Best Practices in Smartphone Business Apps
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The document outlines best practices for developing smartphone business applications, emphasizing the importance of context-sensitive design and leveraging device capabilities such as GPS and cameras. It critiques common pitfalls in app design, such as excessive typing and complicated setup processes, while advocating for simple, functional initial screens and synchronization of local data. Additionally, it highlights the challenges of handling varying schemas in large enterprise apps and the benefits of using frameworks like Rhodes for rapid iteration and cross-device support.
Best Practices in Smartphone Business Apps
- 1. Adam Blum, adam@rhomobile.com Best Practices in Smartphone Business Apps
- 2. Background iPhone has changed the game All users now want to run real apps on their smartphones It’s a huge win for businesses Workers are productive everywhere, anytime Smartphones are cheaper than laptops They have senses (sight, hearing, touch) that laptops never had But Its difficult to write apps for all smartphones that your people have (without a smartphone app framework) Good smartphone apps are different than good web apps or good desktop apps
- 3. Avoid Typing Pick reasonable default settings number of records, objects to be shown, languages, sort orders Don’t have any setup process EVER first screen should be functional Use information on device to pick locations people
- 4. Don’t Do This: KinitoPro all of this just to get to your accounts? why not just use reasonable defaults?
- 5. Context Sensitive take users right to the data common metaphor: list of records at top level or a map with objects using location, time, user info to select what to show but no top level lists to select the right object type/function Settings as an option on the tab bar
- 6. Don’t Do This: iPivotal
- 7. Do This: TrackR (Koombea)
- 8. Leverage Device Capabilities smartphones have senses: sight, hearing, touch don’t do myopic web ports you can probably use: GPS mapping PIM contacts camera
- 9. What To Do: Nationwide Claims App great use of device capabilities (GPS, camera) to record accident info free on App Store
- 10. Synchronized Local Data make it possible to use the app without connectivity insure that user’s work on transactions (Create/Update/Delete) is never lost automatically cache frequently used data generally requires some kind of sync framework “ Sync to Contacts” is not sync
- 11. Handle Varying Schemas Large enterprise apps (CRM, ERP) rarely have fixed/”out of box” schema Need to handle varying builtin objects (account, contact, task, etc.) Plus handle inevitable changes to those schemas one reason why apps for CRM/ERP are rare on the App Store
- 12. IFusion no local data (sync so you can access contacts when offline)? no save to local PIM contacts?
- 13. InfusionSoft written with Rhodes. data is synced and available offline. robust set of capabilities on each contact (tags, followup sequence, history, action set). save to PIM (address book)
- 14. Support All Devices Android and iPhone have great growth But BlackBerry and Windows Mobile have enterprise installed bases that aren’t going away Symbian is still huge worldwide Nokia/Intel Meego and Atom chip are very interesting
- 15. Rapid Iterations deliver small identifiable features frequently use a toolset that enables rapid iteration Objective C might not be the best one for that
- 16. Rhodes Architecture RhoSync Server your app code RhoSync client ORM (Rhom) Rhodes components Ruby executor HTML templates model controller model HTML templates controller Backend app mobile device source adapter Backend app model model We provide: Rhodes app generator Backend app Device capabilities smartphone device source adapter You write:
- 17. Rhodes v. Other Frameworks Only one that supports all devices Only one with synchronized data Only MVC framework And only ORM First Ruby on the device First and only hosted development service for mobile
- 18. Summary Context sensitivity Avoid typing Leverage the device Support all devices Synchronized local data Handle varying metadata Rapidly iterate