Picking the Right Areas for Mobile in Your Portfolio

Larry EhrhardtBallast Lane Applications, LLC

Agenda

• A look at a few “Mentioned” apps

• Portfolio Selection Criteria

• A couple of case studies

• Questions / discussion

Card Munch

• Mentioned by App Annie on CNBC

• Bought by LinkedIn in 2011

• Camera connected to a sweatshop

Uber

• Mentioned at Xconomy

• Removes scheduling and transaction friction

• Historically mundane industry with little tech

Netflix

• Mentioned at My House

• Portability, search, recommendations

• Same content, but much better user experience

1. Removed the Data Collection Barrier

• Gather Data With Other Tools– Camera

– Location• GPS

• Wifi / bluetooth

– Scanner

– Transactions

– Algorithms

– Voice

– Facebook / customer account

X

2. Focused and Better

• Limited use cases

• Offloaded data intensive work to the web

• Built on rich content

• Significantly improved status quo

3. Neatly Fit a Business Driver

• Marketing / customer acquisition

OR

• Help users do something better

OR

• Deliver something new

Adding Mobility to Current Assets

• Picking the opportunity

• Designing for the opportunity

• Dealing with APIs

• Selecting the platform(s)

• Improving the app over time

Case Studies

Website –Designed for Scanning & Drill Down

Mobile App –Designed for Paging and Discovery

Design Principles

• Thumbs and fingers

• Common gestures

• Power user gestures

• No / Minimal Help

• Open in Context

• No upfront sign in

Website –Color Matching Online Items

Mobile App – Matching Your Items

Design Principles

• Reduce app friction

• Provide unique functionality

• Personalize

• Multi-modal

APIs

• Custom APIs– RESTful

– SOAP

• Web Platform APIs– Drupal

– Wordpress

• Mobile “Back-Ends”– Kinvey

– Parse

• Quality Checks– User Management

– Performance

– Completeness

– Consistency

– Error Messaging

– Versioning

– Mobile Libraries

– Caching

App Platform Choice: Business and Technical Decision

Native Mobile Web Cross Platform

Owner Demographics

Distribution FlexibilityLibrary Support

Quality of Experience

Development CostsPlatform Optimization

Platform Switching / Evolution

Design In Ways to Learn About Users

Surveys

App Sign-up

Event Tracking

Crash Reports

Adding Mobility to Current Assets

• Picking the opportunity

• Designing for the opportunity

• Dealing with APIs

• Platform(s) selection

• Improving the app over time

Based on goal and the fit

Leverage the device

Start here and monitor quality

Native

Add analytics

Discussion / Questions

Larry Ehrhardt

617 233 8381

larry@ballastlane.com