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Shawn Frank
Software engineer for iOS in Brisbane

Nibou online therapy

In 2018, a businesswoman approached me with an idea for a mental wellness iOS app connecting users to qualified therapists. I took the concept from a slide deck to an MVP, launching Nibou in the UAE and Turkey within a year.

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Project highlights

  • Built and led a team of four: a junior iOS engineer, UX designer, QA engineer, and a backend engineer

  • I developed two iOS apps — one for customers and one for therapists — while mentoring a junior iOS engineer who assisted me

  • Used Swift and programmatic UIKit to build a highly customized user experience

  • Leveraged DispatchQueues and DispatchGroups for concurrency, which resulted in a smooth and responsive user experience

  • The backend was built with Ruby on Rails

  • Primarily integrated REST APIs for core functionality, while using Socket.io for real-time chat functionality

  • Integrated Stripe for secure payment processing

Now, I’ll highlight some of the most interesting iOS engineering aspects of Nibou.

Bespoke user experience

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  • Created a bespoke user experience with custom UI components using UIKit

  • Optimized for all iPhone models and iPads with AutoLayout

  • Utilized UIView animations and CoreAnimation for smooth transitions

  • Integrated Lottie for complex animations like the one above

  • Leveraged DispatchQueues and DispatchGroups for a smooth, responsive user experience

Payments

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  • Integrated Stripe iOS SDK to securely tokenize user cards and send tokens via an SSL-secured REST API

  • Nibou offered its users the convenience to store and switch between multiple cards within the app

  • Used a server-synced timer to track therapist session duration and calculate costs

  • After a session ended, the app sent a request to the backend to trigger a payment via the Stripe API using the stored token

  • The user could also view their transaction history in the app

Networking

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  • Core networking tasks like authentication and therapist search were handled via URLSession integrating with a REST API

  • Real-time chat functionality was powered by WebSockets and the Socket.io SDK

  • In addition to a responsive chat experience, the feature had to be carefully architected to track and charge users based on the time the therapist spent composing messages

  • The chat user experience was achieved by customizing a third-party library built on UICollectionView

Therapist app

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The therapist app shared much of the same foundation and architecture as the client app, with additional utility features tailored for therapists.

  • Both the therapist and user apps utilized iOS Localization to support English, Arabic, and Turkish

  • Therapists could highlight and save important messages to ensure continuity of care if a user switched therapists

  • Firebase was leveraged for push notifications and alerts, helping therapists maintain timely response rates

  • Backend chat data was mirrored into CoreData, enabling powerful offline search functionality for therapists

While Nibou shut its doors in late 2024, it remains a project I'm incredibly proud of due to the depth of work and valuable learning experiences I gained.

If you think I’d be a great fit for your project, please drop me a line at shawnfrank.work@gmail.com