PTI Launches Mobile App
By Saad Mubarak
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf has launched its mobile app for iOS while the Android version is said to be in the making as of now.
The App was launched by the PTI Mobile App Team (Jibran Ilyas, Haris
Siddique, Aly Boghani) in collaboration with their Web Management and
the Social Media Team. The about section of the App states that the
project was initiated by Youth of PTI (USA) and is built with the
supports of volunteers.
PTI iOS App is retina optimized and supports the latest iPhone 5 screen size while its total size is around 18.8 MB.
Lets have a look what this App has to offer:
Voter Verification (Powered by Nadra)
Tap on a button on the home screen and compose SMS message window
pops up where voters can send their CNIC number and get their voter
verification details.
Insaf Radio
A button on the Landing screen takes you to “TuneIn” web page within
the App where the audio stream can be listened. (TuneIn is a famous
broadcasting hosting service). At the moment the Radio features requires
you to download an additional App “TuneIn”, the lack of in-App radio
stream support seems disappointing. However this can be enhanced in
upcoming versions.
Insaf TV
Although essentially a webpage, yet the video viewing experience is
leaps ahead of the Audio Stream (Radio) capabilities. The webpage opens
within the App, which has a responsive design (optimized for mobile) and
the overall interface seems like a YouTube clone — having features like
Search, Like/Dislike, Share etc. (Content is populated from
http://insafpk.tv/)
Contribution
Also available on the landing screen, a shortcut for the user to
donate from their Credit Card to PTI. This is a powerful feature however
executed poorly. The action forces the user outside the app, opening up
a window in mobile safari browser.
The webpage presented is not even mobile optimized that leads to a
lot of pinching in and out to accomplish what should have a been made an
experience that is delightful and simple as possible.
A dedicated tab in the bottom navigation bar also takes you to donation page
News & Twitter
The second tab at the bottom navigation us for News, which are
aggregated from the Insaf website and the official Facebook page of PTI.
Similarly twitter feeds are shown in the twitter section.
I found the segmented controllers used at the top a painful
experience to organize content from various sources. They are tiny, hard
to read and tap on. Wastage of negative space should have been put to
better use. Although efforts to maintain consistency throughout the App
should be applauded. Worth mentioning here is the Twitter API
integration which makes sharing a tweet is super easy.
Actions
A must have feature for every political party. Actions include:
Become A Paying Member, Sign-Up To Volunteer and Share this App. I did a
quick test of the ‘Share this App’ as a Facebook post. Disappointingly
instead of sharing the App, the App forced me to share the insaf.pk url
instead. No Facebook post preview was shown, Facebook iOS 6 API should
have been put to use here.
‘Become a Paying Member’ and ‘Sign-up to Volunteer’ are in-app forms
in which the user can fill their information. (This is what contribute
section should have been like: an In-App form). Although I don’t approve
the overall designs of these forms, tiny font and wastage of precious
mobile screen. But they serve the purpose and get the job done.
Info
This section of the App displays information related to the political
party. There are 6 large buttons on this info page (Ideology, Policies,
Constitution, Leadership Assets, About the App ). Most of these are
linked to documents instead of native pages. Seems like the development
team were rushed and they included document files instead of copying and
formatting the content on native app pages.
There is a wealth of information in these document ranging from
constitution to policies on economy, health, energy etc. that will help
PTI spread its message influencing potential voters and supports.
Conclusion
In my brief testing the App ran smoothly and no bugs were encountered
in an ideal use-case (Internet connectivity on), however in Airplane
Mode the twitter section caused the App to crash on my iPhone 5. Overall
I didn’t like the green background design with spaghetti of fonts and
also the excessive use of maroon throughout the app.
At the expense of readability, political branding shouldn’t have been
the dominating factor in design decisions. I’m sure there are other
ways for achieving branding goals.
In terms of functionality there are some interesting concepts of how
the political party has tried to bring together its digital media in a
cohesive experience. Perhaps what is even more interesting to see is how
this initial effort transforms over the months and what response comes
from other political parties. PTI is the first one in the mobile market
but would it be able to dominate this segment, only time time would
tell.
Author is VP Business Development at SevenCentric. Saad excels at
brand identity creation, creative marketing and developing strategic
partnerships. Also having a personal interest in visual design, Saad
Mubarak keeps himself involved in operational processes of the design
department. As a PDMA Punjab consultant, Saad Mubarak has taken
initiatives to revamp PDMA Punjab’s identity also foreseeing launch of
Child Protection Information Management System.