Hypercode Blog, Page 9

At the end of last year, the CDU group on Bergheim town council brought us an idea from councillor Hermann-Josef Falterbaum: a digital platform where local businesses could offer their products and services. It would help them respond to the pandemic while building a lasting local alternative to major online retailers.

Together with Hermann-Josef Falterbaum and CDU council group leader Christian Karaschinski, we defined the requirements and assessed the platform’s technical feasibility and likely development and running costs. The idea is to combine a digital shop window with local information: a place to browse, discover and shop with Bergheim’s service providers, retailers, restaurants, tradespeople, artists and farm shops, and to take part in town life.

The media coverage shown above and linked below, along with positive feedback from local businesses and residents, shows an appetite for new digital approaches on both sides of the counter. Platforms like this can help businesses reduce their long-term dependence on major e-commerce and social media platforms such as Amazon and Facebook, and build digital business models of their own.

Stefan Grund, managing director of Hypercode GmbH, who advised on the project with his team, welcomes the initiative in his hometown:

The platform initiated by the CDU group on Bergheim town council will support local retail and could become a model for digital transformation. It can help businesses through the restrictions imposed by COVID-19 now, and become a popular, lively digital hub for Bergheim’s 60,000 residents in the future. As a local resident and digital entrepreneur, I’ll be following the project with great interest.

Hypercode GmbH is also supporting other digital projects that respond to the effects of the pandemic. In February, #SHAREYOURSHOW, a video platform for performing artists, launched under our technical direction. We’re currently planning a mobile app for a Cologne start-up tackling the pandemic’s impact on a particular industry.

Further reading and viewing:

• Article: “Bergheim: How Retailers Plan to Make Shopping Easier with a Digital Platform” by Niklas Pinner on ksta.de
• Video: WDR Lokalzeit aus Köln, 22 March, in the ARD Mediathek, from 12:30 (available until 27 March)
• Article: “Digital Platform for Local Businesses Gains Momentum” on cdu-bergheim.de

While many are still discussing how to address the pandemic’s impact on society and the economy, SANOSTRA GmbH für Showinszenierungen is showing how an industry can put digital ideas into practice:

The video platform lets performers share acrobatics, dance and creative sports with a wider audience, directly addressing the difficulties caused by lockdowns and restrictions on events.

A crowdfunded Community Award lets viewers vote for performers and support their favorites. A live-streamed event is also planned, with performances by the finalists followed by the award ceremony.

#SHAREYOURSHOW shows how innovation can continue through a crisis. Artists have already uploaded nearly a hundred high-quality performances, while audiences have cast votes and made donations thousands of times. And the platform is here to stay: once the pandemic is over — hopefully soon — #SHAREYOURSHOW will keep bringing the performing arts into people’s living rooms.

We handled the technical planning and backend and frontend development for the project, working closely with the SANOSTRA team and designer Oliver Schmidt from the start.

Together, we developed the concept through workshops, wireframes and user flows, then built the platform as a mobile-first web app. A Craft CMS-based system brings together registration, video uploads, streaming, voting and crowdfunding for the Community Award. In the frontend, Alpine.js provides lightweight interactions and an easy-to-use interface.

Explore similar platforms and tailored software solutions in our Web Apps & Product Configurators and Custom Software sections.

Dear clients, partners and friends,

A turbulent year of change, uncertainty and unexpected challenges is coming to an end. Some of those challenges are behind us; others still lie ahead. But if 2020 has shown us anything, it’s that we can make a real difference together.

For us, that meant working from our homes and yours to build digital products that connect people, share knowledge and bring products to life. Thank you for your trust, the productive collaboration and for welcoming us into your teams so often — even when a webcam was our only way of seeing each other.

With delivery teams stretched and so many of us away from the office, we’re sending our Christmas greetings this way rather than by post. The message remains the same:

Enjoy the holidays, have a wonderful start to the new year and, above all, stay healthy! We look forward to starting new digital projects with you in 2021 and continuing the ones already under way.

Your Hypercode team

P.S. To keep up with what we’re doing in 2021, subscribe to our newsletter or follow us on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. We’d love to see you there. 🤓

P.P.S. A few people have asked where we found our Christmas template. It isn’t a template — it’s handmade! Here’s a behind-the-scenes photo. Thank you, Kira! 🙏🏻

When we launched Hypercode last year, our website focused on introducing the company, our services and our founding team. We wanted people to get to know this new team and our approach as a hands-on partner for advice and development. With today’s launch of hypercode.de 2.0, that introduction becomes more detailed: our About page offers a closer look at who we are and what matters to us.

The projects we plan, design and develop with our clients remain at the heart of our work. So we’ve brought them onto the homepage and will be sharing selected projects through detailed case studies.

We’re starting with two projects that show just how varied digital products can be:

• The chargecloud.de website: we handled planning, design and web development to clearly communicate the benefits of chargecloud’s e-mobility software. The result is a distinctive, fast website built with Craft CMS, a GraphQL API and a Vue.js/Nuxt.js single-page application.
• The WIFI CONTROL app for Audiotec Fischer: we developed an iOS and Android app with a custom connection to in-car audio hardware. Users can now control their Audiotec Fischer system from a smartphone or tablet, where previously they needed a laptop and a visit to a specialist workshop.

Over the coming weeks and months, we’ll add more case studies covering completed projects and work in progress. We’re also launching this blog as a place to share both broad perspectives and specialist insights into digital product development, with occasional looks behind the scenes at Hypercode.

We’d love you to stop by again, or subscribe via RSS or JSON feed. We hope you enjoy version 2.0 and welcome your feedback and suggestions.