Does it work on mobile?

In the world of Enterprise apps, products are sold not only because of their features. Enterprise selling is about building relationships. It is overall product vision that demonstrates product value and uniqueness.

This product vision is represented by product roadmap and demonstration how a product fits current and future technology trends.

New technology trends are often rooted in consumer world, but enterprises want to keep it real when talking about future. And nothing resonates better than mobile. In a world where 60% of online traffic is coming from mobile, and these devices are more than capable of acting as primary device for large part of population, this simple question is asked over and over in world of enterprise apps:

Does it work on mobile?

To answer this question, the most important fact you need to know is the year of manufacture. Most of the current web UI's are based on frameworks and libraries that just work on mobile out of the box. So when app was build around 2014 you can safely assume that it works on mobile. For web UI's that means it will render same content as the desktop version, perhaps with few out of the box adaptive or responsive framework features such as hamburger menu.

Stock photo stereotype — smiling business people looking at a tablet, being productive and having fun at the same time.

Designed for mobile

Rather than considering mobile design as QA or test case, the question that enterprises should ask is different.

Was the product intentionally designed to be used on mobile device to address user goals? Is using mobile device simplest and most effective way how to match these goals?

In the world where most of the consumer web-design is heading towards mobile first design approach, isn't it too late to ask this once the product is already designed?

Mobile first by InVision Team http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/reimagine-web-design-process/

The solution is to intentionally design responsive interfaces right from the beginning. And that always starts with clear problem definition — goals.

Goals

As article intro suggests, I often see that it is Internal User that is calling for mobile UI experience. There is no better way to demonstrate how product matches current technology trends than pull iPad in a meeting room and run product demo from it like it is no big deal.

But does users solve their problems on the go? On their company iPads? Can they see enough context on mobile screens to be able to take action? Are tablet devices supported by their IT department, or they are using the product from personal devices (BYOD)?

Common enterprise cubicle setup — laptop with an external display, budget keyboard and mouse, IP phone.

Squeezed dashboards

When designing product without clear goals, the best demonstration of "validated-at-the-end" enterprise mobile design approach are dashboards. These dashboards work on mobile and companies often proudly shares these ridiculous screenshots — pie charts, bar charts, trend lines, map views — same content than on large displays but squeezed to fit limited screen real estate. Just hide the labels or make them small.

Now I understand why people are smiling on all tablet stock photos.

These dashboards do not respond to a device and context. The only goal and motivation of these dashboards is to show stuff on a tablet.

Responsive design

Using CSS media queries, web UI can effectively respond to a device screen size and input method. Native design patterns such as Windows apps or Google Material design offers a lot of inspiration that can be directly applied to dashboard design.

When the goal is to provide insight, simple text summaries often work better than tiny charts or maps on small screens.

https://medium.com/truth-labs/designing-data-driven-interfaces-a75d62997631

To design effective dashboard that works from large war-room displays to iPads, it is necessary to take into account viewing distance and screen density (pixel per inch) to optimise web UI. Bar chart just looks different when looking from 20cm or 2m distance.

Windows app — Designing with effective pixels.

Conclusions

There are no shortcuts to good design. It does not just happen as a side effect of using adaptive framework or library component. Complex dashboards will not become effective on mobile by adding few tweaks in QA testing phase. They have to be intentionally designed to respond to a specific device. As a result, it might happen that dashboard is no longer showing graphs, but clear text summaries.

While sometimes it is valid requirement to show off and demonstrate company vision with iPad in hand, real users goals and motivations should drive product design. Responsive design can match these goals in creative ways, provide much better experience than squeezed little charts and maps.

Liked it? Please recommend it, or continue reading with Designing for Internal User.