App-Centric Operators on the Rise mobile trends_charging_report_h1_2014_lr_...Abdallah Nabulsi
As the evolution of data plans continues, unlimited data plans are becoming an offering of the past. Operators are moving away from actions that degrade QoE such as throttling Internet speed and when usage exceeds the volume cap; they simply charge the overage and maintain QoE. As tablets have proliferated during the last
two years, shared data plans have taken off (especially on LTE networks) and now come with various data sharing options. Data plans are evolving to accommodate
the different devices connecting to the mobile Internet, including tablets, dongles, and smartphones.
App-Centric Operators on the Rise mobile trends_charging_report_h1_2014_lr_...Abdallah Nabulsi
As the evolution of data plans continues, unlimited data plans are becoming an offering of the past. Operators are moving away from actions that degrade QoE such as throttling Internet speed and when usage exceeds the volume cap; they simply charge the overage and maintain QoE. As tablets have proliferated during the last
two years, shared data plans have taken off (especially on LTE networks) and now come with various data sharing options. Data plans are evolving to accommodate
the different devices connecting to the mobile Internet, including tablets, dongles, and smartphones.
Our recap of CES 2014 and the Digital Health Summit:
On the plane ride home from CES 2014, we reflected on this year’s big surprise. It wasn’t a TV (sorry, Samsung), but the massive expansion of the health and fitness section. Not only were there exponentially more booths than last year, but health and fitness was easily one of the most crowded spaces, ranking up there with driverless cars.
With so much innovation in wearable health devices, it’s easy to see where established players and new startups are placing bets. The fact is, the healthcare landscape is shifting at breakneck pace in response to, and anticipation of, changing customer needs, government regulations, and technological advancements. Increasingly, patients are partnering with doctors to manage their health, motivated not just by their wellbeing, but financial incentives. The era of understanding and managing your own health is here, and the innovation is happening. It’s now down to the discipline of designing with people to create the solutions they really need. If we can do this—whether we're deriving meaning from data, connecting patients and doctors, or empowering people to take better care of themselves—we’ll all be better off. It’s about our health, after all.
Instead of creating yet another list of the best health and fitness gadgets at CES 2014, we looked at the trends shaping the healthcare revolution, from regulatory changes to patient and doctor needs. Here’s what we learned.
You can also view the presentation here:
www.comradeagency.com/thinking/the-future-of-digital-health
Easy-to-follow tips for a better user experience.
An effective UX strategy requires advanced planning – but what if you can't spare the time or are handed an existing design? We've highlighted 10 easy-to-follow principles you can immediately apply to improve the user experience design of any digital product.
Balancing Fraud & Customer Experience in a Mobile WorldComrade
Consumers’ reliance on mobile continues to skyrocket in shopping, paying for bills, managing finances and socializing. This poses a great challenge for retailers, financial institutions and technology vendors. Digital account opening is fraught with pitfalls as the identity validation process relies on manual entry of personal information. Similarly account management uses knowledge-based authentication but can add friction to the user experience. How should retailers, banks and merchants integrate fraud protection measures into the user experience with the least amount of friction to the user?
I joined joined Al Pascual from Javelin Strategy & Research in a complimentary webinar to share lessons learned from working with leading companies that have struggled with the issue of fraud and customer experience.
We explored the following:
- Who are leaders in integrating fraud prevention into the user experience?
- Who owns the fraud prevention process in the organization?
- How to overcome legacy design issues that can underwhelm the customer experience and inhibit security measures?
- How to prevent fraud in a low-friction environment, while communicating a security-forward brand experience?
Gen Y consumers will earn 46% of the income in the United States by 2025, but they’re often misunderstood or ignored by financial services providers. This is especially true when it comes to online and mobile behavior and attitudes toward traditional banking.
Understanding this problem and designing to overcome it is critical to our work at Comrade, so we’re pleased to have partnered with Javelin Strategy & Research to publish “The Three Costliest Myths about Gen Y". This report applies consumer data to dispel the myths circulating in financial services today about Gen Y consumers. Beyond exposing pervasive misconceptions, it also explains how to optimize digital and physical touchpoints to attract tomorrow’s most profitable bank customers.
It's Not All Improv: 9 Improvisation Lessons That Can Make You a Better Prese...Comrade
Over the past year, I’ve noticed a shift in the way we present our work and ourselves. As we’ve grown our expertise in financial services and our individual disciplines, we’ve become more comfortable doing what we do best. We’re more natural, friendly and confident. To acknowledge and support this shift, I sought out a way to make us even better at being unscripted.
After vetting various organizations, we invited Chris and Ann from LifePlays to facilitate an improv workshop at Comrade. For a few hours one afternoon, we stepped away from client work, formed a circle and jumped into the fundamentals of improv. By the end of the day, we were applying improvisational techniques to realistic work scenarios. Passing the “yellow ball” and encouraging each other with “yes, and…,” we found inspiration and confidence, and succeeded in helping everyone sound brilliant.
It's been some time since we completed the workshop, but every day we’re embracing the lessons we learned. Our conversations are more balanced and energetic, both with our clients and each other. We’re better at listening and supporting each other to keep ideas bubbling forth.
Through improv we've become better comrades. I couldn’t have hoped for a better result.
Here are some improvisation tips that have helped us be better presenters and teammates.
Our recap of CES 2014 and the Digital Health Summit:
On the plane ride home from CES 2014, we reflected on this year’s big surprise. It wasn’t a TV (sorry, Samsung), but the massive expansion of the health and fitness section. Not only were there exponentially more booths than last year, but health and fitness was easily one of the most crowded spaces, ranking up there with driverless cars.
With so much innovation in wearable health devices, it’s easy to see where established players and new startups are placing bets. The fact is, the healthcare landscape is shifting at breakneck pace in response to, and anticipation of, changing customer needs, government regulations, and technological advancements. Increasingly, patients are partnering with doctors to manage their health, motivated not just by their wellbeing, but financial incentives. The era of understanding and managing your own health is here, and the innovation is happening. It’s now down to the discipline of designing with people to create the solutions they really need. If we can do this—whether we're deriving meaning from data, connecting patients and doctors, or empowering people to take better care of themselves—we’ll all be better off. It’s about our health, after all.
Instead of creating yet another list of the best health and fitness gadgets at CES 2014, we looked at the trends shaping the healthcare revolution, from regulatory changes to patient and doctor needs. Here’s what we learned.
You can also view the presentation here:
www.comradeagency.com/thinking/the-future-of-digital-health
Easy-to-follow tips for a better user experience.
An effective UX strategy requires advanced planning – but what if you can't spare the time or are handed an existing design? We've highlighted 10 easy-to-follow principles you can immediately apply to improve the user experience design of any digital product.
Balancing Fraud & Customer Experience in a Mobile WorldComrade
Consumers’ reliance on mobile continues to skyrocket in shopping, paying for bills, managing finances and socializing. This poses a great challenge for retailers, financial institutions and technology vendors. Digital account opening is fraught with pitfalls as the identity validation process relies on manual entry of personal information. Similarly account management uses knowledge-based authentication but can add friction to the user experience. How should retailers, banks and merchants integrate fraud protection measures into the user experience with the least amount of friction to the user?
I joined joined Al Pascual from Javelin Strategy & Research in a complimentary webinar to share lessons learned from working with leading companies that have struggled with the issue of fraud and customer experience.
We explored the following:
- Who are leaders in integrating fraud prevention into the user experience?
- Who owns the fraud prevention process in the organization?
- How to overcome legacy design issues that can underwhelm the customer experience and inhibit security measures?
- How to prevent fraud in a low-friction environment, while communicating a security-forward brand experience?
Gen Y consumers will earn 46% of the income in the United States by 2025, but they’re often misunderstood or ignored by financial services providers. This is especially true when it comes to online and mobile behavior and attitudes toward traditional banking.
Understanding this problem and designing to overcome it is critical to our work at Comrade, so we’re pleased to have partnered with Javelin Strategy & Research to publish “The Three Costliest Myths about Gen Y". This report applies consumer data to dispel the myths circulating in financial services today about Gen Y consumers. Beyond exposing pervasive misconceptions, it also explains how to optimize digital and physical touchpoints to attract tomorrow’s most profitable bank customers.
It's Not All Improv: 9 Improvisation Lessons That Can Make You a Better Prese...Comrade
Over the past year, I’ve noticed a shift in the way we present our work and ourselves. As we’ve grown our expertise in financial services and our individual disciplines, we’ve become more comfortable doing what we do best. We’re more natural, friendly and confident. To acknowledge and support this shift, I sought out a way to make us even better at being unscripted.
After vetting various organizations, we invited Chris and Ann from LifePlays to facilitate an improv workshop at Comrade. For a few hours one afternoon, we stepped away from client work, formed a circle and jumped into the fundamentals of improv. By the end of the day, we were applying improvisational techniques to realistic work scenarios. Passing the “yellow ball” and encouraging each other with “yes, and…,” we found inspiration and confidence, and succeeded in helping everyone sound brilliant.
It's been some time since we completed the workshop, but every day we’re embracing the lessons we learned. Our conversations are more balanced and energetic, both with our clients and each other. We’re better at listening and supporting each other to keep ideas bubbling forth.
Through improv we've become better comrades. I couldn’t have hoped for a better result.
Here are some improvisation tips that have helped us be better presenters and teammates.