Sustainability is one of Catalyst Resources primary areas of practice (along with Financial Services and Biotech/Healthcare.) We design rich internet interfaces, SaaS applications, mobile apps and instrument control UI for environmental and energy optimization solutions - a.k.a. sustainability.
Organizations increasingly recognize that sustainability will be critical to the future success of their business. But moving to sustainability can be disruptive and managers are likely to confront organizational rigidities as they try to implement initiatives. It is therefore essential to identify and expose the core values that sustainability offers to the user and to the organization.
"Doing the right thing for the planet" is laudable, but from a business perspective there needs to be other monetary, social and legal drivers to motivate action. Addressing these drivers is what will make sustainability initiatives succeed over the long term.
What are the some of the drivers behind organizational sustainability initiatives?
Each organization will have a unique set of business factors that drive their sustainability initiatives. When we design applications and application UI, much of our early work is to understand and design to expose these key drivers. We then anchor functionality reflecting these drivers, right in the primary RIA workspace. This makes the sustainability application (typically SaaS) inherently engaging and tuned for the real work.
Listed here are several of the common drivers we have identified with our clients that are undertaking sustainability initiatives:
- Financial ROI
- Decreasing expenditures by improving energy efficiency and recycling materials
- Increasing supply chain efficiency & connectedness (e.g. fewer sources, integration and collaboration with suppliers, shippers, partners)
- Using location intelligence (GIS) for things like vehicle re-routing to reduce gas consumption, or optimizing locations for warehouse/distribution centers
- Using more efficient transport modes/vehicles, use video/tele-conferencing when appropriate
- Reducing packaging
- Green procurement and near sourcing
- Government compliance / impending tighter regulation
- Decreasing risk
- Improving investor relations and pricing sustainability into long-term valuations
- Increase brand value as a market leader and innovator
- Attract customers/consumers who care about going green
- Achieving corporate responsibility agenda
- Environmental stewardship (people really do care!)
Most organizations identify and respond to multiple drivers. Our job at Catalyst to make it efficient and engaging for managers or teams to assess the risks/costs of resource consumption related to these drivers, identify sustainability initiatives and allocate capital, collect and manage data, manage the execution and track the progress of sustainability capital projects, run ROI/cost-benefit analyses and provide the required internal and external reporting.
Remember David Byrne from the rock band Talking Heads? I recently listened to a talk he gave at the Ted conference, on how architecture helped music to evolve. Byrne's premise was eloquently simple. Artists create a style of music that works for the environment in which it will be heard.
Artists evolve musical styles to fit the playback environment
Byrne gives the example how West African music, with its intricate rhythms works outdoors in the open, but would be a disaster in a Gothic cathedral where reverberation would confuse everything. On the other hand, music that works in a Gothic cathedral (long notes, little rhythm) sounds flattened in outdoor environments.
Bach wrote music for playback in a room that was smaller and not as vaulted as a Gothic cathedral. Consequently his work could be more intricate and could change keys without risking large dissonances. His music was an evolution from previous styles, but also something completely new, designed to fit the context of the room.
Opera houses like La Scala, helped evolve yet another kind of music. Two hundred years ago, opera patrons did not listen in hushed silence. Instead they would eat, drink and yell out to people on stage and to each other. The dramatic and repeating melodies of operatic music evolved in response to this opera experience.
Today's music reflects the environment very clearly. Microphones enable soft personal sounds and complex inflections. Pop music is written for the MP3 player, capable of extreme detail but a limited dynamic range (too much dynamics could blow out your eardrums or at least force you to adjust the volume).
All of these examples illustrate the point that the context for playback determines the kinds of music that works and that evolves.
UI Design firms evolve information & tasks to fit the presentation environment
Now love of music aside, why did this all interest me?
Potential clients often approach us about developing mobile apps for the iPhone/Android phones or for the iPad. This is a high growth area for us. Most of these requests are from clients who already provide desktop or Web-based SaaS solutions and now want to scale this experience to a smaller screen and capture a slice of a very fast growing market.
Many UI firms quote the mantra "simplicity, consistency and usability are the keys to great mobile applications". While this is indeed true, it is not sufficient. Like music that evolves to fit its playback context, the user experience must evolve to fit its presentation context. This means looking at what people do in that environment and changing the very nature of the application and UI so that it takes advantage of the context.
Mobile application design as extensions to existing apps, not stand-ins
Good mobile UI design is not just about creating simpler and more streamlined interfaces (such as virtual keyboards that change depending on the kind of data you are entering), it is also about understanding how the context changes what makes for effective activities.
For example, on mobile devices, people are in extreme multi-task mode. The UI design needs to shift from being entirely focused on linear task completion (as in traditional desktop applications), to applications that are easy to enter and exist. They need to keep the user's mental and physical attention by being clear, visually rich and integrating gesture, touch and sound into the interface.
Mobile devices also provide unique behavioral and sense information such as motion and orientation via accelerometers, GPS data (location awareness), and the physicality of gestures. These can be used to refine the experience, anticipate needs and deliver options that are contextually relevant.
The most effective mobile applications act as extensions to existing web or desktop apps, not as stand-ins until the user can get back to a "real" computer.
The music of Mozart was not a stand-in for Gregorian Chants
So back to the David Byrne Ted talk; the music of Mozart was not a stand-in for Gregorian Chants performed in Gothic cathedrals. The musical styles were completely different to take advantage of the unique aspects afforded by the context.
The same is true with user experience design across different devices. The interface enables unique and valuable behaviors that can engage users in completely different ways. Whether it is a fit-in-the-palm-of-your-hand smartphone, a gesture-based tablet like the iPad, an instrument control interface like a fuel gauge, a desktop SaaS application or a speech-recognition-controlled security system, each context offers unique opportunities and the user interface should evolve accordingly.
I’ve written extensively about user experience characteristics that define a successful and profitable SaaS application. I’ve talked about performance, connectedness, conceptual models, monitoring, on-boarding and the essential requirement to design for the complete customer life cycle.
I’d even argue that the user experience of a SaaS application can be more important to its ultimate profitability then the features provided by the core application. Because the SaaS business model relies on service subscriptions (which are perishable!), continued customer retention is essential for profitability. Continued customer retention depends on user experience.
This is in contrast to traditional on-premise software. With on-premise software, profitability is defined by the intellectual property of the code and the value that it can command on a per-seat license. The vendor’s goal is to sell as many licensed copies as possible. The list of features is what makes the sale. Once the software is sold, the revenue is recognized. Retention or even long-term use or user satisfaction, is not the primary focus (the 10%-20% maintenance fees traditionally charged by big enterprise on-premise software vendors does not change this focus).
With SaaS, value is defined by the user experience that leads to customer retention and a predictable recurring revenue stream.The engagement process (sign-up, provisioning, social networking), the ease of use, the timed/frequent updates, a focus on high value scenarios, user monitoring, agile pricing, etc. are what engenders sign-ups and retention (i.e. the recurring revenue stream for the application). Modular, reusable UI and mutli-tenant design enable scalability without linearly increasing costs.
This radically alters what defines successful application design. In on-premise software, the sale of the application license defines the value. With SaaS, a scalable user experience around the entire customer life cycle defines the value.
This year Catalyst has seen a significant shift in areas of practice and the kinds of applications and interfaces we are engaged to develop. Part of this reflects changes in our own areas of interest, in particular, our work to support and develop sustainability initiatives. But I believe the shifts area reflective a larger move in the industry itself.
Compared to the last several years we have seen dramatic growth in the demand for application design services in sustainability and health care. There has also been continued growth in specific delivery styles of applications, such as SaaS and RIAs. Desktop apps growth is relatively stable and flat, except in the area of health care, where this is an uptick in growth. None of this is too surprising.
More interesting has been a rapid surge in interest for mobile application and gesture based interface design, as well as an increase in the requests for instrument control interfaces (perhaps reflecting the growth in embedded processors and remote monitoring).
For my own conceptual understanding of these trends I created color-coded matrix that shows the high growth areas relative to the lower growth areas. It presents a heatmap-style view of application design trends with red representing hot areas and blue representing cool areas.
I recently attended an event on social media and application design. I got into a conversation with another attendee and asked him what he did for a living. He paused and then answered “I help good companies let others know how good they really are”.
It was an odd answer, so I asked more: “How do you do that?”. He then went on to explain how he developed web sites, wrote content, optimized SEO, and did the whole social media thing. It sounded like all of the mechanical things that so many other consultants and agencies say they do. But his initial description intrigued me because his description gave me his purpose for what he did, the ‘why’ rather than the ‘what and how’.
It started me thinking about Catalyst Resources and the way that we describe what we do. Sure we design Rich Internet Applications and efficient, aesthetic interfaces. We even refine this further by specifying our focus on mission critical applications and modular, reusable UI. But this ‘what and how’ is not the motivator that actually makes us wake up every morning and go to work. It is not the ‘why’ we do what we do. It is not the essence of our DNA as a company.
Why we do what we do at Catalyst Resources is because we believe that we can fundamentally improve the efficiency and the “pleasurability” of any business activity. The ‘what and how’ is by optimizing business processes, streamlining workflows, creating user-validated, high-performance, modular user interfaces and designing beautiful, intuitive and streamlined Rich Internet Applications.
When I am brought in on a new project I don’t immediately start thinking about what I am going to do from a UI or an application design perspective. I think “what does this company need in order to be more successful”. Coming up with this takes a lot more work and a lot more creativity then coming up with a well-designed set of UI elements. But it is this goal that is the real inspiration behind every project that Catalyst undertakes.
Maybe we need to come up with a tag line: Catalyst Resources - we make the world better, one application at a time. Kind of has a nice ring.
Many of our recent engagements have been around designing instrument control for mission critical applications. These interfaces enable workers to interact with equipment via an interface rather than mechanical gauges, switches and levers.
For example, for a biotech firm we designed and validated the user interface that controls diagnostic systems for analyzing tissue sample pathologies and drug discovery. For an energy optimization and management company we designed the user interface for instrumentation that controls and monitors real-time fuel inventories and environmental compliance. For a security system we designed the user interface that controls security cameras and alarm controls.
The user interface for these kind of instrument control is the link between the operator and decisions that affect critical infrastructure or even life and death medical situations.
So what are some of the challenges when designing these kinds of interfaces?
- Displaying data is not the same thing as displaying information
Just because you think the interface shows it, doesn't mean operators see it, understand it, know how it correlates with their behavior, or feel motivated to take action.
- It isn't always obvious what to measure
Determining what exactly are the critical pieces of feedback and environmental cues that operators really on can be challenging. You need to translate the operators "intuitive" understanding of the real world process and cues into an abstracted software interface. Since operators adjust systems according to the information they receive, if you're measuring the wrong thing, their decisions may have less impact or even the wrong impact.
- How do you optimally communicate the information
Which type of displays are more effective for conveying information for particular tasks? Words, flashing lights, animations, charts and graphs, images, auditory cues, etc.? Different information requires different presentation modes and can engender measurable difference in reaction times.
- What are the most effective ways for the user to interact with the information
Touch interface, gestural input, mouse, keypad, speech recognition? Which is going to be appropriate so the user interacts more with the task and less with the equipment?
- What are the social and collaborative possibilities
How can the interface be designed so that it is easy to get outside feedback or collaboration. Can comparison data quickly be pulled for "expert" validation?
- How do you make the interface more engaging than the real world
Instrument Control Interfaces are primarily about increasing productivity. But to achieve a real productivity gain, operators must use the new interface preferentially over existing systems. A poorly designed and validated interface could very easily be viewed as "Yet another damn display". So it is essential to make the display natural, workflow-useful, and engaging. Otherwise operators will find workarounds and the interface will be of much less value.
- How do you make the interface responsive
If an instrument control interface is perceived as slow to respond, it will not be optimally used. Actions must be cancel-able, screens should load incrementally, the number of actions to complete a task should be streamlined, etc.
The above just scratch the surface of the challenges that are unique to instrument control user interfaces and application design. Biotech, manufacturing, and energy production/management are the areas where we are seeing the greatest growth in the demand for instrument control interfaces. We design these interfaces using modular, reusable UI, so that they can be re-purposed to other equipment or enhanced without code rewrites. As more and more devices gain embedded processors, the market for interface control will continue to expand at a rapid pace.
I often talk about how mission critical applications have unique requirements when it comes to RIA and user experience design. Broadly speaking mission critical applications require a combination high-performance, at-a-glance clarity, security, redundancy, scheduling, reporting and scalability.
I was explaining these characteristics to a client looking for an RIA front-end design for their green energy production system. I found that the easiest way to explain some of the real-time design requirements was to give examples from our own client work. I thought I would share a few of these from that conversation.
Example requirements for mission critical UI and application design
Scheduling - Trading systems
With most application, when you make a change to a preference of function, you save the change and the change is applied then and there. With international trading systems affecting large $$ trades/data, you need to be able to make changes and then precisely define triggers or schedule when these changes are applied.
Reporting and Tracking - Financial transaction processing
With mission critical applications there often needs to be an audit trail for changes to data, system settings and transactions. For example when changes are made to the interest rate on credit card there needs to be a non-alterable record that tracks who did it, when, and why.
Clear Conceptual Models - Flight planning
Complex or mission critical systems needs to designed it so that the user knows exactly what they're interacting with. In flight planning, the FAA uses a very particular type of document which is drilled into to every pilot or controller. The RIA interface for a flight planning application had to be modeled tightly around this existing model so it was immediately interpretable.
At-a-Glance Clarity - Telecommunications processing
Imagine a system with 200,000,000 transactions a day. The visualization and reporting system needs to be designed to represent mass volumes of things happening with automatic callouts and quick ways to drill down.
Privacy and Security - Medical diagnostic collaboration
While security is vital in every enterprise, security in medical records is a hot button item right now. Web-based medical records and collaboration applications need to have clear options to define roles, access levels, recurring re-validation requirements, and multiple layers of protection.
Redundancy and Validation - Emergency notification
For most web applications, it is standard to have simple error checking for things like entering an invalid email address. But advanced validation and redundancy become vital in mission critical applications. For emergency notification systems that trigger emergency first responders and can impact the physical well-being of many individuals, any alert messages need to have built in redundancy (i.e. you can't accidentally send out a notification without confirmation) and geospatial validation (you can't inadvertently send out a notice to residents in San Francisco about a threat occurring in Seattle).
Scalability - Insurance M&A
Scalability is desirable for any enterprise where there is an expectation for growth and change. But this was critical for an insurance carrier that grew rapidly due to acquisitions. The user base was to expand several orders of magnitude in the course of a very short time and the application would need to scale to accommodate the increased demands without requiring rework.
High Performance - Fuel management
Real-time reporting and high performance applies to virtually all mission critical applications. But when I was discussing this with the green energy company, rather than discussing our work in financial systems (i.e. where it is easy to see how even seconds of delay can translate to millions of dollars in impct), I instead referenced real-time remote monitoring, management and incident reporting of critical fuel supplies - such as in power plants, backup power systems, emergency fleets vehicles. As inventory drops or there is a change in the status of a critical fuel system, many actions need to quickly and automatically come into play to avert catastrophic failures.
Designing RIAs that address these mission critical requirements is not simple. In addition to the technical demands, it requires extensive user validation and testing as well as an understanding of the inner workings and organizational structures of large enterprises. Needless to say, it makes for very interesting and challenging work.
