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I-SITE LIKES: Smartphone Apps Vol. 1

This is the first in the series of posts we’re calling I-SITE LIKES about the technologies the I-SITE team is into right now. The series starts with the inside scoop on our favorite smartphone apps at the moment. There’s a good possibility that this list will be outdated by tomorrow, so check these apps out today! The article also highlighted the importance recover deleted files for free windows 10 of checking for malware before recovering the files, which was helpful.

DuoLingo does a pretty good job at “gameifying” the language learning process. I geekily look forward to making it to the next language level. There are a ton of holes in the actual content taught, but it gives you a good sense of language structure and the vocab and language rules you still need to learn. Plus the DuoLingo bird makes me happy.

One of my favorite apps is by iA (Information Architects) called iA Writer. It is available for Mac, iPhone and iPad and uses iCloud to sync documents across all the devices. It is an extremely minimalistic word processor that strips out a lot of the bells and whistles that aren’t entirely necessary. It also allows the writer to use Markdown, a popular markup languages amongst programmers, in order to format text without needing to take the traditional route of selecting text, finding the format, and applying it. I don’t use it often, but when I do I really enjoy the experience of typing with it.

I really like Titanium Backup (Android). Once your phone is rooted you can make backups of all of your apps and even sync them to Dropbox for storing so when you flash a new ROM onto your phone (like I do pretty frequently) you can get all your apps back with the click of a button, as opposed to having to go and download them all all over again. Plus you can “Freeze” apps which doesn’t delete them, but makes them unavailable to the operating system, so you can get rid of all of your phones “Bloatware” that comes installed by default.

My favorite app right now is Pudding Monsters, available for iPhone, iPad, and Android. It’s a cute puzzle game with terrific, bright graphics. The objective is to push the monsters together around obstacles to make specific formations, but without letting them fall off the table! It’s addicting.

My brain is overflowing with reminders. I need to remind myself to do personal, project and work-related tasks. I’m required to remind colleagues of deadlines and due dates. And I constantly need to remind myself to slow down – the Re-Mindful App does exactly that. It’s a simple, daily, random reminder to smile, breathe, stretch, trust, love, pause, listen, give thanks, have fun or feel the force! It’s available on iPhone and iPad.

Football League customized for the mighty Swindon Town. Match commentary, videos. Goaaaalllll!

My current favorite app is Vine for iPhone. Sometimes, a simple constraint can push creativity to new levels. This was the basic idea that made Twitter such a successful platform, and Vine was able to take the same model of short bursts of immediacy and apply it to video. A major benefit is the simple interface, which is simply “touch” to record. No other editing or options are available, just tap and hold the screen. Already people are using the 6 second format to record short movies, humorous skits, mashups, stop-motion animations… and users are continuing to push the boundaries of what can be done! I’m excited to see where this app will go as it evolves from its infancy. Wear leveling can result in files being stored in various locations across the drive, making the recovery process more recover deleted files from network shared folder complex and less likely to be successful.

I-SITE WINS AWARD FOR BEST FAMILY APP

I-SITE just got the fantastic news that the Sprout Family Challenge iOS application we designed and developed for Sprout has won Best Family Mobile application from the 2013 Internet Advertising Competition. Winners will be announced on the IAC website in the coming weeks.

We designed and developed the interactive application built on the iOS platform for Sprout with the goal of motivating families to become more active as a team. We used the Sprout design standards to make the app look and feel cohesive with the Sprout brand, but also incorporated famous characters from the TV network that would be recognizable to younger members of the family.

Participants of the app can unlock rewards in the form of custom downloads by completing a set number of interactive challenges. Features of the app include social media integration, advertorial sponsorship messages, photo-frame generation, and an in-app multimedia player. The Sprout team is committed to helping families live happy, healthier and more active lives together.

For more even more specifics of the app, check out a previous I-SITE blog post about the app launch. To download the app to your iPhone, go here.

IHP GLOBAL GALA: TREASURES OF ARMENIA

As a Corporate Partner of International House Philadelphia and having built the Armenian Housing Crisis app for MYX: Multicultural Youth eXchange (a Philadelphia-based 501(c)3 organization), it only made sense for I-SITE to develop the one-page microsite for International House Philadelphia’s Global Gala: Treasures of Armenia.

The Global Gala, which takes place on Saturday, May 18, will be a night of festivities, vibrant colors, flavors, art, and music celebrating the rich cultural traditions and achievements of the Armenian people around the world.

When designing the Global Gala website, we chose to mirror the look and feel of a printed invitation to give viewers a visceral and personal experience.

The one-page site is responsive. We built it using Skeleton, a responsive CSS framework. Skeleton relies only on CSS Media Queries to adjust the site to fit any device in any orientation that is currently viewing it, meaning a more lightweight build and quicker response-time when, for example, switching from portrait mode to landscape mode.

Many organizations are choosing one-page microsites to promote active campaigns that only require a short-term online presence. The impact a microsite has on generating participation and traffic often proves to be well worth the investment.

You can buy tickets to the International House Philadelphia’s Global Gala: Treasures of Armenia here.

Viking Brain Share: Whiteboarding

A few months ago, I attended Jonny Goldstein’s “Rock the Whiteboard” class at Indy Hall. I went into the day-long workshop ready to soak in some new techniques and draw all day! I came out of the class having learned Jonny’s method of visual note-taking: techniques to quickly communicate ideas on a whiteboard.

Ideas are easier to understand when you have a quick visual to help you out! Whiteboards are an informal, simple, and inpermanent tool for sketching. You can easily erase, add to, or re-arrange your drawings without getting too messy (or wasting paper). It’s a great tool for us to develop ideas at the same pace they start spewing from our brains. Since the class and my subsequent knowledge share with the I-SITE crew, more of us have been using the whiteboard for various steps in our planning and design process. We sketch out our sitemaps, wireframes, and functionality concepts on the whiteboard before getting anywhere near a computer. It’s a nice approach to collaborating and keeping an open mind before jumping right into the structured environment of Photoshop or Illustrator. Not to mention, the separation from technology for a bit can really help open your mind!

Since the whiteboards are big enough for us to all stand around (and we have tons of amazing colors to choose from thanks to Abby’s marker obsession), we can easily all be understood when we chip in with our two cents about how we think something should look or behave! We have also started using the whiteboard to help us quantify how projects are progressing (in terms of gauging interest levels, timelines, and progress).

I’ll let you take the class for yourself to learn the specifics, but what I took from the class has help out how we approach certain aspects of projects here at I-SITE, and may be helpful for you, too. The attendees of the class ranged across a lot of different backgrounds: research, design, development, testing, pharmaceuticals– everyone seemed to agree the class had something different to offer each of us. But hey, don’t just read about my experience, follow Jonny here and take one of his whiteboarding classes!

The Green Robot Welcomes Downtown Alliance App

On January 1, 2013, we launched the Android version of the free Downtown NYC smartphone app, which is the latest in a series of web and mobile applications we’ve created for our client, the Alliance for Downtown New York. The application was first developed as an iOS app for iPhones and iPads. I-SITE previously launched the downtownny.com website in the spring of 2011.

The app was created for tourists, residents and workers in Lower Manhattan to discover up-to-date events as well as access comprehensive listings including dining, hotels and attractions such as the under construction World Trade Center. The Android app’s interface is very similar to the iOS version, but customized for Android. Both apps utilize an easy-to-use, clean interface to enable the user to, in seconds, find events and locations that interest them. Downtown Alliance staff can easily add events and other data to the application through the same CMS interface as they use to manage the website content and iPhone app.

Like the iPhone version, the Android application allow users to find events on an integrated Google map, share the events and locations via social media, and add events to their calendar apps on their mobile devices. Since its launch, the iOS app has been downloaded over 11,000 times.

As part of the process the I-SITE team enjoyed designing to Android’s standards for navigation and information access. And as we add more Android projects to our portfolio, we’re exploring the Android framework further.

Download the DowntownNY App for Android and start exploring Lower Manhattan today!

I-SITE and LAGOS Bring Luxury to the Palm of Your Hand

The luxury jewelry brand LAGOS recently approached the I-SITE team with a major challenge. Their new eCommerce website was delivering results, but they had noticed increasing numbers of LAGOS loyalists and new fans were accessing the site from their smartphones. Every customer counts, so we forged a partnership to design and build an mCommerce website to deliver a great mobile browsing experience, and consequently sales.

The first step of the project was to perform a comprehensive review of the LAGOS desktop website, sales and marketing plans, branding materials and programs of their competitors. We were surprised that few of the leading luxury brands had developed mobile websites and recognized the opportunity for LAGOS to stand out in a very competitive marketplace.

We set out to create a mobile site that would do justice to the beauty of the jewelry while functioning seamlessly across iOS, Android, and those other devices that fit snugly in customers’ hands. Since the primary goal of the mobile site is to drive sales, the early work was focused on developing an optimum user experience for the shopper to ensure they complete their transactions. We also determined the content and features that we felt were appropriate for the mobile site as well as the desktop website. These include a Store Finder, Events, Product Search and Filtering, and the ability to share items with friends via Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest or email.

One of the greatest design challenges during this project was deciding how to organize all the content to fit on mobile devices. We prioritized certain functionality (like browsing through products) and grouped together the less vital, but still important information (like signing up for newsletters) on the bottom of each page. It was very important that we did not leave any content out or make any generalizations about the context of mobile devices. Someone browsing on their phone isn’t necessarily on-the-go, and should always be given the opportunity to view all the content that the desktop site offers. We explored each type of content to decide whether it needed a mobile view, and the rest we still made available in an easy menu, just in case. The goal was to deliver a solution that organized the already existing content in an intuitive way.

On the technical front, we leveraged the existing LAGOS website framework to develop a custom solution that employs techniques of responsive design and preserves essential features of the desktop website, such as product filtering. LAGOS’s main site runs on a custom-built PHP content manager, so we worked closely with their web team to connect the new mobile features into the current back end for ease of management moving forward.

Now fully versed in LAGOS’s fabulous jewelry collections, we are continuing to work with the their team to optimize the mobile website and increase sales.

I-SITE Doubles the Fun with Sales Training Game for the iPad

Recently iPads have been flooding into the sales department of companies around the globe – thankfully replacing the aged and often frustrating enterprise laptop. Would you rather pitch your story holding an old, brick-like Dell or a sleek, sexy iPad!?

The I-SITE team is currently working on a multi-player game project that makes the most of our new favorite device and is perfect for leaders looking for an engaging and flexible way to train their sales reps in groups. Dubbed DoubleUp the game is based on those TV game shows that filled our living rooms back in the day. The I-SITE team initially developed the game for the desktop and it has already proven itself as an effective learning tool in numerous sessions with groups ranging in size from 15 to 30.

So how does it work? Prior to a training session, the group leader upload all of his/her questions and multiple choice answers through an administrative interface. Then once he/she has collected the group together in a room with a projector, each player logs in via a unique ID they are provided with and creates their gamer profile.

Then, the team is ready to play! The fun for the sales rep isn’t just playing the game on their iPad. It’s following his/her ranking against other team members on the leader board projected at the front of the room. During the sessions, we’ve witnessed the users getting quite competitive, but thankfully everyone remains friends afterwards. (teledentistry.com)

Like the classic game shows, players have a limited amount of time to submit their answer for the multiple choice question. They can also DoubleUp their points if they’re confident they know the answer. Essential in any training exercise, the leader can pause the game at anytime to discuss a question or related issue. At the end of the game, the leader board declares the winners and runner-ups.

Originally created in Flash, we determined that Adobe Air was the best development solution for the iPad. We were able to leverage the the pre-existing code and QA to make the transition to the new platform as simple as possible for the player interface. Adobe Air takes full advantage of the new iPads GPU (graphic processor unit) ensuring a beautiful interface and smooth animations and sound.

So, if you’re ready to leverage the power of your team’s iPads beyond call notes and sales aids, contact us today.

Viking Brain Share: Mobile Content Mandate with Karen McGrane

As the I-SITE team works on an increasing number of mobile projects, we have kept up with the latest dialogue around how to approach design and development for mobile technologies. On Wednesday, Project Manager of I-SITE, Abby Fretz attended a talk by Karen McGrane on “The Mobile Content Mandate.” Karen is a widely recognized User Experience consultant with nearly two decades of experience working with national brands including The New York Times, Condé Nast, The Atlantic, and Time, Inc. She is also author of Content Strategy for Mobile (published in 2012 by A Book Apart). The talk was hosted by PhillyCHI, the Philadelphia region’s chapter of the ACM SIGCHI, an interdisciplinary academic and professional group interested in Human-Computer Interaction, User Experience, Usability, and other related disciplines.

McGrane talked about ‘disruptive innovation’ – those technologies that, while perhaps not as quality as the related technologies that preceded them, become widely adopted because they make what was formerly not accessible to many people, widely accessible (she used the examples of the transistor radio, digital cameras, and the first home computers). Mobile ‘smart’ phones are just the latest in a long line of disruptive technologies. Despite the fact that a large portion of the US population accesses the Internet on their mobile phone and a surprisingly large number of people ONLY accesses the Internet via their mobile device, mobile website and application design is well behind where it should be.

Design for the web has evolved drastically over the years since home computers and the Internet really took off. The design community engaged in ongoing discussion and debate over best practices for creating good user experience for the web. McGrane gave several examples of major companies that, while they have a mobile website or application, simply have not successfully utilized their website content to create an equally useful and pleasant mobile experience. She explains that only 16% of consumer brands and 20% of B2B brands have a mobile strategy in place.

It was encouraging to hear Karen reiterate her approach to content strategy for mobile. In recent mobile projects with companies that already have a website version of the same content, we’ve been focusing on working with our clients to really evaluate their web content and understand how someone might consume the same information on mobile. We have been emphasizing a content structure design that does not require the client to completely revisit their content or maintain completely separate content for web and mobile.

Karen explains that disruptive technologies eventually get good or they redefine what good means. Here at I-SITE, we’re excited to be at the forefront of this evolution.

I-SITE AND SPROUT TEAM UP AGAIN!

I-SITE has been working with the team at Sprout on a variety of apps, microsites and promos. Sprout is a U.S. digital cable television channel, video-on-demand service, and website providing shows and original programming for preschoolers and their families. We recently launched two 15-second, 2-D animated sponsored promos for Brita and Lego Duplo. As someone who has unfortunately experienced the panic of recover deleted files in dfu mode accidentally deleting important files, I found these three recovery methods very helpful.

In 2011, we created a holiday animation video, which was such a big success. They brought us back on board to do a 2012 holiday video spot, featuring the penguins (an I-SITE favorite) for Lego Duplo. The sequel aired this past holiday season.

Our most recent animation project with the team is another 2-D animation sponsored promo for Brita. The animation focuses on drinking water as part of a healthy diet for the whole family.

The next animated spot to be released in partnership with Sprout features fun new characters for another advertising client. Stay tuned into Sprout web and TV and to iTube for the latest!

ROWAN UNIVERSITY VISITS I-SITE

Professor Jenn Thwing of Rowan University’s Department of Art got in touch with I-SITE about a small group of her team taking a field trip with the Graphic Design students to see the Chwast and Scher exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She asked if a part of their field trip could include visiting the I-SITE studio to show some of the students the projects we’re working on.

The team of about 14 students along with professors Jan Conradi and Susan Bowman of the Rowan University Department of Art took a tour of the I-SITE office and then got a mini-presentation from each member of our team. The students and professors had the opportunity to ask questions and have conversations with the I-SITE team about process, concept development, project management, design, development and communication.

We were happy to give the students insight into the way that I-SITE works, but it was also nice to talk about what we do out loud and hear what our colleagues think of the work we’re doing. It’s a reminder of what it’s like to be in such a collaborative environment, working as a team and friends.