Social Network for Special Needs
About
OBJECTIVES
To develop a mobile social network for people with intellectual disabilities; namely help teenagers with Down syndrome to interact with each other securely, eliminating the threat of becoming a subject to bullying by their peers who develop in accordance to accepted norms.
CHALLENGE
Our Client from Denmark has approached CPCS with a request to develop a social network for people with intellectual disabilities. In the country of the people-first approach, people with any kind of disability are protected and feel as an integral part of the society. This is also the case with down-syndrome people. We were honored to develop a mobile platform for social networking among such people.
SOLUTION
As a rule, we take an active role during product discovery sessions with our Clients. That project was an exception to the rule. Our Danish Client reached CPCS with a clear vision of what technical features our engineers should develop and implement for the product release.
Among many other features, we implemented the request to build a secure although an easy-to-follow logging journey. Two-step authentication to the platform includes both logging into the platform with a standard numeric-word password and entering a gamified sequence of animals.
With the aim to make the platform’s users feel that the only difference of our social network and Facebook is the openness and security with which they communicate with each other, the end users of our mobile social network can:
- publish posts on their walls, including pictures and videos;
- search for possible friends, applying filters that range their peers in accordance to their interests (this data is taken from their profiles);
- send invitations to become friends, accept relevant invites;
- see their friends’ posts, react to publicly shared posts;
- communicate via a messenger in real time;
- ask admins for support;
- etc.
The mobile platform is realized via the hybrid application for iOS and Android, and the instant messaging feature is written in Java with the WebSocket-based architecture application.
Technology choice
- Backend – PHP, Laravel and Java, Spring frameworks
- Messaging module – Java, Spring
- Mobile app – React Native
Team and Duration
- 3 backend engineers
- 1 engineer for iOS and Android
- 1 project manager
- 1 QA engineer
- 1 SysOps engineer
- 3 months for the MVP
- 5 months for the beta-version
- 7 months for the end-to-end production
RESULTS
CPCS developed an end-to-end social network for Danish people with intellectual disabilities. The product makes them and their relatives feel even more inclusive and happier. The solution boats an intuitive and gamified interface.
