The National Constitution Center (NCC) had achieved great success with the Interactive Constitution when they engaged Pedrera to convert the website into a mobile app. The existing website had excellent content, and the NCC hoped to make it available through the Apple and Google application markets.
The challenge, though, was to deliver the app for two different platforms (iOS and Android) without having to reinvent the wheel. After having already made a significant investment in the website version of the Interactive Constitution, the NCC had the sensible goals of reducing additional development costs, and avoiding the need to manage multiple codebases with content replicated to each.
Pedrera’s solution was quite simple: leverage the responsive website’s code and CMS to output platform-neutral, static web files.
These files could then be loaded into native apps for Apple and Google without the need to develop additional codebases in Objective C (iOS) and Java (Android). Moreover, as the website content is updated, the apps can easily be updated by republishing the static web files.
As a result of this approach, the NCC has been able to develop and maintain a website and two native apps from one codebase with all the content and user interface files managed in a single content management system.
Like the website, the Interactive Constitution app has been highly successful. The iOS app has been installed over 63,000 times, and the Android app has been installed 10,000 times. What’s more, Apple featured the Interactive Constitution in the App Store twice, which generated massive exposure for the National Constitution Center.
