MESSA iOS and Android Mobile App
Michigan Education Special Services Association
The MESSA mobile app makes complex health benefits information quick to access and easy to understand.
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MESSA offers health and disability insurance to over 189,000 Michigan public education professionals and their families.
The health plan administrator knew their next generation of members expected a native mobile experience to complement their highly rated responsive web app.
MESSA already had an experienced web development team. They needed a firm that would build a best-in-class native app while training their web team in mobile development.
MESSA chose Atomic to do both.
Teresa Bendall, Development Manager and Web & Mobile Product Manager at MESSA
Coordinating Stakeholders
Technical Specs
Atomic designed the system architecture and wrote software and firmware for:
Building for the Future
Atomic designers did real-world research to discover which features MESSA members valued most. Features such as deductible progress, member card information, and customer service are at the touch of a screen.
To complement the MESSA team's experience in web frameworks, Atomic built the app in React Native. MESSA developers could maintain and build out the app even after Atomic handed off the project.
Using Extreme Programming techniques such as full stack development, peer-reviewed code, and pair programming, Atomic set the MESSA team up for success by sharing mobile development best practices.
“Your crew is exceedingly talented and helped lead us through the questions we needed to talk about. I’ve never worked with a vendor with such exceptional collaboration.”
Taste-testing the Product in the Field
Nathan Papes, Software Consultant and Developer at Atomic Object
Coordinating Stakeholders
A Partnership with a Storybook Ending
The team’s careful project management, client communication, cutting-edge architecture, and cohesive design strategy helped the team ship the product on time and on budget.
Reflecting back on the multi-year, high-profile project, Robinson said Atomic helped his company arrive at a special moment in time.
“We'd never done anything this big. Ever,” he said. “We’re live across all the major pillars Atomic said they would deliver on. It was delivered on time, on budget, to expectation, live. Not three or four milestones late with people leaving and the platform half-baked and full of bugs.”
StoryLoom began open-beta in December 2022. A global launch is scheduled for the spring of 2023.
“We’ve been given a rare opportunity," said Robinson, "to find success by chasing opportunities Starship Enterprise-style: going where people aren’t—pushing boundaries.”
Atomic provided research, design, and development services while partnering with MESSA's web development team to deliver an app they could maintain well into the future.
The Atomic Team
Here are some of our current Atoms who worked on this project. Click their photo to read their bios!
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