?
Clients should make sure that they have a weekly or fortnightly call with the project manager, to talk about challenges, issues, successes, and what’s coming up. That way, everyone will have a clear line of sight into what’s happening with them as a business.
the project
Support & Development for Computer Software Firm
"They continuously deliver excellent and timely support and development."
the reviewer
the review
The client submitted this review online.
Please describe your company and your position there.
I am the founder of Connectus and we provide parental engagement services to schools across the UK
For what projects/services did your company hire Vidatec, and what were your goals?
Every six months we analyse all our customer requests for new and enahnce functionality and create relevant projects for anayis and development.
How did you select Vidatec and what were the deciding factors?
Vidatec are our retained support and development partner and have been so for the last four years
Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.
An initial list of project requirements was created. Vidatec provided a 'high level' resource estimate and a view of whether some of the requirements could be packaged together ( for efficiency ) . This then enable us to provide a prioritised list of projects. Vidatec them provided detailed 'Enhancement Requests' with a final costing.
How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?
A project manager with a couple of developers with QA
Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?
All projects were delivered on time, to budget, and the appropriate quality
Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.
Excellent project management with timely updates
What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?
They continuously deliver excellent and timely support and development.
Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?
None
The team at Vidatec is easy to work with. They’re communicative, responsive, and knowledgeable. They’re down-to-earth and personable. The client likes their working style.