Our work / Up Builder

Up Builder Website Builder for Project Managers

Project snapshot

Our software team kept coming back to one idea: a custom tool for building websites. It would be an easy, flexible drag and drop builder. Customers could also run their site on their own terms.

The LA New Product Development Team delivered Up Builder Website Builder for Project Managers. Our in-house team handles concept design, engineering, prototyping and manufacturing readiness under one roof in Ruston, Louisiana.

The client

LA NPDT’s software development team had been tinkering with the idea of a custom tool to create websites, an easy to use, flexible drag and drop website builder that would also give the customers the flexibility of using their website under their own terms.

We wanted to help people, professionals and design agencies in general to create and use websites under their own terms, giving them freedom.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit us, we took it a step further to accelerate the project in order to help our community as part of our efforts during this challenging time.

Up Builder, Website builder application development by LA NPDT, web application

The challenge

The main challenge with this project was being able to develop a simple, intuitive drag and drop website builder with pre-made elements flexible enough to be customized by both an experiencied and a novice user.

We were interested in making the website builder perform as fast as possible in order to achieve positive UX and allowing to create websites from any computer.

Between the most difficult challenges we faced, one was the ability to be able to download a website once it was built, so the user could use it under his own terms.

Our solution

Our team started the application development studying a few known drag and drop website builders and its user interface (UI), after analyzing it in detail we created a few conceptual designs, which were used by our developers to create a functional prototype. After several discussions we decided to create the web app using Laravel and Angular as the main frameworks. The combination of both ensured speeding up the development process.

Not only did we implement the main common initial features like the drag and drop feature, code editor, layout editor and the ability to visually modify the style of all elements like padding, shadows, text and more without needing to have any coding knowledge, we fueled it with over 30+ pre-built HTML templates.

We achieve our main goals, anyone can use UP builder. No coding skills needed. Users with HTML and CSS knowledge will be able to leverage all the capabilities of UP builder. And we ensured the functionality of our main feature: any user can easily export and publish their own website however they want to.

The result

As a result of the current COVID-19 pandemic and the urgency it presented we launched our product for free as part of our continuous effort to help business, independent professionals and our community in general. While in the meantime we test our Beta version, we are looking forward to fix some bugs and make any other improvement we can.

UP builder is a solution for people who want to make some extra income by creating websites for other people or businesses.

During these difficult weeks, our developers won’t stop working on the next versions that would include new upgrades and features.

Project management software at a glance

Scope	Product definition, UX, application development, deployment
Users	Project managers in the office and crews in the field
Deliverables	Working web application, admin tools, documentation
Typical timeline	4-9 months for a first release

Field software fails when it is built for the office

Tools designed around reporting dashboards get ignored by the people who have to enter the data. If updating a task takes more than a few taps on a phone with bad signal, the records stop being accurate and the dashboards become fiction.

How Up Builder was built

We defined the smallest set of actions crews actually perform, made those fast on mobile, and let the richer planning and reporting live where managers work. Development delivered a working release in stages so real usage informed the next build rather than a specification written a year earlier.

Frequently asked questions

Do you build custom software or configure existing tools?

Both. We recommend off-the-shelf when it fits and build custom when the workflow is the differentiator.

Can it integrate with accounting or scheduling systems?

Yes — integrations are scoped during product definition.

What does a first release cost?

Focused business applications typically run $40,000 to $150,000 for an initial production release.

Capabilities used on this project

Rapid prototyping services
3D printing, CNC machining, urethane casting and functional prototype builds with published materials, tolerances and lead times.

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Project snapshot

Project management software at a glance

Field software fails when it is built for the office

How Up Builder was built

Frequently asked questions

Do you build custom software or configure existing tools?

Can it integrate with accounting or scheduling systems?

What does a first release cost?

Capabilities used on this project

Rapid prototyping services

SaaS Application Development – Publynx Web App Designed by LA NPDT

Corporate Website Design by LA New Product Development Team

XTER TEXTER by LA NPDT

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