The AT&T Shape Hackathon is an annual event that highlights all of the APIs that they have available to their services. As the software-development partner of AT&T’s push-to-talk (PTT) platform, our API was being launched (first public release) at the event.

Challenge

Build an innovative solution that utilized the just-launched Push-to-Talk API showcasing the benefits of push-to-talk style communications and how easy to use the API was to the attending developers. We needed to create a working solution that intrigued developers enough for them to want to integrate PTT into their apps through the use of the PTT API.

Solution

We created a unique PTT-enabled experience for attending developers using an engaging touchscreen support kiosk. The kiosk allowed developers who chose to integrate PTT into their app to easily and immediately contact the exact PTT API support staffer who they had engauged with at the event at any time.

User interface concept design

Each attending support staff member was visually represented in the UI so that he could be quickly identified and contacted, which was critically important at a time-limited hackathon. To contact the support-staff member who the developer had been working with, the developer just needed to tap on his photo and push the on-screen talk button. Tapping on multiple people allowed for the developer to PTT an ad-hoc group.

Final user interface illustrating multiple selected for an ad-hoc group call.

Take-aways / Results / Notes

• Every hackathon team (about 30) integrated PTT API into their hackathon application.
• All three winners of the hackathon utilized the PTT API.
• Over the course of the two-day event, the kiosk handled more than 300 one-to-one and group calls without fail.
• Many developers said that PTT API integration was simple because of easy access to support.
• The Google Chrome browser running in kiosk mode is a very robust touchscreen foundation.