Mobile Intranets and Enterprise Apps

This report provides case studies and survey feedback from more than 200 designers creating mobile-optimized enterprise apps and content. The 9 advice-filled case studies of enterprise and intranet mobile-optimized offerings will help you plan or tweak your company’s mobile strategy and designs. Survey findings and case studies include trends, challenges, and examples related to a variety of mobile optimization approaches, including:

• responsive design intranets
• mobile-optimized intranets  and applications
• native mobile intranet applications

This 237-page report contains practical advice and 141 full-color screenshots of designs and iterations.

Article on research findings: Mobile Intranet Design

Supporting field staff and mission-critical apps are core reasons to take enterprise computing mobile, but users also value access to news and internal social networks.

Topics

• Mobile intranet strategy for content, features, and designs
• Responsive layouts for accommodating various screen sizes, from phones and tablets to desktops
• The "mobile-first" approach, and how to allow employee needs to drive mobile offerings
• Data processing and integration with existing internal systems
• Designing for multiple user types who have different needs
• Workflows and tools for increasing productivity
• Icon-driven communication. Effective ways to save screen real estate
• Creating effective mobile alerts
• Deciding on a native app, mobile site, or a responsive site
  • Functionality considerations. Offering a complete set of features or a subset of what's available
  • Designing for multiple types of company-issued devices
  • Resources and costs (Most respondents have a budget of less than $50,000 USD)
  • Supporting employees who work offline
  • Cross-platform considerations and overcoming BYOD (bring your own device) challenges
• ​Design cycle and technology testing processes
  • ​Wireframe and prototype studies for early, cost-saving usability feedback
  • Device emulation tools for early, realistic user evaluations
  • Field research to understand user context and tasks
  • Interviews and analysis
  • Social media as a tool to get feedback
• ​Exploiting existing mobile features
  • ​Real-time maps, GPS, and location services to find inventory, people, and work orders
  • Click-to-dial
  • Local access to data without a network connection
• Accessibility
  • How to design icons for use by people with disabilities
    Accommodating younger and older users with fonts and controls
• Automating and streamlining existing processes for mobile
  • ​Converting a paper booklet into an app to make it effective for mobile use
  • Changing an ordering process to make it easier for everyone
  • Eliminating a physical tool, such as a customer counter
• ​ROI and success measures for mobile intranets

Organizations and Mobile Enterprise Case Studies

Applified B.V., a design firm (The Netherlands)

“12View” native Android app for Applified’s client VDV (largest sewer cleaning organization in the Netherlands) enables inspection teams to locally check and report sewer system incidents, maintenance, and status.

Arup, a professional services firm related to the built environment (United Kingdom)

“Ovanet” mobile-specific web pages give employees direct access to a small number of key tasks from any web-enabled mobile device, including discovering personalized news, finding subject matter experts inside the company, locating company offices, and organizing project records.

CommunicateHealth, Inc., a health communication firm (US)

“Show Me” app facilitates icon-driven communication between first responders and people with communication challenges— hearing impairments, limited English proficiency, or cognitive delays.

EE, a communications company (United Kingdom)

“Splash” is a custom, EE-branded mobile-optimized, employee news channel and social network, available from any web-connected device.

North Carolina State University Libraries, supporting the university's library network and its partners (US)

“Suma” is an open source, mobile, web-based assessment toolkit for collecting and analyzing observational data about the usage of physical spaces and services. Suma’s goals include enabling fast, hassle-free mobile data collection, providing sophisticated data analysis and visualization capabilities for non-technical users, and promoting observational data analysis as an integral part of service and space design and day-to-day planning.

Service Express, Inc., on-site data center maintenance firm (US)

“Field Service Engineer Mobile Ticket System” is a cross-platform, mobile web app that allows field service engineers to search inventory and order mission-critical parts quickly with their company-issued mobile phones.

Verizon Communications, a communications company (US)

“VZWeb,” Verizon’s intranet, uses responsive web design to provide a consistent user experience across desktop, tablet and mobile devices. The website delivers critical employee communications to the entire Verizon community. eDirectory, a part of the VZWeb experience, is a mobile version of the company directory.

ZON Multimédia, a pay TV service provider (Portugal)

“ZON 4 Sales” is a website that supports door-to-door salespeople who register customers for cable TV, Internet and telephone services. It also enables sales reps to schedule technical and installation services with the service provider when needed.

“mTec” is a mobile web application and native Android app for field technicians who make customer support house calls. mTec provides work orders and customer information, giving technicians the needed context in which to perform their work.