DVLUP is just plain awesome. They recently partnered with Toledo2 for a Twitter contest where the prize was a 1-hour design consultation for your app. I entered #Hashtastic, naturally, and won – along with 24 other lucky winners.

The session was with Arturo Toldeo and was really fantastic. Done over Skype, it was heavily interactive. Arturo prepared a visual app flow and walked through each screen step-by-step offering suggestions on different ways to make #Hashtastic visually shine.

The whole thing is recorded and given to you as a reference, along with the assets mocked up during the session. I haven’t received those yet, but I couldn’t wait to get started. He didn’t recommend a major overhaul, but rather small tweaks here and there that make the app really pop on the screen. I’ve started implementing a few of them, as well as taking a few liberties inspired by his ideas.

Here is just one sample – simple and small, but the visual impact is a more polished and attractive screen that focuses the user on the important information:

#Hashtastic 1.8, which I am working on now, will add some new features and show off some of the new design changes. Look for this update before the end of 2013. And a big shout-out to DVLUP! No other app platform’s developer support and resources even come close to what DVLUP offers. If you’re a Windows App developer, phone or desktop, sign up now!

UPDATE:

In addition to the one-hour design consultation (3125 pts) there is also an Advanced Consultation (7500 pts) and a Pro Consulation (25000 pts). If you’ve been saving up your points for something, this would be a wise investment.