Virtmac

Interactive Learning Platform

Virtmac's classroom chemistry app let instructors demonstrate reactions on a digital canvas, but needed performance work before supporting real classroom use or new subjects. Ollon optimized the platform's performance and backend, letting the client update content without developer help. Virtmac moved the app out of internal development and launched its MVP to its first customers.

Situation

Virtmac, an education technology provider wanted to improve an existing classroom application used to teach chemistry through interactive visual elements. The application allowed instructors to demonstrate chemical reactions on a digital canvas but needed enhancements and performance optimizations to better support classroom use and prepare for expansion into additional academic subjects.

Solution

Ollon made targeted updates to optimize the platform for the product owner’s needs, improving performance, streamlining backend systems, and enhancing stability for reliable classroom use. These changes made it easier for the client to update and manage educational content without developer intervention. As a result, the application was successfully moved out of internal development and the MVP was launched to the first group of customers.

Results

The improved product gives the client more control and efficiency in creating and distributing interactive content to educators. It is now better equipped to support classroom use and adaptable to new subject areas. Ollon continues to support the product as work progresses toward expanded capabilities and future use cases.

Technologies

Wordpress, and Fabric.JS, HTML, CSS, PHP, Javascript

Our Expertise in Action

Performance optimization

Virtmac's chemistry classroom application, built on a Fabric.js drawing canvas inside WordPress, had stability problems that got in the way of reliable classroom use, including a freezing bug and a layering issue affecting how elements displayed on the board. Ollon fixed those issues, along with a later caching problem that surfaced after launch, and made backend changes to reduce the instability that had been interrupting classroom sessions. Streamlining those backend systems also made the platform easier to keep stable as new features were added during the maintenance period that followed launch. The result was an application stable enough for daily classroom use across a live group of customers instead of just internal testing.

WordPress

Virtmac's classroom tool needed to run as a custom drawing canvas embedded inside a WordPress site, not as a standalone application. Ollon built and deployed that canvas tool using Fabric.js, PHP, and JavaScript within the WordPress theme and server environment, including the work needed to get a custom theme running correctly on the client's WordPress hosting. Image handling, one of the more difficult integration points, required specific fixes to get uploads working correctly inside the WordPress environment. Ollon also built out additional WordPress pages for the product, including a lessons page and a shop page with payment support, extending the platform beyond the original classroom canvas.

MVP development and product-market fit

Virtmac needed to move its chemistry classroom tool out of internal development and into the hands of a first group of paying customers. Ollon built the pieces required for that shift, including a user registration workflow, PayPal based payment support, and landing and lesson pages that gave the product a front door beyond the drawing canvas itself. That work let Virtmac launch its MVP to its first customers and kept expanding after launch, adding shop and lesson infrastructure as the product moved toward supporting additional subjects beyond chemistry. Ollon continued supporting that expansion through the months following the initial launch.

Managed Services and Application Monitoring

After Virtmac's chemistry tool launched to its first customers, Ollon stayed on to support the product on an ongoing basis instead of ending the engagement at launch. That support included monthly client check ins and fixing issues as they came up in production, such as a caching problem, an eraser button bug, and sprite handling issues discovered after real classroom use began. Development time was scaled down significantly from the initial build, matching the lighter, ongoing needs of a live product instead of active feature development. That continuing relationship gave Virtmac a way to keep the platform running reliably without keeping a full development team in place after launch.