Maderas

Client

Maderas

Disciplines Used

Digital Intelligence + Strategy, User Experience Design, Mobile Engineering, Web Engineering, and LiveOps

Services Provided

Business Analysis, Engineering Strategy, Persona Development, Product Roadmapping, User Experience Strategy, Concept Development, Information Architecture, Information Design, Interaction Design, User Interface Design, Visual Design, Wireframe Prototyping, Analytics + Reporting, API + SDK Development, back-end Architecture, Deployment Strategy, Web App Development, Front-end Development, iOS Engineering, QA Test Plans, Regression Testing, Server Deployment, Technical Architecture

Project Details

When the Founders of Maderas came to us with their preliminary wireframe concepts for the Suave Systems POS, as it was called then, we were very excited about the raw potential and prospects of refining the concept and design it into a slick and smooth experience positioned to be the definitive CRM and POS solution for boutique hotels and resorts worldwide.

As we commenced our discovery phase, our architects and experience designers worked closely with the Maderas team. Together we began the process of refining the rough user experience concepts for the Management’s Web app and POS iPad app. Resulting in a few agreed upon prototypes consisting of complete flows and high-fidelity wireframes. Additionally, CemtrexLabs began to engage the extraordinary staff and guests at Playa Maderas, Nicaragua. Through extensive interviews and conversations we were able to acquire the information that aided in stronger educated decisions; further ensuring the proper approach to refining and redesigning parts of the experience initially laid out by the Maderas Team.

As the POS solution facet of the system would primarily function on iPads (9-inch and 7-inch mini), we had to ensure that our experience transcended both mediums equally as effectively. We were careful to continue to mock and test iterations to various interfaces within the experience until they effectively transcended both. Our architects also decided that the project would be a good candidate to be developed with Yii 2.0 PHP, MySQL, Apache and deployed on AWS. Upon our mutual satisfaction with the core experience design for the Web App and iPad App, our team worked to prepare the product backlog and move into Design and Engineering Sprints.

Prioritizing the sprint backlogs with the Founders, our team began to burn down the engineering and design tasks necessary to realize the delivery of the experience we laid out during discovery. As we work in a strict agile and iterative manner, builds were delivered to the Maderas team every two weeks during this phase of the project. As the delivered features were tested on-site, iterations and further refinements revealed themselves and we worked with Maderas to incorporate these refinements into the product backlog and realize their design and development in upcoming sprints depending on urgency and priority. One example of a necessary iteration through testing in the field was the need for a more advanced local database implementation and general caching techniques due to the intermittent nature of the internet on Playa Maderas. Working through this complex challenge with the team at Maderas, CemtrexLabs was able to architect a solution that maximized the utility of the system even if the internet was extremely poor or temporarily non-existent. CemtrexLabs realized the initials release of the system in 24 weeks.

During the initial rollout of the system, our CSA and President headed over to Playa Maderas to support the initial launch on-site.

Following the launch, we continued to support the Maderas Lab closely for 12 months. With the intended purpose of allowing the users to have more hands-on time with the experience and system. Which led to further bespoke enhancements to the Maderas accounting, billing and reporting team. CemtrexLabs later worked closely with the newly hired Maderas internal tech team, providing any needed resources and information to ensure a frictionless transition with the system and codebase. Resulting in a coherent relationship and product that we proudly stand behind.