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The latest articles from Step Two Designs - 3 ways to deliver mobile solutions / information grouping and the 'my' prefix #intranet

The latest articles from Step Two Designs are now available free and to download from the Step Two website. They are:

3 ways to deliver mobile solutions by James Robertson

James discusses using native, web-based and hyrbid app design for enterprise mobility - which is the topic of the moment irregardless of what industry you're in. Increasingly we're seeing even desk staff spend 50 per cent or more of their time away from their desks.

Taking care with intranet information architecture concepts by Alex Manchester

In my article this month i talk about two common intranet information architecture concepts - using task-based groupings of information such as 'Employement' or 'working here' and not using the 'my' prefix on your site. 

Both topics are incredibly rich with considerations, and you can expect more on them in the near future. 

Let us know your thoughts!

Step Two Designs

Woolworths goes mobile with 890 iPads for store managers - and why the traditional intranet is on its way out #intranet

There's a great story on The Australian today entitled 'iPads to save Woolies millions'. The article (paywalled, but Google the title and get through that way) describes how Woolworths has given its 890 store managers 3G-enabled iPads that will get them out of their dingy back office and on to the store floors, where they should be. 

The 'saving millions' claim is a little dubious as there's no actual valid calculation included, but some high points include: 

• "The iPad rollout was done in an exceedingly short timeframe. Normally these IT projects for us take years. This was done in eight weeks."
• Optus provided the SIM cards and assisted with implementing an MDM (mobile device management) staging system that allows Woolworths to centrally control iPad content.The MDM tool lets Woolies roll out apps and upgrades en masse to all iPads and manage security. An iPad that goes missing can be wiped remotely while new ones can be quickly set up.
• There's an app for managing product recalls, for viewing store policies and procedures, and for implementing "planograms" -- centrally provided designs of how products are to be arranged on shelves. 
• There is an app explaining safety systems, and Yammer, a Woolworths' implementation of the Microsoft-owned social network used by corporations, was also installed.
• Once the new iPad network is bedded down, Woolworths plans to focus on further improving communications, on offering analytics to store managers on sales, and more apps.

Powerful stuff, and though it's not free from a little bit of hyperbole, such technology moves are exciting, so that's fair enough I think.

'Desktop intranets' - increasingly crusty?

This article also nicely highlights that mobile is doing to the enterprise space what it has done to the consumer space - that is, turn it on its head. The capabilities highlighted above are pretty much in line with the grand 'digital workplace' concept - here and now, live, in an Australian supermarket chain.

There was "whooping and cheering" when the initiative was launched (and iPads handed out) at the conference. Can you imagine getting that at a new intranet rollout? Teams I've worked with have had rounds of applause when they've launched new sites, but it's typically pretty understated. Only once with a completely groundbreaking social intranet at a government department, launched to the whole department in a big room, did we get whooping and cheering. The article's picture makes the Woolies conference look like opening day at a new Apple store (I guess it was in a way!). 

It shows nicely that there's little doubt the traditional intranet, accessed from a desktop/laptop computer, is starting to feel very, very crusty. As it has been in the consumer space for some time, now in the enterprise space it's definitely time to be thinking 'mobile first'.

[The Australian via @Chieftech]

The enterprise mobile revolution - a one day workshop in Sydney this July

With James having run a full-day workshop on enterprise mobility last week in the US (see a snapshot here), we've had a pile of folks asking whether we’re going to run the workshop in Australia. The good news: the answer is yes!

The enterprise mobile revolution (a one day workshop)

Mobile devices have transformed our lives, and there is a huge rush to deliver ever-richer apps for consumers. While the enterprise has tended to lag far behind, the pressure from staff and the executive to deliver solutions is driving a transformation in enterprise mobility.

This workshop will share the work already being done by organisations around the globe, and will provide a framework and strategy for delivering enterprise mobile solutions.

The day is designed for those organisations serious about enterprise mobility, and CIO’s, IT teams and intranet managers are all encouraged to attend. This is a unique opportunity to get ahead of the curve on this key topic, and to plan for the year ahead.

See James’s presentation on enterprise mobility to get a sneak peak of what will be covered in the day. We’re planning to run just a single session of this workshop in 2012, so you’ll want to fly in if necessary.

When: Tuesday 17 July 2012
Where: Hilton Hotel, Sydney

Learn more: full workshop details and registration

The enterprise mobility revolution #intranet #mobile

James has been in the US this week, presenting to the mobile user experience audience of User Interface Engineering. The topic: The enterprise mobility revolution. 

Check out his full slide deck on the Step Two Designs site.

Together with 'social' and SharePoint, mobile is the third key focus area for intranets in 2012. There's lots of great work in this space and we're getting heavily involved in it. For enterprises, as it is in the consumer space, using 'revolution' is genuinely warranted, and perhaps has passed tipping point. It's taken a while. 

Also don't forget to check out the Award Winning Mobile Intranets report we published late last year. It includes three superb mobile intranet case studies from the 2011 Intranet Innovation Awards, tips and principles for researching and designing, and plenty of screenshots.

[James Robertson, Award Winning Mobile Intranets]

Metro-style SharePoint intranets - stunning or stupid? #SharePoint #intranet #metro

Last week's discovery of two possible SharePoint 2013 screens certainly generated a lot of interest on Twitter, and discussion at Step Two and elsewhere regarding the direction of SharePoint 2013's possible UI design.

First off by way of a brief update, there's been some healthy scepticism about whether either of the two screenshots are real. I'm not sure myself (and I questioned their authenticity in the original post).

Certainly, the yellower of the two (a MySite?) looks very feasible and a mild evolution of what we know as SharePoint 2010, while the green, 'Team Site template' looks a little too artistic and over-complicated to be 100% real. It's also not very SharePointy but, conversely, very 'Metro' - Microsoft's new interface language for Windows.

But here's the question: even if the latter, very Metro-style screenshot is real, will either of these two design possibilities make a huge difference to the usability and design of SharePoint? Will it provide the 'greatly improved UX' that's been touted for SharePoint 2013, or will it just be more akin to lipstick on a pig?

If you haven't done so and are able to run it (spare drive, virtual machine etc), I'd recommend downloading the Windows 8 Consumer Preview so you can get a big (3+GB) taste of Metro flavour. You could also try a Windows phone if/next time you ever see one.

Despite using a Mac day to day, I do still frequently have to use Windows, both at client sites and for a couple of programs I use regularly at work. It doesn't take much squinting at Windows 7 or XP to time warp back to 1991, so little has the basic Windows OS evolved over that time; often-permanent desktop app icons with little 'alias' arrows, manilla coloured folders with black outlines, the same information architecture and nomenclature, bolted together OS components, poor text, icon and image rendering, error noises coming from everywhere, outlines and frames within frames within frames. Thankfully Clippy doesn't make an appearance anymore.

Returning to Mac OS X always feels like a sanctuary in comparison, even with Apple doing it's best to ruin it with some of Lion's (and iOS's) naff design 'flourishes' and decisions (bring back 'Save As'!).

From that perspective, the one of preferring modern interface designs, Windows 8's Metro does look like a breath of fresh air in comparison to 'classic' Windows. But because 'classic' Windows is still the core of Windows 8, Metro is just a layer, and a paper thin one at that. Scratch a little bit in Windows 8 and you're back in terribly familiar territory.

For desktop users, ones with a mouse/trackpad and keyboard (and that's pretty much the only users of Windows at the moment, don't forget), Metro doesn't seem to work.

This isn't a new or unique opinion. Many a review of the Windows 8 consumer preview has stated that Metro on desktop demonstrates some fairly flawed or at least very conflicted thinking. Bolting on a completely different UX paradigm to the 'classic', hasn't-really-changed-in-years Windows desktop is indeed completely jarring. 

Microsoft wants lots of Windows 8 tablets out there, but it's a late entrant to a game that's already going a wee bit too fast for the company. By the time Windows 8 comes out we'll nearly be at iPad '4', and we'll have iOS6 and Google Android 5 too (though Android on tablets has also failed to ignite). This suggests that, in the foreseeable future at least, most people using Windows - and thus SharePoint 2013 - are going to be doing so via a desktop computer.

With that in mind, even if SharePoint 2013 does look very Metro, what will it do for it? There's every likelihood you'll still want to customise it to present within a more well-conceived, custom interface scheme for the desktop, and still need to provide a version for iPad, not a Windows 8 tablet.

What do you think? And do you love Metro in practice, on a desktop? I'd be keen to hear thoughts on this aspect too.

Related: Is this how SharePoint 2013 will look?

Anatomy of an Android phone review

After playing with an HTC One X at the weekend and feeling inquisitive (Is it really that powerful? Am I being dumb in not getting Android's / Ice Cream Sandwich's odd UI scheme and buttons?), I began looking at broader reviews of it.

After the second one I read (which is about the 355th Android phone review I have read in the last few years), it struck me that, when it comes to an Android manufacturer's new flagship or 'hero' phone, you can almost predict the review's fundamentals without even reading it.

The screen is big. Enormous, in fact. 

The screen is great, nearly (but not quite) as good as the iPhone 4/4S.

The design is amazing, but it gets grubby/is plasticky/feels a bit cheap. But it's still amazing. Best design ever.

[The gimmick] is, well, yeah I don't mind it, but Beats Audio / that clear plastic bit that doesn't do anything / the curved screen / the NFC that doesn't work anywhere is a bit of a gimmick. It's cool though. Really. It may be of use sometime in the future. 

(YAY!) [The manufacturer] has [finally] simplified (toned down) their [awful] Android skin [now they've realised, five years in, that it limits their ability to update to new versions of Android quickly].

There are some usability issues with Android but, hey, it's a quantum leap on from the last version, which was great and all, but this one is so much better. 

There's no expandable storage whaaaaaaaaaaa whingggggggee boooooooo.

It's lightning quick. That new latest mega-core processor is awesome.

But, oh, Android still isn't quite as responsive as iOS, it's still a bit laggy. But that's OK. It's better than the last version. It's nearly there. Honestly.

One caveat though, yeah, if you use it  a lot, (like on the bus to work for 20 minutes) those 16 cores really ruin the battery life.

The battery is sealed whaaaaaaaaaaa whingggggggee boooooooo.

Buy it! Best phone out there!

But, also, wait for [other manufacturer's] new superfone which will be out next week too, and the the chip it has should be so much better. And it'll be 4G!

[Image source: dailyiphoneblog]

Surrender? HP kills its best iPad competitor

With sales a fraction of targets, and reviews universally nominating the benchmark iPad as the choice to make, HP has officially nuked its WebOS hardware division - the organisation formerly known as Palm: 

In addition, [on Friday] HP reported that it plans to announce that it will discontinue operations for webOS devices, specifically the TouchPad and webOS phones. HP will continue to explore options to optimize the value of webOS software going forward.

It was April 2010 when HP acquired Palm for $1.2 billion. In these crazy times of quadruple that for one patent portfolio, and twelve times that for another one that also included a smartphone phone hardware company (among other things), this might not seem a lot.

Yet it is still a wad of cash, and last year hopes were really high for HP to take it's 'hardware know-how' and provide Palm's team with the support and engineering it needed to make the much-loved WebOS a success. From the official press release last year:

The combination of HP’s global scale and financial strength with Palm’s unparalleled webOS platform will enhance HP’s ability to participate more aggressively in the fast-growing, highly profitable smartphone and connected mobile device markets. Palm’s unique webOS will allow HP to take advantage of features such as true multitasking and always up-to-date information sharing across applications.

A mere 16 months later, a disastrous Touchpad launch, and that strategy is no more.

HP also announced on Friday the possible spin-off of its PC hardware company, and purchase of UK software firm Autonomy for another $10 billion or so that pretty much cleans out their bank account. All three announcements have people scratching their heads. The stock market and its players didn't like it at all, and HP's shares fell a whopping 20 per cent. 

What's going on here? Did HP really just give up on a $1.2 billion purchase after a year? Apparently WebOS will still live on without the hardware aspect: licenced to other manufacturers; printer menus, perhaps? God knows HP's stuff could do with a UX makeover, but that's a sad, if seemingly inevitable demise for the once brilliant Palm.

What about a patent sell off as many analysts and commentators have suggested? Would Palm's designs and IP be worth some dollars? Undoubtedly. Perhaps way more than $1.2 billion (Apple isn't suing HP for it's very similar-looking Touchpad, for example), but that still seems an odd strategy.

What I'm pretty sure about is this story has a long way yet to run.

HP has repeatedly said WebOS is valuable, and there's plenty of very smart, experienced people in the mix to suggest that there's a much bigger strategic play in motion. I read this interview a while back with Stephen DeWitt I came away pretty intrigued. A further interview with DeWitt posted yesterday adds more, and closer inspection of that orignal 2010 press release is really worth reading in full if you're interested. 

What is known for sure is that the world's biggest PC maker by volume just completely surrendered its cards in the tablet market. That alone is a fairly stunning conclusion to an absolutely crazy week for the tech industry, and great reading for a tech lover like me. 

The iPhone '5' will launch in...

It will soon be over. The nightmare, the horror, the frustration, the overall EPIC FAIL that is the Vodafone Australia network (#Vodafail) will soon be banished from my life.

Banished, that is, just as soon as Apple can be bothered to launch the next iPhone. As soon as they do, I will be signing up for a fresh new handset – on Telstra. Ahhhh, my word, it will be a relief to have a phone that actually works. Maybe I'll even be able to use 10% of my call and data cap? Wonders...

But, just when will that iPhone launch be? The usual June/July launch window has wizzed past, and all we got was a gimmick-laden, half-baked new OS with faux leather inserts. August is half-gone, and still no official iPhone launch date. Sad face.

And, what will this new fandangled iPhone be called? The iPhone 4S? The iPhone '5'?

These are tough, life-critical questions.

Last week, rumours emerged of an 'Apple Media Event' on September 7th. These rumours were quickly dismissed. 

Now there's other rumours of O2 in the UK, prepping its stores for new iPhone collateral for a mid-September timeframe. 

And, just this past Monday, I was chatting to a telco rep who suggested 'the phone will be in our inventory system in... October'. Hmmmmm.

But, perhaps the biggest potential giveaway of all comes from Apple's CFO, Peter Oppenheimer, on Apple's recent quarterly results conference call. These results were for the third quarter, ending June 25th 2011. Oppenheimer's reason for an unusually low revenue forecast for the next 'September quarter' (July, August, September), was as follows: 

Question: Katy Huberty - Morgan Stanley

The 12% revenue downtick, Peter, in September is much more conservative than your typical September guidance and what you end up reporting in September, which is usually a 20% plus increase for the last 4 years. Can you help us understand why you expect this next quarter to trend softer than seasonal and maybe how you handicap the impact from some of the new software services and products that you expect to launch in the quarter?

Answer: Peter Oppenheimer

Sure. Let me start with the units and I'll give you some thoughts on revenue. For the education-buying season, September has historically been more weighted to higher education and we would expect this to be the same this year. We have the best line-up of Macs ever and we'd expect to see a year-over-year increase in sales. We also expect a year-over-year increase in iPhone sales. And for iPad, we're continuing to expand our quarterly production capacity and point of sale and we'd expect a significant year-over-year increase in sales. For iPod, we would expect to see a sequential year-over-year decline. As we announced at WWDC, we have a lot going on in the fall with the introduction of iOS 5 and iCloud. We also have a future product transition that we're not going to talk about today and these things will impact our September quarter. We remain very confident in our business, our new product pipeline and our momentum.

It's an obvious conclusion to draw, but this seems to me to be an announcement hiding in plain sight. Apple will announce the new iPhone in September. The have indeed had a media event EVERY Septmber for the last few six years (2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005...). OK, it might not be on September 7th...

This September announcement will have an immediate impact on iPhone 4 sales. Every newspaper in the world, pretty much, will report this unveiling. That's the 'transition' responsible for Apple's low guidance for September. And it's noted as 'unusual' by the analyst because the iPhone has traditionally been launched in June/July, making the September quarter typically rather large. This year that won't happen, but Apple's unbelievable sales progress will still mean an epic year-on-year unit sales rise. The iPhone 4 is still selling well, don't forget.

During this coming September, Apple and its suppliers will not be selling the new model iPhone like normal, but instead be working hard to get the inventory into stores across the world, while DESPERATE, TRAUMATISED, would-be customers on Vodafone, like me, will be queuing up to put our names down on lists so we can queue up again at a later date to get our new iJesus-Phone. Glorious.

The new phone will then go on sale in October. Worldwide. Boom. 

Who wants to bet me a beer on this? I've been terrible before at predicting the success of certain products, but pretty confident about the launch timeframes. As also said before, there's a definite pattern to the Apple launch stars aligning, and this seems to fit the pattern. 

I'd also bet on invitiations going out within the next fortnight, but that is less certain.

C'mon. Beer?

[iPhone 5 mockup credit: MacRumors]

 

 

Here's what an iPad looked like in 1994

Peter Kafka finds a a prediction from 1994 that is unusually accurate:

Tablets will be a whole new class of computer. They’ll weigh under two pounds. They’ll be totally portable. They’ll have a clarity of screen display comparable to ink on paper. They’ll be able to blend text, audio, and graphics together. And they’ll be a part of our daily lives around the turn of the century. We may still use the computer to create information, but we’ll use the tablet to interact with information, reading, watching, listening.

Really not too far off the iPad is it. Kind of reminds me of a famous quote by Alan Kay that I saw on a model recently: "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."

[Peter Kafka, All Things D]

 

15 intranet case studies / examples and over 200 intranet screenshots

Alongside the announcement of the 2010 Intranet Innovation Award winners, Step Two Designs has published the Intranet Innovations 2010 report. This features 15 detailed case studies/examples of the winners and commended entries this year, and over 200 screenshots in full colour.

It's a must-have for intranet teams, who rarely get to see the work of others in their field.

I also think this year's Platinum winner, Canadian law firm Bennett Jones, has created one of the most sophisticated, fit-for-purpose and business-critical intranets ever seen. Described in a 17-page case study, BenNet is the result of two years of hard work by the Bennett Jones team and their partnering consultancies.

Together with this example, the report also contains key themes and editorials from the six international judges (myself, James Robertson, Catherine Grenfell, Martin White, William Amurgis and Jane McConnell) and covers topics including:

• Content is no longer king
• The tipping point of social media
• The dominance of SharePoint
• Personalisation that works
• The increasing focus on user experience
• Garnering exectuive support and buy in, and more

We also discuss future trends, including intranets on mobile devices, the increasing focus on data and analytics, and the potential of gaming mechanics and gamification.

I know I'm biased, but there's so much to learn in all of this I think it's an invaluable resource given the meagre price. As a PDF, it also looks great on iPads ;-) (below: Framestore's customisable homepage entry).

Head to the Step Two Designs site to find out more and purchase your copy instantly.