Brain power

A Stamford educational application developer has found the right touch-points to achieving recognition in the Apple apps marketplace.

Jim McClafferty”™s application, See.Touch.Learn., was chosen by Apple as one of the apps featured on its in-store iPad offerings. The application, which creates a flash card program designed for autistic and special-needs learners, is among just eight educational apps chosen to be featured in U.S. stores. Apple had its one billionth customer this April. There are 323 Apple stores nationwide.

“It”™s an amazing amount of eyes to be in front of,” said McClafferty, founder of Brain Parade in Stamford. “I have the vehicle to make some great ideas happen in the education space. It”™s not so simple though, you need the expertise to build the app, get it through Apple”™s approval process and have people find it.”

The See.Touch.Learn. program seeks to improve upon traditional picture cards by building a stronger relationship between the user and the tablet device. Parents and learning professionals can choose from professionally designed exercises and lessons or they can create their own. The app automatically tracks a student”™s performance. It has been downloaded more than 65,000 times since it was launched in early March.

McClafferty said the company has received strong feedback on how the application is helping families and educators see measurable improvements in autistic children”™s development.

Gary James, founder of A4CWSN.com or Apps 4 Children with Special Needs, said the impact that the iPad is having on the world of special needs learning is tremendous.
“Apps on an iPad provide huge benefits in the learning space,” James said. “Children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder particularly need to be taught in a way in which they can literally interact with words and objects. It”™s an amazingly relevant use of technology.”

McClafferty said having a strong and defined focus initially is important.

“I was able to build a simple learning product that had been so popular for so long and simply improve it,” McClafferty said. “One of our greatest successes is that with the iPad the education tool is its own reinforcement reward; it can help get the lesson started and creates a more engaged student out of something that was once a chore.”

The Apple iTunes structure allows for direct feedback, positive and negative, as well as metrics that help you understand your product and how it sells.

McClafferty said the U.S. and Canada were followed by China as the top downloaders. He said designing an app that was easily understandable for non-English speakers opened his app up to a larger market.

“Your app can be a small idea, but who is going to use it can literally be on the other side of the world,” he said. “One of the biggest struggles is how do you get noticed. The first thing you want to do is create a quality application; if it”™s not people will shy away from it and you”™ll receive bad ratings. You want to avoid the shortcuts that are going to bite you later on.”

McClafferty said it”™s also important to embrace customer response. His app has a built-in, immediate feedback function in addition to the iTunes feedback.

“We act upon those types of emails on a daily basis.”

McClafferty said how to structure the pricing of an application can be a difficult challenge.

An app can be free, paid or a bare-bones free version with an option to upgrade.

“We chose to make the app a free app. The first question is how do you make money?”

He chose to go with a free app that contains optional for-sale items within it. His app allows users to buy additional flashcard library sets. McClafferty said his option enabled him to gain customers, manage a single app and avoid going broke while doing so.

“For another app, that might not be the best model,” he said. “With this, there”™s not a lot of risk to buy a 99 cent or two-dollar library. The model has worked well because there”™s not a lot of risk.” A typical box of flash cards can range from $10 up to $100.

McClafferty said there are ways to be creative and market a product and keep it on people”™s minds.

“For us if you go to iTunes and write a review for our app then we send you how to do a swipe gesture that gives you a hidden flashcard library,” he said. McClafferty has also done T-shirt giveaways, an iPad giveaway, had users suggest flash card library themes and held a contest with its users to name the character in the Brain Parade logo. His name is Wembley.

“App creation and development is very much two-way street.”

Brain Parade worked with certified associate behavior analyst Stephanie O”™Brien in designing See.Touch.Learn.

“One child I work with was able to reduce his response time to questions by nearly half using See.Touch.Learn.,” O”™Brien said.  She said learning apps like See.Touch.Learn. have the ability to create a significantly more efficient learning environment.

“When I first begin working with a student, it can take as much as 20 minutes to bond well enough to get him to want to sit with me and go through a lesson,” O”™Brien said. With the use of applications there is often no need to lead into a lesson.

McClafferty said it”™s important not to act like an expert when you”™re not, especially if the application touches on a serious issue like special-needs learning.
“She”™s the professional on the educational side and I”™m the professional on the technology side,” McClafferty said. “The special needs community is a very tightly knit community. They will be skeptical of someone trying to make money off of their community, and rightfully so. I don”™t have a personal connection to the special-needs community, but I do have a passion for technology and technology that really makes a difference.”

McClafferty said having a proactive approach to your app and providing a truly useful function are what led to Apple”™s representatives contacting Brain Parade and informing McClafferty that his app would be featured in its stores.