Your Digital Workplace on mobile: The right questions to ask yourself to run your project!
If you are planning to set up a Digital Workplace designed for the mobile or you want to make your Digital Workplace mobile, then come to the Digital Workplace Summit 2019 on November 12 for the Wisen workshop at 2pm.
In the era of remote, of arranged times,.... reflection on mobile phones is essential!
The technical solutions to access your Digital Workplace on mobile or tablet are multiple, each one has its advantages and disadvantages and it is essential to have them in mind, but it is also by asking yourself the right questions that you will be able to make the right choice!
The different technical solutions
There are 4 main ways to understand the mobile for your Digital Workplace. The idea of this workshop is to allow you to better understand each of these technological choices and to identify their advantages and disadvantages in relation to your project.
- Responsive Web Design or RWD: this involves adapting the UX and UI of the desktop version of your site for use on mobile and tablet devices.
- The JMobile application: JMobile is a heavy application developed by Jalios and which aims to present an application view, with a little customization of the interface
- Heavy application developed specifically for your site: This is a fully customized application developed for your needs and for a dedicated client (Android, Apple, Windows Phone...).
- Progressive Web App or PWA: To make it simple, it is a matter of encapsulating your site in a heavy application. The application interacts with your site to get the behavior of a "classic" application, it's like a shell!
The key questions
Attention, here we go for the questions in gusts, with two main axes: for what to do and for whom? All these questions will determine the technical choice you will have to make...
- Mobile yes! But what for?
- Navigation or contribution? You must identify yourself if you want your site to be searchable to read content or if you want the contribution, interactions and collaborative aspects to be facilitated.
- Offline access? In contribution or in consultation?
- Access your device's equipment? You need to determine if your project involves using the mobile device's camera, GPS,... to contribute? or to profile the information according to your location for example...
- Who is your target? This question is essential! You will need to explore the following topics to answer them:
- Is your target audience comfortable with mobility, navigation, contribution, application use...?
- Do you want to make your entire DW mobile or hide certain areas, pages,...?
- Recurrence of mobile traffic? You must identify if your target will occasionally consult your DW on mobile and tablet or its use in mobile mode is essential, at any time. Should we encourage users to come to your DW from their mobiles by pushing the information, by notifying them?
- Permanent connection? Here you need to determine whether your target audience, in their professional context, has a permanent connection, or is regularly confronted with white areas or low throughput.
- And with which connection? The mobile network or your corporate wifi network?
Measure the impacts to make a choice!
All these questions involve answers that will have technical, budgetary and temporal impacts!
- Techniques: Regarding access security, it is obviously easier to control a closed network than an open one. You will have to manage the heterogeneity of your terminals (client and version, format, model,...), which will be easier to manage if you have an enterprise fleet, but perhaps you are in BYOD mode (Bring Your Own Device: each user uses his own equipment)...
- Budgetary: Each of these technical choices has an impact on the purchase budget (implementation services and possible licenses) but also on the maintenance budget. Budgets can vary by a factor of 1 to 10 depending on the solutions chosen. But the important thing is not necessarily the amount of the budget in absolute terms, but rather to put it in perspective with the added value of satisfying an essential need of your users!
- Time: Making applications available on certain platforms can take time and slow down projects and maintenance, choosing an existing solution can be fast but less customizable...
It is therefore all a matter of reflection, analysis and compromise to find your right solution. It is all this process and methodology that Wisen will allow you to touch with your finger, to properly prepare your mobile project.
