Desktop apps
Deliver exceptional user experiences
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.
Trusting Smudge with their apps
Improve the experience your organisation offers
Fill a tricky, digital gap
We come in, understand your needs, review the tools you're using, work out your gap and how to fill it. From data collection to sales support, desktop apps can streamline those essential business tasks.
Complex apps and integrations
We’re the people you bring in for those tricky technical projects where the stakes are high. We’re all about solving complex problems with easy-to-use and effective digital tools.
App developers for business, government and agencies
Make a great impression on your team and customers
An app creates a specialised experience to help your team or customers achieve an important task. They’re high-use touchpoints with your organisation, so it’s essential they’re a great reflection of your brand.
Inclusive, accessible apps for public bodies
Government departments are mandated to serve the public, so your apps have to be highly accessible and work in a wide range of situations. Building and rolling out successful apps for the government requires unique consultative skills and patience to succeed.
Technical support for digital agencies
You design; we handle the tricky stuff that isn't your strength. From web applications to CRM integrations, we tackle the technical challenges your team can’t build in-house. Whatever platforms you’re using, we’ll make it work seamlessly.
“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.”
Desktop apps are complex
The technical landscape can be overwhelming
In any given custom software project there are hundreds of different frameworks, each with its trade-offs. We help you navigate these trade-offs to make sure that you hit your business objectives while making sure we deliver what your users need
Deliver the best possible project outcome
Experience tells us that the best projects balance business goals, human needs, and technology. We intentionally bring these elements together to create smart, user-centred solutions that achieve exceptional results.
Apps help shape your customer experience
The experience people have with your app shapes your customers' experience and how they see your brand. We focus on understanding the desired user experience—and then apply our deep technical expertise to ensure they get exactly what they need.
“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.”
Desktop app 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 digital tools 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 doctors was enough time to understand how they’d use 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 app 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 create something your users will find valuable within the shortest, possible time.
It’s rare for mobile apps to be completed in one push. More often, your initial release starts your next development cycle. We refine functionality based on users’ feedback and add more features until your app really hits the mark.
Your desktop app investment
We usually quote for designing and building desktop apps 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 if you’ve something interesting in mind.
“The BIG X app 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
The Beauty of Balance
To help businesses transform, we solve problems using Intention-Based Design. Supporting this methodology are three overlapping sets of considerations: human, business and technical.
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 have 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.
“Our mobile app ecosystem has revolutionised frontline policing in New Zealand through empathetic and considered design. It has improved public safety for all New Zealanders and is a world leading program that we are all very proud of.”
Success factors for desktop app design
Good apps are an exercise in simplicity. Be disciplined. Don’t try to cram too much into one tool. Focus on the problem you’re trying to solve, decide what’s important, and do that really well.
People expect search to be top right so that’s where it should be. Make functionality as predictable as possible, and meet your users’ expectations so seamlessly it becomes invisible. Sometimes, the expected is better.
If you want people to use a feature, invest in making it easy to use. Apple excel at simplifying power user features, so they become accessible for all. When a feature's accessible, it becomes more relevant.
When you build an app, you create a hotline to your users, and often users start telling you what they want. Be prepared to change your business from your product mix, to how you sell in response.
A high-value app can be a powerful catalyst for change. We encourage involving everyone who understands your users—across all levels of your organisation, from the CEO to the frontlines.
“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.”
A suite of software services
At Smudge, we design and build digital tools that tackle tough, high-impact business challenges. Think of them as the precise puzzle pieces your digital ecosystem needs. With a diverse team of specialists, we bring a blend of skills and expertise to solve your problems with custom software.
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.
Custom Software Development
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.
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.
Tell us about your app project
We can help you understand your needs, explore ideas, and build you a desktop app that gives your users an exceptional experience.
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Desktop app development FAQs
Will this be a digital tool people use regularly, at least once a month?
There’s the odd situation where you might still need an app, even if people use the tool less frequently – hardware integrations are an example – but typically if there's no reason for someone to use a tool more than once a month, put it on your website and make it easy to find.
If you’re not sure if an app is the right tool for the job, get in touch, and we can help you decide.
Work out what your user is trying to do. Do those tasks cluster together naturally or are they occupying different parts of your user's day?
And how does your user see the tasks? Would they expect to do them together, or do they see them as different things?
Would it optimise your user’s experience to have all these functions in a single app, or would that be an odd experience for them?
If you’re not sure how many apps you need to build, get in touch. We can help.