The Practice team have been busy recently, developing and designing an app for one of our US-based clients. The app is for in-house use amongst current and prospective employees, and we hope it will facilitate communication between colleagues, organise workflow, and be used as a guidance tool. With this in mind, we’re interested in what makes a great app for businesses, and which are exemplary?

It’s no wonder that apps are set to become widespread in the workplace, particularly in international corporations that need a singular communications tool across several countries. In fact, this is what we’re aiming to explore with our new app; how it can function as a location device and point of reference for cross-border contact. By 2015, it’s projected that nearly 1 billion people worldwide will own a smart phone- all the more reason for making it the primary point of working life. With the app we’re currently designing, our goal is to create a social network for colleagues, information and data centre, and organiser- all under one roof. And we’re of course looking to create something that’s geo-sensitive, informative, and above all, engaging- both in design, and with an ability to let users zap in and out of it with ease and efficiency. Finally, we’re going to be vigorously testing its back-end server to ensure the infrastructure doesn’t suffer any unexpected glitches, particularly when we’re accounting for large amounts of data and traffic from varying locations that will inevitably be passing through it on a daily basis.

If creating an in-house app isn’t a viable option, we were impressed by some of the apps on offer to help colleagues liaise with one another. WebEx, for example, enables web conferencing for team meetings, file sharing, and multiple tools for tracking team and individual progress. Another, aptly entitled, “Colleagues”, acts as a corporate directory for team members to communicate across their entire organisation. It’s simple and easy to use, with groups to separate different teams and sectors of your business. But with so many work and community-based apps on the market, it can be challenging to make sure colleagues adhere to the same one- that’s why in-house apps most certainly have an advantage. One London-based agency producing exemplary apps for organisations is Neverbland, who’ve teamed up with brands such as Diesel and M&CSaatchi as app and website developers. We like the sound and look of their recent app design for Kambala School in Sydney, which enables teachers to communicate with students, send messages and bulletins, and show timetables. With much food for thought, we hope our app will also be able to deliver sharp design and seamless workability, and we can’t wait for you to see it! Watch this space…

Does your business have an in-house app? If so, do you find it a better or more useful tool than messaging apps, email or a staff intranet? We’d love to hear your thoughts, so please tweet to us @PracticeDigital, and share your comments on our Facebook page.