In the days of old, long, long ago, civilization nearly came to a standstill all because of sloppy code and a lack of foresight. Geniuses promoting the impending catastrophe creatively named it Y2K (Year 2000) and in the months that preceded the impending doom that the world would reap as a result of the “millennium bug” (as it was also so aptly referred to), programmers across all industries scrambled to save the culture’s – neigh – the world’s recent and vast leaps in technology made during the dawn of the internet. Some 20+ years later, Drupal developers find themselves beset by a similar foe – Drupal 10 and the premature, planned obsolescence of CKEditor 4.
Okay…so that was all a bit hyperbolic (but there is a slice of truth to it). Drupal 10 is actually going to be a really great upgrade that is streamlined and refined, utilizing the most popular and critical modules for development while simultaneously retiring unused, underused, and non-essential modules – all the great features of Drupal 9 without any of the dead weight. Furthermore, Drupal releases are going to be performed in tandem with Symphony releases with a continuous focus on honing the core so that it is a sound infrastructure upon which modules can be used to strengthen and expand that core going forward.
But the elephants in the room are CKEditor 4 (under planned obsolescence) and CKEditor 5 (being built from scratch). The trouble with building something from scratch to replace something old (at least in the case of CKEditor 5) is that the old library is filled with “hard copy books” while the new library is “digital” – and there is no automated “module converter” available. With very few of the modules within CKEditor 4 being transferred to CKEditor 5, a large selection of plugins that are currently being used on existing modules are not yet compatible and because Drupal is an open-source community, it falls to the community to contribute patches back…which isn’t happening fast enough.
Unlike Y2K, the patches that need to be made between CKEditor 4 and 5 are not currently being backed and funded by corporations and federal agencies and by the time the urgency in doing so is realized, it may be too much of a crunch to accomplish the fix. The beauty of open-source software is that it belongs to everyone. But, as Peter Parker’s uncle said, “With power comes responsibility” and if we as a Drupal community don’t all take a little responsibility for this, we will all pay the price. For more information, the upgrade coordination can be found here and information on the deprecated and obsolete modules and themes can be found here. Within Mobomo, we pride ourselves on being thought leaders and valued contributors to this open-source community. If you have any questions, please reach out to us here and send a message directly to the Mobomo team.
As a teaming partner to the Prime contract holder, Dev Technology Group, Mobomo will support the new five-year, $340 million DHS ICE Scalable Ways to Initiate Flexible Tasks (SWIFT) Collaborative Services Domain IDIQ.
Under the four domains within the SWIFT IDIQ, Mobomo will be supporting the Collaborative Services track to aid ICE’s Enterprise Platform Services Branch (EPSB) in a wide variety of areas including technical strategy and governance, project intake, rapid technology implementation, and development and support of cloud-based platforms and collaborative solutions. Specific technologies across the domain will include those across the Microsoft ecosystem, including M365, Power Apps, SharePoint Online, Teams, and OneDrive, to name a few.
As a trusted partner, Mobomo will work with Dev Technology Group to support its delivery model to serve the evolving mission needs of ICE.
About Mobomo
Mobomo, LLC is a CMMI Dev Level 3 and ISO 9001:2015 premier provider of mobile, web, and cloud application development experienced in creating award-winning, agile, User-Centered Design (UCD) and Human-Centered Design (HCD) solutions, custom crafting next-generation digital experiences for federal agencies. A proud Drupal Association member, AWS Public Sector Partner, and Reseller, Microsoft Certified Partner, Acquia Partner, and member of the Digital Services Coalition, Mobomo takes great pride in the recognition given to our innovative solutions, gaining press and winning numerous awards, including the multiple Webby Awards for our mobile responsive design of NASA.gov, Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) InnovateIT Awards for USGS.gov and NASA.gov, the MUSE Creative Award, W3, Webby, and Vega Award for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries website, and the Vega Award for the PRAC pandemic oversight website.
The 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act, otherwise known as 21st Century IDEA, was signed into law in December 2018. The Act aims to improve the digital experience for government customers and reinforces existing requirements for federal public websites.
At a glance, 21st Century IDEA promotes practices for the design and development of digital experiences such as accessibility, consistency, authority, searchability, security, user-centerity, customizability and mobile-friendliness.
As part of our usual workflow at Mobomo, when we design a new digital product or redesign any existing one, we take into consideration all of these principles. Let’s review some of them and elaborate on how we comply with these requirements:
Accessible
When we design websites and applications for the public, Section 508 is at the heart of our process. This is the section of the Rehabilitation Act 1973 requiring any information technology agencies buy, build, maintain or use to be accessible to persons with disabilities.
Stylistically this involves a careful selection of color palettes and type sizes to ensure a minimum contrast is achieved to account for visual impairments. While it may prove limiting, constraints are not restraints, and in the context of design we take them as opportunities. The attention that needs to be given to this process makes us come out with a robust solution, and can often take us down innovative paths we may have not explored if not faced by the requirement of 508 compliance.
One good example of our work with these considerations in effect is the NSIDC site: https://nsidc.org
Consistent
Patterns are our friends. Our designs start from their wireframe state with relatable and consistent standards in terms of components, sections and overall layout. Likewise, we develop style sheets with defined rules for every element that will repeat across the product.
Having a coherent appearance ties the whole experience together and helps users navigate it more naturally, which also results in making them find what they need or perform the tasks it requires faster and successfully.
Authoritative
Consistency also helps us convey authority. This is a principle a bit more related to information architecture, regarding not overlapping or duplicating sites. Broadly it’s also about the overarching brand’s voice and content, but we make every effort to advise and propose solutions that may be in place to achieve it.
Our discovery and research stages would raise concerns regarding this question and it’s where we will alert on global problems that may go outside our scope but we can help contain.
At a micro level, within the context of any product we are designing experience for, we curate the interactions needed to complete tasks as well as the entries to the different sections it has. We also conduct user-testing exercises leading to minimizing any hiccup regarding navigation and wayfinding.
User-centered
Hinting at this process already from the concepts above, User Centered Design is the core of our practice. From ideation to delivery we consider the user at every stage to inform and steer the solutions we produce. We do this by means of the diverse User Experience tools we employ, namely moodboards, card sorting exercises, tree testing, user interviews.
Feedback is gathered throughout the process in an iterative manner, so that we continuously improve value through measurements. When we jump into an ongoing product, this data-driven analysis becomes crucial, as it provides the necessary information to perform a redesign that addresses users’ pain points and needs. Such is the case with our work in NOAA Fisheries: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov
Customizable
There’s no idea our customers ask that we won’t give a try, but as the project gets developed there’s also room for users to get a customized experience. We achieve this by using technology in favor of, for instance, getting location information, by which we can provide a streamlined experience based on where the user is. Or providing custom settings in a site or app by leveraging account management / authentication.
Mobile-friendly
In our early days when starting the company, we embraced one value that still holds today: “Mobile First”. Our designs need to be, with no exception, mobile-proof. Even some of the most challenging dashboards we produced considered a mobile version as digital products today are part of daily life and mostly consumed through mobile devices.
Design for desktop has certainly been infused by the mobile first approach, and we create a unified and responsive experience taking advantage of each device's strengths while working around their limitations.
One of the many examples we have for this is the work we did for PRAC, where complex data visualizations are made easy whatever the screen you browse them on.
Each year, the Washington Business Journal publishes a snapshot of the top performing small technology companies in the Greater Washington D.C. area. Mobomo is honored to be ranked #17 in WBJ’s 2022 assessment of the top businesses making large impacts within the business, technology, and federal landscape.
Comprised of a talented team of engineers, artists, and developers – the Mobomo team continuously takes on seemingly impossible technology challenges and expands the limits of what is possible for customers and end-users. Our performance as a top performing company in the D.C. area is a byproduct of the passion with which we approach our work. “I couldn’t be prouder of our team!” said CEO, Brian Lacey. “It’s rare to find a group of people so focused on excellence and their dedication to each other through the adversities inherent in product development is inspiring. While it’s always wonderful to receive recognition for your work, ranking as a top performer this year is no surprise to me given the caliber of this team.”
About Mobomo:
Mobomo, LLC is a premier mobile, web, and cloud application development company that has extensive experience in creating award-winning, agile, human-centered design, and providing DevSecOps capabilities.
Mobomo has helped revolutionize the digital federal landscape through our innovative designs of high performing websites and applications that are engineered to fit the needs of government agencies.
About Washington Business Journal:
The Washington Business Journal is the leading source for business news and data for the Washington, D.C., region. The Business Journal publishes all the information and insights you need to succeed in business — through the weekly edition, website, email products and our events and awards programs. Owned by parent company, American City Business Journals – the Business Journals brands are recognized on the local level in 43 markets and have 400+ journalists entrenched in their local markets and industries. The full list of companies included in the Business Journal’s 2022 report can be found here: Washington Business Journal Top Performers 2022.
In today’s state of the information technology industry terminologies and designations from academia get mixed-up with buzzwords and acronyms that appear to be generated by the week (thank you very much Marketing :p), and look somewhat interchangeable. It is in this context that the terms CX is often confused with UX, UI and the subject of work those cover.
If you regularly follow our articles —and if you don’t we kindly encourage you to do so ;)— you are probably familiar with the distinctions in those disciplines, but for the sake of any unaware reader out there, let’s do a brief recap.
UI - User Interface: Interfaces, often of the graphical type, also includes voice controlled features and potentially any medium through which the user interacts with a system. The focus of UI Design is on conveying function through the works of visuals and style, with the goal of creating an easy to use and pleasurable experience for the user while interacting with the product.
UX - User Experience: a broader discipline, concerning a strategic thinking geared towards achieving the best experience for users in completing the tasks or goals proposed by the product. As such, it’s an area that goes beyond digital products only, and serves from many tools to accomplish this purpose, including user engagements like interviews to define personas, card sorting exercises and wireframes / prototypes, usability tests, among many others.
So what is Customer Experience?
Customer Experience is the broad term that accounts for every single customer touch-point with the company or, better put, the brand. It needs to be noted that CX is the novelty term that designates what used to be referred to as “Brand Experience”. While UI design produces the —generally— visual output of the product to be technically functional and compliant, UX listens to users to create and/or improve the product in regards to their satisfaction and ability to use it within its expected results. But it is CX that encompasses the former two and more to go beyond any single product or service and consider the complete experience customers get from every interaction with the company, which constitutes then a brand image in those users’ minds.
By design brands are assigned attributes, values, a voice, and all of these characteristics only come to life when their customers experience them and recognize them as true. From a piece of advertisement in the street or media, through a point of sale, website, app, to a customer support experience, they all constitute one single CX effort. In short everything that is customer facing impacts the experience of the customer and is the subject matter of CX.
How do we help improve customer experience?
The services provided by organizations rely more and more on the digital medium. Websites and apps, computers, tables and smartphones offer in most cases the possibility to fulfill needs that in the past required in-person interaction and paper documents. These -now granted- benefits impact directly on efficiency and convenience for the customers to fulfill needs and obligations.
As a Digital Product Design and Development company, we at Mobomo engage with our customers in projects to create specific products for which we provide award-winning UX and UI design services. As a company, we care for CX ourselves in our interactions with clients and audience —this very article you are reading right now is another example of interaction we are having as part of our brand voice.
We can play a big role in achieving that satisfaction, and if you play the rest of your cards right, you’ll be engaging with your customers in a very meaningful and deep way. Reaching that level of certainty in the minds of customers is what we thrive for, and it’s a continuous and iterative task always leading to satisfaction, trust, and therefore virtuous results.
Mobomo leverages UCD practices and methodologies to engage users, and through those engagements our teams learn about needs and pain points to in turn produce digital solutions of high experience value.
One outstanding example of this CX improvement is our work on the NOAA Fisheries website redesign. In late 2016, Mobomo partnered with NOAA Fisheries to assist in restructuring and redesigning their digital presence. Merging all their core web properties into one Drupal site. Allowing users to go to one destination to find and discover information they need. Focusing on improving content efficiency, design consistency, and unifying NOAA Fisheries voice. Within one year we launched the framework for their next generation site. The end result was a 14% increase on the website overall American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ASCI) and 145% overall traffic. Our surveying over the new version of the site resulted in 85% of visitors stating they would recommend the NOAA Fisheries website, 90% would return and 94% stating information is easy to find.
Beyond CX, Service Design
There’s an umbrella over all of these processes, which coordinates all parts necessary to carry out the planned actions both internally and in relation to the customer, and it’s called Service Design. One first distinction we can make compared to all of the previous concepts, is that Service Design works as well from the organizational point of view, considering the interactions through all channels and points of contact, organizing and planning people, infrastructure, communication, materials. One prominent resource used in SD is the Service Blueprint, a visual mapping technique where we can lay out every stage the customer goes through, identifying every point of contact and visualizing what happens behind the scenes internally in connection to those items.
What do these all have in common? They are all Human Centered Design disciplines, following a Design Thinking approach in their strategies.
In conclusion, in order to sustain a healthy customer experience within the services of an organization, it is necessary to listen to the customer and monitor the integrity of the touchpoints with them. And above all keep a tight grip on the bigger picture with the consideration that critical pain points stand to break the customer experience as a whole, and conversely a high standard across all touchpoints is the path to a robust and healthy experience for customers that fosters fidelization.
We at Mobomo know that there are a lot of concepts and terminology that most people don't know of that are often used in a software design and development environment. That's why we have created one of the most thorough glossaries to help our audiences better understand the technical jargon. We hope this knowledge might help you gain an actionable understanding of UX and UI steps, methodologies and services, as well as standing confident during meetings, presentations, or any other endeavors.
A timeless decorating rule that can help you put a color scheme together easily. To put it short, the 60% + 30% + 10% proportion is meant to give balance to the colors used in any space.
Design, Technique
A
A/B Testing
Determining which of two alternatives performs better with the target audience
Testing, Technique
Accessibility
The measure of a web page’s usability by persons with one or more disabilities
508 Compliance
Section 508 requires federal agencies to make their ICT such as technology, online training and websites accessible for everyone. This means that federal employees with disabilities are able to do their work on the accessible computers, phones and equipment in their offices, take online training or access the agency’s internal website to locate needed information.
WCAG
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are documents that explain how to make web content more accessible to people with disabilities. The WCAG is developed through the W3C process in cooperation with individuals and organizations around the world, with a goal of providing a single shared standard for web content accessibility that meets the needs of individuals, organizations, and governments internationally.
A-AA-AAA
The WCAG standards have 12-13 guidelines. The guidelines are organized under 4 principles: perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. For each guideline, there are testable success criteria. The success criteria are at three levels: A, AA, and AAA.
The success criteria are what determine “conformance” to WCAG. That is, in order to meet WCAG, the content needs to meet the success criteria. Details are in the Conformance section of WCAG.
Field of Work / Study
Affinity Map
Affinity mapping, sometimes also known as affinity diagramming, snowballing, or collaborative sorting, is the process of creating an affinity diagram. Simply, it’s when you gather qualitative information about your users and group it by category.
Research, Technique
Agile
Agile is a process by which a team can manage a project by breaking it up into several stages and involving constant collaboration with stakeholders and continuous improvement and iteration at every stage. Instead of building the entire product at once, Agile breaks it down into smaller bits of user functionality and assigns them to two week cycles called iterations.
Process
Analitics
Analytics measure human behavior on a website, app or digital product. By analyzing these patterns we can do educated changes and improvements that fulfill our product and user goals.
Design, Technique
B
Back and Front-End Development
Back end development refers to the server-side of an application and everything that communicates between the database and the browser. The front-end is what users see. Think buttons, text, beautiful colors, and the layer seen on screen when interacting with a product.
Field of Work / Study
Backlog
A queue of work that needs doing on a product. A backlog is a list of tasks required to support a larger strategic plan. In a product development context, it contains a prioritized list of items that the team has agreed to work on next. Typical items on a product backlog include user stories, changes to existing functionality, and bug fixes.
Process
Brand Book
An official corporate document that explains the brand’s identity and presents brand standards. Besides the design aspect, brand books may include a company overview and communication guidelines as well.
Design, Deliverable
C
Card Sorting Method
The goal of card sorting is to understand how a typical user views a given set of items. Designers write items on individual paper cards, and then ask users to group together similar cards. Card sorting helps to organize and structure content and features so that they are easy to navigate and engage. Additionally Card sorting is used to produce labels that are meaningful for the user base.
Research, Technique
Chatbot
Chatbots are a chat interface that allow the user to ask questions to the system and receive answers and/or guidance. They are a popular customer service tool made to mimic the experience of texting a friend.
Other
Clickstream Analysis
A form of Web analytics. Clickstream analysis is the tracking and analysis of visits to websites. This analysis reports user behavior such as routing, stickiness, where users come from and where they go from the site.
Design, Technique
Color Contrast
The difference between two colors. Black and white create the highest contrast possible. Colors can contrast in hue, value and saturation. You usually want a high contrast between text and its background color. But too high contrast between design elements might give an unsettled and messy impression. Effective use of contrast is the essential ingredient that makes the content accessible to every viewer.
Design
Color Wheel
This circle shows the relationships between primary colors, secondary colors and tertiary colors. Artists and designers use red, yellow, and blue primaries arranged at three equally spaced points around their color wheel.
Design
Competitive Analysis
Relevant product examples (documented during discovery) are analyzed comparatively to understand constant and variables. This analysis will show us in most cases baseline features which our users will expect to find in our product. It can also help us provide singular value to our products when finding needs not being addressed in existing products.
Research, Technique
Corporate Identity Guideline
Defines how your company’s brand, image and messaging are delivered to the public and particularly to your key audiences. The corporate identity guideline positions the company, no matter how big or small. The rules for consistent typography, color use, and logo placement are all laid out in the corporate identity manual.
Design, Deliverable
Customer Journey Map (CJM)
A tool companies use to see what their customers truly want. A customer journey map tells the story from initial contact through to engagement and the long-term relationship. It may focus on a particular part of the story, or give an overview of the entire user experience. It talks about the user’s feelings, motivations and questions for each of these touch points.
Research, Deiverable
CX (customer experience)
Customer experience (CX) refers to how a business engages with its customers at every point of their buying journey—from marketing to sales to customer service and everywhere in between. In large part, it’s the sum total of all interactions a customer has with your brand.
Field of Work / Study
D
Data-driven
This means using all the available data: analytics, A/B tests, customer service logs and social media sentiment to develop a better understanding of UX. There are common misconceptions that user experience is purely an art, but there is a lot more involved. Understanding how to collect and process data is one of the key tasks you have to face as a UX designer.
Process
Design Debt
A design system that has accrued design debt is made up of elements and features that will need to be cleaned up later on. The efforts made to quickly set them in place eventually generate more work down the line.
Design
Design System
A library of user interface elements, components, and guidelines that are used as the basis for any new and updated features in a product. The purposes of a design system include: maintaining consistency across a product when new features are added; making it easier to update components across an entire product; and reducing the amount of development time involved in any project.
Design
Design Thinking
Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process that teams use to understand users, challenge assumptions, redefine problems and create innovative solutions to prototype and test. Involving five phases—Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test—it is most useful to tackle problems that are ill-defined or unknown.
Process
Digital Services Playbook
A guideline that stipulates steps and actions that need to be taken when creating a digital product, intended for the Federal space.
Process
Dots Per Inch (DPI)
A way to measure the density of a print or video image. The number of differently colored dots that can fit into a one-inch space provides information about the resolution of an image. If an image is not of adequately high quality, it may not be able to be resized or printed without a loss of resolution.
Design
E
Empathy Map
Empathy maps are collaborative tools that help visualize user behavior, attitudes and feelings. They are split into 4 equal quadrants containing information about what the user is saying, thinking, doing and feeling. The user persona is placed at the center. Then, each quadrant is filled with information collected through user research.
Research
Eye Tracking
Specialized hardware and software that tracks users’ point of vision on an interface. Namely, it tracks where users focus their visual attention while viewing an interface.
Research
F
Flat Design
A design philosophy based on simplicity and functionality. There are no techniques used to convey depth: no gradients, shadows, textures, and highlights that give a realistic view of the object. Basically, flat design refers to the basics of graphics — bright colors, simple forms, buttons, and icons.
Design
Flowchart
Flowcharts illustrate the steps a user can take to complete a task on a product.
Research
Focus Group
A focus group is a pointed discussion with a group of participants led by a moderator. Questions are designed to gather feedback about users, products, concepts, prototypes, tasks, and strategies.
Research, Technique
Full Stack
Typically heard in the context of “full-stack developer”. The term refers to a person or role, and means that the person has both front-end and back-end development skills. It’s becoming increasingly common to hear the term “full-stack designer”—this typically means that the person has a mix of UX, visual/UI, and graphic design/illustration skills.
Field of Work / Study
G
Gestalt Principles
People do not visually perceive items in isolation, but as part of a larger whole. These principles account for human tendencies towards similarity, proximity, continuity, and closure.
Design
Golden Ratio
A mathematical ratio with origins in ancient Greece, also known as the Greek letter Phi. It is found in nature, and has made its way into graphic and print design as people deem it to be the most visually appealing layout to the human eye. The Golden Ratio approximately equals 1.618. We find it when we divide a line into two parts so that the full length divided by the long part is equal to the long part divided by the short part.
Design
Grid
A system of horizontal and vertical lines providing a structural basis for page layout and design. It communicates order, economy and consistency. The grid provides a common structure and flexibility for organizing content.
Design
H
HCI (human computer interaction)
Human-computer interaction (HCI) is a multidisciplinary field of study focusing on the design of computer technology and, in particular, the interaction between humans (the users) and computers. While initially concerned with computers, HCI has since expanded to cover almost all forms of information technology design.
Field of Work / Study
Heat Maps
Color-based representations of areas of interest/focus points; generally associated with eye-tracking software.
Research
HFE (human factors engineering)
HFE is a framework for efficient and constructive thinking which includes methods and tools to help healthcare teams perform patient safety analyses, such as root cause analyses.The literature on HFE over several decades contains theories and applied studies to help to solve difficult patient safety problems and design issues.
Field of Work /Study
Human Centered Design (UCD)
HCD is a design approach that puts the users first, resulting in useful and usable products and services. Teams who foster HCD create a culture of focusing on the user when creating products, keeping them at the heart of the product development process. Considering their limitations, constraints, and desires, you end with tailor-made solutions that satisfy their needs.
Process, Field of Work / Study
I
Information Architecture
The information architecture consists of the organization of content into sections and sub sections, and the labeling and categorizing of content. When done right users will find desired content and features swiftly and efficiently. We rely on Tree testing and card sorting exercises to evaluate the performance, and the creation or improvement of categories and labels.
Research, Field or Work / Study
Interaction Experience Design
Interaction Design is the creation of a dialogue between a person and a product, system, or service. This dialogue is both physical and emotional in nature and is manifested in the interplay between form, function, and technology as experienced over time. Interaction designers focus on the way users interact with products and they use principles of good communication to create desired user experiences.
Design, Field of Work / Study
Interviews
The user interview is a method of research that gives you deep insights into users’ needs, pain points, and desires while also building empathy with them.
Research, Technique
Iteration
The process of repeatedly gathering feedback on a design solution, and acting on that feedback to make targeted improvements and move towards a final design.
Design, Technique
IxD (interaction design)
Interaction Design (IxD) is the design of interactive products and services in which a designer’s focus goes beyond the item in development to include the way users will interact with it. Thus, close scrutiny of users’ needs, limitations and contexts, etc. empowers designers to customize output to suit precise demands.
Design, Field of Work / Study
J
Journey Maps
Journey maps are deliverables created to make visible the context and motivation to engage with a product or activity, as well as to reveal challenges, pain points and opportunities of improvement.Journey Maps are created based on real information and insight collected from direct engagements with users.
Research, Deliverable
L
Lean UX
Remember Agile? Lean UX, based on Agile, is a collaborative user-centric approach that prioritizes “learning loops” (building, learning, and measuring through iterations) over design documentation.
Process
M
Micro-copy
The ubiquitous text that turns up in tiny chunks on a webpage or in an application when you need it. It can be the label on a field, a quick set of instructions on what button to push, etc. It’s the tiny text on which much of the product’s UX hinges. Micro-copy provides those just-in-time clear instructions.
Design
Mindmap
A diagram used to visually organize information. A mindmap is hierarchical and shows the relationships among the parts of the whole. It is often created around a single concept to which associated images, words and parts of words are added. Major ideas are connected directly to the central concept, and other ideas branch out from those.
Research
Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
MVP is a product with enough features to meet the needs of early customers. This strategy provides feedback for future product development.
Process
Modal
Design
O
Onboarding
Designing a welcoming experience for new users by easing them into it. The design of the onboarding process for your site is usually limited to a first-time use scenario.
Design
P
Prototype
A prototype is a simulation or sample version of a final product, which is used for testing prior to launch. Its goal is to test products (and product ideas) before sinking lots of time and money into the final product. Examples of digital prototypes include interactive mockup of an app, website, or device.
Design, Deliverable
R
Responsive Web Design (RWD)
RWD provides an optimal viewing experience across platforms and devices. The content and layout of a website should efficiently adapt to the sizes and technical abilities of the device it is opened on.
Design
S
SaaS
Software as a Service, or SaaS, is a software distribution model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and hosted on external servers. Subscribing users are able to access it through the web. The practice of delivering software via online subscription, rather than as a standalone product that is purchased one-off. An Office 365 subscription is SaaS; Office 97 on a CD-ROM is delivered as a one-off license.
Field of Work / Study
Scrum
A set of project management practices emphasizing daily communication, flexible planning, and short, focused phases of work.
Process
Site Map
A site map is a visual representation of a website’s pages and hierarchy.
Design
Sprints
In agile software development, we call defined periods of time assigned to complete certain tasks “sprints.” Their length can vary but is usually around 1-3 weeks.
Process
Style Tiles
Style tiles are basic takes on visual styles with a focus on typography, colors and imagery. Style tiles and/or concept designs will be created to approach the final visuals and aesthetics that will make up the product interface. This step will define visual rules that will tie and establish consistency among the interface items and sections.
Design, Deliverable
Survey
A survey is a quantitative user-research tool and often takes the form of a questionnaire. Surveys are an economical way of acquiring user feedback for app development. You can conduct a survey verbally, manually, or digitally, by asking candidates to answer a series of questions.
Research, Technique
T
The Twelve Factors App
A framework for building apps and digital tools, that ensures standard quality output.
Process
U
Usability Testing
Usability testing is a research method that lets us evaluate how parts of a product perform by testing it on a group of representative users. These tests most commonly focus on effectiveness (is conversion happening) and efficiency (is the time necessary to fulfill the goal adequate).
Testing, Technique
USDS
An agency dedicated to improve practices and value of digital products in the federal space.
Other
User Centered Design (UCD)
User-centered design (UCD) is an iterative design process in which designers focus on the users and their needs in each phase of the design process. In UCD users are involved throughout the design process via a variety of research and design techniques, with the goal of producing products with highly relevant features and high level of usability for them.
Process, Field of Work / Study
User Engagement
It represents the purposeful choices a user makes with website content. Engagement is how people get value from the site.
Design
User Personas
User Personas is a deliverable format that summarizes key elements of a product’s user groups. They are archetypes of our users that serve as reference and guidance when making decisions over User experience items, and help us establish priorities of work.User personas are created based on real information and insight collected from direct engagements with users.
Research, Deliverable
User Scenarios
Hypothetical circumstances used to frame and prompt the user to follow or pursue a particular task path.
Research
User Stories
A user story is an informal, general explanation of a software feature written from the perspective of the end user. Its purpose is to articulate how a software feature will provide value to the customer.
Research, Deliverable
USWDS
Design
W
Web Analytics
The measurement, collection, and analysis of the internet to understand and optimize web usage.
Research
White or Negative Space
The use of blank (unmarked) space on a page to promote content and navigation. To be precise, when the products or pages have enough white space, it helps them feel uncluttered, elevates them, and makes them feel special. And it makes people want to take a closer look.
Design
Wireframe
Wireframes are early interface designs that focus on content, layout and functionality, and those are created without styling. We prioritize creating Wireframes of key flows and/or sections first, and proceed to subsequent ones after approval to complete the larger user flow of the product. Once flows have been explored and constituted, prototypes for testing and/or review will be created per case.
Tysons, Virginia (April 25, 2022) – MOBOMO, LLC announced today that it has been appraised at level 3 of ISACA’s Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI®). The appraisal was performed by Integrated Quality.
CMMI is a proven, outcome-based performance model and the globally accepted standard for improving capability, optimizing business performance and aligning operations to business goals.
An appraisal at Maturity Level 3 indicates the organization is performing at a “defined” level. At this level, processes are well characterized and understood, and are described in standards, procedures, tools, and methods. These processes were implemented to create consistency and improve performance throughout the organization. The organization’s set of standard processes and tailoring guidelines, which is the basis for Maturity Level 3, is established and improved over time.
Focused on continuously improving our performance and standing out to our customers as a trusted partner, Mobomo’s teams achieved high customer satisfaction ratings, created and maintained consistency in processes enterprise-wide, and set expectations within the engineering, quality assurance, and project management divisions; the results of which were visible from the positive responses shared by our customers in our satisfaction surveys.
“Organizations worldwide are harnessing CMMI to elevate their business performance to new heights, creating a sustainable competitive advantage in the process” says Ron Lear, Senior Director, CMMI Program. “We commend Mobomo, LLC on achieving this CMMI appraisal level and demonstrating their ability as a high-performing organization.”
Humanity has witnessed the digitalization of everyday aspects of life tangibly in the last 30 years and the velocity of this transformation is increasing exponentially. The Covid-19 pandemic fueled the amount of time we spend in the digital world through websites, apps, social networks, and now – even work. This immersion into a more digital realm of existence has served as a catalyst for leveling up, and the metaverse is our first foray into an existence that has, until this point, been conceivable only through science fiction.
Books, television, movies, and video games have provided a context for what this brave new world will look like, but how do we, as designers, shape the User experience – what type of approaches should we consider - what challenges should we anticipate when entering this new layer of digital interaction?
Approaches
History has shown us that there is a recognizable transition pattern to adoption during evolutionary leaps forward – may they be social, economic and/or technological. New paradigms of communication, new mediums if you will, have (and in reality, must) employ existing practices in order to transition users from the innovation phase and into early adoption. The reason is because innovators, recognizing the intrinsic value in the new medium, will champion the evolutionary jump, but early adopters need a nudge – effectively, a transitionary hybrid between the medium’s singularities and elements from mainstream mediums.
There are countless historical, real-world examples of this process, but the most relevant example is the introduction of touch screen smartphones in the mid- 2000s. The early interfaces presented clickable (tap-able) elements that looked like physical objects with volume and depth. Since the buttons could not feel like the physical buttons cell-users were accustomed to, designers guided users by creating visually accurate representations of buttons, which gave the users a sense of familiarity, control, and savvy, thereby easing the transition. This aesthetic, technically called Skeuomorphism, was then gradually replaced by Minimal/Metro as the user base of touch screen smartphones expanded from the innovators and early adopters into the early majority.
Using the adoption path of touch screen devices as an example of what is in store for the metaverse, we can expect that some critical interactions and engagements that run across the board with users (a broad range of user demographics) will probably emulate “2D” experience dynamics. Where possible, designers will take advantage of the spatial property within the 3D environment in ways the user can relate to (i.e. “taking” the object/avatar/asset as they would in a physical space – which, admittedly, is an experience increasingly left behind by the action of the digital evolution itself). Additionally, we can posit that in its first stages, the metaverse will rely heavily on the imitation of real-world objects as direct visual metaphors. In time, new objects will arise from the internal dynamic in this new medium, which will not necessarily be representative of any concrete real-world counterpart.
Challenges
As with all (r)evolutionary jumps, the benefits are counterbalanced with both expected and novel risks/challenges. The metaverse’s untapped potential for expanding people’s interactions in a virtual landscape – a world within a world – via social networks (or even as an extension of them) will undoubtedly stand to inherit a lot of the current privacy and intrusiveness issues of social networks, as well as the lack of transparency in the manipulation of personal data. None of these issues are solved in the current playfield and there are risks of those becoming much worse in the metaverse.
Let’s consider the systems that track users’ facial expressions/reactions and how these systems train algorithms to interpret said expressions/reactions as a means of funneling appropriate marketing and product placements to the user. Louis Rosemberg makes a case for aggressive regulations for the metaverse by identifying potentially dangerous outcomes and manipulation of users that may arise from this additional layer of tracking that the metaverse offers. Rosemberg is not wrong in his assessment and this is not to be downplayed considering that social network algorithms have been proven to swing support for political movements and parties during election cycles.
Another challenge is that today’s User Interface Designers come with baggage, specifically patterns and layout strategies (ex: digital dashboard, websites, and application) that work in the 2D realm, but will be of less use for the metaverse — think of HUD elements and contextual menus or options when you are playing any contemporary 3D game — but will ultimately not be the core component of the experience and interaction. This is because the concept is entirely different: by assuming a digital persona in a virtual space that aspires to resemble and represent many of the structures we know from the “real world”, the user is encouraged to inhabit and explore the metaverse in a more immersive way. In this respect, the goal of quickly and effectively finding information or performing actions continues to have its intrinsic value but this is not its central point. The experience of the new medium is one of exploration and living (perhaps even owning) the virtual space. This shift transforms designers into something closer to architects / urbanists – touching on sociology, philosophy, potentially extending into even law, politics, and economics – because what’s at stake is the genesis of a “meta society”.
Last, but certainly not least, if you are experiencing a metaverse by using, let’s say —for now— a VR helmet; how do you imagine the analog of the navigation we do currently in 2D would be, with its constant hyperlinking and jumping through tabs? It has been observed that in virtual reality environments, this transition between scenes must be carefully designed so that the player does not get disoriented. The “natural” way out of this is the simple movement between the different meta places, just as one would move in the physical world. But of course, new ways of navigation will be refined as the metaverse develops, allowing for natural multitasking, or even multi-staging, while not leaving the user feeling disjointed or dislocated.
Take Aways
The metaverse presents us with the opportunity to create meaningful experiences and visual languages for a medium that puts the user in a “player” position. We will be transitioning from putting our pages and products in front of the user to putting the user inside of the product. The potential we have as designers to use products, services, and ideas as a means of inspiring users via immersive experiences that maximize connection and engagement is unprecedented. The dystopian ghost is obviously lurking around regarding this topic and, as designers and developers, it is up to us to circumvent these challenges and mitigate the risks of these new interactions. With one foot still on the ground – knee spring loaded – poised and ready for the leap – we, as designers, must be prepared to launch into the unknown possibilities of transforming science fiction into technological reality. As innovators, the birth of true VR will be our legacy – IF we understand how to introduce it and evolve it such that early adopters give way to the early majority, and IF the early majority feel safe enough to see VR succeed through the innovation lifecycle.
With more than a decade of experience designing innovative solutions across the private and federal landscape, Mobomo, LLC places a premium on thought leadership within our ranks. For further insight on the cutting edge solutions we have developed for our customers, visit us or reach out directly and discover the ways in which we can help put our proven dedication to excellence to work for your organization.
Mobomo Celebrates Award Nomination to Super 40 Awards Program
Honored to be recognized by the Asian American Chamber of Commerce as a small business that makes a big impact within the Greater Washington Area, President, Ken Fang and CEO Brian Lacey were notified this week that Mobomo, LLC will be one of a select few awardees at the annual Jewels of Asia Awards Gala “Super 40 Awards Program” to be held on May 28, 2022, at the Live! Hotel & Casino in Hanover, MD.
Each year, the Asian American Chamber of Commerce celebrates the hard work and achievement of a handful of individuals and organizations that stand out amongst the crowd in helping to shape our business community. The criteria that nominees are judged upon includes exceptional performance, continuous growth, measurable success, and a commitment to enriching our community. The team at Mobomo feels privileged that the hard work we put into designing visually elegant, functionally exceptional products is recognized within our community and we look forward to joining the other winners and celebrating all of our successes at the “Super 40 Awards Program”.
If you are interested in stepping into the Mobomo landscape and learning a little more about what puts us at the front of the pack, feel free to familiarize yourself with our capabilities, past performance, the Mobomo team members who make our clients look so fantastic, and please reach out with any questions you might have.
Companies on the 2022 Inc. 5000 Regionals Mid-Atlantic list had an average growth rate of 161% percent.
Vienna, VA, March 15, 2022 –Inc. magazine revealed today that Mobomo, LLC is No. 123 on its third annual Inc. 5000 Regionals: Mid-Atlantic list, the most prestigious ranking of the fastest-growing private companies based in Washington, D.C., Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia. Born out of the annual Inc. 5000 franchise, this regional list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the Mid-Atlantic region economy’s most dynamic segment – its independent small businesses.
The companies on this list show a remarkable rate of growth across all industries in the Mid- Atlantic region. Between 2018 and 2020, these 131 private companies had an average growth rate of 161% percent and, in 2020 alone, they added 7,365 jobs and $1.9 billion to the Mid-Atlantic region’s economy. Companies based in the Richmond and Washington, D.C., areas had the highest growth rate overall.
Complete results of the Inc. 5000 Regionals: Mid-Atlantic, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, metro area, and other criteria, can be found at inc.com/mid-atlantic starting March 15, 2022.
“This year’s Inc. 5000 Regional winners represent one of the most exceptional and exciting lists of America’s off-the-charts growth companies. They’re disrupters and job creators, and all delivered an outsize impact on the economy. Remember their names and follow their lead. These are the companies you’ll be hearing about for years to come,” says Scott Omelianuk, editor-in-chief ofInc.
Interested in learning more about Mobomo? Take a tour of our capabilities, our past performance, the team members who make our clients look so fantastic, and feel free to reach out with any questions you might have
More about Inc. and the Inc. 5000 Regionals
Methodology
The 2022 Inc. 5000 Regional are ranked according to percentage revenue growth when comparing 2018 and 2020. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2018. They had to be U.S.-based, privately held, for-profit, and independent—not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies—as of December 31, 2019. (Since then, a number of companies on the list have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2018 is $100,000; the minimum for 2020 is $1 million. As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons.
About Inc. Media
The world’s most trusted business-media brand, Inc. offers entrepreneurs the knowledge, tools, connections, and community to build great companies. Its award-winning multiplatform content reaches more than 50 million people each month across a variety of channels including websites, newsletters, social media, podcasts, and print. Its prestigious Inc. 5000 list, produced every year since 1982, analyzes company data to recognize the fastest-growing privately held businesses in the United States. The global recognition that comes with inclusion in the 5000 gives the founders of the best businesses an opportunity to engage with an exclusive community of their peers and the credibility that helps them drive sales and recruit talent.
The associated Inc. 5000 Conference is part of a highly acclaimed portfolio of bespoke events produced by Inc. For more information, visit www.inc.com.
