On Designing UX for Mobile Enterprise Apps

Abstract

Mobile apps form a special domain for designing user experience (UX). Interactions with the device should be designed such that the time span of the users' actions is shorter than in the desktop space, actions must be simple yet focused. Moreover, interactions must be accomplished with ease, using only a minimal number of finger presses or keystrokes. At the same time, the devices themselves introduce platform specific restrictions and guidelines regarding how UX should be addressed. In this paper, we report results from a study where the contributions of different actors to UX are addressed in the development of mobile enterprise apps. In conclusion, the study indicates that for simplest applications, the best UX specialists are actually the developers who know all platform-specific customs, whereas for more complex apps, special UX role is needed in order to manage the big picture.