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Mobile / Productivity4 months · 3-person team
TikTag: A Cross-Platform Mobile Product for Tagging & Insight
How RedGobble designed and built TikTag — a cross-platform mobile product centred on fast, organised tagging and lightweight insight capture — from concept to store-ready build.
Mobile App DevelopmentUI/UX DesignBackend Development
Client
Client Product Engagement
Industry
Mobile / Productivity
Timeline
4 months
Our Role
Product discovery, design and full-stack mobile build
The Problem
The client wanted a mobile product where users could tag, organise and quickly retrieve items and notes without heavyweight project-management software. The core challenge was speed of capture: if adding a tag or a note takes more than a few seconds, the habit dies. RedGobble was engaged to take the concept from a rough idea to a polished, store-ready application.
Research & Discovery
How we validated the problem and shaped the approach before building.
Conducted user interviews around capture habits — how people jot, tag and re-find information day to day.
Analysed friction points in existing note and tagging apps: slow entry, poor discovery, and tags that collapse under disorganisation.
Prototyped the capture flow with real users, measuring time-to-save as the key usability metric.
Defined a lean MVP scope: fast capture, reliable tagging, robust search and cross-platform reach.
Architecture
TikTag is a Flutter application with a Node.js backend and PostgreSQL data store. The architecture priorities were speed and reliability: a local-first capture layer writes instantly on-device, then syncs to the backend, so users never wait. Tagging is central to the data model — tags are first-class entities with relationships, powering fast retrieval and filterable views rather than bolted-on labels.
Flutter + Dart — one codebase for Android and iOSNode.js — REST API and sync servicePostgreSQL — relational data model centred on tagsLocal-first storage — instant capture with background sync
Development Process
1
Discovery sprint: concept validation, user research and MVP scope definition.
2
UX design: capture-flow prototyping with real-user timing tests.
3
Agile development in 2-week sprints across app, API and data model.
4
QA on physical Android and iOS devices covering navigation, sync and edge cases.
5
Staged delivery to the client with documentation and handover support.
Challenges & How We Solved Them
Making capture genuinely instant on a mobile keyboard-first flow.
Local-first writes and a minimal-step capture UI, validated by measuring time-to-save in usability tests.
Designing tags that stay useful as data grows.
Treated tags as relational entities with auto-suggest and merging, so organisation scales beyond flat labels.
Reliable sync across devices without network dependency.
A sync queue with conflict resolution on the backend keeps offline edits safe and convergent.
Results
Designed and built the complete application — capture, tagging, search and sync
Cross-platform Flutter codebase ready for Android and iOS
Lean MVP scope defined from real user research, avoiding over-build
Full documentation and staged handover to the client
Platform
Cross-platform (Flutter)
Architecture
Local-first capture + cloud sync
Design approach
User-research validated flow
Delivery
Staged, documented handover
Project Timeline
1
Concept & user research
3 weeks
Interviews, capture-flow prototyping, MVP scope.
2
Product design
3 weeks
UX flows, visual design, data modelling.
3
Full-stack build
10 weeks
Flutter app, Node.js API, PostgreSQL, sync.
4
QA & handover
4 weeks
Device testing, documentation, staged delivery.
Lessons Learned
What we would carry into the next project — and what we apply to yours.
For capture apps, speed is the product — every design decision flows from time-to-save.
Local-first architecture delivers the perception of speed users actually judge apps by.
A disciplined MVP scope, defined from research, prevents the classic over-build trap.
Business Impact
TikTag demonstrates RedGobble's product-discovery discipline: a vague concept turned into a researched, fully built, cross-platform application — the exact shape of work we bring to greenfield client products.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything You Need To Know
TikTag is a cross-platform mobile product for fast tagging, organising and retrieving items and notes — built by RedGobble as a client product engagement.
Research, product design, the full Flutter application, Node.js backend, PostgreSQL data model, documentation and staged handover.
Android and iOS, from a single Flutter codebase.
A local-first architecture writes instantly on-device and syncs in the background with conflict resolution.
Yes — discovery-first engagements are our standard for greenfield products. See our Mobile App Development service.
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