Author: Nuno Correia
SAP Consultant
Internet of Things (IoT) Enablement Factors
Today we will be talking about the factors that enabled and boosted the Internet of Things (IoT).
1. Miniaturization Of Devices
The size (and cost) of electronic components that are needed to support capabilities such as sensing, tracking and control has been reducing and will continue to reduce as per Moore’s law.
2. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)
Moving into the future, RFID has the potential to provide streams of data that will provide information systems with real-time, item-specific data and be flexible enough to be placed in extremely small spaces and locations, i.e., coil-on-chip technology.
3. Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6)
IPv6 is the next Internet addressing protocol that is used to replace IPv4. With IPv6, there are approximately 3.4×1038 (340 trillion) unique IPv6 addresses, allowing the Internet to continue to grow and innovate.
4. Communication Throughput And Lower Latency
Low latency makes it possible for IOT applications to query or receive quicker updates from sensor devices. LTE networks have latencies about 50-75 ms, which will open up new types of programming possibilities for application developers.
5. Low Power Consumption Devices
Low Power consumption devices will allow the devices to run for longer duration. Some devices will use solar capability to run, which will be self-sustained.
6. Cloud Computing
IOT connects billions of devices and sensors to create new and innovative applications. In order to support these applications, a reliable, elastic, and agile platform is essential. Cloud computing is one of the enabling platforms to support IOT, which provides required storage, processing power, and scaling capability.
7. Improved Security And Privacy
This allows the communication channel to be trustworthy. Critical business data can be passed by encryption or authentication code (MAC), protecting the confidentiality and authenticity of transaction data as it “transits” between networks.
There is still evolving standards in IoT security and with IPv6, IPsec support is integrated into the protocol design and connections can be secured when communicating with other IPv6 devices.
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The Internet of Things: an introduction
What is The Internet of Things (IoT) ? What is its value ?
IoT Concept and Examples
The IOT concept was initially coined by a member of the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) development community in 1999, and it has recently become more relevant to the practical world largely because of the growth of mobile devices, embedded and ubiquitous communication, cloud computing and data analytics.
Since then, many have seized on the phrase “Internet of Things” to refer to the general idea of things, especially everyday objects, that are readable, recognisable, locatable, addressable, and/or controllable via the Internet, irrespective of the communication means (whether via RFID, wireless LAN, wide- area networks, or other means).
Everyday objects include not only the electronic devices we encounter or the products of higher technological development such as vehicles and equipment but things that we do not ordinarily think of as electronic at all – such as food and clothing.
Examples of “things” include:
- People
- Animals and Natural ecosystem
- Location (of objects)
- Time Information (of objects)
- Condition (of objects)
These “things” of the real world shall seamlessly integrate into the virtual world, enabling anytime, anywhere connectivity.
Internet of Things (IoT) Global Economic Value
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In 2010, the number of everyday physical objects and devices connected to the Internet was around 1 billion.
Cisco forecasts that this figure will reach to 25 billion in 2015 as the number of more smart devices per person increases, and to a further 50 billion by 2020.
In addition, the global economic impact, which IoT will collectively have, will be more than $14 Trillion; if we compare this to the world population, then by 2020 we will have around more than six connected devices per person.
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SAP UX Basics – Wire Framing Phase
SAP UX Basics – Wire Framing Phase
In the first part of this article we discussed what UX means, what a Persona is and described the UX first design phase.
In this second phase, you have to map your critical ideas, customer profile and customer requirements into technical components.
It is the Wire Framing phase.
What is Wire Framing ?
![SAP Wire Framing]()
Wire Framing is when your ideas and all of your design that are in your mind, which you got by talking with your customer in the workshops, will be drawn into sketches that will look like real solutions, like web applications or mobile apps.
There are some useful tools for Wire Framing, in the market.
What are the main Wire Framing tools ?
- Moqups and Balsamiq
Moqups and Balsamiq are framing tools, you can use for free during the evaluation period.
They are very simple to use and with Moqups is even easy to share through Google Drive. You can give the link to your customers and let them share and find out if they really like the user interface of the final design.
We will be writing reviews of these tools in future articles.
- SAP Protyping Toolkit
On the SAP side, you have the prototyping toolkit in SAP Experience, where you can download it.
Prototyping toolkit is not a tool, it’s a PowerPoint and it’s a smart approach by SAP to give a wire-framing solution.
In there you can find slides with sample applications, which is nothing but the components that you will change to show to your customers.
Go for SAP Experience and checkout. There are many small details that SAP has covered.
Everyone should know their content.
- SAP AppBuilder
Finally, there is SAP AppBuilder.
It is a wireframing tool that automically generates code and can be useful for designing very simple mobile applications. It is built in Node.js.
Topics to keep in mind during Wire Framing phase
- Try to design the solution along with your Client since immediate feedback and many interactions will save time.
- It is very important to get a fast feedback from the Customer regarding his requirements.and he should understand what they are going to get after this solution is being delivered.
- SAPUI5 technology and Fiori are so much new that only a few customers have experience with this kind of user interface.
- This iterative and incremental process will save you time and effort because you will have an idea of the development effort.
- Bear in mind there can be situations where you can have the exactly same designs but the effort required are considerably different for each one. The UI is equal but the UX is much different.
- If you don’t have any idea about the effort of the development then it will be difficult to choose the right design. For this reason every UX designer should have some idea about the development effort. It always helps.
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SAP UX Basics – What is a Persona ?
SAP UX Basics – What is a Persona ?
In this article, we are going to talk about User eXperience a little more.
What is UX ?
Traditionally people are confused with what is user experience and what is the difference between User Interface (UI) and User eXperience (UX).
There are a lot of differences between UI and UX since UX is a very broad concept and it is not only design or the way the 
interface looks like.
Google definition of UX: “The overall experience of a person using a product such as a website or computer application, especially in terms of how easy or pleasing it is to use”.
The key point Google is mentioning here is Usability.
UX is the usability of one solution but keeping in mind its specific customer.
So when you are a UX developer, you are both a UX designer and a developer, since you are going to develop the solution based on your initial design, focusing on the usability and your customer needs.
What is a Persona ?
The first step of going towards any UX design is to find out your customers, your Personas.
So what is a Persona ? Persona is a personification of your real customer, who is going to use your application.
Generally, what we do when we go to a UX workshop is to know more about our customer users, the ones who are going to use our solution and see what is their specific age group, their thinking pattern, their working condition, their priorities, lifestyles and physical attributes.
This helps a lot while designing the solution because you can keep in mind your customer needs and goals.
So that’s the Persona.
In the second part of this article we will be talking about the Wire Framing phase and the tools you can use.
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