There’s no contesting the importance of having a website for your business; it allows visitors to find you when searching online and serves as a foundation to all marketing efforts. But your brand’s digital experience can go beyond a simple, informational website. Custom web-based applications and mobile applications can be developed to work alongside your website or serve their own purpose. You may be asking “what’s the difference between these two?” We’re so glad you asked!
A web-based application is a completely custom website focused on user interaction and built to optimize a specific workflow. Typically the web-based application has a front-end component that users interact with, for example, a portal to submit a property damage claim or a login system to upload research documents. It will also have a backend component that administrators will be able to interact with, allowing them to review data like user submissions or inventory levels. A web-based application can be public facing for client use or used by an organization for internal data management.
A mobile application is a program designed to run on a mobile device. Like web-based applications, mobile apps are completely custom to focus on a user interaction. Mobile apps can be an extension of an existing website, a game, a communication tool, a resource or a combination of these.
The functionality possibilities are virtually endless for both a web-based application and a mobile application. Because of this, we consider scoping out the functionality of an application to be just as important as the design and programming. Doing so ensures you and our team know what to expect with the project, who will be using the application and why.
Our custom web-based application development experience includes building a tourism and hospitality training system for Visit El Paso and developing a crowd-sourcing tool for open innovation research for the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard. Our mobile application development experience includes developing a mobile app for the El Paso County Elections Department to help promote civic engagement.
If you have an idea for a new mobile app or want to discuss a custom web-based application that can simplify your business operations, we want to hear from you!
