Suppose your organization has several software applications in its product line. You’ve learned from your users—or maybe your competition—that your applications must be available on mobile devices…NOW. And they need to be responsive to the screen size and resolution of the device they’re being used on.
Easy, right? It’s just another level of software complexity. Or maybe it feels like more trouble than it’s worth. If you could just hold out for another couple of years or so, somebody will automate the process and you can use some magic-wand software tool that’ll do it for you.
But this time, that’s not going to work. For two reasons:
First, converting to mobile and/or responsive involves RETHINKING, not just SHRINKING. What people do on their phones and tablets while they’re on the go is different than what they do sitting in their offices. You need to make all your apps behave differently, not just fit on a tiny screen. It’s like you can’t just shrink an elephant to the size of an ant; you need to make fundamental changes, not just scale changes.
Second, the pace of development is too fast to wait for tools to catch up. You’ll lose your user base while you stall for time. Changes in hardware, OSs, screen resolutions and more are too fast for do-it-all UI tools to appear for the foreseeable future.
- Unified UX Design System. This is the “secret ingredient” of successful mobile projects. The Unified UX Design System identifies the responsive reusable UI panels that go into all your applications. And it describes how they fit together.
- A Library. This is reusable UI code based on your chosen technology. It’s what enforces the UX Design System.
- Methodology. It has to be reasonable for your product and development teams to handle.
- Governance Policy. Teams need to know who to ask for guidance on resolving conflicts.
- Rollout and Training Approach. Employees and users need to know about the what and when of the new releases, how to use them and how to get support.