A Mobile Delivery Platform Is Like An Irrigation System

I recently got some irrigation work done in my back yard. When I first got the quote, I was shocked. I wondered why I need to invest more money in an irrigation system than what I am spending on plants. The landscape contractor explained to me that timely watering of plants is critical for the health of all plants in the garden and not investing in an irrigation system will kill the plants. He pointed out that the trees, shade plants, potted plants and full-sun plants all need a separate watering schedule and I won't be able to keep track of everything all the time. I got his point. I have enough dead plants in the garden to support his argument.

Image from ajslandscapingsupplies.com

I started thinking that this is probably how our customers feel when we tell them that they need to invest in a  mobile platform, even before they can deliver mobile apps.  The truth is, you do not need a big mobile platform to delivery a few mobile apps to a few users. That is kind of like managing a few plants. You can water them manually and if you don't water them regularly a few plants might die. But imagine managing a few hundred plants of multiple types requiring different types of attention. Soon the situation becomes unmanageable and you will need a system to water all the plants.

When you delivery tens of mobile apps to hundreds of users on multiple devices, the situation can and will soon get out of hand. Delivering the apps, administering them, remotely securing the device or securing the data on a lost device - all necessary functions - require a mobile platform. It is like the irrigation system in the garden. Expensive. Invisible to the end user. But essential and even critical for the success of your mobility initiative.

Simulating Swiping in an iPad Prototype Built Using @AxureRP

When we design iPad applications for people management software, we build realistic iPad prototypes to get the reaction of colleagues, end users and partners. Since we mock things up using a prototyping tool, we are able to test our ideas within days. This approach has reduced the associated risk significantly for us.

There are many things you can do to simulate the user experience of an iPad. The Swipe gesture if one of them. You can build fairly sophisticated iPad prototypes which support the "swipe" gesture, using @AxureRP.



Here is a demonstration of swiping a panel and dropping it in an area to initiate some events. Thanks to the AxureRP support team for giving me some sample code.

Mobile Devices and Apps Are Inherently People Centric

Yesterday a colleague and I were chatting about mobile devices and how these have changed her work life. This colleague has two children and was very concerned about work creeping into her time with her children and family. She started using a smart phone a few months back after gentle nudging from all her colleagues. I asked her how the smart phone is working out for her.

To my surprise, she said that the smart phone has made her family life a lot richer. She said she does not open her laptop at home anymore. She is able to access things in her smart phone and get stuff done without waiting for her laptop to boot up. Contrary to her fear, she is now able to spend more time taking care of her children and family when she is not in the office.

I came away wondering why we don't built most of the tools we use on mobile devices which are inherently personal and people-centric. We owe it to working moms who are incredibly busy and have rigid schedules around children's school and healthcare appointments.

Simulating Simultaneous Movement Of Independent Panels In An iPad Prototype Built Using @AxureRP

While prototyping for an iPad app using @AxureRP you may need to move multiple independent panels simultaneously. This is a video showing you how you can do it.

While designing SAP Career OnDemand applications, I use prototypes similar to the one above to test the waters of a concept or a story with potential users. Since I can built these things myself, the turn around time to built, test iterate is literally days rather than weeks. This approach helps me talk to customers, partners, development colleagues and analysts with real data and confidence.

If you are wondering why enterprise applications cannot have user experiences like the one you see above, you have a point. They can and they will start looking like this in the near future. It is an idea whose time has come.

Prof. Robert Sutton

I had the privilege of meeting Prof. Robert Sutton at Stanford University. He is a profound thinker and prolific writer on the topic of work. I showed Career OnDemand to him to get his thoughts and verify if our thinking is right. He gave us some great input. Here is a short video of Prof. Sutton talking about creativity.