Jared Shenson, SM ’12, and Charlie Croom, SM ’12, seem more like the guys down the street who don backwards caps than programming geniuses who have revolutionized Yale’s shopping period. They sit before me in jeans and sneakers, intermittingly shooting wry smiles at each other. These men’s names have become ubiquitous with their online app, Yale Bluebook.

The app was born out of frustration. “We were fed up with OCI,” Shenson explains. “It’s a 10-year-old app. Back when it was made, it was good…but it doesn’t meet [the] needs of students today.” The summer before his junior year, Shenson began playing with prototypes; by spring 2011, he had managed to convince Croom, his suitemate, to work on a possible submission for the Yale College Council’s annual app competition. Their first task: scrap everything. In two weeks, they built 75 percent of what Yale Bluebook is today. Though they didn’t win, they were finalists.

More importantly, their app had been fleshed out, and, by fall 2012, was ready for its first run.

“I wanted to build a site that students loved using, exceeded their desires, and brought them features they never thought useful,” Shenson said.

These features now include an integrated Facebook function that, once connected to your Facebook profile, allows you to share what classes you are shopping with your friends. They also included a tool to create multiple worksheets for alternate schedules. Although some users have complained that the worksheet runs out of colors when one exceeds eight classes, the designers assure me this is intentional. The eye is capable of only interpreting eight or nine colors, they explain—thus, rather than creating a set of 50 different colors, Shenson and Croom chose eight that “looked great” and would repeat.

To demonstrate their commitment to making sure that Yale Bluebook is always free to students, the duo have entered a “strategic partnership” with YCC, who helped foot service costs in exchange for a tiny byline (hence the “by YCC”). Shenson and Croom are currently in discussions about the future of Bluebook—and possibly replacing OCI forever.

Shenson is the ying to Croom’s yang, or, more appropriately in this case, the Jobs (may he rest in peace) to his Woz. Suitemates since sophomore year, the pair is a match made in web app heaven: Jared the perfectionist and Charlie the doer, proud parents of their newborn app. “Keep sending us your questions,” Croom says. “At the end of the day, we love shopping. It is a unique experience here at Yale. We want to make it the best experience it can be.”

CORRECTION: This article has been amended—four descriptive inaccuracies have been modified.