Since the beginning of June, Anton Zuponcic and Lynn Brading of Perficient have hit the road for a cross-country tour to showcase our expertise with Adobe Experience Manager Mobile. Our team built a proof of concept (POC) for a patient engagement app called DailyDose.
When they came through Dallas this week, I caught up with them at one of the exclusive seminars. While there, I heard from Adobe about the mobile app landscape and learned more about how AEM Mobile is improving user experiences for B2B and B2C companies.
The Mobile App Landscape
Why are more organizations developing mobile apps? One reason is that demand continues to grow rapidly.
“Approximately 95 billion apps were downloaded in the last year across iOS and Google Play,” stated Mike Zahorik, senior manager for partner strategy and programs with Adobe Experience Manager Mobile. (Source: Apple & Google)
Mobile apps lend themselves to a faster, more personalized and guided experience for individuals compared to a responsive website. Consider the most frequently used apps on your mobile device. Do you find that you prefer using them than the mobile version of the brand’s website?
With the high demand for apps, organizations are challenged by the fragmented and complicated development environment. One analogy made at the event is that today’s mobile app development is similar to website development 15-20 years ago.
Organizations traditionally had a webmaster, who built, designed and managed the website. Whenever a change or update was needed, you had to go through the webmaster. Over the years, content management solutions (CMS) have vastly improved site development, giving the control for site updates and maintenance to content authors and marketers.
Mobile app development is undergoing a similar change, and Adobe Experience Manager Mobile can help you gain that control.
AEM Mobile: What’s Under the Hood
This solution enables you to produce, manage and maintain mobile apps from one place without burdening your development team. The upside is that this drastically reduces time to market, making it easier to engage your audiences.
Adobe Experience Manager Mobile allows you to:
- Use your existing CMS by integrating through open APIs
- Populate apps with existing content through template-based authoring
- Centralize app management through one unified dashboard
- Build one app for all environments, including iOS, Windows and Android
- Update content instantly without having to resubmit to the app store
- Gain a better understanding of who is using your app (and how) with Adobe Analytics
- Personalize content for each user with Adobe Target
During the seminar, I was impressed by the simplicity of this solution in a demonstration by Kevin Cobourn, senior solutions consultant for Adobe Experience Manager Mobile. Using an example of an app that houses a product catalog, he quickly updated the layout from a three-column to two-column format.
Depending on the organization, Cobourn stated that this one change would typically take developers anywhere from six weeks to three months. And in his demonstration of AEM Mobile, he made the change in just 15 minutes! Not only was the change made quickly, but you immediately saw the results in a preview mode.
If you’re interested in digging deeper into the technology behind AEM Mobile, I encourage you check out Dan Klco’s report.
Making Connections that Matter
Adobe selected a handful of partners to develop POCs using AEM Mobile, and Perficient was among this elite group. One POC showcased the possibilities of personalization and targeting for a loyal customer of a premier (but fictitious) hotel. Another application showed how back-office support and field technicians for a telecomm company could take advantage of quick updates to technicians’ schedules or service manuals used at a job site.
Our team saw the opportunity to solve a real-life challenge in the healthcare industry – improving engagement between patients and doctors. But why does an improved experience matter?
Engagement is not only about getting your audience to take action on your app or website. It’s about getting those users to invest in your brand and establish their loyalty as a brand evangelist or influencer.
– Anton Zuponcic, Perficient Digital’s lead for AEM Mobile
Zuponcic revealed DailyDose, our patient engagement POC, that can create a better experience between patients and healthcare providers and can ultimately decrease re-admission rates and operational costs.
To learn more about our strategy and process behind creating this app, download our latest Insight.
