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Project Overview

ByNoosa iPhone and iPad app has been designed to help you get the most out of your stay in Noosa. Find everything there is to see and do in Noosa.

Search the best Noosa has to offer for any budget and taste by a range of categories or regions, with constantly updated content.

What’s Hot has been specifically designed so you always have access to special deals and events. These will change often so remember to check in regularly. To make sure you always know the latest, elect to receive Push Notifications from What’s Hot.

Organisation

iApps Pty Ltd

Team

iApps the leading Australian mobile software developer. We create intuitive, innovative applications that will engage your customers and enhance their experience of your mobile brand.

Project Brief

Tourism Noosa (Queensland, Australia) has changed the game for tourism marketing by launching ByNoosa, created by Sunshine Coast based software developer, iApps Pty Ltd.

ByNoosa is an iOS app developed for Tourism Noosa by iApps Pty Ltd in partnership with dtb! Advertising. ByNoosa launched February 20, 2011, and is free to download from iTunes.

iApps together with dtb! wanted to create an engaging, practical app that would provide the end user with a wealth of travel information in an easily accessible format that would be able to be taken up by a number of tourism bodies - Tourism Noosa were the first to do so. (There is now a sales team behind this project who source new tourism bodies and in app advertisers).

ByNoosa is fully interactive allowing the user direct access to vendors, to view and book accommodation, sights and activities, get GPS directions to desired destinations, find dining, shopping, event locations, transport options and access an events calendar either on or offline.

Users can elect to receive notifications of upcoming events and access app only offers to special events and discounts in a ‘What's Hot’ section of the app. This revolutionary mobile guide is stage one of a three stage development.

Stage two development is well underway, with the travel journal function being recently added, further engaging the user and creating an exceptional user experience.

Project Innovation / Need

The search and updating mechanisms, with most information cached locally and auto-updated. The entire application can be used offline, with the only loss of functionality being latest changes and maps.

The tag and search system is an industry first. It not only allows a full search of listings, but allows users to apply filters. When search filters are applied, the available sections, regions and tags are reduced to a subset that actually reflect the result. This removes the "hit and miss" style filtering, providing a simple way for users to refine search results making "drill-down" extremely simple.

Real time communication with subscribed users via elective push notifications provides a tailored way of indicating the type of information the user is interested in receiving, (eg restaurant deals in a particular area). Users are able to indicate exactly what they want notified when relevant data becomes available.

Simplicity of design of the CMS allows for tourism staff to change and update app data internally, without paying for further maintenance by iApps.

Development was focused on ensuring maximum performance to balance the conflicting requirements of a fast yet small download with maximum built-in detail, while being highly updatable for transient data, push offers and the ability for offline use.

The data model was designed to allow the application to be relatively easily recreated for other organisations,allow easy updates and changes to listing details and images via the CMS, without having to involve iApps or obtain approval from Apple, saving significant cost.

User Experience

The interface of ByNoosa is revolutionary, providing entertaining feedback on operations, such as zoom-in, flying and rotating images, and animations that make the app more engaging.

The new "Shake it up" function is the first of many enhancements planned. On any screen with multiple selections (such as categories and listings) you can switch selection with a flick of the wrist. This will generate a random listing within the selected search terms.

Stage two development is well underway, with the travel journal function being recently added, further engaging the user and creating an exceptional user experience.

When we compare ByNoosa against other apps of a similar genre, we find numerous "standard" quickly produced apps. For example many offer only basic functionality, with the majority of interaction being textual, providing a very unexciting experience with little capability to fine-tune your searches and no real engagement factor.

Generic apps that focus on dining or accommodation, do not have a "Noosa-centric" view. The user must spend a lot of time filtering down to the local area and receive only reduced levels of information. The Noosa app is unique as it is tailor made for both the visitor and the local. The app contains no irrelevant information.

Project Marketing

Tourism Noosa have taken on the role of marketing the ByNoosa app.