Screenshot from Semantico's Dictionarium app
Semantico’s Dictionarium app is available for download from the app store now (short link at http://bit.ly/dictionarium)
We’re really pleased with how quickly we managed to get this live in the app store. The app was approved on first submission – a testament to our internal QA.
Creating a dictionary has given us the perfect opportunity to refine a number of important concepts we use when developing mobile apps.
Throughout the design process we’ve taken care to optimise the display for both the iPhone and the new iPad devices. Delivering an app for both devices is not only essential for publishers, who don’t want to develop the same content twice, but also for end users who don’t want the complication of downloading different apps in order to access the same content.
We’ve built the app to take us through some of the core concepts that publishers will need when taking their content to mobile devices, whatever the subject matter. The essential functionality of Dictionarium is that of a search engine with an integrated e-content reader. Text with hyperlinks allows the user to navigate through the the content and jump from one concept to another.
Semantico’s bespoke publishing platforms deal with large amounts of complex information: putting together the dictionary has allowed us to create and deliver an app with a large data set behind it of 107,757 headwords and 123,742 definitions.
Data compression and application speed optimisations are essential to create a great end user experience and an app that publishers can be proud of. By compressing the database we’ve halved the size of the app from 105MB to 51MB.
The Dictionary is designed so that the main way users find the information they need is through search. Search functionality is important for all online publications. Users expect to be able to find the information they want through keyword searching at the very least, and there’s been no problem with implementing this in the iPhone / iPad environment.
After a successful project it’s pleasing to have had 2,000 downloads in the first week of the app going live. Take a look at the work we’ve done – and make it 3,000! http://bit.ly/dictionarium