Use rhomobile as your app framework!
Bob and I are very interested in Smartphone app development, specifically Android development. Apps are being used across the world to enable work, play, and collaboration. App development and sales is a huge economical force. Governments are starting to use apps to make work easier – there are even military apps for the iPhone. Basically what I am saying is if you don’t have an App, you are way behind. Since I am one of those without my own app (sorry, not writing for BlackBerry) I thought this was the right place for me to be.
Adam Blum of rhomobile, an open mobile framework company, gave this talk. It was an introduction to the general principles that drive compelling apps, as well examples of how bad user experiences are created.
Adam’s Best Practices:
- Avoid Typing - pick reasonable default settings, don’t have ANY setup process, and use information on device to pick up locations/people
- Be Context Sensitive – take users right to the data, no top level lists to select the right object type/function
- Leverage Device Capabilities – smartphones have senses, don’t do myopic web ports, use: GPS, mapping, PIM contacts and camera
- Synchronized Local Data – make it possible to use the app without connectivity, insure that user’s work on transactions is never lost, automatically cache frequently used data, generally requires some kind of sync framework
- Handle Varying Schemes – large enterprise apps rarely have fixed/”out of box” schema, need to handle varying built-in objects, plus handle inevitable changes to those schemes
- Support All Devices – Android and iPhone have great growth, but BlackBerry and WinMo have enterprise installed bases that aren’t going away, Symbian is still huge worldwide, Nokia/Intel Meego + Atom chip are very interesting, don’t forget WebOS!!
- Rapid Iterations – deliver small identifiable features frequently, use a toolset that enables rapid iteration
- Leverage Free Data Sources – rich informational apps are still rare, synchronized data apps even rarer, Data.gov is a hugely underexploited area
Adam even wrote a small app for us, one that was a “611″ incident reporting, controlling in Ruby (writing in HTML/CSS/Javascript) and exporting to iPhone and Android emulators. Adam suggests using frameworks to help create apps, enabling easy porting to different operating systems.
For someone who is just days away from the HTC Evo 4G, I found this talk extremely interesting and helpful, as we try to develop our own in-house applications to enable efficiencies in our day to day operations. If you’ve got the need to create an app, check out RhoMobile (here).
Related posts:
- Live Blog from Gov 2.0 Expo – Introduction to Government Social Publishing with Drupal
- Live from the Gov 2.0 Expo – Los Angeles in the Cloud: The Devil is in the Details
- Live from the Gov 2.0 Expo – Scaling and Managing Applications in the Cloud
- Live from the Gov 2.0 Expo – How to Successfully Drive Traffic to Your Agency Website
- Live from the Gov 2.0 Expo – Security in the Cloud
