The company focuses on calendar-based apps, which they generally use for events such as Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest and the Just For Laughs festival.
In this case, the calendar aspect attracted the Canada Council for the Arts for an app on how to submit an application for several of their cultural programs.
"This is a teaching tool, and it guides people who are first-time applicants through the process to help them apply from beginning to end, with step-by-step illustrations," said Bill Love, co-founder of FaveQuest - one of OBJ's Startups to Watch in 2011.
But when the initial discussions turned to the council's mandate of inclusiveness – which includes offering its programs in English, French and Inuktitut – Mr. Love was floored by the challenge.
"When we heard they wanted to do Inuktitut, I sat there awkwardly silent for a moment. I wasn't sure we'd even be able to do it at all."
The challenge was iPhones, iPads and Androids come with native language settings. Inuktitut, with roughly 35,000 speakers, is not included in the language set. FaveQuest would need to not only create the language specifically for the app, but tell it to override the phone's default settings.
FaveQuest contracted local design firm Red Wagon Studio to work out the language details. The design firm created the necessary characters to display the language and worked with an Inuktitut speaker, recommended by the council, to get the wording right.
The process had challenges, not only in terms of quality control but also making sure that cultural barriers were surmounted.
"There's one page where waiting for results of grant application ... and then you see a mailbox that looks like the one at the end of country lane, with mail in there and the flag up. The advisor at Canada Council in the Arts said flat out, they don't know what that thing is up north. They just don't have it," said Mr. Love.
"So in Inuktitut, you see the wall of a post office, all the (mailboxes) in small squares, because that's what people are used to thinking about."
FaveQuest hopes to generate follow-on work from the Canada Council for the Arts as a result of this application.
In the meantime, it is shifting from custom design to a turnkey application, MyFestivalApps, which will let entities such as the Blacksheep Inn create many of the elements in the apps themselves without the need of extensive programming.
FaveQuest is also in discussions with the Ottawa Senators about creating an app for them, although they will need to make sure to adhere to National Hockey League-mandated branding if the project goes forward.
