When you are developing a mobile app (or website, or mobile web, or TV app, etc..) you should always ask yourself “What kind of an impact does this have on the end user?” It doesn’t matter whether you are creating enterprise apps or games, or anything in between. Every development decision that you make should be weighed upon it’s impact to the overall impact it has on the end user. Simply put: if your app sucks, nobody is going to want to use it.
When building mobile apps using IBM MobileFirst you have two options for a user interface layer; you can write a native app, or you can write a hybrid app using HTML, CSS, & JavaScript.
So, what kind of an impact does the addition of IBM MobileFirst have on the app?
NONE, granted the app’s UX can vary depending upon whether you are developing a native app or a hybrid app.
IBM MobileFirst Platform Foundation is a platform that consists of a server tier and client-side SDK. If you are developing a native app, the SDK/API provides access to MobileFirst platform features, like user authentication, app version management, data access through adapters, encrypted storage, unified push notification, remote log collection, and more. If you are developing a hybrid app, the app’s UX must be developed complete inside of the web view container. The MobileFirst Foundation SDK provides additional functionality just like mentioned above for the native SDK, plus a few classes that enable native dialogs and a few native UI elements, but for the most part, there is very, very minimal impact on the user’s experience.
When building any kind of mobile app, regardless of whether it is native or hybrid, you need to pay attention to what the user experiences. Are you following human interaction or design guidelines for the platform? Are you forcing your user to go through unnecessary or redundant steps? Are you making forms more complex than they need to be? Are you forcing multiple taps for a simple interaction? Can things be simplified?
The IBM MobileFirst Platform does not add any additional overhead for UX processes.
The IBM MobileFirst platform can be used to develop native apps on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, or Java ME platforms. Follow native coding conventions and UX guidelines for each individual platform. Make sure you follow these guidelines, otherwise your app may feel alien within the ecosystem, or may be rejected from app store approval altogether.
- Apple iOS Human Interface Guidelines
- Google Android Design Guidelines
- Microsoft Windows Platfrom Design Guidelines
What should you think about when building a hybrid app leveraging IBM MobileFirst?
First, it depends on your hybrid approach. If you are using the for Xamarin hybrid approach for MobileFirst apps, then your considerations will be much like writing a native app.
If you are using the HTML/CSS/JavaScript approach (leveraging the Apache Cordova container), then you really want to focus on the user’s experience inside of the HTML container. You want to make sure the UI feels like “an app”, not like “a web page”. There are many client-side frameworks that help address this need. Feel free to use any of them, or roll your own – just keep the UX/human interaction guidelines in mind.
(this is by no means an exhaustive list, there are more out there)
Make sure you’re building for touch interactivity, addressing animations correctly to minimize browser reflow operations, and more… Read this post on Dzone that I wrote last year for a lot more detail on performance considerations for hybrid or mobile web apps.
If you are using any of these (or none of these), also don’t forget an architectural pattern/framework for helping keep your code organized and consistent. Read this post on hybrid/web app architectural patterns and considerations for even more detail.
For both native and hybrid approaches, you also want to consider impacts of perceived performance vs actual raw processing power. These techniques deliver the appearance that the app is fast and responsive, instead of sluggish or locked while waiting to perform an action. Perceived performance improvements can be achieved simply by providing instant feedback, performing animations during an asynchronous request, or preemptive tasking. Don’t miss this post, where I go into perceived performance in mobile apps in great detail.