Visiting User Experience Event 18|3|2014


Today I had the privilege to visit the Oracle UX team from the USA. This special event was hosted by Amis Services (@AMIS_Services) and my visit was with Michel Koolwaaij, my esteemed colleague from VIR e-Care Solutions.

The event was super-well attended by a lot of enthusiastic people, comprised of students, novel developers and experienced seniors alike. I also got to meet a whole bunch of super interesting people (again) like:

  • Ultan Ó Broin (@ultan)
  • Patrick Barel (@patch72)
  • Noel Portugal (@noelportugal)
  • Lucas Jellema (@lucasjellema)
  • Lonneke Dikmans (@lonnekedikmans)
  • Mark Vilrokx (@mvilrokx)
  • Aylin Uysal

Through this post I would like to share some of what I picked up from the presentations and demos I went to and key learning points I figured out for myself.

Demo of Oracle voice (by Mark Vilrokx)
Oracle voice is a solutions based on Siri powered by Nuance which in fact now comprises a super lightweight front-end interface for voice-controlling Oracle Fusion Apps. The actual voice recognition and lexicon integration is done on the Nuance back-end.
A personal fun thing to find out is that actually the technology is again based on the work of the Belgian speech-specialists of Lernout & Hauspie, which I got to meet over 10 years ago!

Demo of Oracle mobilitics
Basically this is a demonstration of one of my key-take-aways for today.
These days you, as a classical developer, are challenged to step back, forget “grabbing data and throwing it into a grid or master-detail” and think about how you would “interact” with the data you have in your system.
If you think about it, you would not really want to scroll through master-detail… You want to visualize your data, so it becomes something more tangible and give you an overview with the ability to drill down or zoom in.
The “Designing for Mobility & Simplicity” talk of Aylin Uysal dove deeper into this.

Presentation UX directions with HTML5 by Mark Vilrokx
For me this was somewhat of a confirmation, strangely enough. Basically HTML5 is used as a rapid application development framework for Oracle ADF applications. In effect meaning that an Oracle APEX development environment supersedes Oracle ADF in both speed and diversity of application development (J) End of sentence

Presentation Designing for simplicity by Aylin Uysal
Stressing that person to person collaboration is still super important also (and perhaps even especially) for UX design. Organize several sesison consisting of different stakeholder groups, since UI design differs by user (or stakeholder) category.
Information abundance in classical UIs is to be replaced by minimal data UI design. Having less data, better (more visually represented) strongly increases UX!

Presentation Wireframing 101 by Ultan Ó Broin
Wireframing, in this context was new to me. Create a low fidelity “sketch” of what you want, don’t prototype anything yet! Create difference wireframes of applications and application flows to prevent “Squeak and poop” behavior of management or customers when presenting UX designs in wireframe format. A wireframe is no nicely worked out app, making it difficult to judge for outsiders.
A nice example of such rapid prototyping is the way Google Glasses is developed.
A good tool for digital wireframing (but also just for that) is Balsamiq which is used by the Oracle UX team as the preferred wireframing tool.

Presentation One picture worth a thousand words by Lucas Jellema
In this presentation of more pictures that words, Lucas gave some very cool examples of how pictures are able to, indeed, transfer much more information that words. An inspiration to use when you are UX-ing.

Visit to the Chamber of Secrets
I am so sorry, I had to sign quite an NDA before being let in… Please visit your local Oracle UX-session!

So, what are the key learning points:

  • Step back, and think free-flow how you would consume information. Unthink current UI design and… step back!
  • Less is more, also in UI design. A user experience is about getting to what the NEED as quickly as possible.
  • APEX is a viable development tool, in any situation!
  • User Interface design is becoming a serious trade, a trade to take into account.
  • Watch out for those InfoTiles!

A special “Thank you” to Wieteke Gaykema from AMIS who worked like crazy and still got me in at the Chamer of Secerts, even though I was shamefully late with my NDA!


3 thoughts on “Visiting User Experience Event 18|3|2014

  1. Thanks for a great summary of events and your takeaways and for coming and participating in what we had to share. A wonderful event, I hope it is the first of many, and one we will see in other regions too!

    Minor correction – it’s “swoop and poop” (h/t to @jmspool for that reference to the classical executive-level seagull maneuver!).

  2. I want to concur with Ultan in complimenting you on this very good summary of our event. We had a great time, thanks largely to the wonderful interaction with all the attendees, such as yourself. It is very rewarding to see in your fine write up that our guests also had a very good experience.

    Hopefully we will meet again on similar events in the near future.

    warm regards,
    Lucas

    1. Dear Ultan and Lucas,

      I am glad you are happy with the report about the event.
      For me as a traditional IT-guy, being confronted with this UX-design approach, the next step in taking applications to the actual people who will be using them, is refreshing and super! I can’t wait to get involved in these kinds of processes and activities!

      Thanks for teaching!

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