At the core of every great product and software design are established and tested usability requirements. Charlotte Usability Company, Digital Saber creates concrete objectives and testable product criteria that catapult their clients to success. A basic requirement for any effective product or software is a user interface that is both intuitive and easy-to-navigate.

Besides creating a product that’s easy-to-use, usability requirements assist in the improvement of the product’s overall design. Both designers and developers in the building process utilize usability requirements to create a product that meets the wants and needs of their users.

When discussing usability requirements for any given project the user’s skill level is an important consideration. Having a product that supports users of every skill level opens the door to a wider range of clients. Interface elements should be easy-to-understand and also provide shortcuts to more experienced users.

Digital Saber works with companies both in and around Charlotte to make sure their products have the greatest potential for success. More examples of Digital Saber’s usability requirements include:

• Presentation – Branding, logos and font styles play an important role in the overall design and usability in any software and product. Besides the general aesthetics of the screen’s layout and color choices, the screen layout should also be presented in an order that makes sense for business use.

• Error Prevention – Interface actions that are consistent improve overall operability. This includes providing error messages to explain how to recover from an error and the ability to undo, redo or cancel operations. Irreversible actions, such as overwriting or deleting data, must require the user’s confirmation.

• Mental Workload and Human Memory Reduction – Portions of the screen that are out of view are often easily forgotten by the user. Thus, horizontal scrolling and column headers that do not remain in view with up and down scrolling are eliminated. Avoiding proliferating windows and allowing users to manage multiple views without opening multiple windows also reduces the user’s mental workload.

Additional Usability Consideration from Digital Saber

Simple Navigation for mouse and keyboard users, an easy to use shortcut tool bar and easy to find search query at the top of every screen are just a few of the usability requirements of Charlotte Usability Company, Digital Saber. By creating measurable criteria in the early stages of development, Digital Saber clients have a unique advantage in a user-centered design world.

A topic that we discuss today with our clients, partners and friends is on the debate between Native Mobile Application and HTML5 Applications. Which approach is better? Which has more functionality? And Which option should I go for if I’m to develop a Mobile Application?
The answers to these common questions are not straight forward. Many of which is highly dependent on situational as well as organizational factors. However, we can take generalistic look at the topic of HTML5 vs Native Applications.

Native Applications

• These are applications that need to be installed in your device and can be downloaded via a relevant App Marketplace – e.g.: iTunes App Store for iPhone or iPad
• Developing these Applications need to be done using specific SDKs provided by the OS provider – e.g. – iOS Apps need to be developed using the Cocoa Touch SDK provided by Apple. This also means that Developers need to be conversant in the Objective C language.
• OS/Device specific functions can be developed using these SDKs, resulting in a rich user experience.
• The standard way of distributing Native Apps is via a platform specific marketplace i.e. – iTunes AppStore, Google Play etc.
• As such, any updates need to happen via the App Stores – can be quite cumbersome

HTML5 Applications

• By HTML5 Apps, we refer to mobile-web applications that are built using HTML5 technologies, optimized for viewing on Mobile devices. HTML5 Apps can mimic the same familiar look and feel of a native application.
• One great feature about HTML5 is that these Apps, can be viewed and used across devices and platforms. This cross platform compatibility enables you to develop platform agnostic apps.
• HTML5 is a great option for an enterprise that opts for a BYOD (Bring your own device) policy
• Doing updates to an Application can be easily managed
• One drawback when it comes to developing on HTML5 is in utilizing the device’s hardware capabilities such as the camera. However this can be overcome by using a tool such as PhoneGap to develop a hybrid application.

In deciding which approach you should take for your mobile strategy, consider the above factors and how it relates to your business or organization’s need. A useful tool you can use to evaluate the options and develop a clear strategy is our Mobile Solution Blueprinting process.

The Android device market is growing at a staggering pace. Along with this growth comes the challenge for Application Developers to support multiple screen sizes and resolutions. In addition to this, device manufacturers inflict restrictions on certain Android OS APIs which limits functionality. If that wasn’t complicated enough, each device’s hardware specifications can vary widely. This impacts Apps that makes use of a device’s native capabilities such as the camera or GPS.
For an Enterprise Mobile Application, this problem can be managed by scoping out the target devices and carrying out tests on specific devices. However if it’s a consumer facing Application, this is a different story.

To ensure that the Application support a wider audience as possible, the App needs to be tested on a wide range of devices as possible. This invariably leads to an increase in costs and affects the ROI of the App Development venture. There’s no silver bullet for this issue but it can be approached pragmatically.

Testing on Emulators – is a great place to start. This will make sure whatever is getting developed is tested for sanity and functionality. Emulators are available freely along with the Android SDK.

Test  Automation Tools – Mobile test tools are a powerful way for testing Apps with a large set of functionalities and speeds up the process dramatically. Robotium is great tool we use for Mobile App testing and have created a framework using it.

Testing on Actual Devices – while the above techniques help a great deal in cutting down the testing effort, there is no substitute for testing on actual devices. To address the fragmentation and form factor related issues, we have a test bed set up by looking at the Android device marketplace and covering over 80% of screen sizes and resolutions that are available -

A few practical tips for Android App Testing -

• Develop a test strategy before you jump into the App Development
• Whenever possible, decide early on a set of target devices
• Make sure you work with a vendor with a set of defined test processes and tools
• Minimum Viable Products vs Ideal products: the Apps marketplaces can be pretty brutal, one bad user review could potentially destroy your App’s image
• Writing test scripts: getting the QA team involved during the requirements definition and application blueprinting phase will ensure that test scripts written, capture UI and functionality related requirements.

Digital Saber was sponsors at the SaaS | Cloud Computing Symposium event at UNCC.

Roger Hutcheson, VP of Business Development writes his account;

Recently Digital Saber Solutions attended the 4th UNC Charlotte’s College of Computing and Informatics Annual SaaS/Cloud Computing conference on Wednesday 4/25/12.  The event was a great success for the University and provided knowledge transfer from excellent speakers to our Charlotte community.
Cloud Computing has changed computing from a product to a service.  For Startups it makes it possible for them to compete against the large enterprises.  For the large enterprises it turns infrastructure from a capital expense to an operating expense, thus streamlining overall operations.  The benefits can be enormous but it was clear that it is important to plan and execute carefully!
As a Digital Saber Solutions employee I was able to engage in meaningful conversation about a topic (Cloud Computing) that is leading a large wave into the future!  Listening to Chad Currier (PBH), Robert Deutsch (intel), Tom DiVittorio (Salesforce.com), Igor Jablokov (Yap, Inc.), Bill Jacaruso (Pervasive Software, Inc.) David Miller & Chris Tinsley (AvidXchange) & Ben Weiner (TIAA CREF) was the highlight to my day.  These speakers gave real world experience about how they are using Cloud Computing on a daily basis to create efficiency for their organizations and clients.
It was amazing to see how Charlotte based startups have been purchased by companies as large, and well known, as Amazon!  We all need to think and act creatively.  Who knows; you or I could have the next great idea that will leave a legacy behind!
In closing, there were many great ideas presented and I look forward to attending next year to learn how Cloud Computing is evolving.  Thank you UNCC for the great experience and knowledge! Keep up the great work!

Niranjan or better known as ‘NJ’, is one of our Technical Consultants and has been with Digital Saber since 2007. Over the years he’s worked on, and led several projects. His contribution has been nothing less than brilliant. But don’t take our word for it, check out what some of our Clients are saying about him on LinkedIn -

“Niranjan and his team of programmers have done an excellent job helping Kuester Companies become more efficient and streamlined. They helped us developed a world class application that interfaces directly with other applications for seemless integration. I would recommend Niranjan and his Team to any business, small, medium or large!” September 15, 2011
Top qualities: Great Results, Personable, Expert
Bryan Kuester

“Niranjan, designed, coded, and managed a complex web-based custom database for our company. His expertise allows him to guide the process with solutions. I will not hesitate to use him again for software or application development projects.” August 29, 2011
Top qualities: Great Results, Expert, Good Value
Keith Sublett

“If I could have clicked off all the attributes for Niranjan, I would have. Digital Saber and Niranjan have been a life line for us to the internet for years. Our business has grown by 35% due to his and their expertise. Very professional and customer centric.” March 7, 2012
Top qualities: Great Results, Expert, High Integrity
Missy Weld

And from all of us @Digital Saber, NJ has been a great player to have in the team and we wish him all the best and many more great work to be done with Digital Saber’s clients. Connect with NJ on LinkedIn.

Technology is changing the enterprise landscape, fast. Physical servers are being replaced with virtual servers, on-premise software is moving to the cloud, everyone is talking about “big data” and consumers and businesses alike expect information to be accessed via mobile apps, anytime, anywhere.

McKinsey’s refers to some of these phenomena in its Ten Technology Trends to Watch¹: making network the organization, collaboration at scale, experimentation and big data, imagining anything as a service and the multi-sided business model. It goes on to say “New technologies could extend the reach of organizations, improve, management decisions, and speed the development of new products and services”.

At Digital Saber we believe technology should not be a constraint for doing business. We are passionate about solving business problems through technology solutions to deliver business benefits. The emergence of cloud and mobility platforms allow home-grown and on-premise applications to be replaced by solutions that are accessible to all from anywhere, any device where data is centralized and processes are automated. Excel spread sheets and Access databases are rapidly becoming a thing of the past, as the move to improving efficiency, productivity, information sharing and transparency are prioritized across the enterprise.

We believe embracing the right technology, for the right problem at the right time, can be a competitive advantage for businesses. At Digital Saber we have delivered solutions on a multitude of technology platforms to address the business challenges of IT consumers and IT suppliers alike. The following case studies demonstrate business benefits we have delivered to our customers through cloud and mobile platforms.

Automated Currency Hedging Solution Improving Treasury Productivity

SUMMARY

Business Problem
Highly skilled treasury employees spending >50% of time on currency hedging to minimize losses due to exchange rate fluxuations.

Business Solution
Automated solution with optimized intelligence to reduce the transaction cost, minimize losses due to currency fluctuations providing greater efficiency, transparancy and dynamic reporting capabilities.

Business Benefits
Employees spend<10% of their time in managing currency hedging fluctuation, freeing up their time for value adding activities.

Cloud App Improving Efficiency and Generating Additional Revenue for a Human Capital Consultancy

SUMMARY

Business Problem
On-site consultants use a homegrown Access application to monitor progress of organizational business objectives and corresponding human capital initiatives. Inefficiencies in gathering and processing timely and accurate data impacts the quality of consultants recommendations to their clients.

Business Solution
Cloud based application that allows the Human Capital Consultancy company and its clients the ability to efficiency monitor Employee group structures, memberships and measure Employee Group’s impact to achieve organizational objectives.

Business Benefits
Intellectual capital encapsulated in the solution allows the Human Capital Consultancy to make better recommendations to its clients and capture additional revenue without the need for on-site consultants. Customers manage and monitor their own data providing them with greater control and visibility.

Improving Visibility of Vessel Capacity and Cargo Demands to Ship Brokers to Maximize Opportunities.

SUMMARY

Business Problem
Ship brokers spend >60% of their time working through thousands of emails to manually identify vessel capacity and cargo demand, critical information for closing deals.

Business Solution
Automated solution that extracts key information fields and eliminates duplicates from thousands of daily emails in order to present prioritized and relevant information in real time to ship brokers.

Business Benefits
Ship brokers spend majority of their time closing deals as opposed to scanning emails, saving time and capturing more opportunities.

¹ Clouds, big data, and smart assets: Ten tech-enabled business trends to watch; McKinsey quarterly, Jacques Bughin, Michael Chui, and James Manyika 2011

Anyone who has ever been involved in the development of custom software, even peripherally, is aware of “scope creep”—that unfortunate change in plan, where development of a project gets incrementally longer, and more expensive.

Digital Saber has been witness to this all-too-common phenomenon, and has made it our mission to scope-out all projects thoroughly before we begin to implement any new software projects. We call this process: “blueprinting.”

Through our Application Blueprinting process, we ensure that the business and technical needs are formalized while setting up a platform for ongoing product scalability and flexibility to evolve.

The advantages to blueprinting are many, and include allowing our customers to fully-understand the investment that they can expect, as well as the timeline. Using our requirements capture process, we blueprint a complete project plan, including resources required, timeframe, and a step-by-step process.

We are proud of this process because it not only give the client a complete understanding of their project, and how it will be implemented, but it outlines for us what we will need to do to meet the client’s requirements. There is no better way to provide our clients value and demonstrate the integrity of our skill set than the Digital Saber Application Blueprinting process.

Making Business Applications available on Mobiles and Tablets have become an essential element for Organizations. Until recently, native mobile applications needed to be developed in order to give the rich functionality of a Web Application on a Mobile device. This meant multiple Apps for each Mobile platform or device.

Now, with advent of HTML 5, we can create fully functional Mobile-Web Apps that are user-friendly and can mimic the same, rich functionality of a native application—and businesses can realize the full potential of giving access to their mission critical Apps, literally, in the palm of their Employees, Staff and even Customers’ hands.

HTML5 is expected to have a significant impact on Mobile Application Development in the coming years by both simplifying the development process and allowing for a more dynamic user-experience. Additionally, developers who in the past have had to create separate applications in order to ensure that they will function properly on a wide range of mobile devices, now can save time and money, capitalizing on the cross-compatibility of HTML5.

A user would access the Mobile-Web App via a mobile browser, i.e. – in the case of an iPhone, the Safari browser. An App Icon can be created by tapping on the ‘Add to Home Screen’ button. From a development standpoint, we make use of HTML5 App Development Frameworks such as Sencha Touch or PhoneGap to quickly build rich Applications.

Some of the functionality that can be achieved through the combination of HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript technologies include –

• The familiar user experience of a native Mobile App within a web environment
• Cross platform compatibility enabling device agnostic App deployment
• Ability to cache data locally – making App performance faster
• User specific settings can be stored within the device giving users the ability to configure and customize an App to their needs
• Integration with Google Maps/GPS
• Offline capabilities – giving users the ability to view/edit information offline – data would be synced once online again
• Unlike native Apps, HTML5 Apps do not have to go through App Marketplace approvals. This means mobile Application deployment and updates are faster and gives the developers more control

HTML5 is modernizing the way mobile-friendly web applications are developed. To see how businesses are utilizing HTML5 technologies to build and deploy platform agnostic Mobile Applications, download our White Paper here.

Based in Concord, NC, Armstrong Transport Group is a freight brokerage company with agents across the Country. As they began to experienced much-appreciated growth, they also ran into some un-appreciated performance issues with their legacy application. As the transaction volumes were starting to grow larger, the system slowed to an unacceptable speed.

Armstrong Transport contracted with Digital Saber Solutions to do a complete overhaul of their application and transition to a more robust Microsoft .NET technology, supported by our App Development Framework.

Your staff, executives and your clients are on the move. Extending your internal systems, giving them access via Mobile Applications as well as staying connected with your customers constantly is a powerful transformation that your business should be looking at.

But deciding where to start and how to implement a Mobile Application can be a daunting task. Having a strong Mobile Strategy and a clear plan is crucial for the success of a Mobile Application Development project. In our latest White Paper, we explore Mobile Application Development stories of a few Organizations and their success in transforming the Business with the help of these solutions.

Among these success stories are -

• How an IT Services provider is utilizing an HTML5 based Mobile Application to drive new efficiencies in their business
• How a Loyalty Solution was extended to Mobile to enhance customer loyalty of a Financial Institution
• How the iPad is injecting new life to an SAP ERP system of a large Manufacturer

Download the White Paper to find out how these Mobile Applications were developed and how their helping these business be transformed.