Featured Issues

Mobile development blogs, tutorials and resources inside!Latest Mobile Dev Insights: iOS, Android, Cross-PlatformAdvertise with Us|Sign Up to the NewsletterMobilePro #183: Learn the tricks of designing for inclusivity and accessibilityHi ,Welcome to the 183rd edition of MobilePro!This week we bring you a blog on designing mobile interfaces while being inclusive and accessible.Designing mobile interfaces that are accessible and user-friendly, keeping in mind individuals with motor impairments, is as important as ever. This post, taken from Dale Cruse, Denis Boudreau, et al’s Inclusive Design for Accessibility (out August 7, 2025), emphasizes the importance of optimizing touch targets through adequate sizing, spacing, and the use of patterns like cards, two-dimensional scrolling, and floating action buttons. Each design pattern is evaluated not only for its usability but also for its compliance with accessibility guidelines such as Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), with practical tips to balance functionality, clarity, and inclusivity.You will learn the following from this article:How to design accessible touch targetsThe benefits of the card pattern for organizing contentWhen and how to use two-dimensional scrolling and carousels effectivelyBest practices for implementing floating action buttonsTake the Survey!Live Virtual Workshop: Securing Vibe CodingJoin Snyk's Staff Developer Advocate Sonya Moisset on August 28th at 11:00AM ET covering:✓ How Vibe Coding is reshaping development and the risks that come with it✓ How Snyk secures your AI-powered SDLC from code to deployment✓ Strategies to secure AI-generated code at scaleEarn 1 CPE Credit!Register today!🛠️ Optimizing touch targets for various abilitiesMobile devices present unique accessibility challenges because users often interact with them while on the move, using their fingers to tap, swipe, and pinch. This can be particularly difficult during two plausible and common situations:Controls are too small: If a control is smaller than the fingertip, users may struggle to tap it accurately, especially when moving or holding the device with one hand.Controls are crowded together: When multiple controls are placed close to each other, it can be hard to determine which control is being activated, leading to errors and frustration.These challenges can be even more pronounced for users with mobility issues, such as those with limited dexterity, tremors, or other motor impairments. Designing controls with adequate size, spacing, and touch responsiveness is essential to create a more inclusive mobile experience.So, how do we account for touch target size without letting interactive controls dominate the user interface? Luckily for us, WCAG 2.5.8 Target Size (Minimum), while not limited to mobile, addresses this issue across all touch interfaces – including tablets, laptops, and assistive technologies used by people with limited dexterity – by recommending a minimum target size for interactive controls. The current recommendations are a minimum size of 24 x 24 CSS pixels for AA conformance with a recommended AAA threshold of 44 x 44 CSS pixels. To aid us with this, let us look at some helpful concepts.The card patternThe card pattern is a design approach that organizes information into distinct, interactive containers or cards. These cards are typically large enough to be easily tapped or clicked, making them particularly accessible for mobile users, including those with motor impairments or limited dexterity.By grouping related content and interactive elements within clearly defined cards, you can enhance usability and accessibility. These are especially effective when presenting lists of items, such as products, articles, or app listings. They allow for generous tap targets and visual separation between different pieces of content, reducing the risk of accidental interactions.For practical examples of the card pattern, visit the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. Notice how apps, games, and other content are presented as distinct cards, each occupying enough space to be easily tapped. This design ensures clarity, consistency, and accessibility.‼️ Be careful though ‼️However, it’s important not to overload cards with too much information or nest multiple interactive elements in conflicting ways. For example, assigning an entire card to navigate to a user’s profile, while also placing a tappable email address or button inside it, can lead to confusion or unintentional interactions. To ensure a clear and accessible experience, keep each card focused, avoid overlapping interactive zones, and prioritize a single, predictable action per card when possible.So, the card pattern is one effective way to combine information and interactivity in a space-efficient layout. It brings key content to the forefront while maximizing the touchable area for interaction. While cards are especially well-suited for mobile, they’re not the only way to group related elements. What matters most is ensuring clarity, focus, and generous touch targets, regardless of the visual pattern you use.Two-dimensional scrollingTwo-dimensional scrolling is a design technique where users can navigate content both horizontally and vertically within the same interface. This pattern is commonly used on mobile devices to allow for efficient browsing of large amounts of content without overwhelming the user. For example, users can scroll vertically through a feed or a list and horizontally through categories or image galleries.The infamous carousel pattern – a form of horizontal scrolling often implemented as a series of swipeable cards or images – is frequently criticized in web design for several reasons:Poor accessibility: Carousels often rely on animations or gestures that may be difficult for users with motor impairments or those who navigate using keyboards or screen readers.Content visibility: Important content can be hidden off-screen, making it less discoverable. Many users never interact with carousel controls, leading to missed information.Overuse and misuse: Carousels are often employed for aesthetic purposes without considering usability or accessibility, resulting in a poor user experience.However, on mobile devices, two-dimensional scrolling and carousels are essential. They allow users to quickly navigate large datasets or categories, particularly in applications like Netflix or online stores where content is organized into horizontal rows of cards. Without carousels, finding a specific movie or product would require endless vertical scrolling.Two-dimensional scrolling also pairs well with the card pattern, enabling designers to maximize touchable areas for controls while presenting content in a visually organized and accessible way. However, it’s important to ensure that horizontal scrolling is used only for discrete content groups – not for reading or core navigation – to meet WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion 1.4.10 Reflow, which requires that content can be presented without loss of information or functionality when resized or zoomed.‼️ Be careful though ‼️While two-dimensional scrolling can enhance navigation and efficiency, it’s not always the right choice. It can introduce cognitive overload if too many scrollable sections compete for attention or if users lose track of their position. Designers should avoid nesting multiple scrollable areas and ensure that horizontal scrolling is clearly indicated and easy to perform. When overused or poorly implemented, this pattern can hinder discoverability and frustrate users, especially those relying on screen readers or Switch Access. Use it thoughtfully, and always test it with real users.Floating action buttonsOne challenge with mobile accessibility is balancing large touch targets with the limited screen space available for displaying content. To maximize usable space, developers often use fixed-location floating action buttons – interactive controls that appear to hover above other UI elements. This technique allows the content beneath to scroll independently, providing a larger, more accessible touch target without sacrificing information visibility.In web design, floating action buttons are often criticized for poor discoverability and confusing focus order. When users navigate with keyboards or assistive technologies, it can be difficult to determine where floating action buttons fit within the sequence of interactive elements. This can compromise conformance with WCAG 2.4.3 Focus Order and 1.3.2 Meaningful Sequence, both of which require a logical and predictable navigation path. Additionally, floating action buttons may obscure important content, leading to usability and accessibility issues, especially for users relying on screen readers or Switch Access.However, in mobile design, floating action buttons are widely accepted and effective for several reasons:Platform standards: Both iOS and Android provide established patterns for implementing floating action buttons. These guidelines include recommendations for size, placement, interaction, and accessibility. Following platform conventions ensures consistent user experiences.Simplicity of layout: Mobile interfaces typically contain fewer interactive elements than web pages, reducing the likelihood of confusion in focus order. Additionally, developers can leverage built-in platform tools such as Android’s ViewGroup attributes (android:nextFocusForward, etc.) and iOS’s UIAccessibilityContainer protocol to manage and customize focus order in an accessible way.User expectation: Many users have come to expect floating action buttons in mobile apps for primary actions – like composing a message or adding a new item – because of their widespread use. However, this familiar pattern may not be equally intuitive or accessible to everyone, particularly users who rely on screen readers, Switch Access, or keyboard navigation. When considering affordance, it’s important to ask: who benefits from this pattern, and who might be excluded by it? Designing with intention means ensuring that commonly used patterns also support users with diverse abilities.‼️ Be careful though ‼️When implementing floating action buttons, consider these best practices:Placement: Floating action buttons are generally placed in the bottom-right corner (Android) or centered at the bottom (iOS) to remain accessible while not obstructing critical content. This consistent placement also benefits non-sighted users by allowing assistive technologies – like screen readers or Switch Access – to reliably locate and describe the button’s function, reducing guesswork and supporting efficient navigation.Accessibility considerations: Ensure floating action buttons are labeled appropriately for screen readers and integrated into the focus order. Typically, this means placing them near the end of the navigation sequence – after the main content – so they don’t interrupt the user’s reading or task flow. Avoid dynamically repositioning their focus unless context demands it (such as in a modal or step-based workflow). iOS and Android both provide accessibility APIs to help developers manage this in a predictable, user-friendly way.Consistent usage: Use floating action buttons only for high-priority actions, and avoid cluttering the interface with too many floating controls.Accessibility is, of course, the need of the hour, and these three methods described above, the card pattern, two-dimensional scrolling, and floating action buttons, are just some of the ways in which we can ensure functional and inclusive design when it comes to accessibility.In just a couple of days, you will be able to read all this and more in the book Inclusive Design for Accessibility, written by 12 leaders from the field of accessibility—Dale Cruse, Denis Boudreau, Dr. Angela Young, Maya Sellon, Julianna Rowsell, Nandita Gupta, Jennifer Chadwick, Crystal Scott, Chris McMeeking, Dr. Keith Newton, Charlie Triplett, and Kai Wong.Hope you enjoyed reading this. You can pre-order your copy now.🧠 Understand inclusive design principles to create digital experiences accessible to all users🔍 Explore cutting-edge AI and emerging tech applications in accessibility and inclusive design🧩 Learn practical strategies for building an inclusive design culture within organizationsInclusive Design for AccessibilityPreorder now at $30.99!👋 And that’s a wrap. We hope you enjoyed this new format of MobilePro.P.S.: If you have any suggestions or feedback, help us improve by sharing your thoughts. Click on the survey below.Take the Survey!Cheers,Runcil Rebello,Editor-in-Chief, MobilePro*{box-sizing:border-box}body{margin:0;padding:0}a[x-apple-data-detectors]{color:inherit!important;text-decoration:inherit!important}#MessageViewBody a{color:inherit;text-decoration:none}p{line-height:inherit}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{mso-hide:all;display:none;max-height:0;overflow:hidden}.image_block img+div{display:none}sub,sup{font-size:75%;line-height:0}#converted-body .list_block ol,#converted-body .list_block ul,.body [class~=x_list_block] ol,.body [class~=x_list_block] ul,u+.body .list_block ol,u+.body .list_block ul{padding-left:20px} @media (max-width: 100%;display:block}.mobile_hide{min-height:0;max-height:0;max-width: 100%;overflow:hidden;font-size:0}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{display:table!important;max-height:none!important}}

AI Assistant with Amazon Q and S3 clickable URLs, Value of Thoughtful Dashboard Design in TableauBecome an AI Generalist that makes $100K (in 16 hours)One of the biggest IT giants, TCS laid off 12,000 people this week. And this is just the beginning of the blood bath. In the coming days you’ll see not thousands, but millions of more layoffs & displacement of jobs. So what should you do right now to avoid getting affected? Invest your time in learning about AI. The tools, the use cases, the workflows – as much as you can.Join the World’s First 16-Hour LIVE AI Upskilling Sprint for professionals, founders, consultants & business owners like you. Register Now (Only 500 free seats)Date: Saturday and Sunday, 10 AM - 7 PM.Rated 4.9/5 by global learners – this will truly make you an AI Generalist that can build, solve & work on anything with AI.In just 16 hours & 5 sessions, you will:✅ Learn how AI really works by learning 10+ AI tools, LLM models and their practical use cases.✅ Learn to build and ship products faster, in days instead of months✅ Build AI Agents that handle your repetitive work and free up 20+ hours weekly✅ Create professional images and videos for your business, social media, and marketing campaigns.✅ Turn these AI skills into10$k income by consulting or starting your own AI services business.All by global experts from companies like Amazon, Microsoft, SamurAI and more. And it’s ALL. FOR. FREE. 🤯 🚀$5100+ worth of AI tools across 2 days — Day 1: 3000+ Prompt Bible, Day 2: Roadmap to make $10K/month with AI, additional bonus: Your Personal AI Toolkit Builder.Register Now (Only 500 free seats)SponsoredSubscribe|Submit a tip|Advertise with usWelcome to BIPro #108 -Where Better Dashboards BeginThis week, we’re going beyond dashboards as decoration and diving into dashboards that deliver. If you've ever opened a report and wondered, "What am I looking at, and why does it matter?", you’re not alone. In our lead story, we explore the value of thoughtful dashboard design in Tableau, unpacking four powerful design strategies, from guided analysis to executive scorecards, that can help you communicate insights with clarity and intent. It’s not just about data on a page; it’s about shaping stories your stakeholders can act on.Once you're primed on dashboard design, stick around, this issue is packed with technical deep dives and timely updates:🔹A practical Power BI workaround for start values in waterfall charts🔹A how-to on building an AI assistant with Amazon Q and S3 clickable URLs🔹What data literacy really means in 2025 (spoiler: it’s not what you think)🔹New Google Cloud agents and AI-native foundations for data teams🔹The debut of Spanner’s columnar engine, finally bridging OLTP and OLAP🔹And news you need to know: Power BI’s Copilot is going full-screen by default this SeptemberWherever you sit, BI analyst, data scientist, exec stakeholder, this edition offers tools and thinking to help you work smarter with data, not just harder.Let’s get into it.Sponsored👉 Join Snyk’s Sonya Moisset on August 28 at 11:00AM ET to explore how to secure AI-powered development from code to deployment. Learn how to protect your SDLC, mitigate risks in vibe coding, and earn 1 CPE credit. Register today!👉 Webinar alert! Mobile experts from Bitrise and Embrace break down advanced CI/CD tips and real-user insights to help you speed up builds & deliver top-quality apps. Register here.Cheers,Merlyn ShelleyGrowth Lead, PacktThe Value of Thoughtful Dashboard Design in Tableau - by Ayushi BulaniIn the rush to build a new Tableau dashboard, it’s tempting to jump straight into charts and data. But taking a step back to define your dashboard’s purpose and strategy can make the difference between a report that confuses and one that doesn’t. Put simply, effective dashboards are rooted in clear objectives and an understanding of what your audience needs at a glance. (src)A common professional setting for Tableau users is the executives wanting quick insights without having to wade through noise, the analysts needing interactive exploration, and the broader audiences needing a narrative to make data relatable. A thoughtful dashboard design strategy aligns your Tableau visuals with these needs. (src) It ensures you’re not just throwing data on a page, but actually communicating the ideas. In the long run, a bit of planning on “dashboard strategy” saves time and elevates the impact of your work.Four approaches to dashboard designOne of the key insights from the upcoming book Learning Tableau 2025 is that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to dashboard design. The book’s authors outline at least four common design approaches, each suited to different scenarios. Lightly adapted from Learning Tableau 2025, here are the four approaches and what they entail:🔹Guided Analysis – This approach guides the audience through the data to facilitate discovery. In practice, you lead viewers step-by-step so they can understand the data’s implications and arrive at clear actions. A guided dashboard often anticipates a specific analysis path – you’ve done the analysis and now walk the user through those findings in a logical sequence.🔹Exploratory – An exploratory dashboard is an open sandbox. It provides tools (filters, drill-downs, etc.) for the audience to explore the data on their own. The idea is that the data’s story may evolve over time, so you empower users to investigate trends and relationships themselves. This approach is common in self-service BI scenarios, where different users might have different questions.🔹Scorecard / Status Snapshot – This is all about at-a-glance information. A scorecard or status snapshot delivers a concise summary of key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics. It’s the classic executive dashboard: think of a one-page layout with big numbers, up/down arrows, and color-coded indicators. The goal is quick problem identification and monitoring – no heavy narrative, just the vital signs of the business in one view.🔹Narrative – A narrative dashboard focuses on telling a story with the data. It guides the viewer through a beginning, middle, and end using visuals and text in a cohesive sequence. For example, you might show how a metric changed over time during a specific event (imagine illustrating the spread of a disease or the timeline of a marketing campaign). This approach adds context and commentary to data, making the insights memorable and compelling.(Extracted and adapted from Learning Tableau 2025 by Milligan et al.)Putting these approaches into practiceThese different approaches matter because of their impact. Matching your dashboard design to your audience’s needs can dramatically improve how your insights land. For instance, if your CEO just wants a daily health check of the business, a scorecard-style dashboard ensures they see all critical KPIs in seconds (and nothing more). If you’re presenting to stakeholders at a quarterly review, a narrative dashboard with a clear storyline might be more effective – it can walk them through performance drivers and outcomes in a logical flow. On the other hand, when you’re building tools for analysts or power users, an exploratory dashboard gives them the flexibility to ask their own questions about the data. And if you’ve conducted deep analysis yourself, a guided dashboard lets you package those insights into an interactive journey, so colleagues can essentially retrace your steps and findings.Keep in mind that these approaches aren’t mutually exclusive. Often, a well-crafted dashboard will blend elements of each. You might start with a snapshot overview up top (scorecard style), then provide interactive filters for deeper exploration, and perhaps include annotations or highlights to add a mini narrative. The key is to be deliberate: know when you’re trying to simply inform versus when you need to persuade or invite exploration. By aligning the design to the goal, you avoid the common pitfalls of cluttered or directionless dashboards.In today’s data-driven environment, dashboards are a staple of communication – and thoughtful design is what separates the mediocre from the truly effective. A bit of upfront strategy about how you present information pays off with dashboards that people actually use and understand. (src) Whether you’re guiding a user through a data story or letting them dive in themselves, choosing the right approach will ensure your Tableau work delivers value, not just charts.For those who want to dive deeper and see these principles in action, the book Learning Tableau 2025 is packed with practical examples and tips on building impactful dashboards. It’s a resource well worth exploring if you’re looking to sharpen your Tableau skills and design more thoughtful, effective dashboards. By approaching your next project with a clear strategy in mind, you’ll be well on your way to creating dashboards that not only look good, but drive smarter decisions in your organization.Want to design dashboards that communicate, not just display?Take the Tableau dashboard design quiz to find your weak point—and see how Learning Tableau 2025 can help you fix it. Take the quiz here!Then, pre-order your copy of Learning Tableau 2025 to learn how to apply guided analysis, exploratory tools, executive snapshots, and narrative techniques in real projects—so your dashboards deliver insight with impact.🛒 Pre-order here.⚡ What’s New in BI🔵Decoupling Semantic Model for Mirroring Customers: Semantic models are no longer auto coupled with new Mirrored artifacts. This decoupling unlocks custom semantic design, version control, and direct access to raw data, empowering teams to shape business logic independently. Phase 1 is live now; Phase 2 will decouple existing artifacts soon. This shift enhances flexibility, clarity, and scalability across analytics workflows.🔵On Adding a Start Value to a Waterfall Chart in Power BI: Power BI waterfall charts don’t natively support a custom start value, essential for tracking cumulative metrics like customer growth. This post walks through a practical workaround using a secondary date table and smart DAX measures to inject a year-end starting point. Ideal for clearer visuals when showing progression from a prior baseline into the current reporting period.🔵Build an AI assistant using Amazon Q Business with Amazon S3 clickable URLs: Create a document-aware AI assistant with Amazon Q Business that serves secure, clickable S3 links for traceability and responsible AI. This guide helps you set up the assistant, ingest enterprise files, and enable authenticated users to access referenced documents, without exposing S3 credentials. A hands-on walkthrough includes sample data, setup steps, and key IAM permissions.🔵What Is Data Literacy in 2025? It’s Not What You Think. Modern data literacy isn’t just about reading charts, it’s about cutting through noise, distraction, and AI-polished confusion to deliver clear, context-rich insights that drive decisions. This piece redefines what it means to be data-literate in 2025, and offers practical steps for building narratives that land, even with smart, overloaded, and impatient audiences.🔵Discover insights from Microsoft Exchange with the Microsoft Exchange connector for Amazon Q Business: Access Microsoft Exchange emails, calendars, and attachments through Amazon Q Business using its native connector, designed to streamline search, summarization, and task execution across enterprise communications. This guide walks through setup, indexing, and secure querying so teams can retrieve and act on Exchange data efficiently, with built-in IAM-based controls to ensure compliance and authorized access.🔵New agents and AI foundations for data teams: Google Cloud introduces a new era of data interaction: the agentic shift. This update showcases AI-native agents built into a unified data platform, empowering data teams with autonomous workflows, multimodal vector search, and real-time reasoning across operational and analytical systems. From BigQuery to Looker, intelligent agents now collaborate and act, transforming how businesses explore, understand, and act on their data.🔵Spanner's Columnar Engine Unites OLTP & OLAP: Spanner’s new columnar engine brings high-speed analytics directly into your transactional database, eliminating the latency, overhead, and complexity of ETL. With columnar storage and vectorized execution, it accelerates real-time insights on live data while preserving OLTP performance. Integrated with BigQuery via Data Boost, it simplifies architecture and enables federated queries that are faster, fresher, and more scalable than ever.🔵Standalone Copilot in Power BI will be turned on by default in September: Starting September 5, 2025, Power BI’s standalone Copilot, “chat with your data”, will be enabled by default for all tenants with Copilot already turned on. This full-screen, chat-based AI lets users explore any report, semantic model, or Fabric data agent they have access to using natural language, streamlining insight discovery across the Power BI ecosystem.See you next time!*{box-sizing:border-box}body{margin:0;padding:0}a[x-apple-data-detectors]{color:inherit!important;text-decoration:inherit!important}#MessageViewBody a{color:inherit;text-decoration:none}p{line-height:inherit}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{mso-hide:all;display:none;max-height:0;overflow:hidden}.image_block img+div{display:none}sub,sup{font-size:75%;line-height:0} @media (max-width: 100%;display:block}.mobile_hide{min-height:0;max-height:0;max-width: 100%;overflow:hidden;font-size:0}.desktop_hide,.desktop_hide table{display:table!important;max-height:none!important}}