Come work with us
Are you an industry thought leader with a strong network in mobile, cloud, or web and the ability to build new business? Fed up with endless meetings, stifling bureaucracy, and caps on your potential? Explore a unique opportunity to drive your own future as Sourcebits Studio Director.
Sourcebits Studios are discrete practice groups with focus in specific areas from Mobile Enterprise Applications to Web Gaming. Each is headed by a highly qualified Studio Director who is responsible for driving their Studio’s projects from initial client engagement to final delivery.
Studio Directors are industry leaders in mobile, cloud, and UX design—from the former CEO of the world’s largest open-source mobile platform, to an Apple Design Award winner.
As a Director you’ll share completely in the success of your studio, and have full authority to run it as your own business unit—with unlimited potential. At the same time, you’ll have access to all of the resources Sourcebits provides as a global company backed by Sequoia Capital and IDG Ventures. Sourcebits gives an unprecedented level of support and trust to Studio Directors, and Directors return that trust by delivering spectacular service and results for their clients.
You’ll work with amazing people throughout the company who care as deeply about the success of your clients’ projects as you do. Because Studios work together, clients have access to the best minds in mobile, web, and cloud development across multiple platforms and disciplines. At the core of Sourcebits Studios you’ll find more than 400 Sourcebits employees, each whom bring their extreme passion and focus to client projects across a wide range of talents and skills.
We’re looking for a few people who share that passion and focus and can back it up with a track record of success. If you think you have what it takes to lead your own Studio, get in touch below to learn more.
Mobile
USER EXPERIENCE
User experience design for mobile platforms is a unique art which occurs at the intersection of hardware limitations, new interaction methods, and strictly limited usage contexts.
The keyword in user experience design for mobile is discipline. An application has to serve its purpose despite often unfavorable usage conditions like walking down a street, being jostled during a commute or passed around at a social gathering. When your users may have only a second to interact with your app, sensitive user experience design is critical.
Sourcebits has years of experience in mobile design, and we've been creating applications for clients since the first iPhone was released. We understand the careful balance between discipline and compromise when creating feature sets, and the importance of clear and shallow workflow hierarchy. We know that users need immediate access to the tools they require to perform
crucial tasks, and we keep your app free of visual or informational overload. We’ll provide your users meaningful feedback to their actions, eliminate the learning curve, and deliver visual design they can grasp with just a glance. You’ll find these principles at the core of all of Sourcebits’ mobile user experience designs, and they provide the framework that makes our apps great.
Making an Apple App Better
It’s not easy to improve on Apple products, but in the early days of iOS we noticed that the clock application Apple delivered lacked key alarm features.
We conceived Night Stand as the first third-party clock app with advanced alarm functionality. We challenged ourselves to create an experience different from Apple’s clock, so we focused on a real-life metaphor. Built to function like a night stand alarm clock, the app turned the iPhone into a bedside device for measuring both time and weather conditions, with customizable alarms and a plethora of beautiful, realistic clock faces.
The application was an overwhelming success: Night Stand HD has seen more than three million downloads to date, has a dedicated crowd of fans, and has been featured multiple times by Apple and the tech media.
Revolutionizing UX and Connectivity for Mobile Radio
Mobile radio is a crowded space with many “me-too” players. When we were given the challenge of creating a new mobile radio app, we realized that the only way to gain awareness and win market share would be to design a completely unique and improved user experience. The result was Beats.
Beats’ UI design is built around an immersive, 3D representation of radio stations as the interior of a sphere. Users engage with the app via free navigation into all dimensions, and can browse music visually— as if they are immersed in a cyberspace world constructed from aural blocks.
Beats’ innovative, immersive UI is coupled with a time-shift feature, which lets users record broadcasts, schedule recordings and free themselves from the weak link of mobile radio apps: network coverage.
Bringing Real Life Objects to the Digital World The Right Way
When a digital design retains ornamental cues that were necessary in an original physical object, even when they’re not functionally necessary, it’s known as skeuomorphic UI. While skeuomorphism has been trending lately, unfortunately, most developers (including Apple) are doing it wrong.
The focus is on visual aspects of the UI, not behavioral. There is a plethora of apps which look like real objects, but don’t act like them. Users expect real-looking apps to behave like their real-world counterparts, and are sorely disappointed when it doesn’t happen.
We set out to bring one particular real-world item to the digital world the right way.
Journal is an exercise in consistent, holistic skeuomorphism. Its appearance reflects a real journal, where users jot down notes about their lives, and add photos, map routes, etc. The app behaves like a real journal too. We built in a natural handwriting tool, which makes finger-writing precise and enjoyable.
Only once we’d created a truly skeumorphic experience did we then take advantage of technologies available in the iPad: multi-touch gestures, maps, web searches, audio recordings, and undo — features which cannot be coupled together with such elegance in the real world. Journal is an example of meticulous UX crafting with one simple goal: to recreate a real experience and enhance it with technology.
DESIGN-LED ENGINEERING
Looking for custom Mobile, Cloud, or Web development services?
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