Application modernization

DAN SAPIR 1
Application Modernization with Process-Driven User Interface
The New Competitive Frontier
Executive Summary -
It’s a new world of applications. Diminished returns from outsourcing and new digital technologies are
forcing IT professionals to modernize enterprise applications to evolve and become drivers of growth,
innovation and increased productivity. Application modernization is a proven, value-creating approach to
updating enterprise application.
According to a new CIO survey (source: CIO & Computerworld publications), application development, for
the purpose of modernizing, is a high-priority initiative for organizations across all industry lines. It’s
especially significant for financial institutions with heavy investment in legacy application, where 73%
percent of the respondents see such modernization as a “must” over the next 12 months. The reason -
because in this digital economy, every bank has to keep up with the “Joneses” within reasonable
operating margins and despite regulatory pressure.
Another research commissioned by Avanade, to find out what issues and challenges IT professionals face
when it comes to rapid application development, as well as modernization. The study explored current
trends in application development and the impact of new technologies on how IT is expected to develop
applications for enterprise users and customers. It found three areas businesses are looking to address:
 User experience and UI design – with emphasis on user-centric methodology
 Move to faster and shorter development cycles – automating some aspects of the development cycle
 Drive transformational digital applications – Cloud-based, SaaS, and Mobile
At the same time IT decision makers are being challenged to come up with effective strategies to take
advantage of these new business demands, and are finding that the right skills to address these new
requirements are in short supply. ENTER MOSAICS™:
Mosaics™ was developed by computer scientists with extensive knowledge in user-centered design (UCD)
methodology that calls for the optimization of how users do their work within an enterprise business
process, in the actual user interface design. Here is how Mosaics addresses the above findings in the
Avanade commissioned study:
 User experience and UI design
Most IT Decision Makers acknowledge the fundamental
change in users’ expectations, where the majority
believe that an application’s user interface and user
experience are now crucial to users satisfaction and
productivity
Mosaics™ addresses the entire spectrum of the User
Interaction Layer of an enterprise application including, input
screens outline and behavior, business flow and navigation,
context and orientation, collaboration, etc.
Whereas a typical User Interface (UI) is, for the most part, a
data-driven electronic forms for data display and
manipulation, Mosaics™, process-driven User Interaction
Layer is built to reflect the way users work, measured by
improved productivity and accuracy.

DAN SAPIR 2
 Move to faster shorter
development cycles
Over 90% of IT decision makers in the Avanade study feel
there is a need to accelerate the time it takes to bring new
applications to the market; 70% say they are undertaking
fewer top-down multi-year application development
projects; less than a third say their development processes
are agile enough to develop and deploy as quickly as
needed.
The User Interface layer is defined using Mosaics™ Design Pad
(MDP), during requirements capturing and detailed design
phases. Mosaics then uses its built-in design rulebook to:
1. Automatically generate an optimized, production-ready
User-Interface requiring no additional coding.
2. Automatically generate a detailed design document
based on user requirements captured using MDP
3. Provide an interface for integration with the business and
data layers.
The benefits:
 30% time & cost reduction in the overall application
development cycle
 80% time & cost reduction in UI requirements
gathering, development and QA cycles
 Drive transformational digital
applications
A cohesive digital strategy is essential to unlocking new
value, increasing productivity and lowering costs. The
rise of connected digital technologies including cloud,
mobile and social have left organizations with
fragmented approaches to dealing with these forces
which could lead to poorer outcomes and maintenance
and integration challenges further down the road.
In order to maintain corporate data security, and compliance
with regulations, Mosaics™ enables enterprises to load the
User Interaction Layer to the cloud, while keeping their
sensitive data and application business on premises.
Enterprise applications tend to have heavy-loaded screens
that are very difficult to render on mobile devices much
smaller screens.
However, Mosaics™ User Interaction interface to the
business logic and data layers is completely open to any
external user interface. This allows enterprises to build
customized mobile applications and integrate them to
existing underlying layers, thus avoiding any redundant
development.
Reality Check – User Experience is the New Competitive Frontier
When development experiences tight timeframes or teams react to heavy weight front-end design
methods, in-depth work with users may be resisted. Development teams often contend that developer
intuition, expert user advisors, and lightweight usability testing is enough to collect user needs. But such
an approach although quicker does not ensure a high quality product or applications that work for the
people who will use them.
Why it matters:
With current development approaches, there is a separation between gathering and communicating user
requirements versus communicating design specifications. With Mosaics™ user requirements are used to
automatically generate the user interface. With Mosaics™ user requirements are in effect the user
interface itself. Mosaics™ allows the developer to focus on application logic and back-end integration.
The Avanade commissioned study, conducted by the independent technology market research specialist
Vanson Bourne, captured the growing importance of UI design and the need for faster time-to-market at
reduced development costs:

DAN SAPIR 3
Research Categories Avanade Study Findings How Mosaics™ does it
Growing Importance of
UI
 97% believe that good UI and Design are critical
to user satisfaction and productivity
 85% believe it will become even more
important in the next 12 months
 Only 71% say they are currently prioritizing it
Mosaics™ incorporates a built-in UI design
rulebook that manages all aspects of the User
Interaction Layer navigation and behavior,
including:
 User-Centric navigation and process flow
rules
 UI screen outline, behavior and dynamics
Back-end Integration  97% say that successful applications need to
deliver good design with good back-end
integration capabilities
 only 65% say that external vendors are able to
deliver this
Mosaics™ provides an interface that enables any
Java or .NET classes to interact with the User
Interface. This facilitates back-end integration,
especially if the back-end, or any part of it is
wrapped by Web Services (SOA)
Faster Time-to-Results  100% say that there is a need to accelerate the
time it takes to bring new applications to
market
 62% are undertaking fewer top-down multi-
year development projects
 Only 65% say that their application
development processes are agile enough to
meet their needs
Mosaics™ automatically generates the entire
User Interaction Layer providing exceptional
user-experience.
It manages application flow and users navigation,
turning business logic into discrete components,
easier to develop and simpler to maintain.
Mosaics saves developers 80% in development
time/efforts by allowing:
a. Business systems analysts to deliver UI design
specifications dramatically faster and of a
much higher-quality.
b. Developers do not need to develop any UI
code
c. QA teams can focus on testing business logic.
They can increase the pace of testing and
handover a higher-quality application.
Impact of Business Unit
IT
 Business units are developing their own
applications in 93% of organizations
 In 85% of instances, these applications are built
with the assistance of external developers
Mosaics™ architecture allow IT managers and
developers to maintain control of enterprise
application development, and deliver a high
quality, user-centric and production-ready UI in
20% of the time of any other approach.

DAN SAPIR 4
Applications that connect us to the world and enhance all aspects of our lives are exploding. As users, we
can’t get enough. But this meteoric growth poses a challenge for enterprises of all sizes and in every
industry. Why? It boils down to the key difference between how you approach your traditional
applications (systems of record) and the “new way” of creating systems of engagement, which provide a
platform for you to differentiate yourself and drive innovation as demanded by your organization. To
achieve this, your applications must be intuitive, adaptive and simple so you can:
 Create value and deepen your relationship with customers through intuitive experiences across
devices
 Adapt to new environments by modernizing existing application while delivering speed and scale
 Build and manage applications across a variety of back-end environments on a simplified,
integrated architecture
Welcome to the age of IT Consumerization
According to Gartner, “consumerization is the specific impact that consumer-oriented technology can
have on enterprises. It reflects how enterprise will be affected by, and can take advantage of, new
technologies and models……..Consumerization is not a strategy or something to be adopted.
Consumerization can be embraced and it must be dealt with, but it cannot be stopped.”
Gartner found that demand for customer-facing applications is exploding—and it’s driven as much by IT
strategy as by business needs from Marketing, Sales, and HR in most, if not all, market sectors. With
increased volume comes increased complexity, and with increased complexity often comes reduced
control over the application development life cycle. Further complicating things is the need for
application modernization across the enterprise. Put simply, application modernization is the re-
development and adaptation of an existing software application to allow it to continue to be used by the
business and to integrate with new systems.
The Avanade research supports Gartner’s contention, stating that in 90% of enterprises surveyed, 66%
say that the impact of consumerization and the need for application modernization on application
development is significant. The resulting impact is captured in the table below:
An effort to deploy applications more quickly
An effort to develop smaller targeted solutions
An increased focus on user-centric design
Applications that run across multiple devices
None of the above
90%
84%
78%
74%
0%

DAN SAPIR 5
The Avanade study found that despite the fact that many IT managers and developers believe that user-
centric UI design is important, few are actually incorporating it during the application development
process be it a new development or modernizing an existing one.
In response to the question: “how important is the design of UI and user experience during application
development in your organization at present”, respondents said:
It is critical to application development
It is very important to application development
It is important to application development
It is un-important to application development
68%
29%
3%
0%
The Mosaics Approach -
Mosaics™, from Adapt Technologies, takes a different approach. Mosaics™ has been specifically designed
to achieve business goals with its innovative, patent pending UI rulebook based on user-centric standards
and methodology. Mosaics™ addresses the three main areas of effective UI design:
 User Interface Design Automation – Mosaics™ reduces by 80% the cost of requirements gathering
and UI design and development. Once requirements are agreed to, three things happen:
o Mosaics™ automatically generates a detailed design document – based on user
requirements
o Mosaics™ automatically generates the user interaction layer, AKA User Interface (UI)
o The UI layer is separated from the content layer (data-model, application logic, database,
legacy code, web-services etc...) Mosaics™ provides an interface between the layers,
ensuring that they remain loosely-coupled
 User Centered Design (UCD) Standards – The UI reflects the optimal way of how users should do
their work within an enterprise business application. This optimization is built into the actual user
interface design, hence User-Centric Design
 User Productivity – A direct outcome of the above. Users can process more transaction, more
quickly and with far fewer mistakes – That’s where the real business value lies
Several industry publications (CIO, Computerworld, InfoWorld and IT World,) have reported that demand
for customer-facing apps is exploding. The demand is driven by both, IT strategy as by business needs
from Marketing, Sales, and HR. In addition, the need for application modernization across the enterprise -
the re-development/adaptation of an existing software application to allow it to continue to be used by
the business and to integrate with new systems – is growing as well further complicating matters.

DAN SAPIR 6
Application modernization is worth the effort and the benefits are real. In addition to improving the
customer experience, application modernization can yield significant cost reductions (up to 80 percent).
When factoring in the future additional cost of maintaining continued compliance, this is substantial.
The above is also supported by the Avanade study where 78% of respondents are putting an increased
focus on user-centric design. In addition, 70% believe that an interface designed to offers the best user
experience is essential to successful adoption of applications:
In response to the question: “Do you agree that a good user interface (UI) design and user experience
have significant impact on satisfaction with an application?” respondents said:
Agree
Disagree
Neutral
97%
1%
2%
Achieving Faster Results with Mosaics -
Application users are becoming more accustomed to applications being quickly deployed and updated. As
a result of application modernization and consumerization, IT shops are making great efforts to deploy
applications more quickly. Mosaics™ reduces time-to-results (AKA, time-to-market), significantly. On
average developers will realize a 50%-60% reduction in development efforts and cost. Here is how:
Using Mosaics™ Design Pad (MDP), business systems analysts gather all user requirements and
provide developers with:
1. An automatically generated and fully implemented user-interaction layer together with an
interface to business logic and database layers.
2. A detailed design document containing a list of discrete, well-structured subject-matter
requirements.
There are several, important benefits provided by Mosaics, including:
Less code, more reliable – Increased productivity and lower development costs
Mosaics™ provides developers with a fully implemented and functional user interaction,
therefore the total amount of code to be developed is dramatically reduced
Developers do not need to be UX experts – Mosaics™ provides the know-how
The user-interaction layer generated by Mosaics provides unmatched user experience at no
development time or cost at all. The reason – it’s based on accepted User Centric Design (UCD)
principles and standards.
Developers do not need to be technology experts – Mosaics™ handles it all
Event handling, DOM manipulation, parsing/serialization, data binding/rendering, AJAX
programming, http requests session and persistence management...,

DAN SAPIR 7
All of the above is either handled by Mosaics or replaced by it. Programmers do not need to
become Web-based GUI techies and can focus on their subject-matter domain of expertise.
This also supported by the Avanade study. In response to question, “Is there a need to accelerate the time
it takes to bring new applications to market within your organization?”
Yes – It is the most important factor during development
Yes – a significant need
Yes – some need
No
74%
19%
7%
0%
Legacy Application Modernization with Mosaics -
According to InformationWeek, nearly 70% of enterprise are using legacy applications to run their daily
operations. While companies are under pressure to increase competitiveness and to improve service
delivery through newer technologies, most are not in a position to abandon their existing legacy
applications. Legacy applications are essential to their operations and represent millions of dollars in
investment. At the same time, however, legacy applications are costly to maintain and often lack the
flexibility to meet changing market demands.
We understand the need for organizations to make the most of their legacy systems while taking
advantage of newer technologies. The Mosaics™ platform offers advanced legacy application
modernization capabilities. It enables the replacement of outdated legacy user interface with modern,
User-Centric interface that provides a much improved user experience, while preserving existing
application logic and database and, substantially reducing cost of ownership. Consider the following
options:
Rewriting all legacy applications
Legacy applications consists of hundreds of man-years investment. It is often said that they
contain the enterprises’ DNA - business logic, business process flow, regulatory compliance rules
and practices, and more. The cost of a re-write, the time it will take and the risks involved, is
rarely justified.
Off-the-shelf application replacements
When it comes to running and enterprise core operations, it is very rare, if at all, that an off-the-
shelf product can entirely replace the legacy application. Often, off-the-shelf applications fail to
deliver a complete solution that will justify the investment.
When it comes to application modernization, there are three main challenge organizations face:
1. Improve user productivity - replace/enhance the application’s existing business processes and
user interaction layer (AKA User Interface)

DAN SAPIR 8
2. Preserve the huge investment in the data and application logic layer – This layer represents a
core asset that can be effectively leveraged
3. Fast time-to-delivery (AKA time-to-market) at a reasonable cost
The Benefits of Modernizing with Mosaics™
Modern development methodologies and tools are “Object Oriented” while legacy applications are
“Procedural”. Migrating procedural code to maintainable object oriented is practically impossible. With
Mosaics™ there is no need to convert procedural code into object oriented code.
Human work-processes have always been procedural, and Mosaics™ User Interaction Layer is an exact
reflection of them. The way Mosaics handles flow and navigation together with the generated interface
to the business logic layer provide an effective way to:
 “Peel off” the existing, outdated user-interface
 Attach the remaining code (i.e. the business logic) to the new user interaction layer
The approach Mosaics™ takes to modernization legacy applications is as follows:
1. Design an optimized, process-driven, user-centric interface layer with no consideration to legacy
code constraints – the UI is generated automatically based on gathered user requirements
2. Follow the various navigation paths along the new user interaction layer and identify the
services/actions to be provided/executed by existing legacy code
3. Use Mosaics™ generated interface to communicate with the relevant legacy code.
This approach yields substantial benefits to the enterprise:
 Preserves core IT assets – legacy code and staff
 Provides economic benefits
a. 80% cost reduction in UI development
b. User centric design improves productivity (processing more transactions in less time)
 Meeting current business requirements – modern interface based on business flow
 Ensuring long-term business continuity – no need to disrupt business flow with application re-
write
 Cost effective -
Summary -
There is no question that improved user Experience, and as an outcome increased productivity, is a new
competitive frontier. Most IT decision makers realize that users’ expectations of enterprise applications
has fundamentally changed, with user interface (UI) becoming essential to success.

DAN SAPIR 9
Furthermore while this is an area where most organizations rely on outside vendors, organizations often
struggle to find vendors with the required level of design expertise or those who combine design
expertise with good backend integration skills.
This is where Mosaics™ offers the most value. With its automatic generation of a UI based on its built-in
User-Centric Design rulebook to ensure exceptional user experience, providing substantial economies in
reducing development costs and time-to-deployment, while increasing productivity and reducing error
rate.
All of this indicates that Mosaics™ can provide organization with a new competitive edge and enterprises
need to make it an integral part of application development life cycle, be it application modernization or
new development. Mosaics™ by design brings a combination of design and integration expertise in a
single platform.

Application modernization

More Related Content

What's hot

Viewers also liked

Similar to Application modernization

Recently uploaded

Application modernization