Software Development: Integral To Our Launch

2 of 22 wireframe pages for the Reservation Management application

It seems appropriate to sum up the last year with what I can only call the Understatement Of The Year: We sure have learned a lot. Which, admittedly, is a euphemism for: Holy crapola, we have encountered more obstacles and challenges than we ever imagined.

There was the location dance that cost us several months. There were the numerous gotchas as we did demolition in our space that is actually the epicenter of 5 old buildings. There were new city regulations, and periodic construction glitches. And of course there continue to be funding issues.

But perhaps our biggest challenge, has been bringing to life software of a whole new breed — something that could handle our unique reservations needs and our café side requirements. Not only that, but we wanted the solution to be gorgeous and seamless and … okay, call us over ambitious … joyful.

We hit some big walls — sometimes we joke that we’ve actually created a new kind of hardware — as in difficult-ware. Not for lack of brilliance on the inside. We employed a very mature design process. We developed personas, created use case scenarios and mapped out user flows. Tori Breitling and Marie Hwang created some of the most stunning, detailed wireframes I’ve ever seen. More than one development team has been blown away by their user interface documents, commenting that they’ve never had the opportunity to start out with such well though-out design documents.

But finding the right team that knows how to make all that work right — well, it’s been a long road, more than a little frustrating. And then, sigh of relief, enter the geniuses at Integral Concepts. We asked them to buy into this complex new model and they signed on eagerly. They totally get what we’re aiming for — not just technically but Big Picture-wise. They know how to integrate a high-touch design into all the backend functionality and they dig the concept. And right now, as you’re reading this, they’re working on something we can expand and evolve as we grow.

Oh, and did we mention they’re most excellent communicators? They check in daily, offer suggestions for improvements, and are totally, constantly on top of the game. So a big shout out to our Integral Concepts team: Scott Riggins, Chuck Guo, Sebastian Leks, and Harry Teunissen — I actually met Scott back in the 90s at Go Media when we hosted WebEdge, a Mac web developers conference. Fun to be working with him again. We can’t wait for the big launch :)