Kevin Suttle is a channel developer for litl and has contributed to various tech publications and projects. He discusses the importance of considering context when developing applications, noting that context includes more than just screen size. Context refers to the user's surroundings, capabilities of their device, time sensitivity, social interactions and more. He advocates developing "contextual applications" or "contextual experiences" that account for these various contexts rather than focusing only on devices or screen sizes.

2. KEVIN SUTTLE
Channel Developer - litl
Featured author for InsideRIA
Tech Reviewer for O’Reilly’s Flex 4 Cookbook
Contributed just under 150 bugs/features for Flash CS5
Co-organizer of the Flash and the City conference in NYC
kevinsuttle.com | @kevinSuttle

3. KEVIN SUTTLE
UNOFFICIAL JOB TITLES
User Experience Designer
Interaction Designer
User Interface Designer
Usability Engineer
Information Architect
Honest, people-centered, holistic approach. No nonsense.
kevinsuttle.com | @kevinSuttle

5. CONTEXT
“the interrelated conditions in which something
exists or occurs”
- dictionary.com
Kind of generic.

6. MULTI-SCREEN
is a good description,
but I don’t think it’s a good definition.
There is a difference.

7. MULTI-SCREEN
seems to infer that the screen size,
screen resolution and screen density
are the main considerations.
...at least to me.

8. I PREFER THE TERM
Contextual Applications (or Contextual Experiences)

9. ADOBE’S DESCRIPTION
”These solutions are broader in scope than a device, a
campaign, or a single service; rather, they encapsulate the
various contexts in which the end user exists, interacts,
thinks, consumes, and purchases.”

10. WHY IT MATTERS
As developers today, we are more and more likely to
port our applications to multiple devices and runtimes
than ever before.
One-offs are becoming increasingly less common.

11. WHY IT MATTERS
Context is much more than being aware of screen sizes.
the user’s surroundings/location
runtime/hardware capabilities
time-sensitivity
user presence
social interaction
... plus much more

12. FURTHER TO THE POINT
”Your content is of little value to its users if it ignores
the context in which it was viewed, manipulated
and processed.”

14. FAMILIAR TERRITORY
The desktop has been our stomping grounds for years

15. DESKTOP ADVANTAGES
96% of monitors today are higher than 1024 x 768
422 million broadband households in the US alone
Multiple inputs (hands and peripherals)

16. MODERN RENAISSANCE
The desktop of 2000 is not the desktop of today

17. NEW FEATURES
- Native Process API - extending AIR natively
- Mass Storage Detection
- Drag and Drop Remote Files
- P2P, UDP, Secure Sockets
- Global error handling
- Screen reader support
- IME Text
- Default ‘open-with’ settings OS-wide

18. THE LINE IS BLURRING
Web experiences and desktop experiences are
converging more and more.
With the advances of HTML5 and Flash,
the differences between AIR, browser, and native
applications are going to be a lot less noticable.

20. ALL OF A SUDDEN
BAM. We’re all mobile developers.
AIR on Android spawns a whole new set of developers
‘Full Flash’ on mobile handsets

21. MOBILE EDUCATION
Unless you’ve been doing mobile for a long time,
it’s not as simple as you may think,
and it is constantly changing.

22. MOBILIZED
Not minimized
The key is to leverage the device-specific advantages.
Provide immediate, relevant value with a planned,
deliberately short list of interactions.
Data should be readily accessible, and meet the needs of a
mobile user.
Simple != minimal.

23. MOBILE FIRST
Many are joining the ‘Mobile First Revolution’.
It allows a team to focus on the most important features,
specifically those that add the most contextual value.

24. ELEMENTS OF MOBILE CONTEXT

25. MOBILE = SOCIAL
”The mobile handset is, by its own nature,
a social artifact; an object made and used by people,
to connect with people.”
- C. Enrique Ortiz

26. THE 7th MASS MEDIUM
1. Printing Press
2. Recordings
3. Cinema
4. Radio
5. TV
6. The internet
7. Mobile

27. 5 UNIQUE BENEFITS
1. First truly personal mass media
2. First always-on mass media
3. First always carried mass media
4. Only mass media with a built-in payment channel
5. Offers point of thought (ability to create or consume
content whenever the mood strikes)

28. LOCATION IS IMPERATIVE
Easy to underestimate, but locational context is crucial.
- Your application should adapt to handle many light
sources and viewing angles
- If sound is important to your application, think about
noisy public places, use more text instead
- Be prepared to handle network interruptions
- Be prepared to handle phone interruptions
- Consider privacy (user is home vs in public)

29. MOBILE GOTCHAS
Screensaver mode*
Battery-life
Hardware performance limitations
Saving state upon interruptions*
* can be remedied in Flash Player 10.1

31. THE DIGITAL HOME
Modern experiences for modern families

32. KNOWS THEIR AUDIENCE
The litl family computing platform is meant to be used
specifically in the home, with a focus on content.

33. AN ENTIRE OS
Powered-by Flash, at your disposal.
This allows you to take advantage of unique, tailored
hardware that has context at the forefront of it’s design.

34. MULTIPLE CONTEXTS
With the litl SDK, you can design channels that handle 3
different types on contexts.
1. Card view
2. Focus view
3. Channel view (a.k.a. Easel Mode)
Allows you to be creative in developing content that is
both passive and interactive; consuming and creating.

35. FLASH ON YOUR TV
Average American watches 4.5 hours of TV a day
65% of homes have broadband
70% want internet on TV

36. litl’s 4th CONTEXT
The TV

37. A NEW FRONTIER
- Full keyboard
- Touch/Gesturing
- Accelerometer
- Microphone

38. FLASH ON YOUR TV!
Not just widgets
You now have entire HD television screens for your full
Flash-powered games, content, and media!

39. WHY litlOS MAKES SENSE
The web book and upcoming set-top box are hardware
that is laser-focused on user’s context.
The SDK is straight-forward, well-documented, tested
Support is readily available
Open and clear submission guidelines for custom channels
litl is ready for your creativity (developer.litl.com)
Develop how YOU want to.

40. OPEN FOR SUBMISSION!
Our channel store is now accepting submissions.
Visit developer.litl.com for details and to register ideas!

42. CONTEXT-AGNOSTIC
There is no such thing as ”write once, deploy everywhere,”
unless you want your application to suck.
However, there are many aspects of contextual application
development that will be the same no matter where you
choose to deploy.

43. PERFORMANCE
Performance is no longer an option.
No matter where you deploy, your application needs to
perform exceedingly well.

44. RESPONSIBILITIES
“With great power comes great CPU usage” - ME

45. SERIOUSLY THOUGH
It’s very easy to forget about, but performance is a
lynchpin across all contexts.
Optimization MUST be a part
of your iterations/sprints.

46. GOOD NEWS
AIR 2+ and Flash Player 10.1 rescind control back to you.
Dynamic Framerates
Flash Player Throttling
- SWF is in a hidden tab
- SWF is scrolled out of the viewing area
- GPU Video acceleration

47. GOOD NEWS
Support for many types of hardware rendering
- Vector graphics
- Bitmaps
- 3D effects
- Filters/Shaders
- Color transforms
- Alpha transparency
- Device/embedded text fonts
- Bitmap caching

48. BAD NEWS
Some performance tuning methods are dependent on
browser support, though it shouldn’t hurt to include them.
Progressively enhanced Flash will become common soon.
You should check each browser/device
for support details.

49. ARCHITECTURE
In a typical MVC(S) architecture, the view is the only thing
that should have to significantly change.

50. MODEL and CONTROLLER
Your data structure and value objects should already
be scalable enough to not impact performance on
mobile and other non-desktop devices.

51. SERVICES
Tread carefully here.
Server calls can be costly in terms of memory, battery and
even actual money in the case of mobile. Not everyone
has unlimited data plans.
Make good use of push, or asynchronous calls when it
makes sense to.

52. SHARED OBJECTS
You can minimize server calls
SQLLite is not available in all cases
SharedObjects seem to ‘just work’
On litlOS, SharedObjects are available, but it makes more
sense to explore the shared properties model in litlOS.

53. LAYOUT
One of the most fun objectives to handle.
- Stage.Scalemode
- Stage.Resize (best option)
- Stage.OrientationChange (flash.sensors)*
*Limited to accelerometer, doesn’t always behave how
you’d expect.

54. IT’S ALL RELATIVE
Or at least it used to be.
- Pixels are a relative unit of measurement.
- Screen density and PPI/DPI are the most crucial and is
the property that will change the most
(Capabilities.ScreenDPI)
Christian Cantrell suggests investing in a ruler to make
sure your measurements are consistent

55. GET PHYSICAL
Many of your users will only be using one hand to interact
with your mobile application (typically the right hand).
When you’re designing assets, use your own hand as a
guide on the screen to judge how accessible and
ergonomic your application is, as well as what might be
covered up by a user’s hand.
Rule of finger: 10mm (44px) for finger touch,
but that’s an average. Never hurts to make it bigger.

56. DON’T GET TOUCHY
unless you have to.
Multitouch is great, but not always necessary.
Unless you need specific multitouch gesture support,
mouse events ‘just work’ on multiple devices.

57. GET VIRTUAL
Many mobile devices have native keyboards,
some have physical keyboards only, and some have both.
Be sure to account for this when designing your
application, as it could easily go awry.
You don’t want a native keyboard covering up your
screen assets.

58. GO GLOBAL
Globalization API in Flash Player 10.1
- Text language/orientation (RTL)
- Date/Time
- Currency formatting/parsing
- Number formatting/parsing
- String comparison for sorting or searching for text
- Upper and lower case conversions

59. TAKE CONTROL
With AIR on Android, you can control your desktop client
with a controller app.
With the litl OS, you’ll be able to control a channel on the
web book with an iPhone or native Android device.*
*See more about this in October, at the litl-sponsored
FITC Unconference at MAX + (Free beer!) as well as
RIAUnleashed Boston in November

60. FOR MORE INFO
@kevinSuttle developer.litl.com
kevinsuttle.com @litl
@litlDev