As part of Salesforce’s “Summer of Mobile” webinar series, I presented a session on user experience design for mobile. This is adapted from that webinar

1. User Experience Design for Mobile
Ross Belmont

2. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved.
Designing for Mobile: Our Process
• Get Out of the Building
• Define Success by Writing the Script
• Build the First Prototype
• Iterate Until It’s Great

3. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved.
Overview of the app
• Our client provides physician staffing services to emergency
departments (EDs) across the country
• They wanted to dramatically increase the quality and quantity
of feedback on physician performance
• Their baseline was single-digit response rate
• They had a vision to deploy iPads to the ED and get feedback
in near real-time

4. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved.
Getting Out of the Building: Customer Research
• As soon as you reach an initial consensus on the product
concept, perform a site visit to a location where the app will
be used.
• You need to build an understanding of a setting to gauge
how the app will fit within that setting.
• The rest of your team wants to understand this fit, too!

5. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved.
Getting Out of the Building: Customer Research

6. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved.
Getting Out of the Building: Customer Research

7. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved.
For More Information
• Read Rapid Contextual Design by
Holtzblatt, Wendell and Wood
• It’s a detailed playbook for site visits,
interviewing and how to process the
output
• It also provides a process for small,
medium and large budgets

8. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved.
Define Success by “Writing the Script”
• Write a plausible story starring your customer succeeding at
something with your app.
• Ideally, the story will take place in the setting you studied.
• In contrast, don’t ship features that don't connect in a
coherent way for the user. “Stick to the script” and leave out
what doesn't fit.

9. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved.
Customer Research Gives You the Setting
• In the ED, treatment rooms have a TV to
help pass the (extra) time.
• Sharing this detail with the project team
made it “click” for them there’s time to give
feedback in the ED setting.

10. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved.
Our “Script” as a Storyboard
There...that’ll hold
your ankle in place
Your prescription will be
ready soon...in the mean
time, can we get your
feedback on today’s visit?
TAP...TAP...TAP...DONE.
Here you go!
Thanks!
20 MINUTES LATER...
Thanks for
everything!

11. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved.
For More Information
Make the story visualDevelop the story/scenario

12. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved.
Build the First Prototype
• Do this as quickly as possible, since you will
change the UI, probably in a significant way.
• Luckily, the new Mobile Packs make it easy
to deliver something clickable quickly.

13. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved.
Our Experience
• We tested our first concept with an elderly
family member
• He had never used an iPad and was
confused as to how to scroll
• Since there would be many elderly patients
providing feedback, we reworked the core
navigation mechanism

14. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved.
For More Information
• Read Designing Mobile Interfaces by
Hoober and Berkman
• It provides well-documented
solutions to many common design
problems

15. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved.
Iterate Until It’s Great
• Iterate on the prototype with representative or actual users.
• It’s like preparing for the SATs:
• You don’t want to go in “cold.” Some kind of practice is critical.
• Feedback will improve performance, but only if it’s specific.
• Should I work on essay writing, or reading comprehension?
• Many external resources are available to yield improvements.
The key is planning for the fact that it won’t be perfect the first
time out.

16. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved.
Schedule Time to Iterate: Don’t Do This
Sprint 1 Sprint 2 Sprint 3

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Schedule Time to Iterate: Do This Instead
Sprint 1 Sprint 2 Sprint 3

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“Lean Startup” Has Popularized Iteration
Image courtesy @clevergirl and @katerutter of LUXr.co

19. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved.
Our Experience
• We made 9 prototypes with various degrees of tweaks.

20. © 2013 Appiphony, LLC All rights reserved.
For More Information
Polishing the interfaceIterating with a team