AIS values its client relationships, both internationally and here on home soil — so when one of the nation’s largest insurance brands was seeking the development of a Windows 8 mobile application, our firm jumped at the opportunity to deepen our relationship and push the product into production. We were able to leverage our extensive experience with developing mobile applications and enable the organization to remain a competitive leader and continue to offer the services that its loyal customers expect and deserve.
Background
Our client is a leading organization that provides insurance coverage for a wide range of customers. The company shows steady growth with more than 11 million policyholders and 17 million vehicles. With major offices around the country, this company provides 24-hour service, 7 days a week, 365 days per year, with several affiliated companies to meet the insurance needs of its policy holders.
The Challenge
Our client provides mobile native apps to its auto policyholders for policy servicing functionality. These mobile apps ran on the iOS (iPad and iPhone), Android, and Win7 phone platforms. However, in order to maintain its transformative edge, our client would need to provide similar policy servicing functionality for the Windows 8 tablet platform, and potentially the Windows 8 phone platform. AIS was just the right organization to help initiate this change.
Solution
AIS managed the development of the resulting client Windows 8 app by organizing it into four stages: envisioning, elaboration, construction and stabilization. The primary focus was to develop and test a functional application for the Windows 8 RT platform. This included a native Windows 8 user experience. The following provides a breakdown of the four stages:
- Envisioning: During this stage we identified the key functionality of the application in order to adequately prepare for development.
- Elaboration: The purpose here was to get a more detailed understanding of the requirements and to validate any architecture concerns in order to produce a more accurate estimate.
- Construction: In this stage we iteratively developed the complete product and assessed its production readiness for consideration of additional work.
- Stabilization: During this phase, we validated that the product met the organization’s expectations via user testing and a final report.
Business and Technical Achievements
Sometimes, the value of our work isn’t just in what we can do for our clients, but it’s what we can do for their customers. The Windows 8 functionality allows for a better customer experience for our client, and that’s often invaluable. With the addition of this new mobile platform, our client’s customers can now:
- Effectively manage their policies
- View and share their policy ID cards (both online and offline)
- Make payments
- Initiate insurance quotes and contact the company
Features of the application include:
- Accommodations for tablet devices in both portrait and landscape positions
- Left/right justified and small Snap view modes as well as Full view mode
Technology
AIS managed this successful implementation by utilizing the following technology:
- C#
- XAML
- Visual Studio 2012