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Project Overview

Speed Cameras is every driver’s faithful companion on the road. This high-ranking Windows Phone app alerts of approaching police speed traps, radars or speed cameras (fixed, mobile or traffic light). It also gives speeding warnings for areas under police surveillance. Tens of thousands of people have downloaded it and over 8,300 people have recommended it on Facebook. Its preloaded database for the international road network features the latest official information and is automatically updated. For higher data reliability, it uses different providers to figure out where all cameras are, including user feedback.

Organisation

Melon, Inc

Team

There are currently five people working on Speed Cameras – a Windows Phone developer, quality assurance specialist, designer and marketing specialist, plus the project manager. Both the developer who originally wrote and the one currently supporting it have been creating Windows Phone apps since the very beginning of the platform.

Project Brief

Speed Cameras alerts you whenever you are approaching ? police speed trap, radar or a speed camera (fixed, mobile or traffic light). The application offers a preloaded database for the international road network that features the latest official information and is automatically updated. For higher data reliability, it uses different providers for the different types of cameras including user feedback.
In addition, Speed Cameras gives speeding warnings for areas under police surveillance.

Its main features are:
• Worldwide camera database
• Speeding warning in zones under police surveillance
• Automatic updates (new radars, cameras and police speed traps)
• User input - insert new camera
• Option to vote for camera (accurate position or not)
• Updated camera warning
• Integrated with several online maps providers
• A choice of sound, vibration and visual warning (or a combination of the three)
• Available in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Bulgarian

The app holds a permanent position in the Top 3 for its category, Travel: Navigation (free apps), in key markets such as Australia, New Zealand, United States, United Kingdom, Brazil and Mexico. In most other markets, it holds a Top 10 position. A further mark of the app’s strong performance is its consistently high user rating – it is currently the highest-ranked app of its kind on the Windows Phone Store.

Project Need

Speed Cameras offers useful information alerting drivers about what’s coming in the road ahead and does so in an outstandingly user-friendly way. To make sure the camera data is as precise as possible, the app uses information from a number of different databases and further verifies it by allowing users to vote for cameras (accurate or not) and suggest their removal.

In notifying users of upcoming cameras or speed traps, the app allows three different types of notification (sound, vibration and visual warning), to alert the user in a way that is least distracting and most suitable for the situation.

User Experience

Besides a well-thought out user interface and flawless performance, one of the most important features of Speed Cameras is the option for user input. It gives users the opportunity to update the application’s database faster than any automatic update.

Another very helpful feature are the notifications for police speed traps, radars and speed cameras plus the speeding warning option for zones under police surveillance. The application offers a preloaded database for the international road network with the latest official information, this avoiding the need for constant data usage.

What motivates us the most is the positive user reception which testifies for the app’s excellent performance. In the words of a user: “Very good application, I recommend everyone to download it. Very effective after configured,” Juliano from Brazil

Project Marketing

Speed Cameras enjoys active user engagement, and we receive constant feedback and feature suggestions. In terms of buzz-creation, our marketing strategy involves maintaining direct communication with our users and with specialized mobile industry reviewers to ensure the news is out about each update we publish.

We have also built a beta tester community (established at the end of 2012), open to all users. Besides providing valuable feedback and giving us feature ideas, they act as natural Melon Mobile “evangelists” among their circles.