A PWA in 4 weeks for Mozilla (oh yeah!)

Mozilla has thousands of expert volunteers engaged in their not-for-profit mission. Our task was to build a PWA (a website that you access through a browser like any other, which looks and behaves like a mobile app) that enables these volunteers to reply to customer reviews of Mozilla products on the Google Play Store.

When they called us, Mozilla already had some solid UX and design work for the app, and they wanted us to develop it. Oh, and they wanted to launch it in just one month’s time!

To make this possible, we worked out an MVP that would allow us to deliver a basic, working app, to which we could add cool features once it was live. The main function of the PWA is to allow Mozilla’s community to respond to Google Play Store reviews. All of these responses need to go through strict moderation to make sure that accurate, helpful responses are posted. Once the response is moderated, we can pass it on to the Play Store. We’ve included a demo video of the app below.

So, how did we do it?

For the backend we are using a rest API which is built using Django and the Django rest framework, while the front end is a Progressive Web App built with React. We are integrating with Google Play Store to retrieve reviews and display them in the app, pushing a ‘response’ back to the Play Store once it gets three positive moderations.

What was it like working with Mozilla?

We worked tightly with Mozilla from start to launch: joint slack channels, one integrated team, virtual daily stand-ups and agile ceremonies throughout the intensive 3-week build. With the timescales we were working with, we fixed on one week sprints to maximise focus, momentum, and intensity. Both teams used GitHub for the development work and the delivery management.

We loved working with the committed, fast-moving Mozilla team. There’s no way we could have met such an intense deadline without total commitment from both sides.

What’s next?

While we’re tweaking the first phase of work, we’re also planning Phase 2 and the fun features that didn’t make the MVP: “awesome mode”, “daily challenges” and more. Highly trusted community members with “awesome mode” privilege will be able to post straight to the Play Store without moderation, while “daily challenges” will task the community to respond to different numbers and categories of reviews to win karma points.

Overall project review: Five stars. Great project. We loved it.