Oracle UX Tablet Guide for Apps iBook (and PDF) version): Early Adopter Wanted!

[Ultan Ó Broin (Oracle Applications User Experience]

Folks,

an interactive guide in iBook format, aimed at enterprise developers of tablet apps has been released from the Oracle Apps UX team.

Officially " This guide provides basic help for designers, developers, and project managers trying to approach tablet design and testing from an enterprise

point of view." (Source: https://blogs.oracle.com/uxdirect/entry/new_design_patterns_released_on)

Direct links to download from OTN docs:

• If you have an iPad: http://download.oracle.com/otndocs/tabletguide.ibooks
  
• If you need the PDF version (non-interactive, natch): http://download.oracle.com/otndocs/tabletguide.pdf

Anyone interested in trying it out - either directly with some ADF Faces or ADF Mobile coding or process-wise (wireframing)? Contact me by email or Twitter (@ultan or @usableapps). We (Oracle Apps UX) can feature your output and feedback on blogs if you're OK with that , and any feedback will be used to develop our outreach and offerings...

Cheers

Ultan (Oracle)

[Raed Turkmani]

Excellent resource - thanks for posting this valuable guide..

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From: Ultan Ó Broin (Oracle Applications User Experience <ulta...@gmail.com>
To: adf-met...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2013 7:46 PM
Subject: [ADF EMG] Oracle UX Tablet Guide for Apps iBook (and PDF) version): Early Adopter Wanted!

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[Chris Muir]

Hi Ultan

Thanks very much for sharing the tablet guide. Having read it cover to cover it very well articulates thoughts and ideas I was still forming on the difference and concerns specific to tablets vs mobile vs desktop app design. Personally I love these sort of guides, a brain accelerator of sorts, opening my mind to think about what I should think about next (besides my next flat white).

I especially liked the chapter of wire framing for tablets. Using Air Display to shift mock ups built on the desktop onto the iPad to test, what a small but great idea for taking wire frames to the next level, interactive mock ups on the device none the less which just about anyone can pick up.

Rather than replying via an email internally to Oracle which would block further discussions to the EMG I'll follow up with some thoughts and constructive criticism here. I hope EMG members find this useful.

One comment I can make for an additional section is that enterprise apps typical require complex validations and complex error messages which from experience don't fit/are clunky with the NUI interaction. To date (and I have been looking) I haven't seen many tablet apps besides a few mandatory field errors show any sophisticated or notably unique level of interaction with such validation, though obviously mobile/tablet programmers go to lengths to provide a simplified UI such that such validations aren't required/the UI assist users enter valid data by how the UI is constructed.

As a result I'm curious to understand if there are different patterns for tablet UI validation scenarios (eg. single or multiple mandatory fields, vs dependent fields same screen (start <= end date), vs dependent fields split across screens (a complex task flow such as a taxation return)) & how to handle them, or avoid them too? I wonder what your team has discovered to date? Is there a level of sophisticated tablet enterprise apps we might not have yet seen and studied because they're locked behind corporate infrastructure?

On a separate line of tablet design which I'm deliberating is the competing needs to:

a) provide a tablet UI that provides information in a flat all you can eat form. For example unlike traditional enterprise app where you might first view department data, then drill down to the employees in another screen, then down again to each employee's jobs, the tablet is likely to take an approach where that's all available in a dashboard, or more flattened structure (much like Fusion Apps dashboards) possibly using popovers to hide/reveal data.

b) versus over the wire performance, as we're now forced to download and cache considerable amount of information to satisfy such interfaces & flattened structures which may not be ideal for tablet limited connectivity & memory constraints

c) versus the tablet programmer's added complexity of caching this enterprise data and making the app responsive

d) versus the risk of having the data stored on the device & the device is stolen

Indeed it seems the requirements of enterprise apps are orthogonal to the characteristics that make tablets what they are and why they are desirable. By extension could it be that there is a broad assumption that tablet apps will make inroads into the enterprise space, but in reality we might just discover that this doesn't pans out in its entirety, tablets will be relegated to implement (functionally) small niche (easy picking) enterprise use cases, and failing to tackle larger complex business cases as they're just too hard to simplify - both technically & from a business perspective? As a proving point, it's often expressed by many that while they love their tablet, their PC is still their workhorse. So in other words should the document also consider where tablets aren't right for the enterprise space?

.... which makes me think there's even a case for a tablet-enterprise maturity model (Carnegie-Mellon eat your heart out, and for the record I'm trade marking TEMM).

See, told you the guide was a brain accelerator, now I've a lot of ideas buzzing around in my head, but as I'm stuck on a plane reading this I've only my iPad to peck my ideas down, where's my laptop?!

Regards,

Chris Muir

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[Ultan Ó Broin (Oracle Applications User Experience]

Hey Chris, thanks for the follow-up. Some great observations.

I haven't used Air Display myself (I have done some mobile app wireframing using popapp.in), but if anyone has examples from the wild they'd like to share, then I'd love to see them too (educating partners and developers on wireframing being one of my eh, domains in Applications UX).

Good points on validation. I don't have patterns, but I can see a need for guidance, particularly around the validation of EO-level objects often associated with business rules we run up against in the enterprise apps world. On tablets and other "on the go" or lightweight uses, minimizing number of fields not just required fields and autocompleting using recently accessing information, location, photos taken, etc where possible through is the way to go, using inline messaging as opposed to show-stopper modal dialogs preferred. One aspect that needs consideration is that enterprise data is shared between users and now thanks to the cloud between devices too. Although task flows can be redesigned to optimize the user experience, they still revolve around a single source of data truth. If there are many users, then notions of Undo, Implicit Save, Auto-save, etc need to be considered wisely.

Clearly these are things we should be putting into our UX workshop series for building great-looking usable apps. I'll take that action item.

We see a trend towards simplicity, a lightweight use for casual or frequently-used tasks done in self-service mode, or using device features (cameras, gps, etc) and highly visual interfaces such as dashboards. I think the more complex apps will be left to the desktop UI world. There are some tasks that will remain done that way. Cannot see the PC demise in the too-near future of the enterprise....:)

 

This time next year of course, we might need a Wearable Device Maturity Model perhaps?

U