United Airline
DirectTV
The DirectTV mobile application allows consumers to stream TV shows and movies remotely, anytime and anywhere, therefore eliminating the demand for remove satellite and cable TV. DirectTV subscribers will be able to record shows, access and modify their plan according to respective consumer needs, upgrade packages, add/remove channels from a plan, and always have access to a direct 24/7 line for technical issues.
The Challenge
With roughly 20 million DirectTV users, there are certainly a number of issues the development teams need to constantly address. The code of the application is difficult to maintain because of the number of integrated systems, so lots of updates and new devices are to be included, including new updates for dark mode and light mode in the UI. Development teams are also updating test code to mitigate bugs in the application. Our Senior iOS Developer, along with the development team, is optimizing the front-end performance of the application, evolving the code refactoring, dividing functions, rewriting portions with the goal of providing a more optimized user interface. Our Senior developer is responsible for a large chunk of the development, specifically the UI optimization for the iPhone and iPad versions, code refactoring, codability, latest iOS version, and maintaining impressive and efficient code architecture.
Another issue for the development team is that they don’t have much documentation in relation to code, architecture, etc. One member of the development team has been there from the beginning of the project conception, and understands all of code and app lifecycle/life. But with this in mind, the development team still faces the issue of taking on this project from the ground up. Additionally, our developer previously lacked UI Automation experience up until this project began, but with this project under their belt, thorough experience in UI Automation has been gained. AT&T didn’t implement UI Automation before, but now it is a core focus of the application since it’s an entertainment application.
The Solution
The DirectTV application implements a UI supporting the new iPhone and iOS versions, and includes solutions from debugging issues that arose during development stages. The Product Owner and Scrum Masters have to understand what UI and functionalities should be, and the final version reflects this communication. Our Senior developer also took on many managerial roles within the project, delegating objectives to Junior and Mid-level developers to complete and submit to our developer for review.
The Benefits
The DirectTV mobile application is a new medium for nearly 20 million DirectTV users, and the application is already highly-regarded on the app store. Our developer also benefited from the experience, learning a great deal about performance testing, UI automation, and methods of creating an app that can support a significant number of users, all requesting different tasks all at one time. Our developer gained thorough experience with large scale servers and users, and also gained exposure to different types users with different behaviors and individual needs. This type of consumer behavior exposes bugs and therefore new ways to improve the application. And because this is an entertainment application, users are using the application for long periods of time, which provides more informative and testable data.
