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Building something special at NewBoCo Studios

NewBoCo Studios came to be in 2016. The aim? To work with clients of all sizes to develop software solutions that meet specific requirements, and then deliver high-quality software products that are scalable, reliable, and user-friendly. 

Eight years later, that idea has grown into a team that’s not only served dozens of new companies, but also helped established organizations like UFG Insurance, the Cedar Rapids Community School District, and more. 

“When we started, our goal was to provide services primarily to startups,” said Jess Faber, UI/UX Developer for NewBoCo Studios. “But we’ve found that there’s a pretty strong need for those services across the board.”  

Here are two major projects NewBoCo Studios worked on in 2023: 

RUMBLERANK

RumbleRank’s founder and product owner, Jordan Taylor, came to NewBoCo Studios to create a product that could reduce ambiguity in collecting survey data. The idea was that by compelling participants to make difficult decisions within the engaging experience of a game, a person could reach beyond the limitations of self-reporting and unlock real answers to what people think. That would increase the integrity and validity of the data being collected. 

First, NewBoCo Studios delivered a web-based prototype that Taylor could use to gather market research. From there, Studios built the prototype into a fully functional web app.

The team then turned its attention to building out an infrastructure that could collect and compute user data in a meaningful way while scaling with demand. To do this, NewBoCo Studios started by building an API designed to calculate and store rankings on any given list based on user data while enabling list creators to view and export that data. As this foundation came to fruition, the team built a front-end user experience that would stay true to RumbleRank’s game-inspired roots. 

“By presenting users with a series of head-to-head matchups while maintaining low latency rendering and intuitive design, we were able to achieve an engaging, game-like web app to collect survey data, just as RumbleRank set out to do,” FaberBertling said. 

Iowa Mock Trial

In 2023, NewBoCo Studios developed a streamlined, user-friendly Iowa Mock Trial competition judging platform. These competitions, intended to educate and engage aspiring law professionals, required a robust and mobile-friendly judging system that could efficiently manage teams, handle roster management, and distribute ballots. Unfortunately, Iowa Mock Trial’s existing judging system fell short in meeting these needs.

The NewBoCo Studios team decided to build the app using ReactJS with Remix, Material UI, and PostgreSQL. ReactJS with Remix provided a solid foundation for crafting a responsive and interactive user interface, as well as efficient rendering and optimal performance. Material UI, known for its accessible design system and pre-built components, allowed NewBoCo Studios to deliver a mobile-friendly and consistent user experience. Underpinning the entire platform was a PostgreSQL database, which NewBoCo Studios strategically designed to accommodate the intricate relationships between teams, judges, and ballots, ensuring that each aspect of the Mock Trial competition judging could be efficiently tracked and managed.

Throughout the development process, NewBoCo Studios maintained close communication with the client’s team and incorporated their feedback seamlessly, ensuring that the end product aligned with their expectations. The result was a robust, comprehensive, and user-friendly Mock Trial competition platform that streamlined the way judging was conducted.

Could NewBoCo Studios be the right collaborator for your next project? Learn more at newbostudios.com. 

Listen up

So you have an idea for an app, but no idea how to make one. Now what? Jess Faber talks about building apps with clients at NewBoCoi Studios on this episode of the Iowa Innovation Podcast:

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