I’ve Got a Cheat Sheet to Help Migrate Your Win32 Apps

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There’s a cheat sheet to rapidly and cheaply migrate Win32 desktop #apps to touchable, #mobile #Windows laptops, convertibles and #tablets.

If your Win32 migration path happens to take you to new, touchable PC hardware running more recent versions of Windows, I have a nice shortcut for you. One of the great hallmarks of Windows over the years is the notion of long-term, backwards compatibility so that customers can continue to use their apps through successive versions of the operating system. This is why your Visual Basic 6 app “just works” on Windows 10. This is good news and is why global business still runs on Windows. In our mobile-first world, you should be looking to make those Win32 apps less dependent on a mouse and keyboard by pivoting toward touch-first interaction. If you don’t have the time, money or resources to rewrite those apps for the new Windows Runtime, I have a book for you titled, “Keeping Windows 8 Tablets in Sync with SQL Server 2012.”

The strategy of this book allows you to keep using your existing codebase while making some easy changes to the UI. If you want to give your users an immersive experience, there are a number of screen elements you can modify or eliminate that will do the trick. It’s also important to dramatically increase the size of the fonts and every UI and navigation element so they’re touchable and readable from any angle. This is such a big topic that I wrote whole a book on the subject. Go check out this book on Amazon if this scenario applies to you.

Improve user productivity and reduce company expenses by migrating to modern Windows platforms through simple UI modifications to existing apps that leave business logic intact. How quickly is your company migrating it’s legacy apps from the 90s?

Learn how to digitally transform your company in my newest book, “Mobile Strategies for Business: 50 Actionable Insights to Digitally Transform your Business.”Book Cover

Click here to purchase a copy of my book today and start transforming your business!

Convert Your Confusing Win32 Apps to Touch-First Mobile Apps

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Migrate confusing Win32 apps with tiny controls to touch-first #mobile apps with large fonts and UI elements while including gesture support and proper spacing.

The advent of a mouse connected to every computer gave users a pixel-precision pointing device. Coupled with ever-growing computer monitors and higher resolution screens, UI elements got smaller and smaller. This wasn’t a problem until mobile devices with their small screens became popular. The developers that crammed lots of small buttons and data grids on big PC screens brought those bad UI habits to mobile.

At first, these new mobile developers got away with it because personal digital assistants (PDAs) like the Palm, Handspring, Zaurus and Pocket PC used a stylus with plastic, resistive touch screens. Until the touchable iPhone was released in 2007, many smartphones used a stylus as a replacement for the mouse’s precision pointing. This facilitated tiny, touchable UI elements that were hard to see.

When developing today’s mobile apps (native + web), touchable UI elements like buttons must be finger-friendly and at least 44 x 44 pixels in size. To prevent the “fat-finger” problem, they must also be at least 20 pixels apart from each other. This will vary based on screen size and pixel density. Implementing responsive design principles is also a must. UI elements must scale smoothly to different smartphone and tablet screen sizes and support gestures like swiping. They must also reorient themselves when a device shifts between portrait and landscape and implement “hamburger” menus to conserve screen space.

Improve user productivity by creating touchable apps that are easy to use to get employees up and running while reducing training requirements and expenses. What is your organization doing to improve app productivity?

Learn how to digitally transform your company in my newest book, “Mobile Strategies for Business: 50 Actionable Insights to Digitally Transform your Business.”

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Click here to purchase a copy of my book today and start transforming your business!

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