Services

Design and development

Fingertips offers design and development services for Web, iPhone, iPad, and Mac OS X apps.

Full projects

On most projects, the scope of our work is full lifecycle; from initial requirements gathering all the way to production, as well as full depth; from front-end human interface design deep down into the back-end architecture.

Expert help

We’re also available to get projects in trouble back on track. First we perform a code audit and identify organizational issues that might have adversely affected progress and quality. Then we’ll improve, redesign, refactor and rewrite until the project is back up to standard.

Design experience

Our experience with the design process makes us an ideal partner for design and communication agencies without in-house development resources. We’ve found that design teams can save a lot of time and frustration by collaborating with developers who get their way of working and who share their focus on the end-user experience.

Get in touch

Interested in working with us? Please send a short description of your project to Thijs van der Vossen, thijs@fngtps.com to get started.

Testimonials

You might be wondering what’s it like to work with us. We asked a few clients to tell you about the projects they hired us for. Here are those stories, in their own words:

Thomas Fuchs, Author of the script.aculo.us JavaScript User Interface framework, a member of the Prototype core team, Ruby on Rails core alumnus, and co-founder of Freckle.

I hired Fingertips to mess with the guts of our most important product, Freckle.

The feature looked easy enough on the outside, but it required a complete overhaul of the permissions structure, as well as new API features.

The Outcome

Fingertips easily pulled it off, implementing one of our most requested features without any hand-holding. They took care of both the technical solution and the UI.

I didn’t need to double-check their work or to explain things twenty times. What they delivered was exactly what we wanted. We never had any issues or bugs.

We now have a super-solid base for permissions in Freckle. The new feature definitely gives us an edge.

What makes Fingertips different

Most code is really bad. A lot of consultants seem to be in it for the money, and don’t enjoy what they do. Work is late, unprofessional, over-budget. One person doesn’t know what the other is doing. We’ve not had a single one of those issues with Fingertips.

Fingertips is different. They have an almost anal attention to detail. But they’re not pretentious or artsy-fartsy. I’d place Fingertips in the top 1% of development and design shops. They’re really, really good. They’re also quite fast.

Why I Recommend Fingertips

Fingertips is the only development company we refer our own clients to. They’re timely, professional, and punctual. We completely trust them—enough to put our own reputation on the line. This is why:

They make products to scratch their own itches. They release a ton of open source software that’s actually highly polished, which is rare for open source.

They write amazingly detailed and well-reasoned tests when writing code—even for their OSS stuff.

They share their knowledge with blog posts, talks, etc.

Most companies don’t do any of these things. And Fingertips is just three people. To me, this shows just how dedicated they are to creating amazing software.

We’d hire Fingertips for everything if we could.

Andy Rossmeissl, Co-Founder and Product Design Director, Brighter Planet

My business partner and I started this company when I was just coming out of college. This was our baby at the time. We were reluctant to let anyone in — much less someone halfway across the globe. We weren’t about to leave our business in the hands of some faceless, robotic development firm.

We talked to a couple of firms, but fell in love with Thijs and Manfred right away. There was something quirky and special about Fingertips.

You could tell there was a personality there. We loved that they were a small team. We were a very small company, too. And we loved how well written their code was. Fingertips seemed to be in the loop of some kind of inner Rails cabal. We were attracted to that mystique.

The Process

Fingertips demonstrated the right way to do the things we needed, at the time we wanted. They were as much educators as they were developers for hire.

It was more education than I ever expected. We were constantly asking them questions about Ruby. They would answer in really excellent ways.

Our approach is still colored by our lucky work with those guys. We literally use the phrase, ‘What would Fingertips do?’ on a regular basis.

The Outcome

We’ve worked with a lot of contractors over the years. It has surprised me how we still talk to Fingertips — like, all the time. We’ll wake up, drop into Campfire. Hey everybody, how are you doing? The funny thing is we’ve never even met.

Marco Teunisse, IT Coordinator, University of Amsterdam

When you’re working with a development agency on a project like this, you’re never 100% sure what you’re going to get.

They’re making this big thing — and you have to wait. You might communicate some, but you don’t see them every day. So it’s important that you work well together and that you feel a sense of trust.

The Process

We always knew we could trust Fingertips. They were very skilled. They worked fast. They knew what was essential to do now, and what could wait.

They would advise us on the right way to go — or not go — and give us the positive and negative points of every possible option. Sometimes they brought in more people to get things done without bothering me.

The Outcome

Thijs is very fair — a clear and straightforward communicator. I was on a fixed budget, so he would think with us about what could be done and what couldn’t be done, all on a personal basis. We never had to fear anything would go wrong.

Fingertips was able to do our projects within our budget and within our timeframe. We’re still using the application they created for us several years ago.

Highlights

Fingertips was one of the first design and development consultancies worldwide to use Ruby on Rails for client projects way back in the summer of 2004.
We’re listed as one of the recommended consulting agencies on the official Ruby on Rails ecosystem page.
Apart from numerous fixes and enhancements, developers from Fingertips have contributed major components to Ruby on Rails. These include Unicode support in ActiveSupport::Multibyte and nested models and mass assignment with ActiveRecord::AutosaveAssociation and ActiveRecord::NestedAttributes.
With our Rails ‘morning coffee’ meetings and ‘show and tell’ events, we brought together local Ruby developers which in turn kicked off the Ruby on Rails community in The Netherlands.
In the spring of 2009, Fingertips organized Ruby on OS X, a conference about building Mac OS X apps with Ruby.
Fingertips takes an active role in the promotion of HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, Ruby, MacRuby, Objective-C and related technologies as well as methodologies like iterative design and automated testing through Open Source software projects, speaking, training courses, and day-to-day community interaction on mailing lists, forums, and Twitter.

Ruby on Rails consulting packages

Get the benefit of our extensive real-world experience and deep practical knowledge for a fraction of the cost of a full project with our fixed-price Ruby on Rails consulting packages.

These packages are based on years of experience working on large-scale projects for a wide variety of international clients.

Package 1: Independent Rails Audit

Are you worried whether your architecture is ready to scale beyond a single server? Having trouble figuring out what’s causing performance issues and how best to fix them? Are new features taking too long to implement? Would you like to know how to get sufficient test coverage so that you can refactor efficiently?

We’ll perform an audit of your Ruby on Rails application where we investigate code quality, architecture, performance, and security issues. You’ll get an extensive report clearly describing the solution for each issue we find, complete with code samples.

What sets us apart is our focus on improving the ability of your existing team to fix issues now and prevent them in the future, instead of trying to upsell you on development services.

The Rails Audit package is available in the following sizes:

Quick €500

You’ll get a high-level “bullet point” overview of the most important issues. Includes a limited number of code samples.

Great for a quick overall impression of the code quality of your Ruby on Rails app.
Regular €1.500

You’ll get an extensive report with code samples for each issue (where appropriate). We even suggest multiple solutions where that makes sense. Includes advice on performance, scaling and overall architecture specific to your app.

Gives a solid overview of your app’s code quality with clear guidelines for improvement.
Deep €4.000

Contains all of the above including a thorough review of automated test coverage and step-by-step refactoring examples in the form of a narrated video screencast and version control commits.

The best choice when you want to improve the abilities of your existing development team.

Ready to get started? Please email Thijs van der Vossen, thijs@fngtps.com with the Rails Audit package of your choice.

Package 2: Rails Kickstart

Do you want to start your in-house Ruby on Rails project on a solid foundation? Do you have an interesting idea you’d like to test with a real fully-functional app? Then get our Rails Kickstart package.

First we’ll help you prioritize requirements and limit scope. Then we design, develop, and deliver your application as a production-ready Ruby on Rails project set up for future development. Our pragmatic test-driven development methodology results in clear and simple code with full test coverage so it’s easy for another team to jump right in.

The Rails Kickstart package is available in the following sizes:

Small €5.000

½ day for gathering requirements,
1 week for development,
1 developer/designer.

Suitable for simple projects and prototypes.
Medium €8.000

1 day for gathering requirements,
2 weeks for development (split into two one-week iterations),
2 developers/designers.

A great way to get a first version up and running. Best choice for most projects.
Large €16.000

1 day for gathering requirements,
2 days “pre-flight” interface design,
4 weeks for development (split into two biweekly iterations),
2 developers/designers.

An excellent start for more complex projects.

Ready to get started? Please email Thijs van der Vossen, thijs@fngtps.com with the Rails Kickstart package of your choice as well as a short description of your project.