Around 200,000 interested people use the ePolice mobile apps of the cantonal police of Graubünden, Bern, Basel and the Lucerne and Schaffhausen police every month, around 90% of whom are returning users. The apps inform the population on a daily basis about the latest regional police news, witness calls, water levels of lakes and rivers, emergency numbers, prevention tips, police professions and much more.

Launched in 2012 by Netcetera, the apps were ripe for an overhaul after many successful years of operation.

appculture took over the project from Netcetera in the middle of last year. The new apps have now been launched in February 2021.

Improved UX and a new visual design

In several iteration rounds together with the representatives of the cantonal police forces, a fresh new visual design as well as an improved UX concept were developed, which enables simple, intuitive navigation.

The basic app, designed as a whitelabel app, offers customizable components that can be designed according to the needs of each Kapo, such as splash screen, header image, color scheme or the arrangement of the tab bar and shortcuts.

Reprogrammed in React Native

The app frontend was also quite outdated after eight years of operation, so it was reprogrammed from scratch in React Native. This improved load times and increased stability.

The experience with React Native was not entirely positive: the time savings achieved through cross-platform implementation were partially offset by adjustments to components that work out-of-the-box in native apps.

Nevertheless, we are satisfied with the final result.