Designing applications for mobile use

In a modern business, users want to work on mobile devices because they are simple, convenient, and provide immediate access to content at all times. With Pega Platform, you can design and build an application in a low-code environment and make it accessible on a range of mobile devices.

During the design of your application, remember that mobile devices are much slower than desktop devices. As a mobile app developer, focus on performance aspects even more than in web applications. Apply the following best practices when you design an application for mobile use to guarantee a modern, consistent user experience:

Procedure

Define the mode of operation:

In the initial stages of application design, decide whether your mobile app should support offline mode. Offline-enabled mobile apps require additional configuration and have limited support for certain features, such as actions or user interface controls.
For more information, see Designing apps for offline mode.

Design a consistent, simple, and efficient user interface:

Design a mobile-ready application by using the out-of-the-box user interface elements, design templates and default rules that either Cosmos or UI Kit provide.

Note: Cosmos does not support offline mode.
Apply a responsive and adaptive user interface design to ensure that the content of your application is displayed correctly, regardless of the type, size, and operating system of the target device.
A responsive user interface helps you optimize a single design or layout across a variety of devices and sizes. An adaptive user interface determines what is displayed on the screen, based on conditional logic and the context of the layout.
For more information, see Learning about user interface design guidelines for mobile apps.

Prepare external developer accounts before you start creating your mobile app:

If you plan to generate an iOS mobile app bundle, set up an Apple developer account.
If you plan to distribute your mobile app in Google Play, set up an Android developer account.
If you plan to send push notifications to your Android mobile app users, set up a Firebase account.
For more information, see Configuring push notifications for Android apps.

Test your mobile app:

Test your mobile apps often, at all stages of development.
Test your mobile app on target mobile devices to ensure that your mobile app looks and behaves as expected.
For smaller changes, use the Pega Mobile Preview app for testing.

Note: Do not use Pega Mobile Preview for production purposes.