Re-Learning UX: How an Experienced Web Pro is Re-tooling for MobileAdam Polansky August 5, 2013

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In July of 1012, I found myself in a conversation with the UEX Director at a company called Bottle Rocket. These guys were famous for two things; their rich experience in developing award winning native mobile apps and their devotion to Apple – At the time, I had neither. In spite of that, their interest in me stemmed from my experience in UX leadership, business chops, solid IA and not being hung-up on titles and promoting lean development in a tacit way. (Not haggling over compensation might have helped.) I wasn’t remotely coy about wanting to be involved in native app development. I just hope I wasn’t drooling openly. I was hired in one of the fastest rounds of interviews I ever saw and for a year now I’ve had the opportunity to both bring something to the table and get involved in one of the hottest areas of digital design with some of the people who are defining it. It’s the best of both worlds.

So…

…after years of web development that covered areas including Travel, Entertainment, Business applications, manufacturing, and technology.…after years of speaking publically about the importance of usability testing, content qualification, information architecture basics and user-centered design…

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I learned pretty quickly that I would have to abandon or at least re-factor the foundations of Web Design and heuristics upon which I’d built a career.

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Shortly after I joined BR, I was told we’d make a trip to Cupertino. With my brand new Samsung tablet and phone, I felt like an agnostic going to the Vatican. Strangely I was more nervous than excited. When we arrived, I heard first-hand from some folks about what Apple believes is important and I found what I’d been craving all along; a point of view where Design is protected as critical to success and not automatically subordinated to time and or money. Apple’s expectations for apps are famously high and sometimes it’s hard to know what will pass muster. Getting an app launched in the App store is a little like trying to get past the bouncer at a popular night-club who looks you over to decide if you look good enough to get-in. They put their stake in quality and that results in a rarified baseline and polish to the apps in the store.

Before this sounds like a religious conversion, what I learned about Apple also brought the Google Play Store into perspective. It’s more democratized with a lower barrier to entry. You can find hundreds of apps with the same basic function. That, arguably, leaves a lot of room for innovation, which includes failure. It’s more wild west and the signal-to-noise ratio on Google Play is sometimes tough to manage and while they don’t entirely try to predict or define “good”, A lot of work goes into their platform as well and

if you want your apps featured in their store, you need to recognize that. It’s also not an accident that many of the best apps gained popularity on the App Store first.

Here is a list of 7 perspectives I knew had to change in order to be a successful Mobile UX pro

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SpeedI overheard a conversation in the morning and saw a working prototype by lunchtime. Things move fast here. “Adam,” I said to myself “you better get the mud off your tires…RAPID!”

Good, focused apps are often smaller from an IA perspective; fewer screens, shorter distance between start and finish. All of this contributes to a need for everyone to quickly understand ideas and how they will play-out. This is just as true for the web but it seldom works that way.

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Attachment. Who can stand to be without their phone? This attachment means that people take it personally when an app doesn’t work well. “I PAID .99 for THIS!!” It’s funny, but when it’s on your device you get this hyper-awareness of dead weight and when you find it, it’sfrowned upon. Web sites don’t “belong” to you but apps do.

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PhysicalityWho hasn’t started toward the restroom and made it about 5 ft away before doubling back to pick-up their phone. Arriving and setting it down as quietly as possible on the TPdispenser so as not to be obvious to anyone else who might be doing their business. Of course they probably aren’t paying attention because…well…there’s a statistically good chance they’re using their phone.

US connected devices - situation usage (Tablet/eReader/Smartphone):• Watching TV: 70% / 35% / 68% • Lying in bed: 57% / 61% / 51%• With Friends/Family: 44% / 17% / 58%• Waiting for something: 42% / 32% / 59%• In the bathroom: 25% / 17% / 28%

Aside from where people use their apps, you can’t design an app for humans without taking into consideration the circumstances of that use. Kids using a tablet with thumb controls need to reach the controls with smaller thumbs. The mid-size or “Sub-8” tabletslend themselves to one-handed use; to paraphrase Luke Wroblewski: Two hands, one finger & one eye. Are the tasks you’re designing given to quick reference, fast completion without a lot of data needed to make a decision? Restaurant reservations, adding a hotel night to your stay, finding directions are good examples. Or, are the tasks you’re designing suited to a user sitting down with the app and looking through lots of content. Shopping, planning, drawing, writing aren’t usually done on-the-fly. Answers to these questions also suggest the physical position of the user. Are they more likely to be standing & single-handed? Seated, maybe at a desk or table-top, using two hands either one to hold the device while they control the app with one index finger or both thumbs?

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AwarenessThese devices are loaded with sensors and we’re used to being able interact with apps that know where we’re standing in the world, what the weather is like, our proximity to favorite shops, cuisine or friends (leave that a loose definition), what those people and others think about the things around you. What’s the proximity and orientation of the device to the world? Some day the robots may get mad and we’ll have to deal with it butfor know they serve us in ways we’re finding indispensable.

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The Meat Pointer*There’s a paradox here. The dynamic on the laptop or desktop is typically stationary andat a distance yet with a mouse or glide-pad pointer, we can pin-point the most granular places in the screen.

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Layout With mobile devices, it’s no news flash that you have less space to in which to work and you have to devote more space to controls where they exist. The constraints of real estate force designers and stakeholders to make choices about the layout. As Luke Wroblewski espouses in his “Mobile First” approach, we follow a forced discipline on mobile devices due to the real-estate available. By extension, this forced discipline results in web sites that become standouts in their markets and among people like us who look-for and appreciate that sort of thing

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Focus – Context & ContentOne of my co-workers James Helms, another strategist at BR, made a comment about Discovery Sessions which are great times for “Blue-Sky” conversations but at some point you have to identify the content of streams you actually have because that’s your app. Do those feeds satisfy the goal you set? Will the app be recognizable in the terms you want or will it be something else? That may be okay but it won’t be what you originally set your sites on.

Web sites can and do have deep hierarchical structures and multiple contexts because the site needs to reflect the majority of a corporate business plan or it’s the navigation structure and hierarchy of a library of content especially if it’s not revenue generating e-tail site. Ironically, the rules and trade-offs you make for an app should be the guiding principles for web design but when you look at many large branded web sites, as Steve Krug points-out, you are looking at their org chart or more accurately, a picture of the political landscape because what finds its way into that all-important home page is parsed along territorial lines. Whatever has the most emphasis on the screen is a reflection of the spikes in the executive power-grid. Apps on the other hand perform best when they’re focused. In Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines or “the HIG” they talkabout focus and doing one thing well. When you see the popularity of the most successful apps by Apple standards and read the reviews, it’s hard to argue against that point. There are exceptions like Evernote but there is still a focus

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Usability is more important than everApps can be built quickly. With reviews, there is a feedback mechanism immediately available to anyone who installs your app; installs are counted as well.

As they say: you only get one chance for a first impression. If your app doesn’t provide something either unique or more efficient than anyone else to users, they will drop you like a bad habit.

At best, Usability testing will hedge your bets as you validate the focus of your app. Testing doesn’t have to consist of the large-scale formal environment; in fact it’s better ifit doesn’t because apps are used in the wild. In coffee shops, in Dr’s waiting rooms, in bed, at work.

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Based on the examples we’ve just browsed, maybe you can see why usability is now more important than ever. The loop between launching an app and the feedback mechanism of reviews means you want to get it right or be ignored. The good news is the speed of projects and the ability to fix things quickly means you don’t have to get it perfect. If you keep it simple and focused, you can test small scenarios with smaller sample sets just to get a little course adjustment. Test early, cheaply and often and stay true to the focus and users will look for refinements if you meet the table stakes. I’m staying out of the process discussion here because they get caught-up in semantics but you’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t factor testing into your development. Can I get an amen!

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There are several testing methods and when I began thinking about criteria for mobile design tests I wrote this down. I saw the first letters “SPAQ” and the first thing I thought was “Right! They’ll really thank me for another acronym but just saying “SPAQ” out-loud made me laugh so here you go. I mention speed a lot. It has good and bad implications.Speed means shortened distance between an idea and realizing it. Native app development means you not only have a client to satisfy but a standard if you’re going tobe successful in the App Store or Google Play. In mobile development, you plan to comeright back and if you want to keep your spot in the stores, you have to update. In the Web, especially enterprise,…well…in Hollywood when they want to say f*ck you, they say “trust me. In Web development, they say “phase II” By testing in smaller chunks with smaller samples, you don’t need as much assessment time which means the adjustments go into the work.

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Competitive AnalysisWho else has an app like the one you want to build? Competitors may not be direct but they may have features or capabilities in common; a travel app and a movie app both use reviews and ratings. A retail app and a news app both use cataloging to organize content. Games use leaderboards, as do social apps. Who is doing something that satisfies a similar goal to your effort? Better yet, what goals aren’t being met at all in which case, does that present an opening for you. Comparing and contrasting using spreadsheets or flowcharts may set the course for app development

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Heuristic AnalysisIf you’ve never done this sort of analysis, it’s essentially a subjective review against generally accepted criteria. You can do one yourself or get a few people to review an app and aggregate the scores to see if any obvious usage patterns arise for good or bad. One of the first things I researched was whether or not there was a set of heuristics unique to native mobile apps. I found some examples and I found new considerations but I thought I could contextualize a set of heuristics for evaluation of mobile apps. Hubris has never been in short supply with me so you’ll find my interpretation in the appendices of this presentation. They are largely intact but given the difference in dynamics between touch-screens and keyboard/mouse scenarios, I added a couple of things that take physicality and data feeds into account. I’ve included a rating sheet.

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Remote TestingThere are testing methods that fall under what Russ Unger calls Guerilla User Testing; way to observe user behavior and get feedback that can have a material impact on app design without the kind of logistical or staging requirements needed for the more traditional and formal testing. Simpler, shorter tests are great for remote testing. Sites like UserTesting.com or Optimal Workshops offer free demos that let you see just how quickly and easily you can get some observations with immediate implications for what you’re designing. With sites that offer a pool of pre-recruited testers you almost have to rule-out the novice user however, with a smaller sample set, if a pattern develops with a high severity rating, you can have more confidence that it’s truly a problem. The best thing about it is true of all Usability testing; nothing gets a stakeholders attention like human beings in the wild struggling or succeeding with their app.

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Prototype SomethingA picture may be worth a thousand words but a moving picture is worth more. Apps areabout fluid design and the closer you can get to demonstrating that, the easier it is to divorce app design from web design which tends to move screen by screen. There are several tools available and your choice will depend on several factors; cost, client understanding, learning curve, etc. Regardless, if you can explain a sequence of actions rather than trying to explain the connective tissue between states, your arguments will be easier to keep focused.

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Choose Carefully and CombineUX, no matter how you wear it and no matter where you apply it is a game of assessment. The more you can put in your toolbox, the more you have to draw upon when the time comes. UX is also a game of confidence; confidence in yourself to sell it credibly and confidence gained so that others will trust in you and believe in the outcome enough to protect it when the pressures of time and cost come to bear (and they will). You may find yourself on the curb watching while a project hurtles inexorably toward a foreseeable outcome, mediocre at best, disastrous at the worst. Stay at it.

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I want to leave you with this quote which I got from one of the design evangelists at Apple. [Quote] Hopefully this story has a shelf life and it won’t be long before you’ve allbuilt out an app or two and seen for yourself the differences in developing for a truly new media after all, the app store was established less than 6 years ago. In 6 more years,who knows what devices and uses we’ll be called upon to design toward? No matter what they are, there will be persistent element of user experience that continue to be true but every innovation will give rise to new attributes, behaviors and expectations. It will be our job to observe, evaluate and solve problems and extend the limits they present.

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See Deck for Book Recommendations – Slides #27-29

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See Deck for appendices – Slides #32 - 42