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Insights into Mobile Design, Analytics and Managing a Team - with Jonathan Ozeran

22:30 with Amit Bijlani

Jonathan Ozeran is currently the VP of Product and Mobile at RECSOLU, a company that creates recruiting software. At RECSOLU he heads up product development & design, API architecture and mobile technology. He is also an advisor and mentor to several Chicago-based startups as well as the Catapult Chicago startup community. You can follow him on twitter @jozeran.

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I'm here with Jonathan Ozeran. 0:02

[treehouse] [FRIENDS] He's a product designer out of Rexland. 0:03

Can you give us a brief history about yourself 0:07

and how you got started in the app design world? 0:09

I'd been a part of the application space for a while across a number of different industries, 0:12

[Jonathan Ozeran, Mobile Product Designer] 0:16

starting primarily with media, having done a few things with social platforms as they evolved-- 0:17

Facebook platform particularly. 0:22

Before that, was building applications that made the infrastructure available 0:24

in ways that provided that data for any type of application to use. 0:28

From media, that led me to a number of different industries 0:33

to try and solve problems through mobility. 0:37

construction, automotive, field service. 0:40

And now, currently trying to solve the opportunity at least for campus recruiting 0:45

and university recruiting--how you apply mobility to that. 0:50

So, you said you come from the web world, right? 0:53

I mean, you built social applications on the web side. 0:56

So, how was the transition going from web to mobile? 1:00

Was it easy? Was it hard? Are there certain things about the mobile aspects that just provide 1:03

things that are not offered on the web side? 1:11

I think coming from the web world, you want to expose content in a way 1:13

that's valuable and useful socially, of course--with the social platforms-- 1:16

but with mobility, you have to be thinking about how those users 1:20

are going to use the application, 1:22

when, with what device capabilities, and to ease into that. 1:24

So, exposing the data and making it available is one thing, 1:28

and doing it securely and reliably. 1:31

Going forward, you get to focus--as a product designer-- 1:33

on how those applications can best solve those problems for those end users. 1:35

So, what are some of the challenges you face as an 1:38

application designer when you're solving a problem? 1:42

Like, what are the tools that you have to solve those problems? 1:45

So, I think for me, with business applications in particular, 1:49

you want to have dialogues and conversations with the end users. 1:52

You don't want to make too many assumptions. 1:55

You want to be able to rapidly iterate your product, 1:57

have a version that's shipped and out there in the hands of users. 2:00

And, probably one of the most rewarding things for me in enterprise mobility 2:03

is being able to issue that application out to someone-- 2:06

or just deploy it--so you can actively get that feedback. 2:09

With consumer facing apps, you can do it, but you have to wait. 2:13

You might not get the feedback from the users you were expecting. 2:16

It's a whole different challenge. 2:18

So, do you still do a beta release with an enterprise application 2:21

like you would do with a consumer? 2:25

Sure. 2:27

It's harder to do with a consumer app on the mobile side, 2:28

at least on the Apple ecosystem. 2:31

Sure. In my experience, I've seen pilot groups work really well, 2:33

where you have some champions or even cheerleaders 2:37

who are very excited about the initiative and want to support it out of the gate, 2:39

and then they want to get stories and testimonials and examples to go move forward 2:42

and make it a larger deployment. 2:46

So, do you find on the enterprise side, are there more political barriers to get an app out? 2:48

Because you can't just--I mean, on the consumer side, I have an idea. 2:54

I put it out there, and I see if it's successful or not. 2:58

I mean, it's of course, there's a long road for me to go from point A to point B, 3:01

but on the enterprise side, it seems like point A--you have the idea, 3:07

but you have to gain consensus or the political clout to put that idea to fruition 3:11

in the hands of your consumers, which are your enterprise users. 3:18

So, I've had the luxury of having those champions--whether they're CIOs, 3:23

CMOs, heads of business, heads of technology, and even IT-- 3:27

really create that path that the organization might be able to benefit from, 3:30

and really I suppose get around some of those typical obstacles. 3:36

I think the challenge is really getting all of the users that are going to use the application 3:42

out in the field to enjoy it, to think, "This is the only way forward." 3:45

"I never want to go back and fall into my old routine and my old habit." 3:50

So, that's I think, most of the challenge with product design in the enterprise. 3:54

You're certainly going to run up against obstacles where organizations may-- 3:58

this may be the first foray into enterprise mobility. 4:01

They don't know how to do device management and provisioning quite well, 4:03

or this is their first application for it. 4:06

But those are things you can ease into and solve 4:11

as long as communication is strong between groups. 4:13

Now, have you found that enterprises are--I would not say reluctant--but 4:16

is it that there are certain things the mobile side can do that the web cannot 4:21

for an enterprise? Because I mean, there's always that question, right? 4:26

Like, why should I go mobile--or native for developers-- 4:31

Why don't I just create a web app and put a wrapper around it and 4:36

you know--make it native? 4:40

Many of the applications that I've been a part of focus on convenience. 4:42

Focus on solving a problem in a way that the user doesn't have to even worry about thinking, 4:46

"How do I use this application?" 4:52

I pick it up and innately know it's going to help me. 4:53

It's going to be something I can respond to quickly and don't have to worry about. 4:57

I don't get lost in a sea of icons and buttons and text strings, etc. 5:00

It's now just second nature, 5:05

much like a lot of the applications that we've come to understand on a consumer side. 5:07

Can you give us an example? 5:11

On the enterprise side, I think one in particular being able to have applications that 5:14

allow you to collect information about energy audits, as an example. 5:18

You're going to go out to a field setting and maybe you do this 3 or 4 times a day, 5:24

and you're traveling to do it. 5:27

You might use a clipboard or you might use a piece of paper to collect that information, 5:28

and that information for one, can be lost if you lose the piece of paper. 5:32

Two, if it rains you lose the information that you spent hours 5:35

and potentially a lot of money collecting, 5:38

and you can't share it immediately. 5:40

It has to be faxed or scanned or copied or e-mailed, 5:41

and typically you see coordinators involved in that process 5:44

to make sure the information funnels into whatever back-end systems appropriately. 5:47

With an iPad, with an data plan, or with a reliable WiFi connection, 5:50

you can create an input that make this seamless. 5:54

That you use elements of UI design and human interface guidelines that Apple has created, 5:57

for example, that make this application as easy as picking up the settings app, for example, 6:04

the device that's built in. 6:08

Right. So, you mention energy audits. That seems like a very dry application 6:11

because you're just collecting data. 6:16

So, how important is design--when I say design, 6:17

I really mean like making it beautiful or pretty. 6:21

Is that important in an enterprise app or is that time that--you know-- 6:25

enterprises say like, "We don't really care to spend all that time in making it pretty." 6:30

Absolutely. So, that's the fun part of being a product designer in the enterprise. 6:34

You get to surprise and delight. 6:38

You get to decide what is that threshold of functionality, focus--you know, 6:40

laser focus for that particular version of the application-- 6:45

and what are those special features or special visual nuances that will really-- 6:48

down the line when someone's using the application for that 6th hour in a row, 6:52

that will make it easier on them. 6:56

It will just be something that they go, "That was really special." 6:58

"It was nice to see in an application." 7:01

That will payoff in the long run, because they won't use the application once and put it away. 7:04

They're going to come back to it. 7:09

And repeat use is really important and a very hard problem in the enterprise to solve. 7:09

Well--I mean, they have to repeatedly use the app 7:14

because that is something that's part of their job now. 7:18

Ideally, but we've also seen situations where an application is out there, 7:22

the enterprise has solved the deployment issue, 7:25

a number of devices out in the field, and you have end users who, for whatever reason, 7:27

are more comfortable using the old approach-- 7:32

the paper, the clipboard-- 7:33

and then the take a device that was purchased--a very expensive device-- 7:35

and send it home for the kids to play with. 7:39

And so you're always against that challenge of top of mind, rapid iteration, 7:41

improving the functionality, improving the usability. 7:45

You've never really going to nail it on the first version. 7:48

So, it is important to have good user experience and good design, even on the enterprise side? 7:50

Absolutely. I think you have to be thinking about those primary use cases 7:56

that your application end users are going to need. 8:01

You, of course, have to solve some of the problems of getting the data 8:03

in the formats that you need and exposing it securely and reliably, 8:05

but ultimately it's that interface that someone's going to use 8:09

when they walk away from their desk, when they're out in the field. 8:13

In our case, we have end users who are standing for hours and hours and hours 8:16

collecting information in a much more reliable way where they can share it 8:21

and it can be available in real time and provide some analytics 8:24

that have never been available before. 8:27

So, what are some of the key takeaways between the consumer 8:29

and the enterprise app side of things? 8:33

I mean, of course, there are the pros and cons on each side. 8:36

I think with consumer, you get to decide or even paint the picture of the personas 8:41

that you think are going to use the application. 8:45

When you put something in the app store or Android Market and now Play, 8:48

you don't really know necessarily who's going to download your app and be that end user. 8:52

With the enterprise, you get to do more upfront research, conversation, 8:56

and understand the psychology of the problem and understand the psychology of the end user. 9:01

Where are they going to grow frustrated? Will it be easy the first time the pick up the app? 9:05

And will it be as easy the 7th time they pick up the app and start using it? 9:09

So, those are some of the things that you have to balance between consumer and enterprise. 9:12

Distribution and management--of course with the consumer side, you have the app store 9:17

and you have some review processes. 9:22

In enterprise, if you own all the devices and manage them, 9:24

you can distribute whatever you want immediately and it's just generally available. 9:27

So, you have some perks in terms of iterating your product. 9:31

You discover a bug or a crash, you can solve it nearly instantaneously 9:33

and roll out a new version. 9:37

And there's none of that Apple app store filter, right? 9:38

Certain ways to distribute applications: custom B to B apps, for example. 9:42

There are some routes that expose that and make that available as an option. 9:48

In my experience, I've seen the enterprise distribution model more often. 9:53

What advice would you give to someone that's kind of starting out with app development? 9:58

Should they be like looking at focusing either side or just start building apps? 10:02

It's important to look back and see how things have progressed and iterated over time. 10:08

I think there are some development, even design considerations, 10:12

you would have made in 2008-2009 that are vastly different here in 2012, 10:15

and a year from now will probably be even more unique in nature. 10:19

So, from a design and development perspective, keep the evolution of a platform in mind 10:25

to see how you can make the best decisions versus having to run into some obstacles 10:30

previously solved and encountered. 10:34

Can you give us an example of that? 10:37

Sure. So, there are some new things that are-- 10:38

and this is timely with IOS6 that has become available-- 10:41

in terms of how to flow rows and columns, for example-- 10:44

For the auto layouts? 10:48

layouts, exactly, and some of the frameworks that are now available. 10:50

You'd have to find a better way to do that on your own. 10:53

You may have asked some of your peers and community members, 10:56

you know "What's the route that you suggest to take?" 10:59

Now, things have evolved where that challenge has been hit so many times 11:02

it's now part of the platform. 11:07

So, I think there are a lot of examples of this-- 11:08

whether it's accessibility to the camera, making the flash available-- 11:11

little nuances that will frustrate a developer an endless amount 11:14

that are now ironed out with some of that time. 11:18

Well, it makes it easier also. I mean, because like with Objective-C, 11:21

you had to manually manage all that memory and now you don't. 11:25

So, it's become easier and easier to become an IOS developer. 11:29

Sure, and with ARC--to your point--with memory management 11:32

and now some of the new features of XCode 4.5 that allow you to do the auto synthesize 11:34

of all the instance--it's great. 11:40

It also takes some of the understanding away and makes it automatic. 11:44

So, if you're getting into it for the first time, you kind of want to go back and go-- 11:48

all right, I can see why they've done this, and I can see why it took so long 11:51

to make that happen magically. 11:54

It's also easy to just skip that, too sometimes, as a new developer. 11:56

True. I also think for folks that are just getting into this space 11:59

it's really important to to understand why they're doing this. 12:04

I think there's a lot of excitement around programming in general, which is great, 12:08

around the world. 12:11

People want to understand the startup culture--think it might be something for them, 12:14

but it's also a two-edged sword. 12:17

I think you need to keep in mind why you're doing this. 12:19

Is it exciting? Why are you passionate about it? Why is it fun? 12:21

Because otherwise, you're not going to create the best solution, 12:25

and you're just going to become one of a sea of developers out there. 12:27

You really want to change the game, specifically in the enterprise. 12:30

You want to create the best solution for a problem. 12:33

On the consumer side, you want to create the best application for that particular 12:35

use case that you're really passionate about. 12:39

So, that's interesting because that plays right into my next question 12:42

which is--because you've built a lot of teams of developers and designers. 12:45

So what are some of the things that you look for in a good developer? 12:48

And a good designer, of course? 12:53

Of course. I really like designers who want to be developers 12:55

and developers who want to be designers. 12:59

I think that's been a really unique scenario that I've seen play out a couple times. 13:01

You always want to understand what you don't know and vice versa. 13:06

And kind of being in the middle of that where I've actively developed in the past, 13:09

and now I focus on the product design more often, 13:14

it's a unique set of traits, and it's even a unique opportunity to share stories, 13:16

to share experiences with one another, 13:22

and in a community setting, you really want to have all of those different pieces available 13:24

to you to learn the most and to have the most opportunity. 13:28

So, when you're looking to hire a good developer, 13:32

what is that one thing that kind of stands out? 13:34

Are you just reading their resume--I mean, you know, it's like when you're talking 13:37

it's intuition, of course, when you're interviewing that developer. 13:41

But there's something that someone always looks for 13:45

and everyone has their own little quirks that they look for. 13:49

So, I would say as a startup--and I can't speak to the other sides of it-- 13:51

and certainly we're helping our customers--Fortune 1000 and others-- 13:55

to recruit and retain the best talent in the world. 13:59

I think from a startup perspective you need to have people that 14:02

are almost like family or even family. 14:06

You want people who are passionate and excited about what they do, 14:08

and could not be doing anything else. 14:11

It's their dream. 14:13

I've had folks express to me, "I am living my dream." 14:15

And that's I think what the hardest thing to find is. 14:18

So, you can't really measure the passion, though, 14:20

when you're interviewing someone. 14:23

I think during the interview process itself you have to be meticulous. 14:25

You have to involve not just yourself but a number of your other teammates. 14:29

Because if you bring in the wrong element, it can ruin the organization. 14:33

It can ruin the product. 14:36

It can set you off course for quite some time. 14:37

Technically, there are many, many different ways to assess your capabilities, 14:41

your expertise. 14:45

I don't want to speak necessarily to those. 14:47

There are a number of opportunities out there--code evaluations and tests 14:49

and bring someone into a room in wipe board challenges. 14:54

Do you do any of those? 14:56

Certainly, we've done a number of different things over time, 14:57

but for me--I'm most particular about the passion and energy level 15:00

and excitement about why you are looking to make these contributions in the group 15:05

or the organization I'm with. 15:10

But, sometimes you're starting out as a developer, 15:13

and I mean, you've never developed an iPhone app and you've just started learning it 15:15

and you want to get the opportunity to get into a good place where you can shine. 15:21

I've seen very successful internships where folks come in with a miscellaneous set of 15:25

experiences--whether it's Python, maybe dabbled in Ruby, 15:31

messed around in XCode occasionally, 15:34

but doesn't really understand who interface builder works, 15:36

storyboards are sort of intimidating. 15:38

But, those are things you can ramp up pretty quickly when you have the fundamentals. 15:40

When you have the basics, and when you have that passion behind you. 15:43

What about designers? 15:46

With designers, I've had wonderful success working with folks who've started 15:48

in the print world. 15:53

I think print world takes into account different lighting, 15:55

different scenarios where this is going to be consumed, 16:01

different fonts and typography, 16:03

understanding layout, and--as auto layout, for example-- 16:06

changed the way you interact with an application on device to device, 16:10

that becomes even more important. 16:14

So, on the design side, print is a really good place to start. 16:16

That's very interesting that you say print, because print is so static, 16:20

and--you know--the mobile world is so visceral. 16:24

It's like you have to touch, feel--there's animation. 16:28

It's like totally different medium, too. 16:31

I think what's interesting to me--print is limited screen real estate to me. 16:35

It may be a piece of paper--however the interface exposes itself. 16:39

You have content that you need to deliver in a certain way and message a certain way, 16:43

much like with a web app, mobile app, social app. 16:46

You want to convey something. 16:49

It may be dynamic information. It might be static. 16:50

You still have to create that experience. 16:52

You want the user to be completely immersed in that experience, 16:55

and I think that's where some of that print experience comes through. 16:58

So, you see that designer go from print to mobile--their transition's pretty fluent, 17:01

or they serve challenges? 17:06

Sure. In my experience, it's been very helpful to have that coming in. 17:08

The other interesting thing that I've observed-- 17:14

you want to know exactly what element of design you want to focus on. 17:16

It's important not to bundle everyone into one bucket, right? 17:20

So, UI, UX, motion design-- 17:24

you probably don't want one person to do all three. 17:26

You really want to focus on the usability, 17:29

how you progress from screen to screen, 17:32

and from path to path, 17:34

folks are going to be focused on putting on a wall, for example, 17:35

all the different paths a user can take so they don't get lost, 17:39

they don't get frustrated, 17:41

and then you're going to want to apply artistry. 17:43

You're going to want to apply a layer of polish and magic, 17:45

and that's where the UI comes in. 17:47

And once you've had those pieces put together, 17:49

and with the blessing of your development team unless you're kind of a hybrid design developer, 17:52

you're going to want to pull in a motion designer to really take the story end to end, 17:57

put the storyboards together to say, "Here's how it's solving a problem." 18:01

"Here's how this application can now do 18:05

something that has not been able to be done before," 18:08

and allow you to create a foundation to work from--that version 1 on. 18:11

Lastly, I want to touch a bit on analytics, because I know you've done a bit of those too. 18:16

What are some of the key metrics that you look for 18:21

when you're building an app and putting it out there, 18:23

and some of the things that app developers should 18:26

consider when they put out a consumer app 18:29

or even an enterprise app, for that matter? 18:32

I've also been able to see the evolution of social and mobile app analytics. 18:34

So, it's been interesting to see how a Google analytics, an Omniture now part of Adobe, 18:39

and Flurry, amongst other solutions out there, 18:44

are made available to solve this analytics problem. 18:48

To expose information available that you can create the next best product feature. 18:52

You can maybe remove a feature if it's not being used and no longer is relevant. 18:56

I think for enterprise applications, the more you can take in, 19:00

the more you can understand, the more you can track 19:05

from a server perspective, the more value you will get. 19:06

So, when we're trying to determine those KPIs--those key performance indicators-- 19:09

we're doing it from a system perspective. 19:13

This one mobile application is just one consumer of an API. 19:16

It's a third party client, and we want to understand it uniquely, 19:19

but it's just one third party. 19:22

I may have other applications I'm creating for different devices and different users. 19:24

So, it's really important to design an infrastructure, 19:28

design an architecture that's flexible. 19:32

You can do even tracking. 19:34

You could do screen tracking, page tracking--whatever it might be-- 19:35

and there's a wealth of solutions out there or you can build your own. 19:38

So, I know you mentioned Google Analytics and Flurry-- 19:41

do you have anything one over the other or equally good? 19:45

I think it really depends. 19:50

From a mobile analytics perspective, you don't want anything to really bog down the application. 19:51

So, you'll want things to be intelligently dispatching the data collection. 19:56

You're going to want to use the best maybe third party frameworks or plugins that 20:00

may be out there to be able to collect this information. 20:07

In our case, we do some of this a little bit more custom, 20:10

so as to make the interface never lock, never impose a restriction from a UI perspective 20:12

where a user can't go from one screen to another. 20:19

So, it just depends I guess on the user and the application. 20:22

So, like going back to some of the key performance indicators, 20:26

do you recommend like tracking opens, installs, you mentioned events, 20:29

like what kind of events? 20:35

One particular application--I'll give you as a kind of reference point-- 20:37

was an application that was designed to find the stars on the 20:42

Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles. 20:46

And I thought it would be remarkable--whether it was using an application 20:48

with a search interface for iPhone, 20:51

or even--this was an augmented reality optimized app, 20:53

so I could hold it up in Los Angeles and see where the stars were, 20:56

and it would allow me to--it would walk me there. 20:59

I wanted to know who was doing that. 21:02

It was a very experimental feature, brand new to the device. 21:04

It was trendy. 21:06

I didn't think a lot of people were going to start using it. 21:08

This is in the case of the Los Angeles Times, 21:12

we were going to apply some marketing efforts to it and street teams, 21:14

and I wanted to see how the application use would evolve--would change-- 21:17

depending on how those marketing tactics were applied. 21:21

And so this application was essentially end to end supported by analytics. 21:24

I could see screen by screen how users were going from one to the next. 21:29

If they were going from Bill Cosby to the next star--whatever it might be-- 21:33

I could follow along with their unique app experiences, 21:36

and while I didn't know the particular person, 21:39

each of those experiences told a different story. 21:41

And so I could see how people found their way through search, 21:44

found their way through the augmented reality scenarios, 21:46

where the GPS wasn't enabled, the device didn't have a GPS-- 21:49

all of those things become data points 21:52

for you to create the next best iteration or best product. 21:54

So, did that help you actually evolve the product over time? 21:57

To add features or to move features? 22:01

Definitely, and we also had the advantage of those street teams 22:03

getting conversations back to the development team, back to the design team, 22:07

to share those stories. 22:11

Oh, so you had people on the ground talking to these-- 22:12

[Jonathan Ozeran, Mobile Product Designer] That was helpful as well. 22:14

In an enterprise, it is infinitely helpful as well. 22:15

Thanks, Jonathan, for doing this. 22:18

This was very insightful for us. 22:20

It was my pleasure. 22:21

?music? [treehouse] [FRIENDS] 22:23

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Insights into Mobile Design, Analytics and Managing a Team - with Jonathan Ozeran

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