We got it! It’s only March, and we’re already won the first prize for the best mobile/RWD service. We guarantee that the Mobile Trends Awards 2019 statuette will take a special place in our showcase. It is a great distinction for us and, above all, an appreciation of the work of the whole team for such a big project as new Katowice Airport website. What was the biggest challenge and what made this award come to us?
To start with, a few sentences on the topic of MTA. The Mobile Trends Awards, which were granted for the ninth time this year, are the most prestigious awards for the mobile industry in Poland. The jury awards innovative, convenient and user-friendly solutions, and the statuettes themselves are called Mobile Trends Awards. The competition was fierce from the very beginning. In 2019, more than 100 projects were submitted. We had in total 44 nominees in 10 categories, and Internet users cast over 140 thousand votes. The online voting was an opportunity to gain additional points, which were added to the final votes. Together with Katowice Airport we won in the category Website or Mobile Service / RWD – useful.
– The MTA jury justified its verdict for a complex, useful and comfortable website for a difficult facility such as the airport.
This short summary of the experts only confirms the fact that we did a good job. The realization required the cooperation of several departments, because in the whole project we were responsible for the specification, UX, backend, creation and frontend. Recently, we described on the blog how to create a mobile website from A to Z on the example of Katowice Airport – from UX/UI Designers perspective. Now we want to give the floor to the developers who have risen to the challenge again. – The challenges we had to face include moving the logic of some of the functionality from the old site (code rewrite), along with taking into account completely new business assumptions. From the programming point of view, we also had to pay attention to the complex process of booking parking lots and business services (for individual customers and travel agencies) and their administration. An important point of work was also the flight board and schedule. This was complemented by the architecture of the entire solution, including integration with numerous services/systems, high performance, testability, import of data from the previous service and easy expansion with further functionalities – explains Władek Chodarcewicz, Application Production Leader.
But how did it look like from the perspective of the frontend department and what in this case was the added value of the project? – Due to the category in which we were nominated for a website or mobile / RWD service – useful, I would especially like to draw attention to a useful word, which unfortunately is often overlooked and neglected in the process of service creation. I think that it is this point that allowed us to stand out strongly from the competition. I’ve looked through the pages of our opponents and only our service allows you to adjust the font size or increase the contrast, while the real masterpiece is the keyboard navigation. Just press [TAB] a few times to see what’s going on. Such an effect is really rare – stresses Krzysiek Kornacki, Frontend/JavaScript Development Leader.
Of course, we wouldn’t accomplish it if it wasn’t for the exemplary cooperation with the client, who trusted us once again. – Katowice Airport was one of my first clients when I started working for Netizens. Together we have already released three versions of the airport’s website and several software projects. Based on my experience I can say that the success of a project is half dependent on the customer. It depends on how he is involved in the implementation, how he is prepared for it, whether he has trust in the contractor and how much he is aware of the technology, its capabilities, but also the limitations and requirements – summarizes Kasia Sobieraj, Account Management Leader.
Taking into account Kasia’s words, Katowice Airport is an ideal client and therefore congratulations are also due to the airport team. This award is definitely our common triumph!