Building Expo City Dubai's Mobile Companion App

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Technology plays a crucial role in supporting Expo City Dubai's

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vision of becoming a future smart city by integrating

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advanced systems and innovations across various sectors.

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Smart city users expect that what we put out there is

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thoughtful and engaging, allowing them to feel more

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intelligent and to progress towards their goals.

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Our duty is to help that journey whether you're visiting

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for a day or setting up as a business or in future living in

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one of our residential areas.

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We wanted to create a digital platform that is user friendly,

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at the same time engaging,

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providing real time information to the users,

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enabling navigation across the city,

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and to share their experiences with their friends and family.

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Building a mobile app for a dynamic environment such as

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Expo City Dubai provides unique challenges.

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The main challenge at the start was finding the right mix of

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discovery and analysis methods.

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The blend needed to give us a flexible yet throughout

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understanding of both user needs and the client's vision.

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So we began with a scoping recon which helped us quickly

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grasp the essential and kick off the project.

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After that, we ran a few days workshop to dive deeper into

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the requirements and present our initial recommendations and solutions.

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And that's not all.

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Throughout the project we ensured ongoing discovery and

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helped separate scoping sessions for the next app node juice.

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This way we could stay at the top of emerging needs and focus

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on the core of the products while also verifying our

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assumptions as we moved forward.

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From a technical standpoint,

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one of our most important goals was ensuring the app's

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scalability to support its future development.

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We chose Flutter, a cross platform framework,

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which allowed us to maintain a single code base for rapid

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delivery and cost effective maintenance.

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However, some elements required native development due to the

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limitations of available Flutter packages.

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And for the back end, we selected Python,

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which provides a lightweight flexible structure that's easy to modify.

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We also implemented high performance solutions as the

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client anticipates significant temporary spikes in traffic,

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especially during exhibitions and events.

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The app was designed with the stability to support up to four

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hundred thousand simultaneous users.

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Thanks to the efficiently configured AWS services,

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we ensured the system auto stability.

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When we first started the project,

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we had to work with a content model and structure that was

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catered for our websites.

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Making sure that we reuse the content model and structure

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without causing interruption to the website was one of the

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biggest challenges.

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The other challenge was also making sure that we provide the

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most comprehensive information to the users without

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overwhelming them with too much information.

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With the help of Merixstudio,

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we tackled both of these challenges.

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Xposed City Dubai has an extensive digital and

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organizational ecosystem with existing technologies,

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processes, and standards,

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all of which we had to consider and integrate into the app.

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To align a key feature, the map view,

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with the client's design systems, we chose Mapbox,

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which includes building navigation and allows for

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extensive customization.

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The app also integrates seamlessly with the client's

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headless CMS content pool.

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Our efforts in this part ensure a unified data environment that

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facilitates consistent content management across the

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application and accommodates customization needs.

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Additionally, the mobile app connects with the client's CRM system

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Microsoft Dynamics.

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The core of Expo City Dubai's vision of a future smart city

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is all about human centricity.

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That's why we put so much emphasis on user experience and usability,

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which was quite challenging for at least two reasons.

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First, the potential user groups are incredibly diverse,

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not just internationally,

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but also because the app needs to serve visitors,

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business tenants, and the residents.

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We had to design it to be culturally intuitive and

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scalable across multiple languages,

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including support for right to left scripts.

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Plus, we aim to meet accessibility standards and

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make sure the app highlights facilities within Expo City

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Dubai that cater to individuals with disabilities.

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Second, in a complex super app like this,

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it's crucial to prevent future creep.

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Our strategy was to prioritize the most essential

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functionalities, balance user and business needs,

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and carefully consider the cost and timeliness for implementing each feature.

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Merixstudio has been an indispensable partner.

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Of course, their technical ability and user experience expertise is top notch.

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But it's their deep appreciation of our needs and

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the attention to detail that they offer us which has been so refreshing.

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Each person brings something special.

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I think we found a long term partner in Merixstudio.