Dating "Mamba" in the new operating system from Microsoft
Today we will tell you about the project Mamba Windows 8 app :) At the end of this summer we suddenly! they remembered that a new version of Windows is about to be released, and decided to urgently burn their warm and lamp application for the new OSes. A little tugging acquaintances (thanks to Maxim Ishchenko from DOU.ua), we found developers from Kiev, and started.
The task of the project was immediately put a full replacement of the web client "Mamba", and, preferably, something completely superior to the web (currently the goal has not yet been achieved, but all the basic functions of "Mamba" have already been transferred to the win8 app).
To our happiness, the “Mamba” already has an API for mobile devices, on which, for the moment, there are versions for Android, Win7phone, Windows8, iOS, in fact, we are working through it, which greatly alleviated our fate from tz. communication with the main services of "Mamba".
The knowledge and experience gained by our Kiev development team when working with Windows Phone allowed us to quickly “integrate” into the Windows 8 environment, because both platforms have a lot in common.
It is important to note that when switching to Windows 8, we did not need to change the development philosophy: we also worked with familiar tools, technologies and languages ​​- Visual Studio 2012, C # 4.5, XAML, MVVM. Also in the Windows 8 SDK, there was support for async / await, which greatly simplified writing and testing asynchronous code, which is an essential part of any modern mobile application.
Also important is the fact that the developers of many popular components and libraries have already adapted their solutions for WinRT, which has saved time for the implementation of "bicycles" and standard solutions. The project used such libraries as MVVMLight (MMVM framework), Callisto (controls and helpers), NewtonSoft Json.NET (for working with JSON), MetroIoc (dependency injection), MetroLog (prototyping). We also looked at the controls of Telerik RadControls for Metro, which are now in the Release Candidate and which, for sure, we will use after the official release. BitBucket + Mercurial was used as a version control system, during the development process they migrated to TFSPreview.com, which is now open for testing. An important point was the stage of integrating into the application the capabilities of the Windows 8 operating system - notifications, live tiles, search and share contracts, snapped views, settings panel, as well as the implementation of background agents for notifying the user about new messages and events.
We had to work on UX / UI, which in the context of Windows 8 takes almost a key role. Here, in comparison with Windows Phone, the greatest number of changes awaited us. Therefore, before developing Windows 8 applications, it is imperative to read design guides — there are descriptions of many rules and requirements that are not always obvious.
')
When our team started the interface part, the application was not something abstract. Active work was carried out and there was already some kind of primary functional. Here it is.
Having started to design the interface, we are faced with a choice that influenced all further user and product interactions. This is an important definition of what will be the entry point to the application. In the web version it is the main page of "Mamba". But, using the principles of user concentration on the most important, on the content, it was decided to make the user's profile the main focus point. Thus, we determined the starting point of the work and began to study guides, views and analysis of existing applications. The result of this segment of work was the first sketches with thoughts on paper.
"
The next stage of the work was to determine how we would draw, in what style. In the study of existing applications, we conducted a color analysis of the category of social applications. It turned out that most applications used either dark or very light colors, both in the dominant colors of the application, and in the icons in the market. A variety of shades of blue appeared to be in demand, especially in icons. Simply put, the market merged into a single blue-gray spot with rare bright spots. There were very few bright accents at the time of development, so we had to occupy this niche and stand out against a uniform, rhythmic background. Below are statistics on colors at the time of the official release of Win8. From it, you can also notice that the main colors used in the category of social applications have remained unchanged. From the graph of the dominant colors of the application, it is clear that only 9% use colors as the basis of the application and the bulk is dark, dark gray applications.
We decided to differ from the bulk of the same dark gray backgrounds and made the first color concept. The color was not chosen by chance, it is in the gamut of the main header of the web service. The concept was unanimously adopted and further work began on drawing the internal pages. The work was similar to the work of the sculptor, who cuts off all unnecessary, to show the essence of his ideas. We removed the extra buttons, extra icons, controls, to keep in sight the information needed to use the application. It was an interesting and creative process. While working, we faced not only the advantages of the new approach to content, but also its disadvantages. One of them is a different visual representation of the scroll on desktop and tablet. On stationary devices, it is of horse size, which is a very strong graphic element, beating the canvas of the application on an even greater number of striped blocks. However, on the tablet, the scroll is completely invisible, small and neat, floating in with focus on the content. It was necessary to find a consensus between the tablet and desktop display of blocks, disclose information as the user gets deeper into the content of the application, and get as far as possible from unnecessary bandwidth.
The next problem we encountered is the impossibility to call the context menu of list items by clicking on it. To make the menu appear, you need to click outside the selected item and only then the bottom menu will appear. This is a very unusual case for users. At the time of the first tests of the application, the most popular question was: “How do I go to the user profile I’m chatting with?” The exact same problem exists at the moment with Mail.ru Mail. The answer to the letter is completely non-trivial: it is necessary to click in the body of the letter and only then the lower menu appears, in which there is a control for the answer.
In general, all these little things did not prevent us from making an interesting, user friendly application. Now we are collecting and analyzing information from our users. We do not stop work on the application. There is a huge field for further activities, for improvement, simplification.
Well, a little insider. This is what a new user profile will look like.
We will be glad to any feedback regarding our design and UI.
What do we have now? We have a project already in the store and in the store promo block. There are users, there is experience of use, so let's briefly go through the pros and cons of the Microsoft Store:
The store is beautiful, convenient promotional blocks, tiles are better than icons - these are pluses.
The minuses are empty, the very weak applications that even well-known companies come with now miss the store. There is no promotion of paid applications, everywhere Top Free (Mamba is only a plus, but the rest of the developers can andthurt deliver). It also delivers a dull implementation of updates, which does not push users to update the application, which leads to the collection of negative from the first releases long after the causes of these negatives disappear.
Weak statistics collection system, sometimes not working at all (for example, statistics on the use of the application disappears for several days).
There is no convenient system of communication with users, it is impossible to write to victims who suffered from our bugs using the tools of the store.
How does the Russian department of MS work with developers? It works well, to the best of its capabilities: test devices were given, promotional support was given, technical support and even on-site lectures on design were all provided (bezd-vozde-mezd-but, that is, gift). In this, the MC surpasses its competitors, and thank you very much for helping them.
Of course, everyone is interested in - is it worth it to get involved with Win8 applications?
From the point of view of "Mamba" definitely yes. Services like ours through APP will work better in the very near future than through the web, especially on tablets that are growing in the world, in general, and in particular in our country. Therefore, the Win8 app is not the latest tablet application from Mamba, we are preparing to release tablet apps for Android + iOS.
The task of the project was immediately put a full replacement of the web client "Mamba", and, preferably, something completely superior to the web (currently the goal has not yet been achieved, but all the basic functions of "Mamba" have already been transferred to the win8 app).
To our happiness, the “Mamba” already has an API for mobile devices, on which, for the moment, there are versions for Android, Win7phone, Windows8, iOS, in fact, we are working through it, which greatly alleviated our fate from tz. communication with the main services of "Mamba".
The knowledge and experience gained by our Kiev development team when working with Windows Phone allowed us to quickly “integrate” into the Windows 8 environment, because both platforms have a lot in common.
It is important to note that when switching to Windows 8, we did not need to change the development philosophy: we also worked with familiar tools, technologies and languages ​​- Visual Studio 2012, C # 4.5, XAML, MVVM. Also in the Windows 8 SDK, there was support for async / await, which greatly simplified writing and testing asynchronous code, which is an essential part of any modern mobile application.
Also important is the fact that the developers of many popular components and libraries have already adapted their solutions for WinRT, which has saved time for the implementation of "bicycles" and standard solutions. The project used such libraries as MVVMLight (MMVM framework), Callisto (controls and helpers), NewtonSoft Json.NET (for working with JSON), MetroIoc (dependency injection), MetroLog (prototyping). We also looked at the controls of Telerik RadControls for Metro, which are now in the Release Candidate and which, for sure, we will use after the official release. BitBucket + Mercurial was used as a version control system, during the development process they migrated to TFSPreview.com, which is now open for testing. An important point was the stage of integrating into the application the capabilities of the Windows 8 operating system - notifications, live tiles, search and share contracts, snapped views, settings panel, as well as the implementation of background agents for notifying the user about new messages and events.
We had to work on UX / UI, which in the context of Windows 8 takes almost a key role. Here, in comparison with Windows Phone, the greatest number of changes awaited us. Therefore, before developing Windows 8 applications, it is imperative to read design guides — there are descriptions of many rules and requirements that are not always obvious.
')
When our team started the interface part, the application was not something abstract. Active work was carried out and there was already some kind of primary functional. Here it is.
Having started to design the interface, we are faced with a choice that influenced all further user and product interactions. This is an important definition of what will be the entry point to the application. In the web version it is the main page of "Mamba". But, using the principles of user concentration on the most important, on the content, it was decided to make the user's profile the main focus point. Thus, we determined the starting point of the work and began to study guides, views and analysis of existing applications. The result of this segment of work was the first sketches with thoughts on paper.
"The next stage of the work was to determine how we would draw, in what style. In the study of existing applications, we conducted a color analysis of the category of social applications. It turned out that most applications used either dark or very light colors, both in the dominant colors of the application, and in the icons in the market. A variety of shades of blue appeared to be in demand, especially in icons. Simply put, the market merged into a single blue-gray spot with rare bright spots. There were very few bright accents at the time of development, so we had to occupy this niche and stand out against a uniform, rhythmic background. Below are statistics on colors at the time of the official release of Win8. From it, you can also notice that the main colors used in the category of social applications have remained unchanged. From the graph of the dominant colors of the application, it is clear that only 9% use colors as the basis of the application and the bulk is dark, dark gray applications.
We decided to differ from the bulk of the same dark gray backgrounds and made the first color concept. The color was not chosen by chance, it is in the gamut of the main header of the web service. The concept was unanimously adopted and further work began on drawing the internal pages. The work was similar to the work of the sculptor, who cuts off all unnecessary, to show the essence of his ideas. We removed the extra buttons, extra icons, controls, to keep in sight the information needed to use the application. It was an interesting and creative process. While working, we faced not only the advantages of the new approach to content, but also its disadvantages. One of them is a different visual representation of the scroll on desktop and tablet. On stationary devices, it is of horse size, which is a very strong graphic element, beating the canvas of the application on an even greater number of striped blocks. However, on the tablet, the scroll is completely invisible, small and neat, floating in with focus on the content. It was necessary to find a consensus between the tablet and desktop display of blocks, disclose information as the user gets deeper into the content of the application, and get as far as possible from unnecessary bandwidth.
The next problem we encountered is the impossibility to call the context menu of list items by clicking on it. To make the menu appear, you need to click outside the selected item and only then the bottom menu will appear. This is a very unusual case for users. At the time of the first tests of the application, the most popular question was: “How do I go to the user profile I’m chatting with?” The exact same problem exists at the moment with Mail.ru Mail. The answer to the letter is completely non-trivial: it is necessary to click in the body of the letter and only then the lower menu appears, in which there is a control for the answer.
In general, all these little things did not prevent us from making an interesting, user friendly application. Now we are collecting and analyzing information from our users. We do not stop work on the application. There is a huge field for further activities, for improvement, simplification.
Well, a little insider. This is what a new user profile will look like.
We will be glad to any feedback regarding our design and UI.
What do we have now? We have a project already in the store and in the store promo block. There are users, there is experience of use, so let's briefly go through the pros and cons of the Microsoft Store:
The store is beautiful, convenient promotional blocks, tiles are better than icons - these are pluses.
The minuses are empty, the very weak applications that even well-known companies come with now miss the store. There is no promotion of paid applications, everywhere Top Free (Mamba is only a plus, but the rest of the developers can andthurt deliver). It also delivers a dull implementation of updates, which does not push users to update the application, which leads to the collection of negative from the first releases long after the causes of these negatives disappear.
Weak statistics collection system, sometimes not working at all (for example, statistics on the use of the application disappears for several days).
There is no convenient system of communication with users, it is impossible to write to victims who suffered from our bugs using the tools of the store.
How does the Russian department of MS work with developers? It works well, to the best of its capabilities: test devices were given, promotional support was given, technical support and even on-site lectures on design were all provided (bezd-vozde-mezd-but, that is, gift). In this, the MC surpasses its competitors, and thank you very much for helping them.
Of course, everyone is interested in - is it worth it to get involved with Win8 applications?
From the point of view of "Mamba" definitely yes. Services like ours through APP will work better in the very near future than through the web, especially on tablets that are growing in the world, in general, and in particular in our country. Therefore, the Win8 app is not the latest tablet application from Mamba, we are preparing to release tablet apps for Android + iOS.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/158301/
All Articles