Exceptional Web Experiences 101

As I continue to prepare for Lotusphere 2012, I am reflecting on my experience last year at the conference in 2011. At Lotusphere 2011 there was lot of attention on providing an “Exceptional Web Experience” to the customers. And rightly so. At the end of the day, it’s all about making the customer, the end user, the client (or whatever they are called) happy. There can be a lot of misconceptions in the User Experience space about the concept of “web” experience”

So I asked my self this question: Is an iGoogle Page (that I view every single day) a good web experience?

Sure enough, the iGoogle page provides me with the information that I need. But to get the information, I had to enter my zip code 5 times and my address a couple of times. And none of the snippets or widgets of information talk to each other. Is this what you would call “Exceptional”?

This year, I participated in a few IBM Social Roadshows last year and I decided as part of Prolifics commitment with IBM I would talk about the whats and hows of this social experience and also present some trends in the space.

So what exactly is an “Exceptional Web Experience”? How do you achieve it?

When I looked up the meaning, I found the following answer: “it’s about how a person feels about the system”. To me that said it all, but the real question is how do you design the user experience (UE) so that it makes the end user feel good about the system? How do you attain the level of excellence?

According to me, these are some of the key drivers in creating a great User Experience
1. It’s about Relevance - Create highly personalized customer interactions

2. It’s not only just about the product - Design experiences, not features

3. Go beyond the desktop or laptop - Having a mobile presence is a must

4. Earn the trust of the customer - Improve customer loyalty and relationship by enabling “Social”

5. It’s about Web 2.0 and beyond… Web 3.0 - Visual Appeal + Ease of use = Wow customers. Keep the UI Simple, Interactive and Responsive (SIR principle)

For over a decade, IBM WebSphere Portal has led the web 2.0 space in providing a seamless web experience. But now with the help of its accelerators (Social, Collaboration, Mobile etc) it’s poised for providing greater results in the enterprise business and social space. IBM WebSphere Portal delivers greater flexibility by creating personalized web experiences that seamlessly combine back-end applications, commerce solutions, social media sites, and cloud-based services.

Speaking of Social, there is phenomenal potential in the power of introducing “Social” into day-to-day business.

I have observed some trends in how customers and clients are using the power of social to engage customers.

Social Trend #1 - Engage the Customer on the Site

This is the single biggest focus of most customers and clients. Two questions that normally arise in a UE discussion are: how do we keep the user engaged on the site? How can we have share information with users and between users?

Answer: Leverage Social. By Enabling Users to Socialize:

• Share conversations and information between users
• Wikis, blogs, forums, communities
• Ratings, commenting, tagging
• Shared bookmarks, files, activities for work & ideas

Search
• Based on profile: expertise, projects, responsibilities, and interests.

Customer Service
• Enable customers to get problems resolved quickly with click-to-chat functions.Provide them targeted results

Social Collaboration
• Improve brand awareness by syndicating content across the web, into other online properties, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google etc.

IBM WebSphere Portal provides a great point solution to start your social initiative. Concepts like tagging and rating are essential components for developing collective intelligence about the site/product. They have also proven useful in engaging customers on the site and creating a trust and a sense of community between the end of users. Out of the box templates like Blogs, Wikis, Newsletters, Communities have made it very easy for clients to share information with the users. (Requires no development, only customization). Tools like click-to-chat, integration with RSS feeds from external sources like Facebook, Twitter, Google etc have added a great social dimension to Portal which was always perceived as “single point front end solution to IBM SOA framework"

Now if your business is ready for a more mature Social strategy IBM Lotus Connections is the right solution. To highlight some of the key features that product presents
• Profiles – Find people and expertise in your social network
• Community - Connect with people of common interests to share ideas
• Forum - Start discussions to solicit feedback from end users
• Activities - Dashboard of to-dos and activities within your network
• Files - Share variety of artifacts with your individuals and groups


Social Trend #2- Expand Beyond Traditional Web

There are 4.6 Billion mobile customers. To me it means 4.6B reasons to expand the outreach of your products to beyond traditional desktop. Having a mobile presence does not mean that users can access your site via a smart phone. But a true mobile experience comes from having a site to adopt the rendering process based on the smart phone. UI elements like themes on the portal pages, the navigation schemes should be able to differentiate between an iPhone or a Blackberry or any other smart phone.

Keep in mind the following consideration for developing a mobile strategy

• Create a device agnostic presentation
• Utilize common business logic and services
• Cater to device specific requirements (iPhone maps, geo location etc)
• Create lots of screen presence despite limited real estate
• High Response time despite broadband limitations
• Leverage one common theme

There are several questions in this space. What sort of a mobile strategy should customers adopt? Should I create a native iPhone app? What about a mobile website? What’s the buzz about HTML 5?

Consider your requirements before choosing a solution. Here are some options

There are several other options for non-Portal, non-IBM based customers as well, such as using one of the open source mobile and HTML 5 based frameworks.

Social Trend #3- Optimize the Experience with BI Analytics

One of the focus areas in social business is optimizing the experience based on real-time data, site usage and social analytics.

• What drives BI Analytics?
• Who is coming to my site?
• How did they find it?
• What are they doing?
• What did they search for? Did they find it?
• What are the most popular areas?
• What are the most popular topics/content?

Leverage analytics to:

• Improve user engagement by measuring and then fine tuning the customer experience
• Intelligently manage your marketing resources
• Make better decisions faster
• Exceptional web experiences engage, attract, satisfy and retain customers and partners.
• Being nimble and agile is required to keep web content fresh, engaging and relevant.

I look forward to seeing how these trends have evolved since Lotusphere 2011 and discover new trends to look for in 2012. Click here to see what Prolifics has in store for Lotusphere next week, including information about our 4 speaking sessions.

Niral Jhaveri is the User Experience Practice Director at Prolifics and has extensive expertise in the IBM Lotus, WebSphere and Rational family of products. He has played a key role at several strategic clients by providing technical leadership. Niral has an extensive background in the design and development of IBM WebSphere Portal, SOA and Web 2.0 applications with a proven track record of consulting and architecting solutions for several industry verticals like Finance, Retail, Insurance and Technology.

A 'Smart Web' Pattern for Tomorrow’s Enterprise

With over 5 billion mobile subscribers and 627 million mobile web users, projected to reach 1.5 billion by 2015, 'Mobile Platforms' are here to stay. Most Enterprises want to take advantage of these platforms to stay competitive and provide value to consumers.

Despite widespread adoption what daunts most technology teams today is the maintenance of multiple code bases across Web, Tablets and Smart phones. Web applications were developed targeting desktops and laptops as smart phones were a luxury a few years back. However, enterprises have taken note of the recent mobile wave and added support for smart phones and tablets rather than a ground-up redesign. The immediate need was to get a mobile presence out there which was accomplished using an ‘App’ or a mobile website in addition to existing assets. This adhoc solution approach leads to code fragmentation and maintenance becomes a nightmare in due course of time.

The following article discusses in detail strategies that could be employed for building mobile frameworks and apps with maximum re-usability and minimal code fragmentation: 17 Solutions to Build your own Mobile Application

Enterprises look for a development pattern that helps in the development of Web Applications and native mobile apps (iOS, Android) in a seamless manner through a single application code base. The pattern should be flexible to accommodate existing web applications. Such a pattern could be achieved by having an abstraction layer on top of mobile platforms (created using COTS Products) and integrating new code with their existing web applications.

We explored various options available in the market and zeroed in on Titanium IDE provided by Appcelerator. Titanium follows the same pattern as followed by Java, in that it’s a ‘Write once , run everywhere’ platform. It creates an abstraction layer in Javascript that helps developers generate native code for individual platforms without going through the process of maintaining individual code bases. The generated project, essentially a collection of Javascript files could be integrated with existing code base resulting in a single code base across platforms. Of course, a few tweaks are required in the build process to create customized builds for each device but that’s a one-time effort. The entire development process is seamless and bodes well for the organization in terms of maintenance and gives them extra leverage to react to changes in this ever growing market.

Selecting the right COTS Product for Mobile Development is a challenge given abundant products available in market today. Titanium IDE is based on Open standards and generates native code for mobile platforms. It provides Out-of-the-box Mobile ecosystem and connections to Enterprise data, content and processes. This results in shorter development cycles, manageable code base and code reuse across platforms. Enterprises can spend their dollars building new features and reacting better to market changes by adopting the above 'Smart Web' pattern.

Laks Sundararajan is a Solution Architect with Prolifics and a key member of highly specialized team working on IBM WebSphere Portal, Content Management and Collaboration technologies. He has led the implementation of many global projects using IBM WebSphere Portal and has extensive background in design and development of enterprise portals. He specializes in providing Enterprise SOA solutions leveraging WebSphere Portal, Content Management, Tivoli and Mashup’s. He holds Masters in Information Technology from Carnegie Mellon University and a Graduate Degree in Engineering from BITS, Pilani.

A Social Approach to Solving Business Problems

In today’s world of empowered individuals, world leaders and businesses must use potent new technologies and harness social media to organize themselves, to show authenticity, fairness, transparency and good faith.

Social can be categorized broadly into: socializing with your external subscribers and socializing with your own employees. In order to maintain a healthy relationship and get active feedback, a system that enables subscribers to provide an honest opinion that lets you address the issues and concerns in a timely manner is critical to business. Facebook, G+, Twitter, and Foursquare are established open platforms that can very well engage these external subscribers. Another way to engage and socialize with your subscribers is through a secured and controlled platform, your own corporate portal, which empowers your subscriber with information that they need, when they need it and how they need it.

Social engagement within an organization can be looked upon as socializing between the employees, departments, channels etc. The synergy that you can generate through a true social enterprise can show dramatic ROIs on your record books. IBM Connections is one such product that helps organizations create an internal platform that they can leverage to manage internal and external social networks. Connection's mobile capabilities ensure that employees are connected 24/7 across the globe providing the best possible value to subscribers. In conventional systems, information flows via emails; appreciations, issues and suggestions are shared in a closed loop. However, with Connections they are discussed openly, bringing in the necessary empowerment and transparency to work culture.

Discussing a business requirement with one of my customers, I realized how the Social aspects between External subscribers and Internal Employees could be bridged using an IBM Connections platform. The customer wanted to revolutionize information exchange between their subscribers and customer service representatives. As subscribers login to the Web Portal, they would receive a highly personalized set of alerts, links to blogs and content relevant to their preferences. The subscriber can ask questions, share their concerns or any other appropriate information including rich media with the customer service representative. As we worked with the customer through this requirement to identify relevant COTS Products, IBM Connections came in as the closest fit. Given the social value provided by IBM Connections, the decision was an easy one for the customer to make.

A social approach to solving common business problems can help businesses optimize their processes, bringing in necessary transparency to their subscribers and employees. It also adds a different dimension to the traditional delivery approach by promoting an active engagement between various stakeholders.

To learn more about Prolifics' social business solutions, click here or visit our website at www.prolifics.com.

Prabhakar Goel is a Solution Architect with Prolifics and a key member of highly specialized team of IBM WebSphere experts involved in architecture and delivery of Business Integration solutions, High transaction commercial portals and Solutions based on Open source technologies. He is an expert providing End-to-End SOA implementations utilizing IBM suite of products like Portal, Connections, Content Management, Process Server. He holds Masters in Software Systems from BITS, Pilani and a Graduate Degree in Electrical Engineering from Kurukshetra.

Why I think Lotusphere is a Great Event

It’s that time of the year again. As we enter the holiday season, I’m already looking forward to starting the New Year with an overview of the latest industry trends and learning about new technology opportunities.

I always felt that it would be nice if someone could give me a quick session and bring me up to speed with technological changes that happened over the past year; what others did with technology and how it helped them, some hands on labs where I could touch and feel all these new technologies in order to increase my confidence when recommending a solution. Lotusphere is just about that for me - it’s a dream come true; exactly what an IT Manager, Decision Maker, Architect, Developer would love to start the year with.

Lotusphere offers Jumpstart sessions to know and understand new products and get a personal touch and feel for them. You get to look out for new technologies offered, their business value, implications, and related opportunities.

In short, Lotusphere features:

• Sessions that provide a comprehensive, step-by-step detail on specific technologies
• Sessions that provide practical solutions that others have used for solving complex problems of new technologies
• Sessions that cover a breadth of topics from core development skills to those needed to build social applications
• Sessions that talk about the latest features and product capabilities, deployment techniques
• Sessions on product architecture specifically helpful in planning future data center needs and possible opportunities in that area for being creative

If this dose of solid knowledge foundation wasn’t enough, you get to meet and discuss with IBMers from across the globe that are part of design and development teams across most of these technologies. In general, you wouldn’t get to meet this many IBMers under one roof even if you visited an IBM office. Lotusphere presents a great opportunity for every one to socialize and interact with like-minded people, visionaries and thought leaders of the industry.

Finally, the amount of business opportunities Lotusphere presents for everyone is unlike any other show. I have met many of my current customers at previous Lotusphere conferences and had opportunities to interact with them and share how the latest technologies can be leveraged to solve even their toughest business challenges. I make sure to bring many of my customers to Lotusphere so that they can gain knowledge on new trends and technologies. It makes it much easier for me to discuss these new technologies and apply them to their current business problems.

And for me the fun just doesn’t end there; it’s a welcome break from the snow and freezing temperatures of Colorado to spend a week in the warm setting of Orlando!

Prabhakar Goel is a Solution Architect with Prolifics and a key member of highly specialized team of IBM WebSphere experts involved in architecture and delivery of Business Integration solutions, High transaction commercial portals and Solutions based on Open source technologies. He is an expert providing End-to-End SOA implementations utilizing IBM suite of products like Portal, Connections, Content Management, Process Server. He holds Masters in Software Systems from BITS, Pilani and a Graduate Degree in Electrical Engineering from Kurukshetra.

What I Am Looking Forward to at Lotusphere 2012

The main theme of Lotusphere 2012 is ‘Social, Mobile and Cloud’. I would like to use the acronym MoSCo for the same. 2011 represented a key year in terms of a key shift from PC to Mobile world i.e. the year in which Smartphones and tablets will out ship PCs for the first ever time. Consumers no longer use Desktop as the sole channel to access to Web and this opens a window of opportunities in the Mobile and Cloud space.

Lotusphere has over 300 sessions scheduled over one week’s time and it would be a truly overwhelming task trying to come up with a schedule. The complete list of sessions can be viewed at:
http://ibmtvdemo.edgesuite.net/software/lotus/lotusphere/lssessions.pdf

Each session is unique and a lot of homework needs to be done to come up with a schedule that caters to individual needs. Since I’m specifically interested in developments in the mobile space particularly enterprise adoption and multi channel delivery I’m looking forward to the following sessions:

• SPN204 Harnessing the Power of Enterprise Mobility
• BP210 From Desktop to Mobile and Smart Phones – Lessons Learned: Taking Web Applications Mobile
• AD301 Developing Exceptional Mobile and Multi-Channel Applications using IBM Web Experience Factory
• AD302 Deliver Rich Mobile Experiences with IBM WebSphere Portal Mobile Theme
• ID228 What's New in IBM Connections Mobile

Considering the MoSCo theme of Lotusphere, I’m keeping an eye on the following sessions too, depending on my schedule:

• SPN213 The Future of Social Business: A Faculty Panel Discussion
• SPN207 Securing and Connecting the Cloud: Insider Tips on Successful Cloud Adoption Strategies
• INV302 Strategy in Action: IBM Mobile for Social Business
• BP105 tick.tick.tick.tick. #! It's time to Evangelize, Educate and Energize your users to Get Productive, Get Social and Do BUSINESS!
• GEEK101 SpeedGeeking!

Another thing I’m really looking forward is the ‘Meet the Developers’ lab. I plan to meet up with folks who worked on ‘Web Experience Factory’ to understand how they tailored the product to suit various delivery channels. Customers are looking for solutions that address multi channel delivery and ‘Web Experience Factory’ addresses the concern in a seamless way. It would be fascinating to go behind the scenes and work with engineers who designed the product.

Finally, I can’t wait for the Wednesday Night Party, a must go for attendees and Blogger Open on Thursday afternoon. There is so much more at Lotusphere than all the wonderful sessions.

Laks Sundararajan is a Solution Architect with Prolifics and a key member of highly specialized team working on IBM WebSphere Portal, Content Management and Collaboration technologies. He has led the implementation of many global projects using IBM WebSphere Portal and has extensive background in design and development of enterprise portals. He specializes in providing Enterprise SOA solutions leveraging WebSphere Portal, Content Management, Tivoli and Mashup’s. He holds Masters in Information Technology from Carnegie Mellon University and a Graduate Degree in Engineering from BITS, Pilani.