Design Considerations When Building Cross Platform Applications: Visual Design and User Experience

In this second post of my blog series about Design Considerations When Building Cross Platform Applications, I’m focusing on what most people typically consider the only design consideration:  Visual Design and User Experience.  Usually when a product company is beginning to plan out a new product, the team goes through phases during which they start to innovate and scrutinize the idea, followed quickly by a design and/or prototype phase.  This period is the starting point because it is really what helps the product managers – and in the long run the customers – visualize the product’s potential and how a user may use it. Some of the factors that are taken into account during this time period are the overall cosmetic design (including product consistency, simplicity and customization) and user interaction flow. While the designer begins to dig into the idea to put some parameters around the product, he must consider the company’s logos and colors as well as its current and future product suite.  It is very important that each application delivered by the product company has a similar look to it so the user feels that consistency across all products in the suite.

In my experience at SuperConnect thus far, this approach rings true.  We began our company with one designer and have been lucky enough to work with several others over our short lifespan.  The result was initially a collection of various design approaches starting with a more web-centric design on a mobile device and evolving to the very clean and concise design we now use in our products.  We see the consistency that a full-time designer and thought leader can provide to a suite of products that are meant to drive enterprise mobility.  The catch, as there is always a catch, is that while our products may reflect the comprehensive and hard work of our team, customers still want to make their mark when deploying applications to the enterprise. To help our customers use SuperConnect products in a way that will accommodate and enhance their own brands, we have taken the approach of the 80/20 rule.  We’ve built strict templates within our applications that guide the customer’s administrators to follow our designer’s ideas and plans, but still provide a bit of customization.  One example lies in ourConnections application where we provide a unique look at the employee directory by allowing the customer to specify what data is displayed in the application.  Our design provides an interface where the administrator can customize which data fields are displayed within different areas of the application based on specific templates that were defined by the designers.  In the end, our design remains intact because we don’t allow the customization of font (color, size or type), the layout of the fields themselves or the locations of images within the app.  However we do allow the administrator to choose which data field should be displayed in the various locations on those templates.

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What is behavioral presence?

It’s important to consider the best method for delivering your message to the person you’re communicating with. There’s a right way to utilize enterprise social networking and a wrong way. Knowing how people wish to be contacted is essential for effectively conveying your message and eliciting the response you want.

The vast array of communication tools coupled with personal preferences creates a dilemma about how to communicate most effectively. Systems have started to create simple indicators on availability; tools today can look into your Outlook schedule and gauge your availability based on your calendar. Although these indicators of “red” or “green” do give insight into calendar availability, there is an inherent problem with these system-generated cues. Active Directory service or IM status don’t consider the human element of how people prefer to be contacted.

There is a huge need for system-generated presence, but it doesn’t reveal the whole picture of how people actually want to be contacted. For example, you might be on your normal Monday status call as a listening participant, but not actively contributing content. Many people multitask during conference calls to take care of other pressing business needs. Although your ears are actively engaged in the conference call, your fingers are available to chat or email.

Behavioral presence is the combination of system-generated presence and desired contact preferences. Your message will often dictate the most effective way to connect with someone. In-person meetings, texts, IMs, or emails are all valid mediums to communicate your message. Regardless of which you choose, consider variables like the timing of your message and the communication preferences of the person you’re contacting. Many times the outcome of a conversation is more about how you present your message than the message itself.

Tools today are getting smarter. They can track the most contacted person in your address book and even provide historic trends on the subject you communicate about most. The first step in creating a behavioral presence model is taking system-generated availability and combining it with a platform that gives people choices about how they prefer to be contacted. There needs to be an emphasis not only on the ease of stipulating your preferences, but also on access to these stated preferences. Your tools should be a perfect marriage of systems and human intervention. The flexibility of the tool should support the ever-changing attitudes of your employees and not be dependent on just your calendar. It may never be perfect, but it might eliminate some of those uncomfortable email exchanges with your boss.

Regardless of how many tools or resources you use to keep in touch, people are still people and will communicate the way they prefer to. Learning how to best use today’s tools will not only help you maximize the impact of your message but also help you foster better relationships with the people you’re in contact with each day. When looking at what method of communication to use, you must first determine the types of tools you use from day to day and how you use them. For example, when considering the best way to communicate on both mobile and tablet devices, it’s best to understand how these devices are traditionally utilized. Desktops and laptops are traditionally optimized as production devices, as most individuals produce the majority of digital content using keyboards and 13–15” displays for creating everything from Microsoft Word documents to Microsoft PowerPoint presentations. Though these devices are being increasingly used to view media through services such as Netflix and Hulu, the convergence of TVs and digital displays have kept traditional computers largely in the information production and consumption space.

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