ChatGPT is garnering a lot of attention as of late. The chatbot that OpenAI released in November 2022 has smashed the early adoption rates of other products, “accomplishing in two months what it took TikTok about nine months and Instagram two and a half years,” according to a cnet.com article. While this leap within AI is impressive, ChatGPT is merely the advancement that will eventually be viewed in much the same way as the cordless phone was (for those of us old enough to remember how revolutionary the cordless phone was).
To be fair, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has already made a significant impact on society and its influence is only expected to grow in the future. From improving healthcare and transportation to revolutionizing the way we work and communicate; AI has changed many aspects of our lives.
AI is Changing the Way We Work and Live
One of the most significant influences of AI is how it has changed the way we work. AI-powered tools have enabled businesses to automate routine tasks and analyze vast amounts of data, making work more efficient and freeing up time for more creative and strategic tasks. AI has also improved many aspects of our daily lives, such as providing more personalized and efficient customer service, improving navigation and traffic flow, and enhancing the accuracy of weather forecasts. While AI has made many tasks easier and more efficient, it has also raised concerns about its impact on employment. Some worry that AI will automate many jobs, leading to widespread job loss and economic disruption.
If history teaches us anything, it is that, rather than being bad or good, these tools will be bad and good. Some jobs will go away, others will rise in their stead. Just as no one could imagine carrying a phone around with them everywhere they went 20 years ago; today, we think little of how dependent we have become on our phones today – not just for phone calls, but emails, internet searches, entertainment, even medical device monitoring and adjustments (think hearing aids and pacemakers). The reality of the integration of these tools into our everyday lives is that we really aren’t that far away from society as it is depicted at the beginning of the movie iRobot.
ChatGPT today – iRobot tomorrow
So, where do we go from ChatGPT? What is the next step in the AI awakening? The answer to this is somewhat limitless (social implications from AI-dating to replicating a lost loved one and industry evolutions such as the extinction of drivers’ licenses/car ownership as autonomous vehicles become a mainstay are just a few examples). One outcome of AI’s impact on our future lives that is interesting to postulate is the combination of AI, reinforcement learning, and robotics.
Reinforcement learning is a type of machine learning that focuses on using algorithms to enable machines to make decisions based on feedback from their environment. The goal of reinforcement learning is to teach an agent to take actions that maximize a reward signal. In the context of robotics, the agent is a robot and the actions it takes are movements or actions it performs in its environment.
In reinforcement learning, the agent interacts with its environment by taking actions and observing the consequences of those actions. Based on these experiences, the agent adjusts its behavior to improve its decision-making over time. The agent is incentivized to take actions that lead to a higher reward signal, such as successfully completing a task or avoiding obstacles.
Reinforcement learning can be integrated with AI to build robots that are capable of making decisions and adapting their behavior in real-world environments. By combining AI with reinforcement learning, robots can learn from their experiences and improve their decision-making over time. This can lead to robots that are more autonomous and capable of completing complex tasks without human intervention.
For example, a robot equipped with AI and reinforcement learning algorithms could be trained to navigate a warehouse and locate specific items. The robot would start by exploring the environment and learning the layout of the warehouse. As it encounters different obstacles and finds the items it is searching for, it would update its decision-making based on the feedback it receives from its environment. Over time, the robot would become more efficient at navigating the warehouse and locating items.
However, the integration of AI with reinforcement learning and robotics also raises ethical and safety concerns. There is a need to ensure that the algorithms used in reinforcement learning do not harm people or cause unintended consequences. Additionally, as robots become more autonomous, there is a risk that they may make decisions that are not aligned with human values and interests. As AI continues to evolve, it will be important to continue monitoring its impact on society and to ensure that its development benefits all people.
Chatbots enabled with AI, like ChatGPT, have placed our society on the doorstep of a new and fascinating leap forward. For the Mobomo team, we consistently position ourselves on the cutting edge of technology through our contracted work and Mobomo Labs. While it may seem like this tech is years away from implementation, AI, reinforcement learning, and robotics are all advanced enough right now to build viable prototypes. You may find yourself taking that leap sooner than you realize; after all, ChatGPT wrote 65% of the article you just read and midjourney generated the graphics/visual imagery within this article.
Mobomo team members are truly passionate about discovering ways in which technology can solve difficult everyday challenges. For over 13 years we have supported Departments and Agencies in the Federal Civilian marketplace, creating elegant solutions to solve complex problems. Some challenges are more important than others; our work with the Veterans Administration (VA) and the United Service Organizations (USO) has focused our team to find solutions to real-world issues that affect the men and women who have served in the armed forces.
According to a June 2022 article published by the USO, the suicide rates for US military personnel are historically double that of the civilian population. Since record-keeping began following the events of 9/11, suicide rates among active-duty military members are at an all-time high. One of the biggest contributors to mental health is a sense of community and alleviation from feelings of isolation. Transitioning to civilian life is often difficult for many service members. The loss of mission and feeling a part of something bigger and more important than themselves, even years later they express a feeling of disconnection from their military family.
We take pride in all our work, especially in support of the VA and in working together with the Veterans who work alongside us here at Mobomo. Our team is acutely aware of the need for active outreach opportunities to promote mental health and reduce stressors, especially when it comes to our Veteran population. Utilizing resources allocated through MobomoLabs, our Engineering team and technical SMEs began a two-year discovery journey that would culminate in the rise of Sentinel, a human-centered mobile platform built with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) capabilities.
The concept of Sentinel began with the vision of developing an ethical tool that would provide health equity for all, improve access to Veterans Crisis Line Services, allow for interoperability between smartphones, tablets, and web-based devices, aid in the reengagement of the individual, screen for early signs of distress, and be scalable across a broad veteran population. Current published metrics identify that 85% of the U.S. population uses smartphones, 75% own a desktop/laptop, and nearly 50% use tablets. Therefore, a digital platform was a logical connection point for the community of 1.2 million active duty and 19 million Veterans. Sentinel was designed as an all-inclusive ecosystem, delivered through a simple, intuitive user interface that is accessible across mobile, tablet, and web-based devices. The features within Sentinel were developed to target areas of interest specific to our military members and serve as a conduit for attaining and/or retaining the connection to those unique cultural unifiers that bond and bind service members to each other.
The thoughtful design began by creating an intuitive tool that would engage individuals, creating repeat users, and improving access to Veterans Crisis Services. The initial release has a landing page that provides access to critical support for service members (VHA, VA locations, the VA Crisis Line, Veteran Community Organizations, Veteran Support Groups, and the individual’s safety plan) prompting them to discover different ways to access support services available to them and their families. Utilizing the AI voice automated screening developed by our partner, Clearspeed, Sentinel could identify early warning signs through our scalable and interoperable risk prevention analytics. Sentinel has infinite scalability and can be expanded as usage and the user network grows, perhaps to encompass resources including but not limited to educational and career resources, geo-fencing to events in the direct vicinity, veteran-based business advertisements, and veteran networking, among other features.
During Sentinel’s development, we focused on the unique attributes of the military culture – honor, loyalty, and commitment. As an experienced VA contractor currently tasked with developing the Mental Health Check Up (MHC) application for the VA, Mobomo utilized our lessons learned, constructing the front-end of the Sentinel platform around activities that fulfill service member needs/desires (specifically a sense of community, purpose, and communication vehicles), providing direct access to support systems should the user require immediate intervention. With the push of a button, an individual could access the Veterans Crisis Hotline or Chat, a self-created safety plan, their support network, local resources available to them (geo-fencing), and the AI-based risk assessment check-in tool.
Sentinel’s Secret Sauce
The risk assessment component within Sentinel uses an AI-driven, voice-based technology from Clearspeed. Clearspeed voice analytics proactively identify potential suicide ideation and risk prior to escalations that could result in self-harm. Clearspeed voice analytics technology has been used successfully across a range of personnel screening applications: risk assessment, insider threat detection, protection of proprietary information, insurance fraud, force protection, resilience screening, and detection of malicious actors. Preemptive identification of suicide ideation requires the verbal answering of 3-4 simple, automated, and non-intrusive questions eliciting “Yes/No” responses. The proliferation of research regarding suicide across the Veteran population confirms that suicide is often precipitated by a culmination of disparate factors that add layers of stress on an individual, eventually becoming unbearable. According to the 2021 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report, 60% of the Veterans who died by suicide in 2019 did not utilize resources available to them through VHA. Sentinel serves as a “sensor” by proactively identifying those service members developing suicidal thoughts. Sentinel has the capability to detect stressors in the user and direct health care providers to proactively reach out to the user, providing resources and/or engaging in interventions prior to behavioral escalations that could result in harm to themselves or others.
Bringing together Mobomo’s core competencies of User-centered design, rapid prototyping, and application development with a bleeding-edge technology company and innovator, Clearspeed, we built a mobile platform, to include cloud infrastructure, resources, dependencies, compliance checks, and network connections necessary to deliver a scalable, flexible, and reproducible experience. Our team automates every aspect of a product pipeline to ensure 100% reliability on every release. We built fault-tolerant, highly available solutions that heal themselves, which helps eliminate single points of failure. Additionally, we future-proofed our designs by architecting them around containers, micro-servers, and fully managed serverless computing and storage solutions.
While Sentinel is a mobile application geared to support our service members, the possibility of its application across other groups and for different purposes is limitless; and that is what MobomoLabs is truly about – discovering and designing elegant solutions to even the most seemingly insurmountable challenges. For more information about how Mobomo conceives, builds, and delivers mission-critical products that people love to use, please visit our site or reach out to us directly.
As a subcontractor to the Prime contract holder, Armedia LLC, Mobomo will support the Sustainment Operations for Applications BPA for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The USDA called on Armedia, who has a working and holistic understanding and knowledge of USDA application hosting environments. Mobomo is a primary subcontractor to Armedia and will help serve as the source of technical expertise regarding maintaining and improving the USDA application environment and working closely with information security. In addition to providing tactical production operations support and DBA services, the Armedia Team will provide strategic guidance and recommendations for strategic planning and improvements to the systems/applications supported by Armedia.
As part of an integrated team, Mobomo will provide support across all task areas. In support of Drupal task orders, Mobomo will act as the primary subcontractor.
One of Mobomo's core competencies is Drupal development. With a wide range of experience from developers and designers to project managers, our team works with customers to create innovative products that are cost-effective and sustainable.
Our depth of experience and technical skills allow us to be awarded projects similar to this one.
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.
Whether you are looking for a complete end-to-end solution, wanting to migrate existing website content into Drupal, or need additional staff with Drupal expertise to add to your team, Mobomo can deliver. Visit our website to learn more: https://www.mobomo.com/drupal/
In August 2022, Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc. announced its plans to partner with Team Mobomo for Operations and Maintenance (O&M) support of their Content Management System (CMS), as well as managing the annual subscriptions to Acquia Cloud and Kaltura Media.
Mobomo, LLC put forward a solid approach and believed that our vision, expertise, and culture coupled with our all-star talent uniquely positioned us to provide MBN the strongest possible continuation of service.
MBN has access to an unparalleled level of experience, understanding, and capability through Mobomo's experienced staff and knowledge, ensuring risk-free continuity. MBN's CMS was designed, developed, and deployed by our team. Using lessons learned during implementation, we continue to adapt our processes, driving both innovation and quality. It is our pleasure to continue partnering with MBN to enhance this success, thereby increasing customer satisfaction and visitors to MBN properties.
ABOUT MOBOMO
Mobomo is a CMMI Dev Level 3 premier mobile, web, and cloud application development company that has extensive experience in creating award-winning, Agile, user-centered design solutions and providing DevSecOps capabilities. As a proud Drupal Association member, Amazon Web Services (AWS) public sector partner and reseller, Microsoft certified partner, Acquia partner, and member of the Digital Services Coalition, Mobomo is well positioned to provide our clients with quality service, executing tasks on time and within budget, while minimizing risk.
As a provider of Tier 2 and Tier 3 O&M for numerous federal and state customers including the International Trade Administration (ITA), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Mobomo is well equipped to deliver these types of services. In addition to providing 24/7/365 incident response and customer support, our team performs continuous monitoring, regular monthly updates, and patching to infrastructure and applications.
To learn more about Team Mobomo, please feel free to visit our website.
iOS 16 was released with a multitude of new features that change and upgrade the user’s experience while using Apple’s latest iPhone software. A few things to keep in mind for UX designers, as they create new user experiences, are the lock screen’s ability to highlight apps through widgets and live activities, and the continuously increasing capability to allow users to verify identification using Apple Wallet. By revamping the lock screen, users now will be able to access important information more quickly and easily, as they will only have to glance at their screen to find what they are looking for. The new Apple Wallet Identification feature continues the journey of replacing the physical wallet with just your phone. As designers, we need to keep in mind these features that change how a user interacts with their phone, consume products, and complete their day-to-day lives.
Here is Mobomo's explanation of these new features and how they might benefit the experience of a user.
New Lock Screen & Focus Mode
The lock screen was completely revamped by the Apple team with a big focus on personalization. You have access to adding personal colors to your lock screen and are also able to have multiple different lock screen layouts, made by you, and saved to switch between. That includes the photo used as the wallpaper, typefaces, colors, and more. Along with another new feature called Focus, users can switch between lock screens that are tailored to help them during work, their free time, or sleeping.
Widgets
More importantly, the lock screen also has two new features that provide users with a new and clean way to view information. Widgets are now available to be placed on your lock screen, as well as a new feature called Live Activities.
Widgets stay a consistent shape throughout the apple ecosystem, so this is helpful for continuity and provides a helpful user experience. Live Activities take something like basketball game updates, or uber status, and allow them to be displayed in a much cleaner perspective on the lock screen. The motivation behind this feature is to replace apps sending multiple notifications every few seconds or minutes and provide a dashboard for that information instead. We think this is a great upgrade, because notifications will be easier to organize, and users are able to quickly see statuses on their lock screen.
Apple Wallet
Verifying identity inside Apple Wallet is possible now with the ability to upload your driver’s license or state ID. This feature is slowly rolling out, with only Arizona and Maryland currently supporting the ID uploads. As of now, you can present your ID from your iPhone or Apple Watch at certain TSA checkpoints in select airports. Another useful feature for id verification is in-app verification. The example given was ordering alcohol on Uber Eats and using your Apple Wallet to verify your age and identity. There is no telling when this will be widely available, but for now, it provides seamless, contactless touch for TSA. While Apple Wallet ID verification is only supported in a very limited number of states and airports, this is one step forward for a contactless user experience, regarding safety and security as a priority.
The user experience designer also needs to know about some other aspects that have not seen major changes or enhancements. The Touch ID and Face ID have not changed significantly. Apple Login now allows users to share subscriptions with family members, but other features remain the same.
In conclusion, the lock screen overhaul provides a great opportunity for apps to show status updates through Live Activities or provide widgets to glance at or interact with. They follow a consistent pattern with the Apple Watch in style/functionality and are easily accessible. iOS 16 includes all of these features as defaulting to opt-out, which means that users are not prompted or forced to use any of the new features. This is great for individuals that do not want, or have the time, to learn and use these new features without affecting their old experiences in previous iOS versions.
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.
