React Native app for Cycling Flash: completely ready for the next cycling round

The online department of television producer Southfields asked Van Ons to manage all the technology of WielerFlits.nl and to further professionalize it. What started as a typical assignment for such a content platform, quickly became a time trial to launch a new mobile app just before the Tour de France 2019!

From site to mobile app

While we were busy setting up the deployment street (development - staging - production) for the .nl site, the plan to also thoroughly tackle the mobile application became increasingly concrete. And there is no better time to seize this opportunity than the Tour de France, because that is of course the moment to champion cycling sites.

The existing app for iOS and Android looked visually neat and therefore provided a clear briefing for the renewal of the app. The new app should be a lot faster to use so that users can be informed of the latest cycling news as quickly as possible and can navigate through it in a pleasant way. Moreover, all WielerFlits news had to be made searchable in the app, not just the Tour news.

We built a good technical surface to roll out the app from the ground up in React Native, the open source framework created by Facebook that makes it possible to develop an app for iOS and Android in one go.

All content is sent to the app via the WordPress API and we created specific functionality for the app so that visitors can also respond to articles there and the live blog actually comes live. The site and app work completely together so that it does not cost the editors any extra time to publish content.

The improved app could be downloaded just before the 2019 Tour de France and resulted in 51% more traffic during the Tour weeks alone than a year earlier in the same period.

Professionalization

Version management, a deployment street and weekly coordination with the editors, producer Southfields and developers on both sides ensure further professionalization of all WielerFlits technology.

This attention has already resulted in 70% more unique visitors to .nl and .be last year!