• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, June 7, 2011

The panelists agreed that testing directly with consumers is critical to the mobile development process because of all the moving parts the medium involves and the more personal nature of the technology. Chris Brown, VP, Product Management for Apartments.com, said that as the company builds out a new app for Android, it starting the wireframe, or prototyping process, by getting consumer feedback from the start, while trying to mimic the real world experience as much as possible in testing.

Kraft's innovation director Ed Kaczmarek agreed, saying the company likes to put concepts in front of consumers early to make sure product development is going in the right direction. For its part, FedEx is creating a specialized mobile group to be able to respond more quickly to changes in technology and the marketplace than its Internet or software groups could, according to Charlie Ciaramitaro, director of digital access marketing, at the shipping giant.