AMIS Edisonbaan 15 Postbus 24 3430 AA Nieuwegein T +31 30 601 60 00 E [email protected] I amis.nl Whitepaper User Experience Frameworks - Future of optimal UI development - Authors Robbrecht van Amerongen Paco van der Linden Date July 2014 Table of Content 1 What is user experience (UX)? .................................................................................................... 4 1.1 Effective .................................................................................................................................................................. 4 1.2 Intuitive ................................................................................................................................................................... 4 1.3 Anticipating ............................................................................................................................................................. 4 1.4 Autonomous / personalization ................................................................................................................................. 5 1.5 Defaults .................................................................................................................................................................. 5 1.6 Grouping ................................................................................................................................................................. 5 1.7 Effective color usage .............................................................................................................................................. 5 1.8 Reactive ................................................................................................................................................................. 5 1.9 Timely ..................................................................................................................................................................... 6 1.10 Trustworthy ............................................................................................................................................................. 6 2 Requirements for modern business UX ..................................................................................... 7 2.1 User Centric ............................................................................................................................................................ 7 2.2 Device independent ................................................................................................................................................ 7 2.3 Fast response ......................................................................................................................................................... 7 2.4 Scalable .................................................................................................................................................................. 7 2.5 Short development lifecycle .................................................................................................................................... 7 2.6 Decoupling of back end systems............................................................................................................................. 7 2.7 Rich user experience .............................................................................................................................................. 8 2.8 Ability to work offline ............................................................................................................................................... 8 2.9 Mashability.............................................................................................................................................................. 8 3 One size does not fit all ............................................................................................................... 9 3.1 Architectural models for modern user experience ................................................................................................... 9 3.2 Thin Client, Server side processing ......................................................................................................................... 9 3.3 Thin Server, Client side processing ......................................................................................................................... 9 3.4 Global difference in these models ........................................................................................................................... 9 3.5 Hybrid situation ..................................................................................................................................................... 12 3.6 Multiple small thin server apps combined in the client ........................................................................................... 12 3.7 Coupling and integrating thin server systems with backend systems..................................................................... 12 4 Use case typologies ................................................................................................................... 13 4.1 Electronic banking application ............................................................................................................................... 13 4.2 News website ....................................................................................................................................................... 13 4.3 Customer Retail Shop ........................................................................................................................................... 14 4.4 Logistics information provider ............................................................................................................................... 14 4.5 Extension on CRM system such as SAP or JDEdwards ....................................................................................... 15 4.6 Document management ........................................................................................................................................ 15 4.7 Combining information from different sources ....................................................................................................... 15 5 Characteristics to consider for a modern UX framework ....................................................... 16 5.1 Functionality ......................................................................................................................................................... 16 5.2 Technology ........................................................................................................................................................... 16 5.3 Development and deployment .............................................................................................................................. 16 5.4 Maturity and support ............................................................................................................................................. 16 5.5 When to use which architecture ............................................................................................................................ 17 5.6 Several frameworks to consider in these architectural models .............................................................................. 18 2/20 Preface “ There's A Lot More Behind This Pretty Face “ Modern business web applications are faced with rapidly changing requirements. Users can choose from a wide variety of systems and have a distinct preference when it comes to usability. The forced or required use of one single system is becoming unacceptable. So are systems with poor user experience, even if the business logic behind it is implemented well. Business users demand apps that are effective, intuitive and efficient. They must have fast performance and 24/7 availability. And they have to look sexy….. User Experience (UX) has become the major reason for rejecting a system during end user tests or even worse: after go-live. Users have high expectations, based on the frequent use of social media applications, and expect the same standard for their own business systems. Users expect an easy to use interface, fast interface response time, usage on a variety of different devices, easy login and offline availability. To be able to meet these expectations, software developers require short development cycles and full test coverage to support agile development cycles, seamless support for multiple platforms and devices, secure transactions and easy decoupling from backend systems. And during operations, systems managers, need to be prepared for the unpredictable timing and growth of the visitors of business applications. In some cases the system and hosting platforms need to be able to support a burst in demand or the exponential growth of the user community without drastic changes to the application architecture. This also requires a productive development environment with massive scalability for both the number of developers and eventually the number of concurrent end users. Frameworks with an intrinsic agile capability to modify and expand the functionality with a very short time to market. We feel there is no one-size-fits-all solution for UX requirements. We see a shift from technology derived designs towards user centric designs facilitating every end user with a personalized, timely, effective interface. This kind of approach will lead