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Project Overview

Designed to engage existing Melbourne Heart FC members by providing incentives and easy means to sign up new members, as well as getting fans involved in the lead up to, during and after each game.

Organisation

Yianni Software & Core Form

Team

iOS app & API:
Alexander Yianni - iOS developer - Yianni Software

Android app:
Linden Darling - Android developer & designer - Core Form

Project Brief

No other Hyundai A-League club has a member-centric app that exists as this one does for Melbourne Heart. Born from an award of 'best-marketing' idea, the app was created to be a hub of information for Melbourne Heart members with the Heart Headhunt feature at its core.

Social/public media driven competition draws out the competitive nature of all of us, pushing each contestant to move up the headhunt leaderboard. Membership cards are scanned and kept on hand for easy reference when it comes to additional member offers.

Project Need

Gamification of new member referrals by existing members, in an easy to use and fun process that is enriched with club related news and fixture information. Users are encouraged to participate with game-time activities such as geo-fencing check-in.

The ability to scan and store the bar-code and photo of club membership cards allows members and their families to easily redeem Ticketek offers.

Sharing of upcoming fixtures to social networks is embellished with dynamic images that show the fixture details, including stadium location, akin to the app's design.

The club needed a way to engage with the member-base so cloud messaging is incorporated in the app on both platforms.

Proudly doing the right thing and giving credit where credit is due, all 3rd party software licensing requirements have been satisfied via the inclusion of discrete licenses, viewable from within the app.

Features particular to the iOS app:
- Cloud based login/account to share across devices
- Members can customise their own Heart jersey, then share it on social networks.
- Administration portal for MHFC maintenance

Features particular to the Android app:
- Caching of all downloaded data.
- Caching of outgoing referral submissions to ensure that no referral is lost due to poor stadium reception, along with provisions to ensure the sanctity of the private information embodied in referrals.

User Experience

User feedback is essential for ensuring the app is working as expected as well as providing that extra benefit to club members that will make Melbourne Heart even more loved by them. Beta testers were engaged prior to the app's launch, and sophisticated analytic data has been collected, and reflected upon, since release.

HeartFan for Android is far from your average "ported from iOS" app, having been completely redesigned from the ground up and pushing the envelope of the Android Design Guidelines. Understanding the Android platform and how users expect to interact with it has lead to an app that truly belongs on the platform and minimises cognitive load. One of the first commercial apps in the world to utilise the new Google Maps Android API v2 and nested-fragments. Design was truly responsive, following the NoPSD approach, and as a result the app is one of few from Australia to be tailored for phone and tablet, portrait and landscape.

The iOS app has been designed to do away with the boring old tab bar and using a custom interactive menu. The main features are designed to revolve around the user; an uploaded pic of them. The app is designed and optimised for iPhone5 along with retina graphics for iPhone4. The app now uses cloud computing allowing users to share account details across devices. The club and fans are closely connected allowing for detailed feedback into the app.

Project Marketing

With the backing of Melbourne Heart Football Club, the HeartFan app has become part of regular marketing campaigns via social media channels, eDMs, the club's members forum, and even the big screens at games.

Regular prizes are given to help promote the Headhunt mentality in addition to the final leaderboard standing prizes.