The Brief
addSQUIRREL noticed that card and gift-giving had become a tad stale and a touch detached. They felt gifts and cards didn’t always convey the true feeling the sender intended, and the message can often fade away or get buried amongst countless others. They wanted to ensure giving and receiving gifts was a truly special and personal experience.
Their vision was one where gifts could come alive with personal touches. A product that lets you scan a sticker with a QR code and be directed to upload a video, photo, or even a voice note along with an optional message, and then simply attach the sticker to a traditional card or gift.
Having received the gift, the recipient can then scan the QR code sticker and unlock the sender’s heartfelt message of either a video, photo, or voice note. To ensure user privacy an option to password protect stickers was a must-have feature.
With an expected high volume of orders, the process of creating and exporting stickers had to be thoroughly thought about. A crucial requirement was the ability to create stickers with customisable themes, essentially enabling the final product to be white labeled.
The Outcome
To breathe life into their vision of personalised gifting, addSQUIRREL needed a custom software solution packed with innovative features.
For a powerful backend and a lightning-fast frontend, the software utilises the feature-rich Laravel and the cutting-edge Vue 3 framework, ensuring a smooth and intuitive user experience.
Below is a breakdown of the essential features of the software.
A look under the hood of the custom admin panel
Behind the seamless user experience of addSQUIRREL’s QR stickers lies a powerful admin panel. This ensures secure, efficient generation of unique QR codes for each sticker. The key features which we implemented were:
- Ability to create, suspend, and reset passwords for admin panel users
- Allow authorised users to update their name and security credentials
- Generation of large batches of QR codes linked to unique URLs
- Batch export of QR codes in vector format for high-quality printing
- Automated email notifications for various admin panel events
Sticker themes catering for a white labeled product
The admin panel also facilitates the creation of themes allowing for the customisation of the colours, logo and links that are shown to either the sender or recipient of a sticker once the QR code has been scanned.
Ensuring that the user journey can be dynamic in its design was a must. It enables addSQUIRREL to create custom themed batches of stickers and ultimately paves the way to having a product that can be white labeled in the future.
The user experience whether sending or receiving
We’ve explored the powerful admin panel behind the scenes. Now, let’s shift gears and see how the user experience is for the sender or recipient of a sticker.
Since QR codes are scanned primarily with smartphones, priority was given to a mobile-first user experience. Check out the screenshots of the user journey below.
From left to right, the first step in the addSQUIRREL experience involves collecting information about the recipient and the sender of the sticker.
Users have the flexibility to upload a video, photo, or voice note and can change their selection at any point in the process. The option to add a textual message allows for even more personalisation.
To ensure sender privacy, the software offers an optional password protection feature for uploads and messages. Once finalised, the sender’s process is complete.
Upon scanning the QR code on the sticker, the recipient can access the uploaded content. If the sender opted for password protection, the recipient will be prompted to enter the correct password before viewing the content.
The user journey can be themed in many different ways and allows for advanced customisation ranging from different text and background colours as well as the logo that is shown.
Weird Wolf has been instrumental in bringing addSQUIRREL to life. Their expertise in software development was evident throughout the entire process, from the initial planning stages to the final product. They took our vision for an innovative, user-friendly platform and turned it into a reality with their technical prowess and creative problem-solving. The custom-built software they developed is not only robust and efficient but also incredibly intuitive for our users.
Their team was always responsive, professional, and willing to go the extra mile to ensure everything was perfect. Thanks to Weird Wolf, addSQUIRREL has received rave reviews so far and has significantly enhanced our customers’ experience. We are extremely grateful for their hard work and highly recommend them for any software development needs.
Jen King | Founder