Download - Mobile Solutions - Build vs. Buy
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Mobile SolutionsBuild vs. Buy
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CTO of HauteLook
Oversee all technology, infrastructure, development, etc
Major focus on customer experience based applications
Utilize Agile SCRUM and Lean Kanban SDLC
Build web apps for Desktop, Mobile and Tablet (from here out I will referto Mobile as inclusive of tablets)
Build native applications for iPhone, iPad and Android
Who am I? Kevin Diamond
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Private sale, members-only limited-time sale events
Premium fashion and lifestyle brands at exclusive prices of 50-75% off
Over 20 new sale events begin each morning at 8am PST
Over 10 million members
Acquired by Nordstrom in 2011
Who is HauteLook
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iPhone (Oct 2010), iPad and Android(Sep 2011) apps now available, with
experience tailored to each device
Over 1.1M app downloads
Mobile now represents up to 33% of
weekday logins and 42% on weekends Mobile now represents up to 25% of
weekday revenue and 33% on weekends
Sometimes our core member prefers
using her phone to shop HauteLook,
even when near a computer
HauteLook Mobile Is
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Increased speed in latest version of our app increased conversion by 10%
Faster performance also led to 15% more PV/sessions, but decreased
session time by 25% (it was that much faster!)
Buyers spend 3x the time per session as viewers, and look at 3x the
number of products
iPad sessions last 2x iPhone but same number of PV
Bugs are costly! A buggy version had 10% lower engagement and 20%
lower conversion.
Fun facts!
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Is mobile commerce
strategicfor your business?
The biggest question
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Then the core development of your app
MUST be done internally
Yes?
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Great! Lets outsource this sucker
Still testing the water?
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Mobile Web or Native Apps
Where are your customers?
If all over the place, definitely Mobile Web
If almost all iOS only or all Android only, then go Native immediately
If a good split, start with Mobile Web and then go Native as quickly as you can
But HTML5 doesnt perform nearly as well as Native (for now)
Picking a platform
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Hybrid is building it in HTML5 and then wrapping it for native app store
Performance is nowhere near Native
Especially if you have a mix of older devices
Worst things are: infinite scrolling, access to hardware
Newer devices with big processors closing the divide New JS Frameworks working towards making it better
What about hybrid?
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Outsource does not have to mean offshore! Look at both.
Have they built an app/site you love or competes with you?
No? Then keep looking!
My two rules of how outsourcing works:
Staff augmentation
Complete project hand-off
Picking Your Outsourcer
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Get a skill matrix of actual resources
Pick a resource (or a few) and interview them like you would an employee
Integrate them into your Agile/Lean process
Dont have to work your hours, but have to attend the stand-up
Assign them tasks to do
You have to manage the project, they are now just additional employees
Pay an hourly rate, not project base
Monthly commitment, but terminate anytime if not living up to
expectation
Staff Augmentation
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They must have a project manager on their side
Best to use same group that does wireframes
Set up standards (style guide, code standards, etc) in advance
And then sit back and make them manage, develop, test it all
Project based bid with budget guidelines Deadlines clearly discussed and penalties for missing them
Dont increase scope!
Be happy with whateverthey deliver, it will not be perfect, but it is done
Project Hand-off
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Biggest challenge is hiring the RIGHT people
If it is your first time, be wary of setting deadlines
Building for mobile is harder than building for desktop
Prototyping is essential for the staff to learn the right way to do something
and how long it takes
Leave prototyping out of your Agile process so you can adequately
timebox when in it
In-house Instead
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Memory Management, Multi-threading, Small Processors, Speed
Constraints, are likely new problems
Simulating bad/lossy connections (try it when on the elevator!)
Understanding standards of device platforms and how to appropriatelyuse those requires good UX and UI people
Simplicity is key for a successful experience, almost opposite from the
desktop web (drop shadows and rounded corners eat away at processor)
Need APIs that bring all major functionality to the new platform, so
double the building for all new functionality
Building for Mobile is Hard
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The rest of your team needs to become dedicated to maintaining yourAPIs and their up-time (hard if nothing else uses them)
Testing must be extreme
Native takes weeks not minutes to get new releases out to all customers, sobugs are very costly (add in Upgrade alerts from the start)
Even web doesnt act like you would expect
Automated testing is almost a must have, which means more initial dev time Beta test internally with employees to find bugs the average person might
see, but your developers will miss
Native app Beta testing internally is not easy to get the app on to peoplesdevices, often have to use tools like TestFlight
If development isnt in-sync, new features will come to desktop web first,
and later to Mobile which requires a lot more communication internallyand externally
What versions of what devices will you support? (iOS 4-6, Android 2.1-4.1,Touch-based Smartphones, etc)
Supporting Mobile is Harder
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Very public reporting of all issues people have with the app
Also people will evaluate your business
Business Practices
Business Model
Try to encourage people in your app to reach out with their problems directlyand not through the Reviews
Android requires you to be a Top Developer to respond to reviews, but littlevisibility into what makes you a Top Developer
Apple has no way to contact or respond to complaints, even if its with a fix(hopefully this will change)
Little to no way to identify the user to look internally at what problem theymight have had
Apple App Store is also very finicky (if it isnt broke, dont fix or change it!) Changing App Icon Name can mean a blank icon on release
Removing and re-adding your app can result in 100k of members seeing This itemhas been removed from the store
App Store Reviews
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Push and Alert messages are to mobile as email is to the desktop, exceptreads are above 90%!
Push messages are sent through Apple/Googles protocols and arent easy
to setup
Push is great for transactional messages (you got a credit or your item
shipped)
Alerts are setup within the app while it is running and are easier to setup
Alerts are great for regular, schedulable events (like our 8am new sale
alert)
Or an event off of an action they took while in the app (remind me button
for a specific sale happening in the future)
Alerts you can build yourself, for Push, use a third party like Urban Airship
Push vs. Alerts
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Dont reinvent the wheel! If you want a cool feature, see if it exists already:
Card.io for camera reading a Credit Card
Red Laser for barcode scanning
This industry is expanding fast and more and more tools are being developed
Crash reporting is not built-in
Crittercism, BugSense, Crashlytics are a few that give you the feedback you
need to figure out the cause of crashing, but are really new and not 100%
Apple + Android report some crashing and give stack traces in their admin
systems, but only report a limited number
Analytics
Whomever your web analytics partner is probably already has an SDK for
mobile
Third Party Add-Ons
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If you have questions, please email me [email protected]
Thank you!
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mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]