What’s a UXP

Gartner are defining a category they call UXP to help organisations manage all their user experience requirements.

Gartner defines the UXP as “an integrated collection of technologies and methodologies that provides the ability to design and deliver user interface/presentation capabilities for a wide variety of interaction channels (including features such as web, portal, mashup, content management, collaboration, social computing, mobile, analytics, search, context, rich Internet application, e-commerce, an application platform and an overall user experience design and management framework)”.

There is currently no precise definition of the set of technologies a UXP encompasses, but Gartner identify the following list as candidates:

• Web analytics
• Search
• Social
• Programming frameworks and APIs
• UX design and management
• Rich internet applications
• E-commerce
• Mobile
• Content management
• Collaboration, with portal and mashups being core.

With growing importance of web interfaces on all devices the UXP is not a moment too soon, as organisations need to get a grip of not just these technologies, but the underlying supporting business processes and skills they require to define, create, manage and measure their user and customer experiences.

It’s clear that from an architectural perspective the UXP covers everything that is in the “Presentation layer”, and maybe a few that are in the grey areas between the Presentation layer and the Business layer.

As Gartner have identified, this is a growing list of technologies. From my perspective, some of these need to be integrated and some are standalone, and it would be helpful to have some broader categories within the UXP to help focus efforts towards implementation.

Social and collaboration technologies facilitate interaction between two or more users, and so could be grouped into a category called UXP-Collaboration.

Content is the core of any web platform and content management, search and analytics could be grouped into a category called UXP-Content.

Portal, mobile apps, RIA and mashups are essentially application development technologies so could be group as UXP-Apps.

From a process perspective these categories also make sense, as UX-Collaboration technologies are installed and then require mediation processes to manage the implementation, while UX-Content require publishing and monitoring lifecycle and UX-Apps technologies are implemented by IT, and go through an IT development lifecycle.

However, UXP is an evolving field, and as with any technology it is clear that selection and implementation cannot be done without a full understanding of business requirements, the underlying implementation and management processes and skills required.

Given the size, complexity and importance of this task I would not be surprised to see some organisations appoint a Chief eXperience Officer (CXO).

Is the growth of Mobile Apps overhyped?

There are numerous statistics on the growth of mobile apps in the various stores, and also about the number of downloads. Apple claims over 500,000 apps in its store and Google claims over 450,000 (this time last year it had only 150,000). The number of apps, downloads and rate of growth is phenomenal.

Is this just a temporary fever or will this growth continue, and if so what will drive it?

I believe this growth has only just started and that there are two key trends that will drive this growth further.

Firstly, development for smartphones will get simpler. VisionMobile’s latest survey profiles over a hundred development tools for creating mobile apps. My guess is that is a very conservative estimate of the actual number of tools out there.

A common goal for many of these providers is to make programming simpler so that more people can code. For some, this goes further, to the extent that tools are being created for children to develop apps at school. So more developers will mean more apps!

Secondly and this for me is the more exciting aspect, is that phones will do more, which means that apps will get more innovative.

Today there are a wide variety of apps already, some of which use features of the phone itself like the camera, GPS or microphone. Coming down the line are many more features that will get embedded into phones, for example the ability to detect a user emotions and the ability to monitor a users health. Such features will drive yet more applications and innovations from personal healthcare to fraud detection.

Apart from new features, phones will start interact with other devices such as your TV. At a simple level, your smartphone can be already be used as a remote control for your TV or to join in with live TV quiz shows. Already phones are interacting with cars, and this integration will inevitably go further, so that your engine management system feeds your phone with data that an app can use.

Recent surveys from recruitment agencies highlight the growing demand for mobile developers, and more interestingly the re-skilling of developers to position themselves for this growth.

Exciting times are ahead for developers and entrepreneurs who will show that Angry Birds isn’t the only way to make big money in mobile.

Mobile Apps: When to go native

Let me say from the outset, that there is no right answer for everybody. The battle between cross-platform solutions and native mobile applications is going to continue for years to come; I know I have blogged about this before, and probably will again.

For many corporate applications, native code offers the marketing group richer customer experiences, the business the chance to innovate solutions using device-specific solutions, and IT some new development tools.

However, if an organisation has to support the widest range of phones possible, the development of native apps becomes cumbersome, since you then need to write apps for each of the major mobile platforms available.

Part of this decision depends on whether you decide to support older phones, i.e. non-smartphones. For non-smartphone support you’ll need to build in support for features from SMS text services to basic text browsers.

Typically this is aimed at operating in developing countries. In developed countries like the UK, the growth of smartphones means that there is now a critical mass of users crowding out lower-featured handsets.

If you decide to target smartphones, then you still have a choice. You can either:

1. Build for each platform, using it’s own development tools
2. Use a cross platform mobile development solution, or
3. Write your app as a browser solution.

So how does an organisation decide which way to go?

I found this useful little questionnaire developed by InfoTech. It takes you through a set of questions about your needs, and then suggests the best way forward between a native solution and a web-based solution.

As a quick guide to review a specific tactical requirement, I thought it was pretty good and asked very pertinent questions. Obviously this is something that an IT department could expand or specialise for their own needs, and so provides a useful structured approach to making impartial decisions without any emotional bias.

Where support for multiple platforms is crucial, a more difficult decision will be whether to use a cross-platform mobile development solution or to go for a pure web (and possibly HTML5) solution.

I’ll discuss this issue in a future blog, but for the time being, check out the questionnaire to start thinking about your mobile approach.

Future of mobile phones (part 2)

Previously we looked at the form factor, what shape phones could be in the future. But what will phones do?

Clearly phones are getting smarter and able to do more, so here are some thoughts on the changes that could occur.

Phones replace your laptop/PC

Sometime this year we should see phones with quad-core processors, making them as powerful as some PCs. Following Moore’s law, they will get more and more powerful. And the same goes for storage/memory, although as “cloud applications” improve you will need less on your device.

With this in mind, you could easily see a phone that slips into the back of a tablet which is only a screen. Already, the Motorola Atrix shows that you can have a dockable phone that could replace the need for a PC.

Phones replace your wallet

This one’s not really news at all. Already there are a whole lot of mobile cash/payment solutions, so I won’t go further into this just now. However with NFC (near field communication) expect to be able to pay for things simply by tapping your phone on a till or another phone (e.g. to give your friends money).

Phones replace your keys

Again, NFC could quite easily be used to allow your phones to open car doors, your front door at home and even replace security badges at work. It might be that phones will have multiple slots for NFC chips.

Phones replace your brain

Not literally, but they will save you having to remember things. Growth in memory capacity means that you could have chips that store everything: what you see, say, hear and do. Coupled with powerful search capability you’ll never forget people that you met, actions from meetings and the name of the little restaurant you loved on holiday.

Phones replace your doctor, mechanic…

Google has toyed with the concept of phones with monitoring capability, immediately alerting you of heart, blood pressure and maybe even sugar level issues. Ford have toyed with phones alerting you of servicing needs in a car and other advanced telemetry. Following on from this, there’s no reason why your phone won’t become your central processing unit for anything: your home security, your gas boiler servicing and more. Expect a future where there is a lot more device to device interaction than today (I will write more about this soon).

Phones replace your personal assistant

Already there are apps to help you with everything from planning your train journey to scheduling parties. In the future, your phone will also tell you when you’re close to shops you like or that have offers on things you might like based on your personal tastes.

You may be on holiday, and your phone will let you know where the nearest bathrooms are or how to navigate through a city to make sure you see all sites of interest with the most efficient route possible.

So with all these capabilities phones could be very important. How will be secure something that can so easily be lost? It could be that they move towards biometric security: voice, fingerprint or facial recognition. Or it could be that a secondary NFC chip that is in some jewellery or even embedded inside you grants you access.

This all sounds very futuristic, but some of the features discussed are either already here, or could be within the next five years. It seems phones are going to be part of an important and exciting future for us all.

Future of the mobile phone (part 1)

For a few months now I’ve been having conversations with colleagues, friends and family about the future of phones, sad I know but at heart I am still a geek ;o).

I see three possible futures for mobile form factors. Phablets, smartphones, phone jewellery (starting with watches and bracelets, then other jewellery).

The smartphone we all know and love. Multi-functional it is technologists answer to the swiss army knife. This is currently the most popular form and for many will continue for years to come. However, the downside to this is that screen estate is limited and the need to zoom and scroll detracts from any serious browsing.

This has brought an opportunity to try a new form factor, the “Phablet” (phone-tablet), a phone that is not as big as a tablet, but not as small as a phone. The Galaxy Note is a good example, with a 5.3 inch screen it’s a little big for a phone, and perhaps too small to be called a tablet.

What’s interesting though is that the screen resolution (1280×800) matches most current tablets, and is better than many of the earlier tablets, so what you get on the screen is the same amount of information as a tablet. This for some will solve the problem of having to carry a phone AND a tablet.

However for some people a phone needs to be a phone and nothing more. For my wife, for instance, ideally this would be not much bigger than the size of a lipstick and just as simple to use. Phone size and weight can place a burden in pockets so going smaller also makes sense. In addition to that there mobility makes them easier to lose, which can be a real issue for most people.

There are already phones in watches, and there are some great prototypes of bracelet style watches. As batteries improve I can see phones being embedded into other jewellery also such as pendants or earings. This is approach is great from a security perspective as people tend to lose more phones than their watch or bracelet, and with mobile payments this may become an important factor.

The smartphone itself may yet bite back, there have already been concepts of smartphones with projectors and ones with roll-out screens that solve the issue of screen estate. Other concepts include “flexible phones”, phones that are so thin that they can flex. In fact Nokia has taken this further so that the phone has “flex-gestures” for example bending the phone up or down scrolls pages.

Or will we become phones ourselves? Will we have bionic implants?

So what do you think? Will you wear you phone, carry it or will you be a phone?