This talk by Jonny Schneider and Stewart Gleadow for ThoughtWorks Quarterly Technology Briefing discusses various topics related to mobile product strategy, design and delivery.
Building mobile apps ›❯ ›❯ ›❯ ›❯ Here’s what we’ll talk about: We’ll take a brief look at changing technology and how that’s affected the way people behave Discuss how we can create better mobile products Walk through some approaches to engineering better apps
We’re using local research wherever possible First, a note about stats. We’re both affluent nations, big love for gadgets and internet. Culturally and socioeconomically similar.
1915 1930 1945 1960 1975 1990 2005 AIR-CONDITIONING AUTOMOBILE TELEPHONE COLOR TV INTERNET ELECTRICITY COMPUTER MOBILE PHONE Technology, people and time If we look back over the last 100 years, we see only the most critical technologies reach saturation point (over 90%). And it takes a long time.
1915 1930 1945 1960 1975 1990 2005 AIR-CONDITIONING AUTOMOBILE TELEPHONE COLOR TV INTERNET ELECTRICITY MOBILE PHONE COMPUTER Technology, people and time Electricity, 50 years Telephone, 70 years Automobile, 80 years
1915 1930 1945 1960 1975 1990 2005 80 YEARS 50 YEARS 70 YEARS AIR-CONDITIONING AUTOMOBILE TELEPHONE COLOR TV INTERNET ELECTRICITY MOBILE PHONE COMPUTER Technology, people and time Electricity, 50 years Telephone, 70 years Automobile, 80 years
1915 1930 1945 1960 1975 1990 2005 30 YEARS 20 YEARS AIR-CONDITIONING AUTOMOBILE TELEPHONE COLOR TV INTERNET ELECTRICITY 80 YEARS 50 YEARS 70 YEARS COMPUTER MOBILE PHONE Technology, people and time Let’s look at Internet and Mobile phones. These have been much quicker. They’re both still relatively new. Internet on phone is even newer These figures only report to 2005.
‘96 ‘97 ‘98 ‘99 ‘00 ‘00 ‘01 ‘02 ‘03 ‘04 ‘05 ‘06 ‘07 ‘08 ‘09 ‘10 ‘11 Internet adoption over time (percentage American adults) US trend: Adult internet users.
40 60 80 ‘95 ‘96 ‘97 ‘98 ‘99 ‘00 ‘00 ‘01 ‘02 ‘03 ‘04 ‘05 ‘06 ‘07 ‘08 ‘09 ‘10 ‘11 Internet adoption over time (percentage American adults) 82% of Australian adults online in 2012 It’s the same in Australia.
75 90 Apr ‘06 Apr ‘08 Sep ‘09 Sep ‘10 Aug ‘11 Feb ‘12 Desktop PC Laptop Mobile Phone Tablet Adult gadget ownership over time But how are people accessing the internet? Let’s take a look at device ownership. Desktop in decline over last five years. Laptop have become the preference. Almost everyone has a mobile phone. Tablet has very sharp growth. This shouldn’t be news to you, but it is significant.
May, 2012. http://bit.ly/MKj8dq Australian Mobile Phone Lifestyle Index. 2011. http://www.aimia.com.au/ampli The Australian Online Consumer Landscape Report, Nielsen 2012. 110% mobile device penetration In Australia... 18% tablet ownership 52% of those are smartphones 0 15 30 45 60 75 90 Apr ‘06 Apr ‘08 Sep ‘09 Sep ‘10 Aug ‘11 Feb ‘12 Desktop PC Laptop Mobile Phone Tablet It’s basically the same in Australia.
‘93 ‘95 ‘97 ‘99 ‘01 ‘03 ‘05 ‘07 ‘09 ‘11 Telecom ‘Walkabout’ Motorola Brick AMPS Analogue GSM 2G/WAP/WML/i-mode 3G UMTS NextG 1st mobile web browsers SMS is born Predictive Text SMS comes with 2G about 1993. 1st web browsers around 1997... but nobody used them
‘93 ‘95 ‘97 ‘99 ‘01 ‘03 ‘05 ‘07 ‘09 ‘11 Telecom ‘Walkabout’ Motorola Brick Nokia 5110 AMPS Analogue GSM 2G/WAP/WML/i-mode 3G UMTS NextG 1st mobile web browsers SMS is born Predictive Text Remember Nokia 5120? I bet you didn’t use the web browser (there wasn’t one)
‘93 ‘95 ‘97 ‘99 ‘01 ‘03 ‘05 ‘07 ‘09 ‘11 Telecom ‘Walkabout’ Motorola Brick Nokia 5110 Palm Treo Motorola RAZR AMPS Analogue GSM 2G/WAP/WML/i-mode 3G UMTS NextG 1st mobile web browsers SMS is born Predictive Text Palm Treo/Moto RAZR. Now we’re starting to browse. 3G arrives, but not common yet.
‘93 ‘95 ‘97 ‘99 ‘01 ‘03 ‘05 ‘07 ‘09 ‘11 Telecom ‘Walkabout’ Motorola Brick Nokia 5110 Palm Treo Motorola RAZR HTC Dream (1st Android) iPhone 3 iPad 1 AMPS Analogue GSM 2G/WAP/WML/i-mode 3G UMTS NextG 1st mobile web browsers SMS is born 1st WebKit browser Predictive Text You know the rest. Apple release iPhone... People go crazy for web on mobile. Web on Mobile is less than 10 years old.
on the technologies themselves, when it is really the social impact and cultural change that will be most dramatic.” Don Norman is my man for cognitive sciences, design and usability engineering. He wrote some seminal books. What he’s saying in essence is that... it’s not gadgets that change the world, but how we humans use them. He is right. And we see this play out in a number of ways. Let’s look at an example.
on the technologies themselves, when it is really the social impact and cultural change that will be most dramatic.” Don Norman is my man for cognitive sciences, design and usability engineering. He wrote some seminal books. What he’s saying in essence is that... it’s not gadgets that change the world, but how we humans use them. He is right. And we see this play out in a number of ways. Let’s look at an example.
the last few years? Vodafone 150 $10 - $15 The Vodafone 150 only do Voice, SMS, USSD. That’s it. But it’s had an astonishing impact in some parts of the world. We tend to focus on smart phones, especially in the city Don’t forget that forget that smartphones are not ubiquitous yet
coverage. Around 98% of the population Moved from having access to information only in immediate surroundings to now having access to a global network of information
a system to help aid workers reunite lost children with their parents The old way: People printed photos of lost children and posted on walls in centre of communities The new way: Needs to deal with misplaced children with a global perspective. Asylum seekers moving around the globe in response to various disasters and events. It needs to work offline (dropping connections), data sync later and be secure enough to avoid exploiters taking advantage of people at risk. It’s dramatically improved the effectiveness of goal at hand: reuniting lost children with parents.
60 80 100 Voice SMS Entertainment Visit web Search Banking 2009 2010 2011 Use of the mobile phone for different purposes This data is from the latest Australian Mobile Phone Lifestyle Index, and shows how we’ve been using phones over the last three years. Voice and SMS is ubiquitous and hasn’t changed. Entertainment websites search banking People clearly use their phone to do more things, and they’re expecting to use it for more.
smartphone owners access information just-in-time... Mobile enables ‘Just in time’ behaviour 10 years ago, we: Phone friend on landline, arrange to ‘meet under the clocks’ at Flinders St. Station at 2pm. We’d Arrive. On time! Friend not here? Seek out a pay phone and call at home to see what time they left. For transit info we carried the printed timetable, or memorised the sequence. 3 trains per hour, every 20 mins departing five past the hour. Today, we get that info ‘just in time’
smartphone owners access information just-in-time... 41% coordinate a meet-up 35% solve an unexpected problem 20% get a up-to-the-minute transport info Mobile enables ‘Just in time’ behaviour 10 years ago, we: Phone friend on landline, arrange to ‘meet under the clocks’ at Flinders St. Station at 2pm. We’d Arrive. On time! Friend not here? Seek out a pay phone and call at home to see what time they left. For transit info we carried the printed timetable, or memorised the sequence. 3 trains per hour, every 20 mins departing five past the hour. Today, we get that info ‘just in time’
IB logins are on a mobile device Significant value-transactions are taking place via mobile devices Customer are comfortable with this, and it’s now expected old slow movers are innovating: Banks are running m-payments trials all over the world, with lots of technologies New entrants are shaking things up: Bank Simple, Movenbank, Square... and so on.
A different take on mobile payments, but incredibly successful: mPesa ~$200m AUD profit (most profitable mobile app in the world - double Angry Birds) 20-25% of GDP mPesa works on very rudimentary technology, but it meets a very real user need It solves a people problem first, using whatever technology is available. We should learn from this.
make purchasing decisions What does it mean for retail? Have you ever done this? Of course you have. Aside from price matching, there’re other uses for this. One example: - An app that scans barcodes to give ingredient list and match with user’s allergies - accessibility features on the iPhone mean this can be used by people with impaired vision - it’s not just changing behaviour, it’s creating new opportunities
Building mobile apps ›❯ ›❯ ›❯ ›❯ How do we take advantage of these new opportunities? Lets look at what makes a good mobile product, and how we can create mobile products that meet changing customer expectations
website 2012 Integrated mobile experience What does success look like? 2014 ??? In two years, it will look different again... We need to build products for today’s market, and be preparing for tomorrow
all things are connected Post-mobile world Soon, we won’t need a phone to be mobile. Mobile will just be a part of everything. Integrated with life. Some call this ‘ubiquitous computing’. One example is Google’s Project Glass prototype. The marketing videos are pretty cheesy, but the concept is on point. Don’t forget that it’s early days, and there are lots of things to work out.
websites were static, digitised documents. This is Microsoft in 1995. Brochureware with image-map navigation. Awesome! Web on a mobile is emerging from a similar place, it takes a while to mature into meaningful and useful experiences. So, how do we create better mobile products?
been saying ‘do less’ (on mobile) for a long time We’ve been saying ‘do less’ for a while, and ‘graceful degradation’ was once the way to do it. It can be a valid approach, and useful for established products and services, but it has problems. We take a large-screen design and make it smaller for mobile. In this example, a unicorn. As the screens get smaller, we chop bits off usually at the extremities. Tail. Legs. Torso. Eventually, only the head is left. So, most of the time it ain’t that graceful.
been saying ‘do less’ (on mobile) for a long time We’ve been saying ‘do less’ for a while, and ‘graceful degradation’ was once the way to do it. It can be a valid approach, and useful for established products and services, but it has problems. We take a large-screen design and make it smaller for mobile. In this example, a unicorn. As the screens get smaller, we chop bits off usually at the extremities. Tail. Legs. Torso. Eventually, only the head is left. So, most of the time it ain’t that graceful.
˒ Exchange rates ˒ Interest rates ˒ Product disclosure statements ˒ Forms & documents ˒ Features Features Features check account balance ˒ ˒ transfer funds ˒ ˒ pay a bill with BPAY ˒ ˒ schedule a future transfer ˒ Change daily limits ˒ Update mailing address ˒ An example from banking Full feature set on desktop version. Truncation on mobile. Content like forms, documents, Product Disclosure Statements and so on. Or so called ‘peripheral’ features.
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Mobile Internet Users Desktop Internet Users Mobile Majority is very close Customers want to do more on mobile But as customers, we expect to do more on mobile today, so truncation - even at the periphery - is a dangerous strategy.
parity This is the same idea as graceful degradation but in reverse. Instead of starting big and degrading, we start small and enhance. Progressive enhancement is what is usually happening in ‘mobile first’ thinking, and ‘responsive web design’. Start with a small unicorn - one that works for mobile - and then deliver unicorns to all screens.
parity This is the same idea as graceful degradation but in reverse. Instead of starting big and degrading, we start small and enhance. Progressive enhancement is what is usually happening in ‘mobile first’ thinking, and ‘responsive web design’. Start with a small unicorn - one that works for mobile - and then deliver unicorns to all screens.
˒ People ˒ ˒ Notifications ˒ ˒ Blog ˒ ˒ Help ˒ ˒ Features Features Features Create a new bag ˒ ˒ Edit existing bag ˒ ˒ Explore ˒ ˒ Search Bagcheck ˒ ˒ Create new discussion ˒ ˒ Comment ˒ ˒ An example Bag Check was was built mobile first, by the guy who wrote the book on Mobile First. This is becoming a more common approach. Deliver unicorns consistently on all screens. But it still misses something.
What if that version of the unicorn isn’t helpful for me right now? http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jednoro%C5%BCec.svg We’ve delivered the unicorn accurately, but if I can’t interact with it in a way that makes sense on my device, then we’ve only gone part of the way. An example from banking: On mobile, a list of future-dated payments is viewable, but I cant edit the payments details. Useless. Or PDF forms that render to screen, but can’t be used or printed. This doesn’t work, because the content hasn’t been structured and presented in a way that is useful for the mobile customer.
Create Once, Publish Everywhere Responsive content How can we provide different versions of content and features that are most appropriate for each device? Create once, publish everywhere (COPE). Easier said than done. Requires a strategic approach to content management. What content is required... on what devices... and in what format? Are your content and marketing teams ready for this? Is your content management system capable of structuring content in this way?
is ‘adaptive content’ more than ‘responsive content’. They serve different versions of their content, from a simple CMS, across many devices. Karen McGrane - my favourite content strategist - talks more about this in her book Content Strategy for Mobile.
they interact with your brand Seamless experiences Awesome, now you have appropriate content and features rendered properly across many devices. Keep everything connected and transition as seamlessly as possible Because customers don’t see your ‘channels’ - All they see is a brand, and their needs
using multiple devices. A seamless experience across your channels is expected. Provide pathways through content... Seamless connection through appropriate and relevant versions of content.
recently airBNB is a site that connects travelers with hosts for accommodation. I signed up with Facebook, and booked accommodation on laptop On the road, I couldn’t authenticate with the app, because FB Open Auth didn’t work properly Using email to login - with forgot password - failed too (because I wasn’t in the database) This became a real problem, I almost didn’t have a bed to sleep in. Not ideal for a brand who’s goal is connecting travelers with hosts.
emerging around multiscreen experiences. Device shifting. This is where a consumer begins a task on one device, then completes it on another. AirBNB is an example of this gone wrong. Draft an email on mobile, finish it on desktop. Fill a shopping cart on eBay, complete purchase at home.
that ThoughtWorks was involved with for NineMSN. It’s a ‘second screen’ experience designed specifically for tablet and TV. The iPad experience is simultaneous with the TV broadcast. During Olympics, able to interact with content such as live news, current medal tally, event schedule and realtime twitter conversations that are related to the broadcast.
from your apps now: continuity across all channels - people do different tasks on different devices - that means your app, the mobile website, desktop systems all talking on the backend -“we’ll just connect it up on the backend”, simple stuff - what about people who phone in? or visit in person?
backend systems that don’t talk well to each other - in reality, “the backend” is not one nice continuous system -> lots of separate systems, different technologies... we don’t even know how some of them work anymore, so we don’t touch them... but they seem to work - so to get our continuous mobile experience, we also need to wrangle all this other stuff - the mess on the backend doesn’t give you the flexibility you’ll need going forward - but it is the bit the consumer sees, the thing they will judge you on
all these standalone backend systems that don’t talk well to each other - in reality, “the backend” is not one nice continuous system -> lots of separate systems, different technologies... we don’t even know how some of them work anymore, so we don’t touch them... but they seem to work - so to get our continuous mobile experience, we also need to wrangle all this other stuff - the mess on the backend doesn’t give you the flexibility you’ll need going forward - but it is the bit the consumer sees, the thing they will judge you on
Thing - all these standalone backend systems that don’t talk well to each other - in reality, “the backend” is not one nice continuous system -> lots of separate systems, different technologies... we don’t even know how some of them work anymore, so we don’t touch them... but they seem to work - so to get our continuous mobile experience, we also need to wrangle all this other stuff - the mess on the backend doesn’t give you the flexibility you’ll need going forward - but it is the bit the consumer sees, the thing they will judge you on
system Mainframe Database Message Hub Retail Call Centre Legacy Thing - all these standalone backend systems that don’t talk well to each other - in reality, “the backend” is not one nice continuous system -> lots of separate systems, different technologies... we don’t even know how some of them work anymore, so we don’t touch them... but they seem to work - so to get our continuous mobile experience, we also need to wrangle all this other stuff - the mess on the backend doesn’t give you the flexibility you’ll need going forward - but it is the bit the consumer sees, the thing they will judge you on
system Mainframe Database Message Hub Retail Call Centre Legacy Thing - all these standalone backend systems that don’t talk well to each other - in reality, “the backend” is not one nice continuous system -> lots of separate systems, different technologies... we don’t even know how some of them work anymore, so we don’t touch them... but they seem to work - so to get our continuous mobile experience, we also need to wrangle all this other stuff - the mess on the backend doesn’t give you the flexibility you’ll need going forward - but it is the bit the consumer sees, the thing they will judge you on
system Mainframe Database Message Hub Retail Call Centre Legacy Thing - all these standalone backend systems that don’t talk well to each other - in reality, “the backend” is not one nice continuous system -> lots of separate systems, different technologies... we don’t even know how some of them work anymore, so we don’t touch them... but they seem to work - so to get our continuous mobile experience, we also need to wrangle all this other stuff - the mess on the backend doesn’t give you the flexibility you’ll need going forward - but it is the bit the consumer sees, the thing they will judge you on
connected... but we’re not all buying the same devices (sometimes not even similar devices) - 5 main platforms: iOS, Android, Windows, Blackberry, Web - going to simplify to 3: iOS, Android, the Web -> Win7/8 looks really promising, make your conclusions about the future of Blackberry - how can we target all of these platforms? - Do we even want to? Different interaction patterns.
to a great experience Native or Web? Being discoverable in the app store is still important - a reasonable proportion of users can’t distinguish between the app store and web search (even though search is so bad in the Apple app store) - means you’re writing using the tools provided by the vendors (Apple, Google, Microsoft) - Objective C is kind of a strange language, and Java isn’t exactly the new hotness - native apps have the lowest barrier to awesome (it’s not automatic)
platforms Native or Web? - apps that you actually distribute and run inside the browser on your mobile device - easier to manage versions and updates - HTML5 is going to save the day, and everything will just work (in reality you have a bunch of tweaking and performance tuning ahead of you) - get to work with familiar technology: in house skills, easier to find devs - don’t underestimate the challenge of finding good developers for native apps
but it’s not an either/or choice, there is a whole spectrum between the two - modern mobile platforms have reasonable support for running parts of your app using web technologies -> people are calling these hybrid apps, can be a confusing term
pure web apps written in HTML, CSS and Javascript - at one end, we have completely native apps written in Objective C, Java - full native apps: expect heavy usage, offline access, high performance slick UI - tools that wrap up a web app inside a native shell to go on the app store (Phone Gap) -> eg. BBC Olympics app... good screenshots, sluggish performance, but hits-all-platforms - custom hybrid apps: native apps with web components - interestingly, Facebook has been rewriting their app to have more native components
other end, we have pure web apps written in HTML, CSS and Javascript - at one end, we have completely native apps written in Objective C, Java - full native apps: expect heavy usage, offline access, high performance slick UI - tools that wrap up a web app inside a native shell to go on the app store (Phone Gap) -> eg. BBC Olympics app... good screenshots, sluggish performance, but hits-all-platforms - custom hybrid apps: native apps with web components - interestingly, Facebook has been rewriting their app to have more native components
the other end, we have pure web apps written in HTML, CSS and Javascript - at one end, we have completely native apps written in Objective C, Java - full native apps: expect heavy usage, offline access, high performance slick UI - tools that wrap up a web app inside a native shell to go on the app store (Phone Gap) -> eg. BBC Olympics app... good screenshots, sluggish performance, but hits-all-platforms - custom hybrid apps: native apps with web components - interestingly, Facebook has been rewriting their app to have more native components
Olympics Instagram - at the other end, we have pure web apps written in HTML, CSS and Javascript - at one end, we have completely native apps written in Objective C, Java - full native apps: expect heavy usage, offline access, high performance slick UI - tools that wrap up a web app inside a native shell to go on the app store (Phone Gap) -> eg. BBC Olympics app... good screenshots, sluggish performance, but hits-all-platforms - custom hybrid apps: native apps with web components - interestingly, Facebook has been rewriting their app to have more native components
Olympics Facebook LinkedIn Instagram Jump-in - at the other end, we have pure web apps written in HTML, CSS and Javascript - at one end, we have completely native apps written in Objective C, Java - full native apps: expect heavy usage, offline access, high performance slick UI - tools that wrap up a web app inside a native shell to go on the app store (Phone Gap) -> eg. BBC Olympics app... good screenshots, sluggish performance, but hits-all-platforms - custom hybrid apps: native apps with web components - interestingly, Facebook has been rewriting their app to have more native components
Olympics Facebook LinkedIn Instagram Jump-in - at the other end, we have pure web apps written in HTML, CSS and Javascript - at one end, we have completely native apps written in Objective C, Java - full native apps: expect heavy usage, offline access, high performance slick UI - tools that wrap up a web app inside a native shell to go on the app store (Phone Gap) -> eg. BBC Olympics app... good screenshots, sluggish performance, but hits-all-platforms - custom hybrid apps: native apps with web components - interestingly, Facebook has been rewriting their app to have more native components
Experience - there’s a whole spectrum of approaches to choose from, which should you take? - there are a number of things to take into consideration: -> time to market, quality of the user experience, performance, development capability, platform coverage, discoverability -> going to simplify this to the fundamental two factors - let’s look at these tradeoffs, and approaches that favour one over the other
to be: a great experience on all platforms... - let’s treat that as the goal, but we’re not going to get there straight away - for a lot of people, this is where they are at the moment, with a fairly large and tricky mess - two ways we can go: -> tackle a single platform first, and go for a really polished interface, slowly expand both the feature set and platform coverage from there (calling this the Laser strategy) -> go for a shallow cut of both the experience and feature set, but hit as many platforms as possible (calling this the cover your bases strategy) - let’s look at each approach, and where it might make sense to use it
to be: a great experience on all platforms... - let’s treat that as the goal, but we’re not going to get there straight away - for a lot of people, this is where they are at the moment, with a fairly large and tricky mess - two ways we can go: -> tackle a single platform first, and go for a really polished interface, slowly expand both the feature set and platform coverage from there (calling this the Laser strategy) -> go for a shallow cut of both the experience and feature set, but hit as many platforms as possible (calling this the cover your bases strategy) - let’s look at each approach, and where it might make sense to use it
to be: a great experience on all platforms... - let’s treat that as the goal, but we’re not going to get there straight away - for a lot of people, this is where they are at the moment, with a fairly large and tricky mess - two ways we can go: -> tackle a single platform first, and go for a really polished interface, slowly expand both the feature set and platform coverage from there (calling this the Laser strategy) -> go for a shallow cut of both the experience and feature set, but hit as many platforms as possible (calling this the cover your bases strategy) - let’s look at each approach, and where it might make sense to use it
single platform and nail it... eg. iPhone app - for new companies trying to win customers, where experience is an important selling point -> if you can’t win the market with this focus, what makes you think you can win it at all? - for existing companies, look at your stats: which users to do you want to hit first? -> In Australia, and your company is targeting professional adults, it’s often the iPhone eg. high end fashion, even banking and insurance, selling cars or houses (if your product is aimed at teenagers, you’re likely to see more Androids) - iOS is more dominant here than elsewhere (employment, wages, no carrier lock in) -> read stats about number of devices purchased, but usage of those is very different
and quality finish to try and hit as many platforms as possible - might make sense for companies with existing customers: don’t be exclusive - where playing favourites isn’t really an option (eg. ATO - eTax, except they didn’t) eg. emergency warning system: want it to go to everyone (people have ignored this) - depending on the content you're presenting, HTML/CSS might be well suited eg. for text markup and layout... -> for infinite scrolling tables/multiple gestures, native still a long way ahead
(native and web) - use native where it makes sense, use web components where it makes sense -> compromise between the laser and cover your bases strategies - there are frameworks out there to help do this (eg. PhoneGap/Cordova, Titanium/Kony) -> but don’t want to lock yourself in
(native and web) - use native where it makes sense, use web components where it makes sense -> compromise between the laser and cover your bases strategies - there are frameworks out there to help do this (eg. PhoneGap/Cordova, Titanium/Kony) -> but don’t want to lock yourself in
using the web - not an either/or choice, you can use both (native and web) - use native where it makes sense, use web components where it makes sense -> compromise between the laser and cover your bases strategies - there are frameworks out there to help do this (eg. PhoneGap/Cordova, Titanium/Kony) -> but don’t want to lock yourself in
platforms - it doesn’t have to be Javascript, could use Mono and C# -> Thoughtworks Tech Radar: treating Javascript as a first class language -> “it depends” eg. a banking app vs search and listing or directory app - complex UI, gestures, animations... native eg. Hipstamatic/Instragram/iPhoto - marking up content (text/images) without a lot of interaction -> HTML/CSS have evolved for exactly for that purpose - reuse at all costs is not the answer, focus on what the user is trying to achieve - be pragmatic about how to reuse parts where it will save you time and money
Client Logic iPhone Mobile Web - how this evolved from experience with the laser approach: a global bank -> iPhone, Android, web apps: different languages for each platform - the left hand column is your opportunity to share the presentation -> depending on the size of the UI code, how complex it is, how expensive it is to maintain -> might make sense to duplicate across platforms if it’s simpler and quicker - the right hand column represents the opportunity to share the logic of the app -> is it common? Does it make sense to write it in Javascript? -> simple state machine? Yes. Complex image filtering? Probably not.
Client Logic iPhone Mobile Web What would we do differently? - how this evolved from experience with the laser approach: a global bank -> iPhone, Android, web apps: different languages for each platform - the left hand column is your opportunity to share the presentation -> depending on the size of the UI code, how complex it is, how expensive it is to maintain -> might make sense to duplicate across platforms if it’s simpler and quicker - the right hand column represents the opportunity to share the logic of the app -> is it common? Does it make sense to write it in Javascript? -> simple state machine? Yes. Complex image filtering? Probably not.
Client Logic Calatrava A bridge between native and web - want a bridge between the Javascript and native code -> knows how to call javascript code, and also to get values out - other side of the bridge allows us to pass data to be presented -> choice of whether to present it using web views or native views -> pass actions from the UI back down to the appropriate logic * finally, need a registry to match up the components of the system with technology -> we’ve been using this successfully for a major airline
feature Will soon be open source Calatrava - named after Santiago Calatrava, designs bridges (this one in Seville, 4th bridge in Venice) - nice to name something after a bridge (feel like a real engineer) -> acts as the bridge that connects native and web code (gives us that technology choice) - calling it a framework might be overkill, it’s only a few hundred lines of code - we’ve been using this approach at a “major airline”, it’s been working really well -> adding a few new flows within existing native apps, using this approach -> can come back and polish the UI later if needed - we’ll get this open source, so watch this space - so we’ve got an approach for building our apps, but...
- calatrava is best option I’ve seen for flexible, pragmatic reuse... but I’m biased - tools like PhoneGap, Titanium, Mono are all useful as well, it depends on the app * what about the rest of the system? - maybe we’re optimising the wrong part?
* Lots of talk about how to share logic across platforms, but not enough people questioning what all that logic is doing in your app in the first place - a lot of complexity can be added by talking to an old, chatty backend system -> if it’s messy, don’t write all the logic in the app and try and reuse it * put a layer in between
has to deal with, protect them - this API can provide a simple view of the backend, as if it was a nice continuous system -> the LinkedIn engineering blog has a post on using a node.js server to do this - it also gives you a buffer for change (some people never update their apps) - whenever you write new logic in your app, see if you can put it in the API
smarter backends? Product-aligned teams RESTful web services Serving data and style - the app should be as thin as possible, that's the best reuse you can get - how??? - much easier if you develop the API and the apps at the same time (not technology teams) - RESTful web services are great for mobile apps -> if you don’t know about REST, look it up, basically structuring systems like the web... -> think of it like a replacement for things like SOAP and WSDL -> great for reducing the amount of logic required by the client (discoverable) eg. switching a single URL and getting completely different data, different static image server - create APIs that serve both the JSON data and visual style in HTML/CSS -> give yourself more control of your apps, and keep that logic server side
won’t in themselves change the way your customers behave. Find out how they behave and what they need first, then work out how to best meet those needs. Forbes put it quite nicely...
advantage will not be gained by providing your customers a sharp mobile app, but by making sure every decision maker in your organization understands the needs and habits of mobile users” http://www.forbes.com/sites/fredcavazza/2012/08/13/why-launching-a-mobile-app-is-pointless Gadgets and technology won’t in themselves change the way your customers behave. Find out how they behave and what they need first, then work out how to best meet those needs. Forbes put it quite nicely...
are using their mobile devices to do more things than ever today. There’s a growing expectation to do anything on mobile. Truncation for mobile is a dangerous strategy.
can better respond to change - the mobile market is changing rapidly - if it takes you a year or two to put out an app, and it’s scraping your backend website, because you don’t have an API and you only deploy new versions of the websites every few months -> that’s not going to cut it going forward * start up companies that don’t have this legacy, wont have this problem, they’ll be a threat eg. Ingogo and Uber taxi apps... don’t want to integrate with existing providers - Either need to be good at innovation or good at fast follow and delivery... can't fail at both - Plan to have APIs for your backend systems, even for mobile web applications. - Amazon talks a lot about having lots of small, single purpose APIs - if you want zippy mobile web apps, it likely means doing a bit more on the client side - reduce load on the network, hide that high latency mobile connection
- we’re still working out what the impact of smartphones is going to be - by the time we do, we’ll probably be past smartphones -> so get good at reacting to change, and moving quickly - there will be many opportunities, but you will need to be learning and moving fast to take advantage of them.
cursus congue. Vivamus velit tortor, sodales sed feugiat in, gravida eu turpis. Pellentesque quis neque at libero malesuada tincidunt a in risus. Maecenas.” ‘Name of referenced work’, Author/source/URL, date. Thank you Jonny Schneider [email protected] @jonnyschneider Stewart Gleadow [email protected] @stewgleadow
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