Schibsted Oikotie

Mobile development

Testing

Schibsted Oikotie is one of Finland’s largest marketplaces for housing and jobs. Users of the service can browse through a large number of alerts and sort them by a variety of criteria. With its easy-to-use interface and extensive Search Tools, it is easy to find the item you want in spite of the significant amount of ads. As a result, Schibsted Oikotie plays an important role in helping Finns find housing and employment.

Espeo Software has been cooperating extensively with Schibsted Oikotie for more than 11 years, including application development for workplace background systems, software development for the mobile environment of workplaces and homes, and consulting on building an optimal environment. Schibsted Oikotie has been satisfied with the quality of Espeo’s application development and its agile software development operating model.

CHALLENGE

Mobile app update to support growing popularity

The seamless functionality of the mobile app is a critical factor when users search for both homes and jobs. Due to the high profile of the Schibsted Oikotie brand, users can be confident that they will find what they are looking for.

The system should work smoothly every day of the week, as, for instance, home viewings are often scheduled for weekends and jobs are browsed regardless of the time of day. Therefore, the application should not only be user-friendly, but also reliable. When the development of the mobile environment began in late 2019, the application already existed, but its usability and performance were not optimal.

Users rate apps in app stores such as Google Play or Apple Store. Scores, in turn, affect an app’s ranking in the app store, bringing high-scoring apps to the top of the list. When we started the project, the mobile app scored 3.7 on Google Play. The app was not ranked high enough to appear to users before the competing apps.

Our role

An application to meet the expectations of the modern mobile user

The decreasing download volumes of the application reduced the number of users of the Schibsted Oikotie service. Users increasingly use mobile devices to find information, and if an app isn’t working well, they can switch to another one. Because of this, our job was to fix the application’s vulnerabilities, develop new features, and ultimately raise the app’s score in app stores.

Developers at Espeo Software are accustomed to delivering high-quality software within a short period of time. For this reason, it was only natural for Espeo to redesign Schibsted Oikotie’s mobile app interface, make it easy to use, and speed up its overall performance on an efficient schedule. At the same time, the app was made so that it could be used on both smartphones and tablets.

The application became much more efficient after the software code was clarified. As a result, the application can easily be enhanced with new features and can adapt to future needs as well as system upgrades.

USED TECHNOLOGIES

Swift

Xcode

Firebase

Kotlin

Kotlin Coroutines

Hilt

Google Maps

Jetpack Compose

OUTCOME

More than 100,000 new mobile app users

After improving the app’s usability, its rating on Google Play rose to 4.3. While the change may not sound significant, it brought more than 100,000 new downloads to the app. In the App Store, the app has received up to 4.4 points.

It is critical that the app has good usability in order to obtain good scores and high download volumes. At Espeo Software, we always pay special attention to optimizing the user experience, among other areas of application development.

Our partnership with Schibsted Oikotie continues and we will further develop the application, adding new features and improving design in order to acquire new users.

Schibsted Oikotie

Client reference

“Our cooperation with Espeo Software has been ongoing for more than 10 years.

Throughout this time, Espeo has been a reliable and trustworthy partner and a key contributor on the Oikotie mobile apps as well as our Oikotie Työpaikat B2B service allowing companies to efficiently manage job candidates.

Espeo is an excellent provider of software services that we highly recommend. Their work and advisory services are of high quality, and we look forward to collaborating on future projects.”

Nicolas Aubry
CTO of Schibsted Finland