CASE STUDY
Showerbuddy’s BathCheck app revolutionises the process of helping people with bathroom mobility
“The team at Dark Ice not only developed our concept but offered better, advanced options. They were amazing to work with and will be our first choice for future projects.
BathCheck™ won the ATSA Australian Innovation of the Year 2022, thanks to the team at Dark Ice.”
Barry Redican
CEO
Showerbuddy International
Summary
Software
- Microsoft Xamarin.Forms (and ready for Microsoft’s MAUI)
- Microsoft Blazor Web Assembly
- Amazon Web Services
Challenges
- Showerbuddy had a requirement to provide a tool for occupational therapists to use to measure a bathroom and provide corresponding accessories to best fit a client’s bathroom with one of their leading products.
Solution
- Showerbuddy hired Dark Ice for its experience in mobile development for iOS + Android as well as web application and cloud development. Dark Ice was the ideal fit for Showerbuddy’s app development project.
- Dark Ice undertook a complete redesign of the existing application for both mobile and web. This included functional and graphical components (thanks to Martian Design & Web for a full UI/UX implementation). Dark Ice was able to create a set of complex formulas. This approach enabled the best recommendations and most suitable products to use in any type of bathroom.
Results
- A mobile app and web application for Showerbuddy users to check the best Showerbuddy solution for any bathroom.
About Showerbuddy
Showerbuddy was started in 2004 and has since become a global community made up of a team, OTs, PTs, carers, distributors, medical authorities and of course, all end users. Their main business provides shower chairs for bathroom mobility without the need for a remodel for people who struggle with access.
About BathCheck
BathCheck first started life in January of 2021 as a rudimentary proof of concept for users to proceed through a list of instructions, providing specific measurements of the bathroom and be recommended one of Showerbuddy’s chairs.
The following new features have been added as part of Dark Ice’s redevelopment:
- Showerbuddy accessories can be automatically added to the solution
- Local saving of data for future reference
- Catalogue of products with videos
- Recommendations and guidance while working through the wizard
Once the list of instructions is proceeded through, the user will be shown the recommended solution, and have the ability to add additional accessories and send a message directly to a supplier.
Challenges
“Showerbuddy assists users with limited or no mobility to access their home bathroom. Will the shower chair fit the room, and if so, what adaptation might be needed – this is all now calculated by the Dark Ice app. The app build included numerous computations of complexity in both the clients particular room and configuration and the product selection.” – Barry Redican, CEO, BathCheck International.
Showerbuddy’s bathroom solutions are able to work in virtually any bathroom with some extra steps or accessories. The original app proof of concept was successful, however after doing some research and taking on board user feedback, there was more that could be achieved to help users.
Dark Ice started by creating a new modern design in collaboration with our design partners Martian Design & Web. The mobile app was the first to receive updates as it was the preferred platform by users. However, this was soon to be followed with a web application that has with similar design and features.
To keep all of the formulas synchronized between three platforms, and to keep costs down, Dark Ice suggested to use a custom solution they have been using. This takes advantage of a single codebase for all business logic with the user interfaces. To accomplish this the majority of things are handled by Microsoft Xamarin.Forms (soon to be MAUI) for mobile, and Microsoft Blazor for the web. This has provided a consistent experience for users no matter what platform or device they’re on. It also means the updates can be centralised across all platforms making any changes faster, simpler and cheaper.
Solution
Dark Ice delivered both a mobile app and a web application that:
- Proceeds through a series of logical steps to pre determine suitable products for the users.
- Uploads photos for reference
- Saves flows for access at a later date
- Emails content to suppliers
- Has the ability to support multiple languages in the future
- Has a beautiful UI that works on all device types
Results
BathCheck has been a huge success since the release of Dark Ice’s version, winning the award of ASTA Australian Innovation of the year 2022. BathCheck has managed to maintain a large audience for a niche product and continues to grow everyday. The graph below illustrates the rate of growth of installed audience on Google Play prior to Dark Ice release, in comparison to the new version separated by a red line. The growth also shows that international success is increasing due to the advancements made by this product. Dark Ice continue to support and enhance BathCheck to this day for greater success in the future and look forward to doing more amazing things in this space.
Why choose Dark Ice for your iOS + Android project
We specialise in the design and development of iOS, Android and Web applications. We can turn your idea into a full production, ready to sell application from start to finish. We have an experienced team with varying skills and are able to offer the full design and development cycle; from beautiful user interfaces to a mobile application in your hand to fully scalable cloud backends.
For a free quote and to begin a discussion with us, please visit our project cost analyser.
