Designing an Excellent Mobile Experience

Glenn Kline, Portal and Collaboration Solutions Technical Director

DeeDee DeMulling, Director User Experience

Going Mobile

You have Portal, you want to go mobile, now what?

Mobile experience really matters

What should go mobile? Establish a mobile vision and strategy

Enable your developers and organization

Integrate mobile into your existing process

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Mobile Facts

• Soon, more people have web enabled mobile phones than PC

internet access

• Mobile phone owners have SMS, MMS and web phone plans

• Mobile networks are easier to access than traditional broadband in

some areas

• Mobile sites and applications are no longer novel

• Mobile sites are the expectation!

Decide what to Mobile Enable

What will be valuable to your business?

Business will have goals that may not be the same as consumers

Mobile platform needs to meet the goals of the business to be worth the investment

Mobile platform needs to meet the goals of the user to be worth using

What will be valuable to your users?

Mobile consumption very different than traditional web

Good mobile sites are very action oriented and task based

Mobile users have different expectations

Mobile UX

Users on the Go ≠ All of your users

• Mobile users and tasks

• Mobile privacy and security

Portal on your Phone ≠ Portal on your Desktop

• Web/Application/Portal features

• Mobile device constraints

iPhone ≠ Blackberry ≠ Android ≠ and so on…..

• Input Devices, OS, Browser….

- Touchscreen, Rollerball, QWERTY and Keypad inputs

 

User Experience Matters

STAY CURIOUS AND TEST IDEAS

• Continually explore mobile spaces

• Competitive intelligence

• Iteratively emulate design in multiple mobile devices

platforms

• Sketches / Wireframes

• Prototypes

• Device installs

• Test with real end users

 

Airline Portal Example

Passengers or customers have fundamentally different goals when mobile

A traveler is in the middle of a trip

Check flight status for gates and departure/arrival times

Get flight notifications

View available seats

Check security line wait times

View terminal maps

Check upgrade status

A traveler is planning a trip

Book a vacation

Comparison shop fares across different airlines

Request missing mileage credit

Research baggage and carry on policies and fees

Read about the frequent flyer program

Update personal information

View news and offers

Mobile Portal Traditional Portal

Detailed Mobile Portal Accelerator Planning

Establish a Mobile Vision

What do you plan to deliver, when, and what are the steps

What mobile channels are you going to leverage?

Enable Your Developers

Mobile Portal Toolkit on the Developer Workstations

Primary tool mobile web developers will use with MPA

Integrates with RAD and allows local development and testing

Training and Education

MPA is not difficult, but it is different than traditional development

The markup is XDIME, not HTML

MPA layout policies must be created

Java skills are still critical

Integrates with RAD and allows local development and testing

The IBM Mobile Portal Accelerator wiki is a great place to learn and get started - http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/portalwiki.nsf/xpViewCategories.xsp?lookupName=IBM%20Mobile%20Portal%20Accelerator

Get the Right Supporting Tools

Mobile Emulators for Testing

Browers

Opera mini, WebKit browsers, Safari, Openwave, Firefox user agent switcher

Operating Systems

Android, Windows, Nokia

Devices

Blackberry, iPhone, Palm, BlackBerry, Samsung, LG, Motorola

Test with real devices

Enable stage environment to internet

Use devices available to employees

Airtime on virtually any physical device can be rented

Integrate MPA With Your Existing Processes

Release Management

Modify build and deploy process to include MPA pages and portlets

Include MPA in existing standards and guidelines

There will be new dependencies

Mobile might be dependant on existing services

Might depend on content

Quality Assurance

Test team will need access to emulators and devices

Mobile must be accounted for in test plan

Performance testing is still important

References

“More Smartphones Than Desktop PCs by 2011”, PC World, Lexton Snoll, 09 Sept 2009, http://www.pcworld.com/article/171380/

“Best Practices for IBM Mobile Portal Accelerator Design (WebSphere Everyplace Mobile Portal)”, IBM Best Practices, 14 April 2010, http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/portalwiki.nsf/dx/Best_Practices_for_WebSphere_Everyplace_Mobile_Portal_Design

“Designing for the Mobile Web”, Site Point, Brian Suda, 12 March 2008, http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/designing-for-mobile-web

“HOW TO: Optimize Your Mobile Site Across Multiple Platforms”, Mashable Dev & Design, 13 July 2010, http://mashable.com/2010/07/13/mobile-web-optimization/

“Full Analysis of iPhone Economics - it is bad news. And then it gets worse”, Communities Dominate Brand Blog, Tomi T Ahonen and Alan Moore, 22 June 2010, http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2010/06/full-analysis-of-iphone-economics-its-bad-news-and-then-it-gets-worse.html  “HOW TO: Make Your Mobile Websites Act More Like Native Apps”, Mashable Dev and Design, 18 August 2010, http://mashable.com/2010/08/18/mobile-web-app-frameworks/  

Healthcare Member Portal Example

Members have fundamentally different goals when mobile

Mobile Web

View insurance ID card

Check health savings account balance

Find a doctor or provider

Find out what is covered

Find contact information

Access a personal health record

Traditional Web

View a year end health statement

Compare procedure costs at different doctors or facilities

Research health and wellness information

Change insurance options due to a life event

View 2 year old claims

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