Case Study - Reach App

Overview

Reach App was created to solve a communication problem faced by many public organisations and community-focused businesses: how do you keep people up to date without flooding them with irrelevant information? For park districts, local governments, and similar organisations, staying connected with the community is essential. They need reliable ways to share important updates, event information, service announcements, and local notices. The difficulty is that not every message is relevant to every person, and when communication becomes too broad or too frequent, audiences can quickly tune out.

Working closely with the St. Charles Park District, we developed Reach as a communication platform built around the idea of relevance. Instead of pushing the same information to everyone, the system allows organisations to create groups and interests that community members can actively choose to follow. This gives people much more control over the information they receive and helps ensure that updates feel useful rather than intrusive.

SMS was chosen as the primary communication channel because of its simplicity, accessibility, and high visibility. Text messaging removes many of the barriers that come with email newsletters, social platforms, or dedicated apps that require downloads and regular engagement. With Reach, community members can join by scanning a QR code or by sending a simple follow command via text. This made it easy for organisations to grow their audience and for users to opt into the topics that mattered most to them.

The product was designed to make communication more targeted and more manageable. Once users joined the groups or interests they cared about, organisations could deliver focused updates to opted-in followers instead of sending blanket communications to everyone. This reduced communication overload, improved the quality of engagement, and gave organisations a clearer way to structure their outreach.

Over time, Reach proved valuable beyond its initial use case. In addition to park districts, the platform is used by local governments and businesses that want to keep their communities informed with timely, relevant updates. It demonstrates how a focused communication tool can strengthen the relationship between organisations and the audiences they serve, not by sending more information, but by sending the right information to the right people.

What we did

We designed and developed Reach as a community communication platform centred on simple, opt-in SMS engagement. The product was built to help organisations organise their messaging around community interests, making it easier for people to follow only the updates they wanted to receive.

The core of the platform was a text-first communication flow. We implemented SMS as the main delivery channel and created an easy onboarding experience using QR code signups and text-based follow commands. This meant organisations could promote groups and interests in physical spaces, printed materials, or digital campaigns, while users could join in seconds without friction.

We also focused on the product and workflow design behind the communication model. Interest-based groups, targeted messaging, and opt-in follower management were all built to reduce noise and improve relevance. Alongside the application development work, we applied UX design, integration thinking, and product strategy to create a system that was both practical for administrators and simple for community members to use.