Beyond Strategy: Building Your Mobile Capabilities
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Join Raj Polikepati, Director of Application Development at Texas.gov, as he leads a practical discussion about how to act on your mobile strategy. A panel of mobile savvy leaders present different mobile technologies and the pros and cons of each as they pertain to the eGovernment space. They will also address skill requirements, API services, and architectural features
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Beyond Strategy: Building Your Mobile Capabilities
- 1. Beyond Strategy: Building Your Mobile Capabilities Presented by: Raj Polikepati Director of App Development Texas.gov TASSCC Technology Education Conference April 10, 2015
- 2. 4/15/2015 2 Agenda Objectives of Mobile Strategy Mobile 101 Technology Options API/Data Team Roles & Responsibilities Building Mobile Skills & Competency Closing Thoughts
- 3. Start by asking the right questions – “Will mobile …” Improve agency results? Reach a targeted constituent niche? Include features that are needed? Benefit internal operations? Be adequately funded? Require a significant commitment? Deliver larger benefits? 3 Identify Your Real Objectives
- 4. Constituent / User Easily accessible info High expectations Simple, easy-to-use mobile experience Different needs depending on service (1x/day vs. 1x/year) Speed and safety 4/15/2015 Agency Easy to interact with Transparent Timely responses Fiscally responsible Internal effectiveness / efficiency Maximize technology resources 4 Identify Your Real Objectives Consider constituent and agency perspectives
- 5. 4/15/2015 5 Mobile Features Geo-location • Leverages GPS hardware on your device to pinpoint locations • Searches for what’s nearby (buildings, addresses, parks, restaurants, etc.) • Provides turn-by-turn directions • Enables sharing of location with others • Geotags photos taken with phone Personal Data / History • Information stored locally on device • Contact info/lists • GPS location • Browsing & download history • Cached data • Images Google Maps Map My Run Find My Phone Local Businesses 54% of mobile users who download apps decided not to install a phone app when they discovered how much personal info they need to share in order to use it.
- 6. 4/15/2015 6 Mobile Features Camera • Able to take digital still photos and videos • Input device for other applications • Scanner • Object recognition to provide information about that object • Web cam for video conferencing • Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Push Notifications • Send information to users even when the app isn’t in use • Keep users updated on activity that occurs within the application(s)
- 7. 4/15/2015 7 Technology Options - Landscape Native Hybrid Responsive Design Single Platform Multiple Platforms Full Capability Partial Capability Native Framework
- 8. Pros Best usability, features, and overall mobile experience Richer functionality and graphical effects Full access to device functions and sensors Presence on the app store Fast startup and access (after initial download) Content is generally available off-line Users are generally more engaged with the application 4/15/2015 Cons Individual code for each platform Requires knowledgeable programming resource Limits audience Requires redistribution for updates and maintenance Requires app store vendor approval Increases privacy concerns 8 What is a Native Mobile App? Software developed for a specific mobile device platform and a specific language
- 9. Pros Device and browser agnostic Easier to develop and support Improved SEO single code base Site not downloaded via an App Store No costly, future upgrades when new mobile devices hit market Consistent user experience across all devices Very scalable approach Leverage some phone features with HTML5 4/15/2015 Cons Cross-browser and device incompatibilities Slower load times Content is not necessarily mobile- friendly When you are serving the same HTML, source order cannot be changed No app store presence, so limited discoverability 9 What is Mobile Responsive Design? Serves the same HTML to every device and adapts its presentation based on the device’s specific capabilities
- 10. Pros Reaches widest range of devices Leverages same code as website Easier to develop & support App store presence Faster development process than native apps Provides offline modes for access without network connectivity Bill content delivered via web apps independently, such as by subscription 4/15/2015 Cons Performance slightly diminished Users expect similar experience as native app Software downloads from web required Available only through dedicated app stores Requires some app store approval and updates 10 What is Hybrid Mobile Design? Native mobile experience, with advantage of write once, run anywhere
- 12. 4/15/2015 12 Will the app be used frequently? Do you have plenty of time and resources? Responsive Design Web Application Yes No Hybrid or Responsive Design Yes No Will it be used by employees or constituents? Is the app highly interactive? Constituents Yes No Hybrid Employees Do you need to support multiple operating systems? No Native Yes Start Here Which MOBILE architecture is right for YOU?
- 13. Considerations BEFORE you launch your mobile strategy - this is what you’ll have to live with post-launch … • Operating costs – all mobile initiatives have incremental costs including Native, Responsive Design, and Hybrid • You will be living in a new world – developer skills, social skills, constituent’s mobile expectations • Extremely fast-changing technologies – need to keep up or else • Consider a “Think Mobile First” design approach when developing new applications – helps with usability and effectiveness of mobile and desktop apps 4/15/2015 13 Ongoing Ownership & Operations
- 14. 4/15/2015 14 APIs: Where Rubber Meets the Road Application is only as good as the data Write once; invoke everywhere Multi-channel delivery • Desktop web/native mobile/responsive • Kiosk/Over-the-Counter (OTC) • Interagency integrations, data warehouse Open API Strategy • Crowdsourcing App Dev • Cross-Agency GovDelivery • Lower cost of ownership
- 15. 4/15/2015 15 APIs: SOAP vs. Restful
- 16. 4/15/2015 16 API: Restful 101
- 17. Supports Native, Hybrid, and Responsive Apps • Restful • API Versioning • Progressive Enhancement • Fine-grained • Secured access • Caching/CDN 4/15/2015 17 Mobile-Optimized APIs
- 18. Product Manager User Interface/User Experience Experts Engineering Quality Assurance 4/15/2015 18 Roles & Responsibilities “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success." --Henry Ford
- 19. CEO of the App • What’s different? – Mobile Ecosystem vs. business SME – Extensive behavioral research – Device-centric vs. consistent look and feel 4/15/2015 19 Mobile Product Manager – Who?
- 20. What’s different? • Interrupt Driven • Highly Contextual • Device-centric design • Design for limitations 4/15/2015 20 User Experience Expert
- 21. What’s Important? • Thrives in iterative/agile environment • Instrumentation of metrics • Focus on fine-grained API’s (vs. composite services) • PolyGlot (Objective C/Swift/Java(Android)/HT ML/CSS/JS) 4/15/2015 21 Engineering
- 22. Pragmatic app testing Comprehensive testing on each device Right mix of real devices and emulators In-the-wild testing Attention to metrics Most importantly – PERSEVERANCE!!! 4/15/2015 22 QA
- 23. Responsive Web & Native Texas.gov Site Templates – Contact Us • Good resources on – Team Treehouse – Code School – www.AListApart.com – Lynda.com – Apple iOS Developer – Android Developer • Great Prototype Collaboration Website: Invisionapp.com 4/15/2015 23 Mobile Skills and Competencies
- 24. For Responsive, start with a framework like Twitter Bootstrap, Gumby While developing, use the built-in “responsive design view” tool in Firefox or Chrome Highly recommend the “Responsive Design” book from A Book Apart Programming in Objective-C (6th Edition) (Developer's Library) - By Stephen G. Kochan 4/15/2015 24 Mobile Skills and Competencies
- 25. Hybrid Mobile • PhoneGap • Appcelerator Titanium • Mobile Angular UI • Sencha Touch 4/15/2015 25 Mobile Skills and Competencies
- 26. 4/15/2015 26 A scalable approach is always repeatable Experiment with approach from time to time Leverage API benefits for mobile governance Choices are abundant with pros and cons Adopt the tools that your team is most comfortable Mobile-First shift is less technical and more cultural Designated champion – Product Manager Real use cases will get sponsorship!!! Closing Thoughts
- 27. 4/15/2015 27 Raj Polikepati Director of Development rpolikepati@egov.com 512-651-9801 Daniel Moreno Outreach Associate dmoreno@egov.com 512-651-9803 Contacts
Editor's Notes
- Objectives help with determining the technology approach. This is key – technology is important, but you need to focus on objectives first. Easy to get lost in technology, if objectives are not clearly defined. What will mobile specifically do to improve your agency results? Do you have a specific constituent niche that you need to reach? Do you have a clear picture of features that are needed – geo location, social, push notifications, constituent convenience? Are there agency internal operations that could benefit from mobile? What level of investment (people, dollars) is appropriate – how much to spend? How committed are you to mobile – hobby or all in? Is there a “killer app” that could deliver large benefits? Do you have a champion that can help make mobile a success?
- Next level of understanding objectives is to consider Constituent and Agency perspectives. Constituent / User Wants information at their fingertips Expects that government is as effective as private sector Wants a simple, easy-to-use mobile experience Have different needs depending on application – 1x / day vs. 1x / year Expects mobile sites to load as fast or faster than desktop sites Agency Wants to be easy to interact with Strives to be transparent Needs immediate responses and interactions with constituents Must apply limited budget smartly Could use mobile to improve internal effectiveness / efficiency Needs to maximize use of technology resources
- Researching Mobile Features is next step in developing your Mobile Strategy. Personal data/history: The Pew Internet Project survey found that 54 percent of mobile users who download apps have decided to not install a cell phone app when they discovered how much personal information they would need to share in order to use it. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2198856/Fears-privacy-leading-app-revolt-researchers-find.html#ixzz277pooTI8
- Camera A mobile camera able to take digital still photos and videos and used as an input device for other applications Scanner (bar codes, QR codes, business cards, documents, images, etc) Object recognition to provide information about that object (augmented reality) Web cam for video conferencing (Skype) Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Push Notifications A way for an app to send information to your phone (via a badge, alert, or pop up message) even when the app isn’t in use To keep you updated on activity that occurs within the application(s)
- Native and Responsive Design are “bookends” of Mobile technology.
- On one end of the “bookend” scale is Native Mobile – think “app store.” Pros Typically provides the best usability, best features, and best overall mobile experience. Richer functionality and graphical effects Full access to device functions and sensors (camera, GPS, push notifications, calendar, microphone, contacts, accelerometer, etc.) Presence on the app store MarketPlace (iTunes/Android/Windows Phone) Fast in startup and access (after initial downloaded) since it’s one tap from the screen Content is generally available off-line Users are generally more engaged with the application Cons Must develop individual code for each platform Requires programming resource with Objective-C, Java, .NET, and/or Javascript knowledge Limited audience: Application is open only to audience of that platform Requires redistribution for each future update and maintenance App store vendor approval is required Increased privacy concerns since native apps can gain access to personal data stored on the device w/o user’s consent.
- On the other end of the “bookend” is responsive design (is also called Mobile Web) Examples: Texas.gov Solutions website - http://www.texas.gov/en/Solutions/Pages/default.aspx Board of Nursing License Renewal – https://txapps.texas.gov/NASApp/bnexam/BNExamManager Mesquite Utility Payment – https://apps2.portal.texas.gov/UtilityPay/TX/COM/UtilityPayCOM/en/Welcome/Index https://txapps.texas.gov/tolapp/disasterfund/home.do List of public/private websites – http://mediaqueri.es/ Texas A&M Go Mobile - http://gomobile.tamu.edu/index.php Popular Newspaper Agency - http://www.bostonglobe.com/ Serves the same HTML to every device and adapting its presentation (mostly through CSS) based on the specific capabilities of the device being used to access it (desktop, tablet, mobile) Pros Device and browser agnostic - can reach the widest range of devices Easier to develop and support – HTML5, CSS, & Javascript knowledge Improved SEO - because your content is on the web, it's searchable Single code base – code reuse Site does not need to be downloaded via an App Store No costly, future upgrades when new mobile devices hit the market Consistent user experience across all devices Very scalable approach Leverage some phone features with HTML5 Cons Cross-browser and device incompatibilities - some mobile platforms still come with old browsers that do not support higher functions Load times tend to be slower Content is not necessarily mobile-friendly When you are serving the same HTML, source order cannot be changed No app store presence, so limited discoverability
- In the middle of the “bookends” is Hybrid Mobile – mix of Native and Responsive Design Written with the same technology used for websites and mobile web implementations that is hosted or runs inside a thin native container and provides access to native platform features on a mobile device. Native mobile experience, with advantage of “write once, run anywhere” Pros Device and browser agnostic - can reach the widest range of devices Can leverage the same code as the website Easier to develop and support – HTML5, CSS, & Javascript knowledge App Store MarketPlace presence Tends to have a faster development process over native apps Provides offline modes that can be accessed without network connectivity Content delivered through Web apps can be billed independently, such as by subscription. Cons Sacrifice small amounts of performance Does not feel or behave like a native application - users may be expecting this All or some parts of the software are downloaded from the Web each time it is run. Available only through dedicated app stores Still requires some app store approval and updates
- http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0CAcQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.getelastic.com%2Fmobile-web-native-or-hybrid-app-decision-chart%2F&ei=YcEVVbGWH8y0yASR0YHQAg&bvm=bv.89381419,d.eXY&psig=AFQjCNHpLsyp7Hrvih9uuYF6r5KTLNTi-w&ust=1427575515578225 http://www.getelastic.com/mobile-web-native-or-hybrid-app-decision-chart/ RESS is any mobile device and image replacement. Note: This shouldnt be confused with one specific implementation which is in beta at www.RESS.io
- Final consideration of evaluating your strategy: we’ve already discussed (1) Asking the right questions, (2) Discussed technology landscape – so (3) is ongoing operations/ownership
- Most applications are visualization of information which is stored as data. Due to real-estate limitation, very precise and minimal meaningful data needs to be displayed to the user and hence unlike composites, micro services providing fine-grain API. Crowdsourcing either through campaign’s, such as, Online competitions Hack-a-thons School Projects
- Reference: http://www.bamboorocketapps.com/rest-json-vs-soap-xml/ Size REST is a lot smaller and less bloated than SOAP-XML therefore you will be passing much less data over the network, which is particularly important for mobile devices. Efficiency REST-JSON is also easier to parse the data so therefore easier to extract and convert the data, so therefore requires much less from the CPU from the client. Caching REST-JSON provides improved response times and server loading due to support from caching Implementation REST-JSON interfaces are much easier to design and implement.
- Versions of the app running on the device can be updated at a different time than the new functionality addition Functionality should be progressively added. It is contrary to mindset of graceful degradation Fine-grained Most API are called from internal servers. Since the call is coming from unlimited clients a thoroughly vetted Secured Access, such as oauth, token exchange, etc Since services are restful, CDN – Content delivery networks, such as Akamai, Amazon, Azure
- Mobile Product Managers are subtle difference from traditional product managers. Need to familiar with the supporting platforms, be more ruthless and objective in selection of the toolset. Understand the dashboard vs minimalist screen info. Store optimization etc. Product Manager: Vision Roadmap Business Technology User Experience Data Analytics
- Interrupt driven – Mobile user experience is lot more interrupt driven than otherwise. So the UX navigation is lot more challenging. Contextual – Location, Camera, Fingerprint, etc Device centric, UI to follow to device best practices Size, memory, bandwidth
- The complexities of mobile are such that you cannot completely test every aspect of a mobile app. There are a number of external and internal factors to be considered, including: • Multiple devices and OS versions • Multiple networks • Multiple cloud service APIs The most pragmatic (cost and time effective) approach is to test key usage patterns (key devices, OS, carriers etc.) and focus on instrumenting the app to collect, analyze and iterate using real-world data. In the wild testing: (provided by vendors, such as, Applause, Browser Stack On a Range of Devices: On Real Devices: On-Location: different network quality Different patch sets: Not everyone is up-to-date on phone. Including the os and also the application version.
- PhoneGap – Just packages a mobile ready web application into a native app. It can be built using any home built UI or can leverage other web frameworks such as Bootstrap, Jquery Mobile, Knockout.js and/or for that matter Angular JS. There are some API to access phone hardware features and also possibly write your own custom plugins. Appcelerator – JavaScript API – Opinioned Framework with lot of conventions Mobile Angular UI is based on the most popular open source web frameworks – Angular JS and Bootstrap. Angular JS was developed originally at Google
- Scalable approach is always repeatable. Keep this as part of minimal viable product checklist always.