Our software development process needs to be more than just about creating code. It has to capture the essence of the subject and inspire your audience. To do this we spend time ensuring we understand not only the subject and your objectives, but also your customers. Our mantra is “Intuitive, clean, efficient.” Life is complicated enough without adding yet more things to think about. Fortunately, even the most complex of tasks can usually be broken down and simplified. Simplicity is not the easy choice. We spend time focusing on creating a great user experience by stripping away barriers to engagement. We design appealing, clean interfaces that people actively want to use. We refine and polish away inefficient interactions. We constantly challenge ourselves. If it takes three clicks, can we do it just as well, if not better, in two?
about us
Our passion is bringing projects to life. What drives us forwards is striving for that moment where a concept becomes a reality: where a project gathers sufficient momentum to acquire a life of its own.
At Natural Apptitude we aren’t simply mobile app and website developers. We spend as much time getting to know your project, your audience, your aims and how we can best help your project to succeed as we do actually writing code. And we’re not just interested in superficial indicators of success, such as the number of downloads or page hits. Many of our projects measure success based on more profound metrics such as long-term engagement and/or the quality of data that their project delivers. Whatever your project aspires to achieve we will work with you to help you realise your objectives.
intuitive, clean, efficient
A catalyst for change
Natural Apptitude’s origins stretch back to 2010 when the company’s CEO, Dave Kilbey, started a project that combined his knowledge and lifelong passion for the natural world with technology. The LeafWatch project, which was a collaboration with the Biological Sciences department at the University of Bristol, sought to find a better way of sourcing data on an invasive moth species.
Natural Apptitude is created
The LeafWatch project, to create a citizen science app that not only inspired members of the public to become more engaged in science but also allowed the university’s team to crowdsource high quality data from its users, was a huge success – and went on to inspire many other projects. And in 2013, Natural Apptitude was created.
Leaders in our field
Fast-forward 8 years and our team are trusted experts in the fields of app and web development for field-based data collection; working with leading experts on projects that are making a difference to our understanding of the natural world. We are also leaders in the fields of citizen science and crowdsourcing data.
Expanding our reach
As well as helping researchers and organisations with environmentally focused projects, our expertise in designing and building apps and websites, with stunning and highly-accessible user interfaces, has allowed us to expand our reach into a wide range of other topic areas including medicine, geographical sciences and tourism.
Recognition
As leaders in the field of developing apps for citizen science our projects have featured on the BBC’s One Show, Springwatch, Countryfile and also widely in the press.
Our values
Great service and outstanding value
We chose to keep our business lean and adaptable. It’s a model that works well for us. As a company that deals with software we can work almost anywhere. Much of the time we work from home and meet several times a week to do the teamwork. And we have a core staff of permanent employees and a network of freelancers that we have worked with for many years. What this means for you is that you don’t pay for us to have an expensive office or lots of permanent staff that aren’t 100% utilised. You pay for what you need, when it’s needed – nothing more.
Support and being supportive
We hate being left out in the cold or kept in the dark as much as anyone. And that’s why, right from the get-go we decided never to shut the door on a project. We can’t promise to work on projects indefinitely but we can promise to be there to offer help and advice whenever it’s needed. And if we can fix or amend something for free, we will We also like to support our clients with getting their projects off the ground. We offer a formal marketing service but we also help out by default with any ad hoc work from getting involved in social media campaigns to taking your products to conferences and shows. And it’s not purely altruistic. After all, if you succeed, we succeed. It’s the way good business should work.
Innovation, where it matters
We love being innovative but only where and when it matters. If innovation doesn’t add value to a project then it’s superfluous. Improving the quality of data, automating processes that can be done as well if not better by a machine so that you can concentrate on other things are some of the tasks we like to tackle. See <here> for some examples of how innovative thinking has improved projects for our clients.
Doing good
Many of our projects focus on benefitting the environment and we are experts in setting up and running citizen science projects to collect data on wide variety of species and issues. When we’re not doing that we like to work on projects that help improve lives and we’ve worked on some great health related initiatives. Even if a project isn’t environmentally or socially focused our business will be. We work with the University sector each year and mentor groups of students as they work through long term software projects for real clients. We help to point them towards appropriate tools and methods and provide the injection of experience they need to keep a project on track and focused.