Custom software development
Software designed precisely to meet your needs
If the right tool doesn’t exist for your particular business problem, custom software could be the answer. We can help you understand your needs, explore ideas, and build you a tool if custom software is the right fit.
Trusting Smudge to solve problems with software
Solve your business problems with custom software
You have a gap in your tech toolkit
Your business processes work well, but you’ve identified a gap. We can help you work out what you need and tailor software to fill that gap.
You can’t find the right software
You want to get everyone working consistently and efficiently using the same process, but you need help to iron out the details. We can help you find exactly the right tool.
Your systems aren’t working
You’re not sure what you need, or where to start, but you know your systems could be better. We can help you understand your barriers, and explore solutions.
You have software you want to evolve
Whether you’ve off-the-shelf software that doesn’t work for the way you do things, or you have a tool you’ve built yourself, and you’d like to take it to the next level, we can help.
We work with two groups of people
You understand the value of quality digital design
Design is part of your organisation’s DNA and gives you your competitive edge. You know what a difference good design makes. You’ve been involved in the design process, and you’ve seen the outcomes it delivers.
You’re a leader in your field and appreciate excellence
You need to solve a business problem, and you want a quality solution that’s easy for your team or your customers to use. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t worked on a software design project before, we’ll guide you through.
Specialists in custom software to meet business needs
Government software
Healthcare software
Transport & logistics software
Primary industries software
“The Digital Notebook app we created with Smudge is a game changer. Using it can make situations less dangerous, you can avoid taking your eyes off the person, and it’s easier to put away if the situation changes.”
Real-life examples of custom software
Sales tools designed for FMCG reps
We’ve built bespoke mobile sales apps for Coca-Cola, Cookie Time, and Independent Liquor. Off-the-shelf sales tools didn’t work the way they wanted, so we spent time with the reps, understood the way they worked, and built exactly what they needed to support their business goals.
Collecting accurate data in the field
Capturing accurate data in the field can be challenging, especially for teams like police, medical crews, or insurance assessors working in unpredictable situations. Linear solutions fall short, so we create flexible mobile apps that adapt to real-world needs. Designed to include offline connectivity, they ensure reliable data capture anywhere, with instant sharing when back online.
User friendly interfaces that work
Users expect interfaces that work the way their favourite tools work. It takes a lot of effort to streamline controls so they’re intuitive and it’s easy for users to do what they want. From stage lighting systems run by community groups to a medical simulator used by busy doctors, we specialise in interfaces that can be used with little additional training or support.
Is custom software right for your project?
You’re comfortable with innovation and experimentation
Custom software projects can include some uncertainty. Building something new can involve prototyping, trialling, and iterating based on the results. We promise a robust process with valuable learnings.
If you like a fixed approach, custom software may not be for you
We’re wary when people say they know exactly what they need to build. Projects that take a rigid approach can go wrong because there isn't enough user research. Exploring approaches and soliciting user feedback is part of creating great custom software.
“In recent years, technology has played an increasingly important role in enabling the success of our global sales team, and Smudge has been a key partner on that journey.”
The custom software development process
PHASE 1: SCOPING
Before we can solve your business problems, we need to understand your environment and experience your world. How is your organisation structured? What are your processes? How does your team communicate? What software are you already using. How does everything fit together?
How deeply we immerse ourselves in your business depends on the complexity of the problem you want to solve. When we built a tool for frontline police, research took many months, while a half day with an experienced design team was enough time to understand they’d already done great design work for a medical simulator.
This research step has a number of potential outputs such as a market research report, user research, or user personas.
Sometimes, once we get to know your context, we discover the situation isn’t what we initially thought. We want to make sure we’ve understood your needs, and everyone agrees on the problem we’re solving. So, we summarise what we’ve discovered, to confirm we’re all on the same page.
In almost every project, there are things we’re unsure about and things we know will be hard. So, we start by finding answers to your unknowns. This can take a few hours or a few weeks, and depending on the scope of this investigation, we may quote for this initial exploratory work.
Before we move into development, we test our approach with wireframes and / or prototypes. This gives us valuable feedback and the basis to prepare you a detailed proposal for the software development phase.
PHASE 2: DEVELOPMENT
Every project is unique, and so is our approach to development. Sometimes, we’ll collaborate daily. Other times, we’ll handle the work independently and check in every few weeks.
Generally, the more technical the project phase, the less input we need from you. But when it comes to user experience or business processes, your insights are essential.
Our process is built to support your team, not the other way around. We’re flexible and experienced, adapting how we work to suit your needs. Together, we’ll align on key decisions and set meaningful, achievable deadlines to deliver exactly what you need.
Our goal for your first release is to deliver something valuable to users—quickly.
New software is rarely perfect in one go. Instead, we start small, launching an initial version that kickstarts the next development cycle. Working with your team and real user feedback, we refine functionality, align on key decisions, prioritise new features and achievable deadlines until your software delivers exactly what you need.
Your custom software investment
We usually quote for software development in two phases.
Phase 1: Scoping
This covers time familiarising ourselves with your context, conducting user research, refining intent, exploring unknowns, and prototyping.
We need to know how we’re going to solve any tricky problems. We don’t want to start development before we’re confident we can deliver. We also need to know the full scope of your project to give you an educated estimate.
At this stage, we may be able to give you an approximate development price based on similar size and types of projects we’ve completed before.
Phase 2: Development
Development is where we do the heavy lifting, building, testing, and refining your mobile app. Most app projects range from the low hundreds of thousands to multi-million engagements, however, we don’t rule out smaller projects, so please get in touch regardless of what you have in mind.
“BIG X existed in our heads for a while. We needed a partner who would listen to us, challenge us, and work with us to build something great. Smudge has done all three.”
Our Approach
A balanced approach to software design
Human, business, and technical needs often compete for attention. Our goal is to find a harmonious balance, where the three are prioritised with intent.
Collaborating with your team and other digital partners
We’re also very flexible about who does what. If you’ve people in your team who’ve capability and capacity for certain tasks, or another digital agency you enjoy working with, we're happy to share our knowledge and skills. We make handovers easy, so people can pick up our work and run with it.
A suite of software services
We design and build digital tools to solve crunchy, high-value business problems. They’re specific puzzle pieces for complex digital ecosystems. Our multifaceted, multi-skilled team offer a range of services.
Mobile apps
We specialise in designing and building high-value mobile apps for organisations. Think apps that meet an essential need for your customers or solve an important business problem for your team.
Desktop apps
Tools that are hard to use gather dust, while tools people enjoy using deliver value that far exceeds their cost. We focus on your app's user experience to ensure your investment pays off.
Research for software projects
Research is at the heart of all great software projects. It helps you define your software vision, understand what success looks like, and work out how to balance your competing needs.
Product management for software
Big software tools can take years to build and they evolve to fit the changing needs of your business. Product management helps you develop a detailed roadmap to move you towards your vision in an efficient way.
“One great thing about working with Smudge was they didn't come in and redesign our user interface from scratch. They recognised we’d done a lot of work to get to the point we were at, and they focused on the tricky stuff we didn’t know how to do.”
Six success factors for software design
When projects skip user research, it can be because a project lead assumes everyone uses a tool the same way. People use software in many ways, so spend time with your users to understand how they want a tool to work. If you want people to use a new tool, give them a seat at the design table.
Refine your processes before you build because the process you share with us shapes your software. Building a tool to improve a process can lead to people telling you they don’t like how that process works. So, build in a prototype phase for feedback from your team.
If you spend all your budget building the easy stuff, then get to the tricky bit at the end and realise you’ve no way forward, your work is wasted. But failure is progress when it happens at the start of a project. Ruling out approaches is part of innovation, and valuable info you want upfront.
Prototyping and testing are essential. Life is unpredictable and new software has to interact with existing systems. When we build prototypes and test them in your environment, we uncover things we haven’t considered and ensure your new tool can handle challenges your team face every day.
Building quality software is about holding the big picture in your mind while you focus on the details. We get the business problem you’re trying to solve and why it matters. We also care about the detail that goes into making your processes as smooth as possible and your tool easy to use.
Good software starts with good communication, a clear plan, and knowing how the software development process works. You can rely on us to be responsive and honest about what we do and don’t know. In turn, we trust you to bring the right people to the table, be transparent, and decisive.
“Since we've deployed the OnDuty app we've seen over 36 million queries. That means we've freed up time in our communications centres, allowing them to focus on their demand picture.”
Tell us about your business problems
We can help you understand your needs, explore ideas, and build you a tool if custom software is the right fit.
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Custom software development FAQs
Talk to us as soon as you've got a business problem you think you might use technology to solve. Don’t worry if you haven’t a fully formed project. Bring us your initial ideas. We can kick them around together and give you some helpful advice.
We won’t put the hard sell on you. We may not even come back with a proposal. All ideas are interesting, but not all ideas are worth investing in. We only prepare proposals for projects we’re confident will add value to your team.
We typically build using the native technology for each application, so Swift and Swift UI for Apple platform applications, Kotlin for Android, React for web applications, and .Net for server API work. We have a wide variety of skills, and if we can provide genuine value to your project, we'll learn the specific technologies you need.
The thing about software development is frontend interfaces, databases, and backend functionality all use different languages. Our goal as problem solvers is to fit all the different parts together as efficiently as possible, and there can be many ways to achieve that aim. So, the technologies we choose are a piece of a puzzle, but often there isn’t one perfect answer.
Custom software isn’t the right answer for every project. If off-the-shelf software fits your needs or could work with a bit of customisation, it's the first place to look.
If you need a tool to solve a business problem and nothing exists, custom software could be the answer. We can help you understand your needs, work out whether custom software is a good fit, and propose an approach for building your tool.
The value created when software solves your specific business problem effectively can far exceed the cost of creating a custom software tool.
When you’re considering whether investing in custom software is right for your business, it can help to ask yourself how comfortable you are with innovation, uncertainty, and experimentation.
Most custom software projects include an element of uncertainty and innovation.
Building something new involves prototyping, trialling, sometimes failing, and doing that over and over again. We guarantee a robust innovation process, with plenty of valuable learnings, but innovation is, by its nature, unpredictable, so if you want a guaranteed outcome, custom software may not be for you.
You’re signing up to explore unknown factors. You’ll be thinking hard about what your users want from technology. And you're committing to making decisions about how you do things in your business.
If you're building software as a service for a range of customers, it’s important to build features that can be configured to do things in many different ways. But if you're building software for your business, you don't want features that switch on and off. One of the key points of building a custom tool is you can define the exact way you want your business to do things and build a tool that helps people do that in the most efficient way. If you can’t make those decisions, it can be much more effective to buy or license a tool off the shelf.