Presented at Float Mobile eLearning Symposium, at Chicago TechWeek, on 25 July 2012.
Buzzwords and trends in design, development and process hold much weight in our industries, and foster much arguing and staking out of opposite positions. But more of these are in fundamental agreement than is generally acknowledged, and merging approaches, much like collaborating with a varied team, can yield the most useful results.Steven will discuss the underlying principles of responsive & fluid design, progressive enhancement, adaptive design, device detection, multi-platform design, cross-platform development processes, and mobile device capabilities. He will present one possible unifying theory of how you can not just develop the shiniest iOS app, but design the best experience for your users, on every screen and with every interaction.
Responsive web design is hard and one of the most difficult things to work out is representing visual design in a flexible manner that can accurately be translated to code. In this panel we will discuss how we used InDesign to create flexible comps and rapidly iterate between multiple designers. We went with the concept of ‘just enough’ design to get us into code, where we could validate our design decisions. We will also go into how we iterated after the code was done but the design was not. We borrowed heavily from Upstatements approach to designing the Boston Globe but ran into our own unique challenges along the way.
Presenters: Brent Laverty, Georgia Cowley, Warren Schultheis, Ryan Gantz, Ted Irvine, Josh Laincz
We live in a world where almost 90% of consumers read emails on their mobile devices. It is therefore imperative for marketers to ensure that their sites and email marketing is optimized for all channels - especially mobile. Download the slides and discover practical methods to help you create the best mobile emails in 2016.
CSR 2.0 (updated): Towards Transformative BusinessWayne Visser
This presentation by Dr Wayne Visser briefly maps the past, present and future of corporate sustainability and responsibility, or CSR. It begins by defining CSR and introducing a four-part DNA Model, covering value creation, good governance, societal contribution and ecological integrity, which provides the basis for measuring CSR 2.0. It goes on to examine the evolution and current state of CSR, using Visser's five-stage maturity model: defensive, charitable, promotional, strategic and transformative CSR. The first four stages are called CSR 1.0 and characterise most current CSR practice, while the fifth stage is named CSR 2.0 (also transformative or systemic CSR) and describes emergent and future CSR practices. The metaphor of 1.0 and 2.0 is explained as an appropriate analogy for the changes needed in CSR, drawing parallels with the evolution of Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. Visser argues that CSR 1.0 approaches have failed to have any significant impact on the most serious global social, environmental and ethical challenges. Three reasons for this failure are examined, namely the incremental, peripheral and uneconomic nature of CSR 1.0 approaches. The presentation goes on to explore the emergent CSR 2.0 in detail by elaborating on five principles underlying this new approach, including: creativity, scalability, responsiveness, glocality and circularity. Each principle is explained conceptually, as well as illustrated with progressive case studies.
Responsive web design is hard and one of the most difficult things to work out is representing visual design in a flexible manner that can accurately be translated to code. In this panel we will discuss how we used InDesign to create flexible comps and rapidly iterate between multiple designers. We went with the concept of ‘just enough’ design to get us into code, where we could validate our design decisions. We will also go into how we iterated after the code was done but the design was not. We borrowed heavily from Upstatements approach to designing the Boston Globe but ran into our own unique challenges along the way.
Presenters: Brent Laverty, Georgia Cowley, Warren Schultheis, Ryan Gantz, Ted Irvine, Josh Laincz
We live in a world where almost 90% of consumers read emails on their mobile devices. It is therefore imperative for marketers to ensure that their sites and email marketing is optimized for all channels - especially mobile. Download the slides and discover practical methods to help you create the best mobile emails in 2016.
CSR 2.0 (updated): Towards Transformative BusinessWayne Visser
This presentation by Dr Wayne Visser briefly maps the past, present and future of corporate sustainability and responsibility, or CSR. It begins by defining CSR and introducing a four-part DNA Model, covering value creation, good governance, societal contribution and ecological integrity, which provides the basis for measuring CSR 2.0. It goes on to examine the evolution and current state of CSR, using Visser's five-stage maturity model: defensive, charitable, promotional, strategic and transformative CSR. The first four stages are called CSR 1.0 and characterise most current CSR practice, while the fifth stage is named CSR 2.0 (also transformative or systemic CSR) and describes emergent and future CSR practices. The metaphor of 1.0 and 2.0 is explained as an appropriate analogy for the changes needed in CSR, drawing parallels with the evolution of Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. Visser argues that CSR 1.0 approaches have failed to have any significant impact on the most serious global social, environmental and ethical challenges. Three reasons for this failure are examined, namely the incremental, peripheral and uneconomic nature of CSR 1.0 approaches. The presentation goes on to explore the emergent CSR 2.0 in detail by elaborating on five principles underlying this new approach, including: creativity, scalability, responsiveness, glocality and circularity. Each principle is explained conceptually, as well as illustrated with progressive case studies.
There are several ways that current development processes can miserably fail users and the business when trying to launch your project on multiple platforms. Massive changes, blame, or simply not understanding your missed opportunities, are the usual results.
The answer is not any of these, and certainly not to try to impose a new process. Instead, encompass all the existing processes to create a new philosophy of implementation. Avoid pitfalls and gaps, and play to the strengths of your team to operationalize a functional design and development processes.
Steven will talk about methods he's devised and used with business, analysts, and developers that make everyone happy and help assure projects actually launch.
Presented at D2WC in Kansas City on 17 March 2012
Learn how to use the Lean UX process to improve the UX without spending a lot of time and money. Create your own UX toolkit with affordable (or even free) resources.
User Centered Execution for Mobile UX DesignersSteven Hoober
The biggest barrier to good experiences (as well as the largest problem for most UX designers) is in getting well-intended, well-designed systems executed as the business owners and design teams intend. I present the problem, and a series of philosophical changes and specific tactics to alleviate this, and to work with implementation teams to get design executed correctly.
Slideshow I will present 29 Feb 2012 at 10 am PT as an O'Reilly webcast:
http://oreillynet.com/pub/e/2103
One case study, two stories, and four lessons we've learned to help developers and designers work better together, from Audrey Crane, Partner at DesignMap.
Planning & Executing Custom Drupal Integration ProjectsAchieve Internet
With the rise of Enterprise IT Systems, such as Marketo, SharePoint, and Salesforce, more organizations and clients are asking for custom integration with their third-party platforms. A common need for many organizations is integrating Drupal with these systems. A proper strategy can double the effectiveness of the integration.
Check out this webinar to find out how we plan, execute and implement successful integration projects. In this presentation you will learn the necessary processes and strategies to ensure a smooth project from start to finish. This presentation will review how to plan for integration projects and how to deal with the challenges along the way, including:
• Questions to ask at the beginning of a project
• Questions to ask your developer team at the beginning of a project
• How to effectively plan your projects
• How to manage changes to your plan
This eBook was created by Above the Fold, a user experience design agency located in Cambridge, MA, USA. For more information about Above the Fold, visit http://www.abovethefolddesign.com/
Avoiding the Heuristic Solution: Moving past functional and correct to joyful...Steven Hoober
Slideshow for the O'Reilly Webcast
"Avoiding the Heuristic Solution: Moving past functional and correct to joyful and inspiring"
To be given on 31 Jan, 2012 -- Sign up for free, now:
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/e/2102
Interactive systems can be easily made foolproof and practical, but joy and delight all too often elude the final product. This author of two books on design process and interactive patterns has discovered that strict adherence to these same processes or patterns can result directly in functional, but ultimately boring interactive products. In this discussion, you will learn how to avoid the safe answer, while still embracing proven patterns, best practices and user feedback. You will also discuss how to recognize this problem, the principles to avoid these pitfalls, and how to implement tactics to encourage innovative design for your users, and that works within your organization.
Jason Mesut: Working together to develop beautiful user experiencesUX People
Jason Mesut, his fellow Creative Director, Will Bloor, and fellow Technical Director, Phil Hawksworth discuss the aspirations and challenges of user experience specialists working together in harmony with designers and developers in order to deliver beautiful and effective user design solutions.
Why software will never be the same... Discuss why agile and lean development methodologies alone are not enough to compete in today's software startup market. Explore real-time prototyping and minimal viable experiments that can accelerate learning down to hours, not sprints.
You can’t just build a successful mobile app or website without first understanding how the user thinks and what they need from you. Everything we design and build exists as a part of an ecosystem, the physical and digital environment in which the user perceives and uses it.
In this 3-hour Masterclass, we will discuss how to think specifically about the real use cases and how to pick the right technology to meet opportunities for your organization and your users.
We will practice using existing, well-proven UX design tools and methods to understand users, and to design your mobile products to engage real people.
We’ll wrap up by reviewing the actual products you are working on, to leverage what we’ve just learned to improve them even more.
Presented as a workshop at GPeC 2019 in Bucharest. Hands on parts you have to do on your own, therefore.
It’s okay to use hamburger menus! We know how people really use their mobile phones and tablets and have developed a human-centered design system to encourage your eCommerce users to find and understand your products better to close sales more easily.
Mobile touchscreens are not new. We have data on how people use their mobile phones and tablets. We can use this to create human-centered design systems for more consistent and usable design.
In this session you will learn a very simple set of tactics to place content, create more useful interactions, and design a consistent and readable navigation and way-finding system for your eCommerce mobile app or website.
Presented at GPeC 2019 in Bucharest
There are several ways that current development processes can miserably fail users and the business when trying to launch your project on multiple platforms. Massive changes, blame, or simply not understanding your missed opportunities, are the usual results.
The answer is not any of these, and certainly not to try to impose a new process. Instead, encompass all the existing processes to create a new philosophy of implementation. Avoid pitfalls and gaps, and play to the strengths of your team to operationalize a functional design and development processes.
Steven will talk about methods he's devised and used with business, analysts, and developers that make everyone happy and help assure projects actually launch.
Presented at D2WC in Kansas City on 17 March 2012
Learn how to use the Lean UX process to improve the UX without spending a lot of time and money. Create your own UX toolkit with affordable (or even free) resources.
User Centered Execution for Mobile UX DesignersSteven Hoober
The biggest barrier to good experiences (as well as the largest problem for most UX designers) is in getting well-intended, well-designed systems executed as the business owners and design teams intend. I present the problem, and a series of philosophical changes and specific tactics to alleviate this, and to work with implementation teams to get design executed correctly.
Slideshow I will present 29 Feb 2012 at 10 am PT as an O'Reilly webcast:
http://oreillynet.com/pub/e/2103
One case study, two stories, and four lessons we've learned to help developers and designers work better together, from Audrey Crane, Partner at DesignMap.
Planning & Executing Custom Drupal Integration ProjectsAchieve Internet
With the rise of Enterprise IT Systems, such as Marketo, SharePoint, and Salesforce, more organizations and clients are asking for custom integration with their third-party platforms. A common need for many organizations is integrating Drupal with these systems. A proper strategy can double the effectiveness of the integration.
Check out this webinar to find out how we plan, execute and implement successful integration projects. In this presentation you will learn the necessary processes and strategies to ensure a smooth project from start to finish. This presentation will review how to plan for integration projects and how to deal with the challenges along the way, including:
• Questions to ask at the beginning of a project
• Questions to ask your developer team at the beginning of a project
• How to effectively plan your projects
• How to manage changes to your plan
This eBook was created by Above the Fold, a user experience design agency located in Cambridge, MA, USA. For more information about Above the Fold, visit http://www.abovethefolddesign.com/
Avoiding the Heuristic Solution: Moving past functional and correct to joyful...Steven Hoober
Slideshow for the O'Reilly Webcast
"Avoiding the Heuristic Solution: Moving past functional and correct to joyful and inspiring"
To be given on 31 Jan, 2012 -- Sign up for free, now:
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/e/2102
Interactive systems can be easily made foolproof and practical, but joy and delight all too often elude the final product. This author of two books on design process and interactive patterns has discovered that strict adherence to these same processes or patterns can result directly in functional, but ultimately boring interactive products. In this discussion, you will learn how to avoid the safe answer, while still embracing proven patterns, best practices and user feedback. You will also discuss how to recognize this problem, the principles to avoid these pitfalls, and how to implement tactics to encourage innovative design for your users, and that works within your organization.
Jason Mesut: Working together to develop beautiful user experiencesUX People
Jason Mesut, his fellow Creative Director, Will Bloor, and fellow Technical Director, Phil Hawksworth discuss the aspirations and challenges of user experience specialists working together in harmony with designers and developers in order to deliver beautiful and effective user design solutions.
Why software will never be the same... Discuss why agile and lean development methodologies alone are not enough to compete in today's software startup market. Explore real-time prototyping and minimal viable experiments that can accelerate learning down to hours, not sprints.
You can’t just build a successful mobile app or website without first understanding how the user thinks and what they need from you. Everything we design and build exists as a part of an ecosystem, the physical and digital environment in which the user perceives and uses it.
In this 3-hour Masterclass, we will discuss how to think specifically about the real use cases and how to pick the right technology to meet opportunities for your organization and your users.
We will practice using existing, well-proven UX design tools and methods to understand users, and to design your mobile products to engage real people.
We’ll wrap up by reviewing the actual products you are working on, to leverage what we’ve just learned to improve them even more.
Presented as a workshop at GPeC 2019 in Bucharest. Hands on parts you have to do on your own, therefore.
It’s okay to use hamburger menus! We know how people really use their mobile phones and tablets and have developed a human-centered design system to encourage your eCommerce users to find and understand your products better to close sales more easily.
Mobile touchscreens are not new. We have data on how people use their mobile phones and tablets. We can use this to create human-centered design systems for more consistent and usable design.
In this session you will learn a very simple set of tactics to place content, create more useful interactions, and design a consistent and readable navigation and way-finding system for your eCommerce mobile app or website.
Presented at GPeC 2019 in Bucharest
It's okay to use hamburger menus! We know how people really use their mobile phones and tablets, and have developed a human-centered design system to encourage your eCommerce users to find, understand, and transact better.
Presented at Mobile Trends Conference 2018, Krakow Poland
UX for Mobile with Steven Hoober at Pointworks AcademySteven Hoober
If you work on a team without sufficient time or resources and need to do design thinking outside your official role yourself, this workshop can help. There are roles in the workshop for product owners, information architects, interaction designers, content managers, UI/visual designers and developers.
In this course, you’ll discover:
The way digital products really work; layering, the stack and back
Proven UX design tools to get to the new needs of users, and how to think about exploiting new technologies
A brief history of design; how Swiss Modernism is what we mean by flat today
Designing by zones; touch accuracy and touch preference regions are not what you think
How to conquer Blank Page Syndrome by designing interfaces using mobile OS navigation patterns
The overlap between technology and use, including how people use different devices in different contexts at different times of the day
Design considerations unique to mobile, including features and sensors that aren’t available on desktop applications
Problems of poor connectivity, and how to plan for them; it’s not just “airplane mode”
How to create task flows that account for the user and the system all as one
Everything we design and build exists as a part of an ecosystem, the physical and digital environment
in which the user perceives and uses it. Though we should always have been designing like this, your
connected city, home and wearable devices give us an excuse to think specifically about the use and
technology to make it work best.
This session will discuss and demonstrate how to use proven UX design tools to get to the new needs
of users, and how to think about exploiting new technologies.
Participants will work as teams to create new product ideas, and develop them into workable services
by using technology and considering the user, their needs, and their environment.
Presented at UXPA-China UserFriendly 2016 in Suzhou, 17 November 2016.
Today’s world is full of open, and airy, beautiful, tediously identical, and unusable designs. Trends shouldn’t be taken too far, and we can easily make modern interfaces that work. But being authentically digital doesn’t just mean removing gradients and woodgrains.
In this workshop we’ll discuss principles, define how to make interfaces that work for real people in the real world, and redesign design your website, mobile app or other interface how people expect their various devices to work for them.
Presented at UXPA-China UserFriendly 2016 in Suzhou, 19 November 2016.
Phones Aren’t Flat: Designing for People, Data & EcosystemsSteven Hoober
A session at Society for Technical Communication (STC) Summit 2015
Tuesday 23rd June, 2015 9:45am to 10:30am
We like to think phones are flat slabs of glass our users touch, but it's not entirely true. Everything we design and build exists as a part of an ecosystem, the physical and digital environment in which the user perceives and uses it. Though we should always have been designing like this, multi-screening, smart homes and wearable devices give us an excuse to think specifically about the real ways people work. We'll discuss how to use technology to build products and services—not just apps and websites—for your business and users.
We will apply this with a brief exercise, so bring along a current or recently-completed project, or a favorite (or least favorite) tool you use day to day to work on.
Presented at MoDevUX on 23 March 2015
Everything we design and build exists as a part of an ecosystem, the physical and digital environment in which the user perceives and uses it. Though we should always have been designing like this, the ubiquity of mobile smart devices, connected cities, smart homes and the flood of wearables give us an excuse to think specifically about the real use cases and how to pick the right technology to meet opportunities for your organization and your users.
In this 3-hour workshop, we will discuss how to use existing, well-proven UX design tools and methods to get to the new needs of users, and how to think about exploiting new technologies in the best possible way. Participants will work together to design connected digital products through a series of engaging team exercises.
Fingers, Thumbs & People: Designing for the way your users really hold and t...Steven Hoober
For the newest version of this presentation, always go to: 4ourth.com/tppt
For the latest video version, see: 4ourth.com/tvid
Summary in text and all the linked articles, research and references are at: 4ourth.com/Touch
We are finally starting to think about how touchscreen devices really work, and design proper sized targets, think about touch as different from mouse selection, and to create common gesture libraries.
But despite this we still forget the user. Fingers and thumbs take up space, and cover the screen. Corners of screens have different accuracy than the center. It's time to re-evaluate what we think we know.
Steven reviews his ongoing research into how people actually interact with mobile devices, presents some new ideas on how we can design to avoid errors and take advantage of this new knowledge, and leaves you with 10 (relatively) simple steps to improve your touchscreen designs tomorrow.
How People Really Hold and Touch (their Phones)Steven Hoober
For the newest version of this presentation, always go to: 4ourth.com/tppt
For the latest video version, see: 4ourth.com/tvid
Presented at ConveyUX in Seattle, 7 Feb 2014
For the newest version of this presentation, always go to: 4ourth.com/tppt
For the latest video version, see: 4ourth.com/tvid
We are finally starting to think about how touchscreen devices really work, and design proper sized targets, think about touch as different from mouse selection, and to create common gesture libraries.
But despite this we still forget the user. Fingers and thumbs take up space, and cover the screen. Corners of screens have different accuracy than the center. It's time to re-evaluate what we think we know.
Steven reviews his ongoing research into how people actually interact with mobile devices, presents some new ideas on how we can design to avoid errors and take advantage of this new knowledge, and leaves you with 10 (relatively) simple steps to improve your touchscreen designs tomorrow.
Presented at ConveyUX in Seattle, 7 Feb 2014
There is a gap between the most discussed and trendy practices in design, and the way many UX professional do their work. Sketching in the browser is fine for those who only design websites (and have a coding background) but what about apps, messaging, services and systems?
In this workshop Steven will outline some of the basic principles of good tools, and demonstrate with simple hands-on exercises how to use your existing software, and other simple techniques to design for multiple screen sizes, multiple contexts and every platform.
You will learn:
- How to consider scale, and really understand portability and touch.
- Design with adaptive and responsive needs in mind.
- Specifying design, so UX speaks the language of implementation.
- Service and systems design techniques.
- Quick techniques to assure that your designs will work in context.
Originally Presented at Mobile Trends 2014 in Krakow, Poland on 16 January 2014
Almost all mobile apps fail to make back even their development costs. Add user-centric tactics and principles to help you understand users and their needs, and validate your ideas before you spend the time.
Entrepreneurial User Experience: Improving your products on a shoestringSteven Hoober
Presented 6 & 8 January, 2013 at Kauffman Labs, Kansas City, Missouri
Many big, successful companies hire User Experience experts to help analyze and design the system from the user's point of view, and assure their users can use their digital products. But assuming you can't hire one of those yet, Steven Hoober will teach you a little about how to embed the principles of UX into everything you do, every day, and how to improve tasks you are already doing to better guarantee the right outcomes.
There will be a focus on mobile and multi-channel experiences, but the principles willapply to any digital platform. Whether you are trying to just improve the website for your product, or create an all-new, all-digital experience, come — and bring your whole team — to put these principles into practice.
Jan 6th, 6pm-8pm
What is UX, why it's not just colors and fonts, and why designing for experience matters.
Understanding your audience, their goals, and yours.
Ecosystem design. A website is not a digital strategy: finding what your experience strategy is.
Jan 8th, 6pm-8pm
Formalizing baseline analysis with heuristic evaluations.
Tactics for discount usability testing in a multi-device world.
What you should bring:
Paper Ticket for the class
Something to work on. I will provide you with a fake project for the exercises, but if you are willing to let others see your idea, or some subset or faked version of it, then go ahead.
Your whole team. We will mix and match and you can meet new people, but bring everyone in your company or department if they have the time. If you want, your actual team can be a workshop team so you get used to the tactics being taught.
Presented 12 December 2013 at MoDevEast13
We are finally starting to think about how touchscreen devices really work, and design proper sized targets, think about touch as different from mouse selection, and to create common gesture libraries.
But despite this we still forget the user. Fingers and thumbs take up space, and cover the screen. Corners of screens have different accuracy than the center. It's time to re-evaluate what we think we know.
Steven will review the current state of research on how people actually interact with mobile devices, present some new alternative ideas on how we can design to avoid errors and take advantage of this knowledge, and review work you bring so we can all come up with ways to improve real world sites and apps today.
Mobile Design: Adding Mobile to Your Learning EcosystemSteven Hoober
Presented at DevLearn 2013, 24 October 2013, Las Vegas
Every platform offers unique challenges and opportunities. As mobile becomes the preferred platform, you have to address what makes it work well to assure success, satisfaction, and maybe delight. And it’s a lot more than size and touch. Mobile and desktop are very different in their principles and in the way people use them. Learn about the pitfalls and fallacies of designing for mobile and multi-platform, multi-user experiences.
How People Really Hold & Touch (their phones)Steven Hoober
Despite decades of research and years of carrying a touchscreen mobile handset around, there’s a lot of myth, disinformation, and half-truths about how touchscreens work, how users actually interact with touch devices, and how best to design for touch.
Participants in this session will get research findings and other data in order to clarify and set aside misunderstandings about user behavior and touchscreen technologies. You’ll learn the different ways and types of interactions for touch devices that will give you a solid base of knowledge you will then use to review how behavior and interaction can influence design patterns and design choices.
The Trouble with All Those Boxes: Designing for Ecosystems Instead of ScreensSteven Hoober
The desktop web has all but ruined the practice of interaction design and information architecture by the assumptions about technology and user attention, and a rigid adherence to page-based design. Mobile is different and is exposing these problems more than any other digital system. We cannot gloss over bad design anymore because it can make or break your whole organization. Many organizations, even if they address the design or user experience head on, are built to work on the desktop Web so they are having trouble really embracing mobile at the tactical level, even if their leaders set goals and objectives to do so.
During this session, participants will discuss the pitfalls and fallacies of designing for mobile and multi-platforms. You’ll learn principles and tactics for building multi-user, multi-platform experiences and you’ll learn by attempting to improve an example project. This will give guidelines for how to meet user goals, needs, and expectations in all your platforms.
In this session, you will learn:
How to recognize and avoid pitfalls in your project development, UX design, and development practices
To design your digital products as universal, extensible services and ecosystems
The principles of resilience design, and how to design robust systems that function and satisfy even when mistakes occur
How to branch design to address platform-specific features, capabilities, and expectations
Builder.ai Founder Sachin Dev Duggal's Strategic Approach to Create an Innova...Ramesh Iyer
In today's fast-changing business world, Companies that adapt and embrace new ideas often need help to keep up with the competition. However, fostering a culture of innovation takes much work. It takes vision, leadership and willingness to take risks in the right proportion. Sachin Dev Duggal, co-founder of Builder.ai, has perfected the art of this balance, creating a company culture where creativity and growth are nurtured at each stage.
Transcript: Selling digital books in 2024: Insights from industry leaders - T...BookNet Canada
The publishing industry has been selling digital audiobooks and ebooks for over a decade and has found its groove. What’s changed? What has stayed the same? Where do we go from here? Join a group of leading sales peers from across the industry for a conversation about the lessons learned since the popularization of digital books, best practices, digital book supply chain management, and more.
Link to video recording: https://bnctechforum.ca/sessions/selling-digital-books-in-2024-insights-from-industry-leaders/
Presented by BookNet Canada on May 28, 2024, with support from the Department of Canadian Heritage.
Connector Corner: Automate dynamic content and events by pushing a buttonDianaGray10
Here is something new! In our next Connector Corner webinar, we will demonstrate how you can use a single workflow to:
Create a campaign using Mailchimp with merge tags/fields
Send an interactive Slack channel message (using buttons)
Have the message received by managers and peers along with a test email for review
But there’s more:
In a second workflow supporting the same use case, you’ll see:
Your campaign sent to target colleagues for approval
If the “Approve” button is clicked, a Jira/Zendesk ticket is created for the marketing design team
But—if the “Reject” button is pushed, colleagues will be alerted via Slack message
Join us to learn more about this new, human-in-the-loop capability, brought to you by Integration Service connectors.
And...
Speakers:
Akshay Agnihotri, Product Manager
Charlie Greenberg, Host
Slack (or Teams) Automation for Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Soluti...Jeffrey Haguewood
Sidekick Solutions uses Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Solutions Apricot) and automation solutions to integrate data for business workflows.
We believe integration and automation are essential to user experience and the promise of efficient work through technology. Automation is the critical ingredient to realizing that full vision. We develop integration products and services for Bonterra Case Management software to support the deployment of automations for a variety of use cases.
This video focuses on the notifications, alerts, and approval requests using Slack for Bonterra Impact Management. The solutions covered in this webinar can also be deployed for Microsoft Teams.
Interested in deploying notification automations for Bonterra Impact Management? Contact us at sales@sidekicksolutionsllc.com to discuss next steps.
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 4DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 4. In this session, we will cover Test Manager overview along with SAP heatmap.
The UiPath Test Manager overview with SAP heatmap webinar offers a concise yet comprehensive exploration of the role of a Test Manager within SAP environments, coupled with the utilization of heatmaps for effective testing strategies.
Participants will gain insights into the responsibilities, challenges, and best practices associated with test management in SAP projects. Additionally, the webinar delves into the significance of heatmaps as a visual aid for identifying testing priorities, areas of risk, and resource allocation within SAP landscapes. Through this session, attendees can expect to enhance their understanding of test management principles while learning practical approaches to optimize testing processes in SAP environments using heatmap visualization techniques
What will you get from this session?
1. Insights into SAP testing best practices
2. Heatmap utilization for testing
3. Optimization of testing processes
4. Demo
Topics covered:
Execution from the test manager
Orchestrator execution result
Defect reporting
SAP heatmap example with demo
Speaker:
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
Key Trends Shaping the Future of Infrastructure.pdfCheryl Hung
Keynote at DIGIT West Expo, Glasgow on 29 May 2024.
Cheryl Hung, ochery.com
Sr Director, Infrastructure Ecosystem, Arm.
The key trends across hardware, cloud and open-source; exploring how these areas are likely to mature and develop over the short and long-term, and then considering how organisations can position themselves to adapt and thrive.
Securing your Kubernetes cluster_ a step-by-step guide to success !KatiaHIMEUR1
Today, after several years of existence, an extremely active community and an ultra-dynamic ecosystem, Kubernetes has established itself as the de facto standard in container orchestration. Thanks to a wide range of managed services, it has never been so easy to set up a ready-to-use Kubernetes cluster.
However, this ease of use means that the subject of security in Kubernetes is often left for later, or even neglected. This exposes companies to significant risks.
In this talk, I'll show you step-by-step how to secure your Kubernetes cluster for greater peace of mind and reliability.
Neuro-symbolic is not enough, we need neuro-*semantic*Frank van Harmelen
Neuro-symbolic (NeSy) AI is on the rise. However, simply machine learning on just any symbolic structure is not sufficient to really harvest the gains of NeSy. These will only be gained when the symbolic structures have an actual semantics. I give an operational definition of semantics as “predictable inference”.
All of this illustrated with link prediction over knowledge graphs, but the argument is general.
Accelerate your Kubernetes clusters with Varnish CachingThijs Feryn
A presentation about the usage and availability of Varnish on Kubernetes. This talk explores the capabilities of Varnish caching and shows how to use the Varnish Helm chart to deploy it to Kubernetes.
This presentation was delivered at K8SUG Singapore. See https://feryn.eu/presentations/accelerate-your-kubernetes-clusters-with-varnish-caching-k8sug-singapore-28-2024 for more details.
Encryption in Microsoft 365 - ExpertsLive Netherlands 2024Albert Hoitingh
In this session I delve into the encryption technology used in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Purview. Including the concepts of Customer Key and Double Key Encryption.
I think of presentations, or blog entries, in much the same way I consider taking notes in a class or while watching a presentation. The very act of writing down your thoughts or perceptions causes you to evaluate, and codify them, and come up with new relationships and better information. Actually, my design process as a whole is built on principles like this as well.Every presentation I give, even if broadly speaking to the same topic, is custom built. Not just to give you the most bang for your buck, but because I can't stop myself. Simply practicing the presentation reminds me of dozens of things I need to revise, or a new direction to take it. Going to conferences just makes it worse, as I see how many other presentations are related, and interesting, and my brain starts spinning. Oh, if only I could be assured of the absolute truth of my ideals and just keep saying the same thing in blissful ignorance.Lately, I've been talking about a few basic topics:Always, design for every screen Lately, really using your device capabilities As well as some thoughts on integrating development and UX processes to get the right outcome
Before I get too far along, let me explain some of the basic reasons I am going to talk about design and development choices: Because you probably want people to buy and use your products. Maybe even for a long time. Maybe tell their friends. When you sit down and decide to start building for mobile, the first thing you probably say is stuff like, “which platform do I launch on first?”I have to give this answer quite a bit, in some detail. I’ll skip most of the detail for now, but the short answer usually is: A website. For mobile AND desktop.Briefly: because it offers universal access; As method of discovery, and linking it provide a gateway to other products; There’s no barrier to publishing updates, so you can fix and revise easily; And most important to me, analytics. You get great data on who is using the site, and how.
But what website? There are so many screen sizes, and so many devices. What if I just build for mobile Safari? I have one. Everyone I know has one. Must be fine. Anyway, it’s easy. All iOS devices are the same. And that damned Android is /confusing/, what what the “fragmentation.” [Hold up both of my itouch devices] – These are both perfectly functional iPod Touches. I use them for test a lot. Why do I have two? Because this one only runs iOS 3.2. No better. TWO MAJOR VERSIONS behind the current, and three behind what a lot of us have. Lies and “statistical truth” (but distort the reality of a situation) about say, how fragmented Android OS adoption is compared to iOS, do not help. Not just in a journalistic integrity manner, but they make you believe lies about the world which make you take unproductive courses of action. So if you build a website first, but draw in ios templates, and code for mobile safari, take one guess why you get mostly iOS visitors.
Of the last dozen or so apps I have worked on, exactly 1 has been targeted first to iOS. Not because the team all carries Android, and wanted to be contrarian, but because they looked at the actual stats. They look at analytics from the existing products, or launch on the web first. They check market share in the region and for the audience they are launching in. And, let me be clear, this is out there: almost never do I have to push for this. Business owners are starting to get the idea of serving the customer, and making informed decisions based on real evidence. Platforms like Android and Windows Phone (of all things) are growing in development-manager mindshare. If you design based on perception, love, religion, or hear-say… if you build for one platform then expect to just sort of stretch to fit others, you are just missing opportunities.
And, let’s be clear about why this matters. Forget rates of use of alternative OSs. I won’t even mention that half the smartphones in the world run Symbian. Or that Blackberry still sells well in many markets. No, instead, I’ll ask: Who thinks ubiquitous computing is more or less here? Essentially everyone in the world, in the next decade or two – everyone in the WORLD – is going to have access to a network connected device. Forget the question of whether it’ll be an iPhone. Will it even be a handset sized device? Will it be touch? Will it be /portable/? I have been working this past week on a product related to smartphone users in Africa – they don’t have many now, so it’s early and we’re working on the future. One platform we’re building for: desktop PCs. As the continent becomes more connected, some of the people with smartphone purchasing power will be information workers. They will start having computers at their desks.Probably.
But I don’t much care if I am wrong. Because I am using things like connected TVs, kids with connected portable game consoles, or even just desktops for the developing world’s new information workers, as stakes in the ground. Something to gather the ideas and get basic behaviors.The design itself of any product has to start at a much higher level. More WHY it is needed than HOW. You have to get to the user tasks, agnostic of technology, much less platforms. When you consider interfaces, you have to include voice, and sms, and posters and what is outside the system, so gets written on Post-Its.
You conceptualize the design so data and software are the same regardless of platform, so we’re talking about Responsive design, right?
First, it’s good to know where things come from. Responsive design is just a term invented recently by Ethan Marcotte, to encompass some current trends. It reminded me right away of Fluid design from a few years back.But then I cast my mind back, and remember thinking the same thing in that era -- when CSS ZenGarden became big; that this was cool stuff, but not conceptually different than what we’d been doing for years. We did percentage tables, and framesets (god help us) from around 1997, in ways that are very, very similar to what is going on today with multi-screen design. As soon as CSS came around, we scaled type, and used background images in weird ways to account for multiple screen sizes. Hell, I applied for a patent on a funny button made of tables and styles, so we could feed it from datastores, and it would resize depending on the content and interface. Not granted, but we used stuff like this for years.
I do get a little annoyed by those who promote these ideas as brand new (or more, by the people who buy it), but even when it’s a hyped trend, many of these are just fine trends. They communicate good principles. As long as we get away from one-size, pixel-perfect designs. Which… isn’t /quite/ happening. The new Dreamweaver, for example, has this very rigid framework where you pick a few sizes to be responsive to. Ennnnh. Not right, but okay. Better than it was.The other problem of course, is they are so very focused on the client side.
Especially for mobile, this is awful. You cannot send giant images and scads of javacript over to make it fit a featurephone screen. It won’t even bother to render. But if you use device detection, a tool like WURFL, and let it send the right content to the client, this solves everything, with much the same principles of design. Your same device classes can even work, you just push the intelligence back a layer, and make it more reliable.
Wait, that sounds familiar. Yes, RESS is this concept, also with a new name.
Buzzwords do their job. Trying to explain device detection was a total uphill battle until quite recently. RESS is one of those buzzwords that’s starting to work. It’s being treated a bit like early Ajax, where everyone is trying to copy the implementation. But eventually we’ll get to principles.
So, we’re going to design to lots of different sizes. This is real. Just the new Android devices from the first quarter of this year or something. With no repeats. This is not pixel dimensions, but actual sizes. Note the different aspect ratios. And double this, as they all flip to landscape. Quadruple it when you get to TVs, and add in a few more OSs.Wait, did I just say screen size? What about the resolution?
Who cares? Your finger cannot be measured in pixels. I have no rulers graduated in pixels. My eyeballs, much to your surprise, see photons, not pixels. Once you get past the wonderment of your sharp display, it doesn’t matter. What matters is physical size, and distance from the device. For viewing. For touch, just size. This is so important, I have stopped carrying random rulers, and recently made up a tool just for measuring things like touch targets on mobiles. [Hold it up] (Buy the template I am referring to here http://4ourth.com/wiki/4ourth%20Mobile%20Touch%20Template)
Physical sizes: Em is great, but (“you say it “e m” but it’s “em”) but it needs a baseline. Do not specify that in px, but in pt, mm, twips, in or anything else you want. As long as it’s a physical size. Device independent pixels, are /okay/, but just okay. It’s, conceptually, philosophically, a cheat for the reality-challenged. Every OS I’ve worked on supports physical sizes also at some level. I’d try to use those. Skip the cheats and automatic scaling. iOS defines things in pixels, then scales to double that. But I cannot tell why except for laziness, or that they’d have to admit the world is more complex.
Set aside your pixels. Design for people. Design for real sizes, in the real world.
And design your features for the way people use, and expect to use their products. This is a pretty typical chunk of an IA document. There’s a requirement for email in the mobile app, so we put in an email page. And a confirmation page. And so on. Easy.
But smartphones have email. Sure, desktops do to, but they are stupid. They forget who you are, launch the wrong email client. Forget context and cannot pass much info.
Mobiles are mostly pretty smart. They remember you. They pass this state between services. You don’t even always have to code in what the action is precisely, email or sms. You can just put a “share” icon into your app. Sometimes, into your website.
And then the user gets to pick, sometimes, depending on the platform, what they want to do with the information.
So, you can meet that same feature, with a lot less code, a lot less to test and go wrong, and you can better meet their expectations. Hell, you can drop maps and directions, and local weather, and offer links to other products on the appstore and… lots of things.
The responsive principle is still solid, especially when you use RESS and device detection to load the right content from the server.
Believe in mobile. It has all these capabilities, this intelligence and contextual awareness. Use these.
So, that seems obvious. Why isn’t everyone doing it? Thestate of responsive design (and the related concept)today is at the page or template level. Maybe, if lucky at patterns.We need to move the discussion to principles; to design architectural solutions for each platform. Because we need to extend these principles to items that are not just served up at the moment, but to the way we design and build packaged products: applications.
What that means is that you need to step back from your process. Web design made us all lazy, and states don’t exist anymore. It’s all pages. To the point that it’s hard to find a quick-and-easy prototype tool that supports something as simple as a popup, or accordion. And so… apps get developed that are nothing but pages swiping to other pages.
Where did all these cards come from? Well, they are features. And guess what happened on this project? The default answer. The same as happens on all the projects I work on. This was assumed (estimated, planned) that each card = 1 page. I spent a lot of time fighting to explain that it’s a webapp. That my storage and organization tool is ONE PAGE, and a few popups. And a lot, a lot, a lot of state changes. (When the mobile app team got ahold of it, they made it with lots of page transitions. Hmm.) So, how did we get here? How do we know every one of these features is good and useful, or the most important ones are being done first?
We don’t. At first. Just put it all out there. If it’s a likely feature, and technically possible ON ANY PLATFORM, put it up. Then perform normal UX evaluation processes to determine what features are needed, and draw out processes where the user walks through the system, to determine the relationship between features, across ALL platforms.
When you start to branch the design to platforms, interesting things happen. And they aren’t all about reducing the content for mobile. They are about using the capabilities I just discussed a few minutes ago. It’s common to say that mobile is limited, compared to desktop, because it’s smaller, harder to type on, and so on. I like to say mobile is better, because of the sensors, and some general focus on the user and identity and network connectivity. But let’s say instead: every platform has it’s strengths.
If so, some of the buzzword-worthy principles fall by the wayside. You cannot consider graceful degradation, or progressive enhancement to be true. Except in very specific domains. Does it support /this particular javascript function/?When you are considering how to fulfill the features needed on each platform, in their most native way, it’s hard to say one is better, or worse. Or that one is a degraded experience. You can not enhance progressively, moving up the platform chain, but provide enhancements to each platform in turn.
When you start considering features this generally, at this high a level, there is a risk of feature creep. You have to make solid decisions of what to keep, what can wait till the next release, what is simply not core to the product. You cannot do this off the cuff, or by looking at screenshots, much less cards on the wall. You need to make sure, early on, the project had measurable goals, a known audience, and design objectives to reach these goals and needs. Refer back to these, when it’s time to scope or scale.
But how do you decide big issues, like what platforms are first? It might not be such a simple decision as “web, then OS-that-visits-the-most.” This is, often, an “organic” decision. The design itself should lead you. I am working on one right now that’s a very simple example. It’s got no web interface. Because it’s about being used places like down a mineshaft. Seriously. Network connection at the moment of use doesn’t matter, so local storage rules the day. So, it’s a CD, a paper catalog, a desktop website, and a mobile app. Only. And as it turns out, we can’t make these decisions without some design. We can’t do them at the corporate planning team level, at the finance level, at the steering committee. The ITPM, and technical architects can’t make it. If you need to build products for your company, and your users, the driving force has to be making it useful for them.
I keep saying “products,” so if you don’t think of what you do as a saleable item (perhaps for good reason), let me explain.This is very much the difference between say a “program” and a “project.” I am here using “product” to mean a conglomeration of “platform” solutions.
This is in the same way some people use “customer” instead of “users.” I am one. And actually, I tend to draw a distinction between “customer,” and “prospect,” meaning a prospective customer.This is not all because we’re cynical money-grubbers, but because – whether or not you charge money for your app or site or service -- if it doesn’t work like a commercial product, it will tend to be rapidly not available to any user. Whatever term you use, think about what your users are, aside from “users of your system.”
Throughout the design and execution process, you need to check back periodically, to make sure you are still on track.Like I just said, you check against project goals and design principles at each milestone, or every time you make a major revision (or scope change) to make sure it still abides by these objectives.
Actually, there are two different issues here. Not just that the design, as executed, is still good, but that it’s the right thing to make. Heuristics can tell you, generally, if it’s a good solution. A generally usable solution. But you must refer to the project (or program) goals and the design objectives and principles in order to tell if you are making the RIGHT thing. This is not a trivial problem.
Sometimes, often in fact, the evolution of the project means that you discover a principle is a bit off. Or not clearly stated. Or something key is missing.That’s fine. But it doesn’t mean you slowly discard the goals and objectives and go with gut feelings, or “whatever Apple would do.” You have to, very deliberately, with everyone on the team involved, change the principles. Write it down, and stick a new copy on the team share drive, and tape it to the wall for everyone to see. Projects, and products, evolve. But they cannot be allowed to DEvolve, and degrade into navel-gazing nitpicking.
Implementation is a key part of this whole process, and not just because it is how the product gets to the end users. I mean here, including implementation considerations and implementation team members in the design and evaluation steps.Note that I hesitate to say "development." It's best to raise that up a level, and discuss how the product will be built, hosted, released and maintained in the same breath as how it is designed, marketed, sold and paid for.This might seem like the same argument I have been making about designing the whole product, then designing individual parts. Because it is.
So, how do you implement this for multiple platforms if not "responsively"? Well, "correctly." Remember how I said that /usually/ you want to build and launch for the mobile web first? Well… sorta. That’s a convenient talking point, since it’s the first thing that can be called a product, that customers can see and touch. And, the people who pay your salary can see it also. But really, you start by implementing the services. The datastores, backend software, business rules and methods to access these.
…for every platform. If you have even a glimmer in your eye (much less actual plans as I’ve been discussing) that this product will expand to other platforms, you cannot bake the software into the first platform, or build one-off calls to the datastore. You have to build for the future, so each platform can use it.Even platforms you haven’t considered. And, if you do this remotely correctly, you don’t need to predict what platforms will use it.
Layered development can be hugely efficient here, so pull as much software off the presentation layer as possible. For two reasons.
Efficiency. Sure, code efficiency. If we don’t have to touch every bit of code with every release, that’s great. Hardware and configuration efficiency also. There should be one datastore, not synching if we can avoid it, and one service call that everyone shares. Build it once.But also, data transfer efficiency. Put as much processing on the back end. Put intelligence next to the data sources, or at least on cheap, high-speed pipes instead of sending them over the radio. You just send to the device what is needed. Remind anyone of some principles I talked about earlier? (This is also cheaper in data costs, and more secure. Lots of good reasons to do this).
Then you can build the presentation of individual platform codebases that take advantage of not just the UI and interaction differences, but the common service and data framework, and the available tools and processes of the client platform. Whenever possible, inherit features, or use default functions. I’ve seen ugly but running complex products built in a day. But it took weeks of software development before this. Individual platforms you say? How many of you launch, at more or less the same time, your product on several platforms? You do the web, iOS, Android, Blackberry even… So, doesn’t juggling all this get all out of hand in a big hurry?
Well, if you don’t plan well. For years now I’ve been saying that my design deliverables are themselves designed (I even did a project once where we were able to do usability research on the design documentation). Since then, I’ve started believing the design process has to be designed also. And now, I push for the development process to be designed as well.And just like heuristics and best practices don’t always meet the needs of the product design, neither does any one development process.
The one I’ve been pushing for a while, is the Staggered approach. Apparently this is shockingly unique, as I keep finding development managers who have never seen anything like it. Resources, software design, business oversight, and UX work hand in hand, both from process and resource availability points of view. You generally still engage a team per platform (though sometimes you can recycle part or all of a team if that’s your way), but staggered starts mean there are efficiencies, as every subsequent team can learn from the mistakes already made, and re-use work already done. Note that the first platform is indeed “Shared Services.” The highest priority platforms go first, and the risk of them finding errors is entirely counter-balanced by the much, much longer QA time. User research and longer acceptance testing can also be implemented in the first platform or two, and the general learnings applied to the others. Overall, later platforms should be much easier to implement on, even if they are 100% new presentational codebases, as the software, architecture, algorithms, content, and much other work is entirely done.
The exact timings, the platform mix, the method of testing… all that is unique to your organization, the platforms you are pushing out, and your product.I’ve worked on products where we had such long phases of service development, that we had to bake in PUI (Programmer UI). A fake presentation layer so everyone could see that it was working, check the service calls over network connections, and so on. That was a throwaway phase, but counted in many ways on the planning diagrams as a platform. The test platform got it’s own swimlane. But that’s not typical. Your mileage will vary.
Actually, don’t do anything I have done. Well, not exactly. But the principles are good…
Design makes choices based on good principles, develops or uses patterns based on user needs and business goals, and builds solutions based on schedules and business or technology limits.
Your processes should, likewise, correspond to your organizational culture – or that of your clients – your needs as a project team, the “technical limits” of how it’s integrated into the rest of the organization. Design and implementation processes, should always be improving. Not just following trends, but picking up the nugget of a good idea, and applying that when it works for your organization, your process and your project.
So, since I keep saying “principles” here’s the best I can do to narrow them down to pocket-sized:Be RESPONSIVE –> Actually multi-platform. And from the server level, not just the presentation layer. Be NATIVE - > Use device capabilities, way past reacting to size. Build for PHYSICAL use - > Design to the user’s scale, using real world sizes and real-world interactions. Design BUILDABLE products - > Implement the way you design, and design in ways that can be implemented. Execute in EXENSIBLE ways - > The core of your product is probably data, so design and build generalized, reusable components and services.
I hope there are questions. Ideally, very detailed or technical ones.