Microsoft Intune securely manages identities, manages apps, and manages devices As organizations move to support hybrid and remote workforces, they’re challenged with managing the different devices that access organization resources. Employees and students need to collaborate, work from anywhere, and securely access and connect to these resources. Admins need to protect organization data, manage end user access, and support users from wherever they work.
Microsoft Intune is a cloud-based endpoint management solution. It manages user access and simplifies app and device management across your many devices, including mobile devices, desktop computers, and virtual endpoints.
Key features and benefits
Some key features and benefits of Intune include:
1. You can manage users and devices, including devices owned by your organization and personally owned devices. Microsoft Intune supports Android, Android Open Source Project (AOSP), iOS/iPadOS, macOS, and Windows client devices. With Intune, you can use these devices to securely access organization resources with policies you create.
2. Intune simplifies app management with a built-in app experience, including app deployment, updates, and removal. You can connect to and distribute apps from your private app stores, enable Microsoft 365 apps, deploy Win32 apps, create app protection policies, and manage access to apps and their data.
3. Intune automates policy deployment for apps, security, device configuration, compliance, conditional access, and more. When the policies are ready, you can deploy these policies to your user groups and device groups. To receive these policies, the devices only need internet access.
4. Employees and students can use the self-service features in the Company Portal app to reset a PIN/password, install apps, join groups, and more. You can customize the Company Portal app to help reduce support calls.
5. Intune integrates with mobile threat defense services, including Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and third party partner services. With these services, the focus is on endpoint security and you can create policies that respond to threats, do real-time risk analysis, and automate remediation.
Integrates with other Microsoft services and apps
Microsoft Intune integrates with other Microsoft products and services that focus on endpoint management, including:
1. Configuration Manager for on-premises endpoint management and Windows Server, including deploying software updates and managing data centers You can use Intune and Configuration Manager together in a co-management scenario, use tenant attach, or use both. With these options, you get the benefits of the web-based admin center and can use other cloud-based features available in Intune.
2. Windows Autopilot for modern OS deployment and provisioning With Windows Autopilot, you can provision new devices and send these devices directly to users from an OEM or device provider. For existing devices, you can reimage these devices to use Windows Autopilot and deploy the latest Windows version.
3. Endpoint analytics for visibility and reporting on end user experiences, including device performance and reliability You can use Endpoint analytics to help identify policies or hardware issues that slow down devices. It also provides guidance that can help you proactively improve end user experiences and reduce help desk tickets.
4. Microsoft 365 for end user productivity Office apps, including Outlook, Teams, Sharepoint, OneDrive, and more Using Intune, you can deploy Microsoft 365 apps to users and devices in your organization. You can also deploy these apps when users sign in for the first time.
5. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint to help enterprises prevent, detect, investigate, and respond to threats In Intune, you can create a service-to-service connection between Intune and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. When they’re connected, you can create policies that scan files, detect threats, and report threat levels to Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. You can also create compliance policies that set an allowable level of risk. When combined with conditional access, you can block access to organization resources for devices that are noncompliant.
Integrates with third party partner devices and apps
The Endpoint Manager admin center makes it easy to connect to different partner services, including:
1. Managed Google Play: When you connect to your Managed Google Play account, admins can access your organization’s private store for Android apps, and deploy these apps to your devices.
2. Apple tokens and certificates: When they’re added, your iOS/iPadOS and macOS devices can enroll in Intune and receive policies from Intune. Admins can access your volume purchased iOS/iPad and macOS app licenses, and deploy these apps to your devices.
3. TeamViewer: When you connect to your TeamViewer account, you can use TeamViewer to remotely assist devices.
With these services, Intune:
Gives admins simplified access to third party partner app services.
Can manage hundreds of third party partner apps.
Supports public retail store apps, line of business (LOB) apps, private apps not available in the public store, custom apps, and more.
Enroll in device management, application management, or both
Organization-owned devices are enrolled in Intune for mobile device management (MDM). MDM is device centric, so device features are configured based on who needs them. For example, you can configure a device to allow access to Wi-Fi, but only if the signed-in user is an organization account.
In Intune, you create policies that configure features & settings and provide security & protection. The devices are fully managed by your organization, including the user identities that sign in, the apps that are installed, and the data that’s accessed.
When devices enroll, you can deploy your policies during the enrollment process. When enrollment completes, the device is ready to use.
For personal devices in bring-your-own-device (BYOD) scenarios, you can use Intune for mobile application management (MAM). MAM is user centric, so the app data is protected regardless of the device used to access this data. There’s a focus on apps, including securely accessing apps and protecting data within the apps.
Protect data on any device
With Intune, you can protect data on managed devices (enrolled in Intune) and protect data on unmanaged devices (not enrolled in Intune). Intune can isolate organization data from personal data. The idea is to protect your company information by controlling the way users access and share information.
For organization-owned devices, you want full control over the devices, especially security. When devices enroll, they receive your security rules and settings.
On devices enrolled in Intune, you can:
Create and deploy policies that configure security settings, set password requirements, deploy certificates, and more.
Use mobile threat defense services to scan devices, detect threats, and remediate threats.
View data and reports that measure compliance with your security settings and rules.
Use conditional access to only allow managed and compliant devices access to organization resources, apps, and data.
Remove organization data if a device is lost or stolen.
Simplify access
Intune helps organizations support employees who can work from anywhere. There are features you can configure that allow users to connect to an organization, wherever they might be.
This section includes some common features that you can configure in Intune.
Use Windows Hello for Business instead of passwords
Windows Hello for Business helps protect against phishing attacks and other security threats. It also helps users sign in to their devices and apps more quickly and easily.
Windows Hello for Business replaces passwords using a PIN or biometrics, such as fingerprint, facial recognition. This biometric information is stored locally on the devices and is never sent to external devices or servers.
“Technology is a pillar in today’s economy. There are few things we do without the assistance of software or smart devices, and the same goes for businesses worldwide. It’s unlikely, however, for these businesses and their leaders to keep up with the ever-changing world of technology.”
“This is where technology consultants come in. These technology specialists provide a unique, objective, and specialized approach to technology and how to leverage it for business success. In this article, we’ll explore the world of technology consulting and discuss how to get started in a career as a technology consultant.”
What is technology consulting?
“Technology consulting is the process of advising businesses on how to best use technology and software to benefit their business. It can refer to the design and development, implementation, or management of new technology.
There are many names for technology consultants: IT consultants, computer consultants, software consultants, business and technology advisors, and more. The variety of nomenclature is due to the vast world of the modern technology industry — and just how many things technology consultants specialize in.”
Why technology consulting?
Technology has become a critical component of business success. Due to its rapid growth and expansion into virtually every industry, and it’s more important than ever for organizations to understand how to leverage various technology.
Technology consultants can help business clients accelerate growth, cut costs, mitigate risk, attract and develop talent, and streamline important processes.”
What does a technology consultant do?
“Technology consultants are hired to do many things. These could include custom software development, infrastructure planning, security analysis, and risk assessment. Technology consultants could also advise on the strategic or financial sides of technology and software, such as how to invest in cost-efficient systems or how to integrate new software across multiple departments.
Technology consultants may be asked to solve a variety of business problems with technology, such as security risks, scaling issues, or high employee turnover. Regardless of what problem they are solving or what solution they are proposing, technology consultants often work with a business’s executives, leaders, and senior managers.
How to Become a Technology Consultant
If you’re interested in a career in technology consulting, here are a few tips to help you get started.
Earn a degree in IT or computer science.
Employers and clients alike prefer technology consultants with professional education in a relevant field, like IT, computer science, or computer engineering. A degree also gives you a unique experience with software development, coding, data science, and web design — types of expertise that could come in handy for future clients.
Some consultants also opt to obtain a business minor as consulting requires just as many business skills as it does technology know-how. Marketing, business management, and communication classes can help hone these skills.
Gain some experience.
Both internships and jobs can help give you the hands-on, out-of-classroom experience it takes to start your technology consulting career. Consider interning with or shadowing a technology consultant to gain relevant field experience. Other internships in IT or software development can help, too.
After (or instead of) working in an internship position, apply for entry-level IT jobs. This step is important as employers and clients prefer technology consultants with experience (either internship or professional). While working in these positions, mix up your projects so you can figure out what parts of technology consulting you like and can specialize in.
In addition to the technology-related skills you’ll gain through these experiences, you’ll also hone your networking, communication, and problem-solving skills.
Follow technology trends.
Technology is an ever-changing industry, and the best technology consultants keep up with the latest technology trends. Not only does this keep you informed, but it meets your clients’ expectations of you as the technology “expert”. The most up-to-date expertise will also help you remain competitive in the industry.
Grow your network.
Get to know other professionals in the IT and technology consulting industries. This will help you establish relationships that could lead to new clients or colleagues. Attend events in your internship, job, or community to expand your technology network.
Technology consulting is a highly valuable and lucrative industry, and technology consultants are major assets to the clients that hire them. Follow the steps above to start your career in technology consulting.
If someone time travels from the past to 2020, he would be awestruck with 180-degree evolution in the mobile UX design process.
They might feel amazed with Voice-based UX or would go overwhelmed with the scope of Artificial Intelligence in the domain. But, there’s one thing that they will find the same.
Any guesses what is it?
It’s nothing but the UX design principles.
Over the years, various functionalities, technologies, and tools have been replaced or at the verge of extinction. But, the basic UX design principles have remained just the same as before.
Now knowing this, if you are someone who is planning to step into the UX domain this year, it is no wonder that getting acquainted with these principles is vital.
So, keeping the same into consideration, we will be covering the same below.
8 Principles To Guide You in Mobile App UX Design
1. Clutter-free Interface
Every application comes with a primary goal. The one where they target a particular pain point of end-users and provide a solution for the same.
But, because of the increasing competition, designers often introduce many other features and functionalities into their plan.
However, at times the app designers introduce multiple functionalities into the same app screen. This confuses the end-users, resulting in more clicks on the secondary (less important feature) compared to the primary one.
To combat this situation, the best way is to make a clutter-free interface. Meaning, introduce a limited number of actionable things in a single screen. A clear view of which you can take from the image shared below.
2. Personalization
We all love things that give us a personalized and special feel. There’s no denying it. The same psychology applies in the case of UX design too.
When you design a user experience that enables users to perform an action in a quick and effortless manner, they fall in love with your application. On the contrary, if it is cumbersome they exit the platform and share negative feedback.
As you can see in the screenshot of the Netflix app above, it informs and encourages users to continue their app interaction right from where they left. Or better say, continue watching the series they left in between.
3. Don’t Rush For Registration
You would encounter many mobile apps that straightaway ask for registration, without giving users a chance to explore the application. Does that leave a good impression of the app in the users mind?
Personally, I immediately leave such applications.
Why would any user register in vain before knowing what are the features that the app offers and whether it’s all worth it or not?
This is why it is again imperative for UX designers to follow the principle of keeping the registration process optional.
When you give some time to the new users to explore your mobile app and get familiar with it, they show more interest in your app. This reduces your app uninstallation rate and increases the chances of user conversion.
4. Avoid Nagging Permissions
It’s true that permissions to access user data open a new door to understanding the user and deliver a personalized experience.
In such a scenario, an ideal way to keep a balance of the two is to ask for relevant permissions only.
Let’s take another example.
VSCO, a photo-editing app asks for camera access only, whenever users wish to click a picture. It does not ask permission for accessing contacts, or other built-in device apps. This gives users an assurance that the rest of the information is secure.
5. Focus On Users Goals
Since desktop and mobile apps are essentially different, the goals that need to be fulfilled are also distinct. For example, what a user wants to do in a desktop app/website is not something they would want to do in a mobile app.
So refrain from making it overwhelming for users to use a mobile app with the functionality of a desktop app. They would prefer selective things, i.e., say a user is using a restaurant app- he/she would want to just view the menu, book a reservation, place an order in advance, or just get directions. All the other information is secondary and can be displayed elsewhere, not on the main screen.
6. Design for Fingers
Gone are those days when mouse pointers were the one interacting with applications. Today, with the advent of touch-screen devices, users are interacting with the platforms via their fingers.
In a situation like this, it is again imperative to understand that the human finger size varies from person to person. So, designing for different human finger size is the right practice to bring more opportunities for interactions and increasing the app conversion rate.
Likewise, investing in hand gestures while creating an app UX design is also an optimal method of getting higher results.
7. Only Relevant Notifications
As a proverb goes, “Too much of anything is bad”, misuse of push notifications can drift your future from higher conversion rate to higher uninstallation rate.
So, the next principle that every novice and experienced UX designer needs to watch out for is to discover how many push notifications are enough. And this way, prevent frustrating the users while getting their motive fulfilled.
8. Effective Offboarding
Since you have put so much effort into UX design for the whole process, it is equally important for you to end it on a positive note.
That implies, adding UX elements that impart a positive vibe to the users even when they have performed the requisite action or are deactivating/deleting their account. This will improve the chances of them revisiting your app in the future as well.
Interactive design focuses on the moments of your user’s direct and active engagement – one that involves tapping, clicking, dragging, typing, etc. – with your website. Meanwhile, user experience (UX) design has a wider perspective and considers even moments of passive use – like reading a text on your website’s page – to be interaction.
As such, interactive website design is a part of UX website design that aims at incentivizing and facilitating the moments of a user’s active engagement. Some UX professionals prefer to zero in on this aspect of UX design and hone to perfection the skills of implementing interaction patterns. At Webzworld, we always put such focused specialists on highly interactive web design projects to ensure the quality of interactive design.
Interactive design processes break every moment of interaction into 5 elements. Most of these elements apply to all types of interactions, but some can be optional at times. The user experience specialist’s job is to define what elements are necessary for each interaction instance to make it feel natural and seamless.
Here’s the list of all 5 elements:
Text – A text or a symbol that indicates the possibility of interaction and focuses on its expected results – not the action itself. Think a line ‘Play’ or a triangle symbol that signifies the same intention.
Visual Form – Some interactive elements, like buttons or fields for text input, should have distinctly visible margins to specify the interactive zone. You certainly don’t want your potential buyer to take pains in finding the input zone when they’re filling in a shipping address for their purchase, for instance.
Medium/Platform – With interactions requiring different actions on different devices, an interactive design expert should ensure that the choice of interaction-inducing actions is predictable on all platforms.
Time – Certain interactions require time for processing input data and your website should always keep users informed about the state of this data processing. Otherwise, users may consider the website unresponsive and leave without waiting for the result.
Feedback –To give a user the feeling of accomplishment, your website should present a clear result of any interaction. For instance, show the ‘Success!’ notice after a user shares an article from your website to social networks.
The roles of each of these elements seem to be evident and choosing the necessary ones to assemble a smooth interaction flow appears to be a trivial task. Still, I’m sure that just like me, you’ve encountered plenty of web designs with broken interaction flows that puzzled you at one point or another or confused you enough to make you leave.
Just like the negative consequences of bad interactive website design can be grave, the positive effects of quality interactive design can be impressive. Let’s look at just a few of them.
If users don’t experience any troubles when interacting with your website, they have fewer reasons to turn to your support, which leads to minimized support costs. Thus, by ensuring that every interaction instance on your website is properly designed, you shield your support specialists from such trivial issues, and they can focus on complex and unprecedented cases, thus enhancing support quality.
More often than turn to support, visitors who experience a confusing interaction simply bounce and never return. Professionally designed and tested interactive design minimizes the chances of users’ frustrations with your website and prevents a high bounce rate.
Whether your website’s revenue comes from clicks or purchases, it is tightly tied to the processes of interaction. By allowing users to gain a satisfying experience from engaging with your website, you motivate them to engage more often, thus bringing you more revenue.
There’s a caveat to what I said at the very start about good interactive design being natural enough to not attract any attention to itself at all. If you draw your users’ attention to interactive elements by adding some feel of freshness and creativity to them.
Benefit from the comfort of your users
A user interacting with your website is a client communicating with your business. Just as you wouldn’t want your business communication to appear confusing and unproductive, you shouldn’t let these qualities define the interactive design of your website. Whether you need to prevent interactive design issues in your future website or want to fix them in the existing one, don’t hesitate to turn to Webzworld’s team for assistance.
The majority of IT companies already favor cloud apps more than on-premises ones, while non-IT organizations start to share that feeling as well. And ScienceSoft’s software development experience proves this trend: more than 80% of our software development projects use cloud technologies.
In this article, I’d like to share the insights on options you have while developing and deploying cloud applications and what benefits you can achieve using cloud solutions in your business.
With the public cloud, a cloud service provider (such as AWS, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud Platform among the most popular ones) offers resources, such as storage, monitoring capabilities, and networking capacities, or virtual machines, to multiple customers on a subscription basis or a pay-per-usage model.
Sometimes, public clouds are associated with insecurity and inflexibility due to their multi-tenant nature. However, the right tenant isolation makes public clouds flexible and secure, even for the most valuable information.
The main idea of a private cloud is that it is used exclusively by one company.
One of the benefits of using a private cloud is a high security level, which is ensured by employing a secure firewall system and hosting the cloud within an isolated network.
However, if you’re a small or mid-sized business and don’t have a huge budget, creating a private cloud for deploying your solutions may be too expensive for you. The costs are definitely higher than deploying in a public cloud, as all management, maintenance, and updating of data centers, hardware and software lie on your in-house team.
Hybrid cloud offers a mix of public cloud and private cloud services. Hybrid cloud deployments allow those services that do not need to be on-premises (e.g., due to data security requirements) to be deployed in the cloud with all its advantages. Compared to the public cloud, this cloud type gives you more agility as you don’t fully depend on third-party providers. Hybrid cloud provides you with a unique approach to data security as you can both store your data in a private isolated environment and use the public cloud for data backup and recovery measures.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provides companies with an infrastructure to develop their applications in the cloud. This type of cloud computing services offers you such resources as virtual machines, storage, and network services.
With IaaS, companies avoid huge capital expenditures as they pay only for the resources they use. Another strong advantage is that you can get any resources needed in just a few clicks by purchasing a required infrastructure element. Thus, by choosing IaaS, you can launch your cloud app fast.
By choosing Platform as a Service (PaaS), besides cloud storage and other resources, like operating systems, you get ready-to-use tools for developing, configuring, customizing, testing, and managing your applications. Such tools can be, for instance, database, application integration, or AI services.
The PaaS model is popular with companies as it cuts the coding time, reduces time to market, and the overall software development expenses.
The serverless model allows for quick development and easy scaling as, naturally, there is no reliance on virtual machines since the cloud executes application code without the need to install anything.
Serverless deployment is financially efficient as a cloud provider charges for the exact compute resources needed to execute your code, not for the number of the virtual machines. Maintenance costs are also pretty low.
In the SaaS (Software as a Service) model, software is used on a subscription basis and centrally hosted in the public cloud. The companies don’t need to build anything from scratch but can find a pre-built solution that can be configured and customized to meet their needs fully.
SaaS solutions cover a wide variety of business needs, such as marketing, accounting, sales, HR, and etc. Popular examples of SaaS products are Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Online, and Office 365.
One of the great options for companies going for cloud app development is autoscaling. It means that the number of cloud virtual machines automatically changes depending on the load. However, you need to be careful not to pay for the resources you never used or for using more than you actually needed.
ScienceSoft’s experience proves that autoscaling works great for businesses. Our team has developed a billing-as-a-service (BaaS) solution for international payment processing. They created a highly scalable solution that automatically scales from using 2 to 50 app servers depending on the load. This helped to make the inherently scalable, sustainable, and auditable billing system.
Cost-effectiveness
Cloud computing makes app development faster due to the use of cloud services instead of writing custom code, thus allowing fewer human and financial resources to be used. Moving to the cloud helps manage the applications more efficiently and reducing maintenance costs. There is no need to maintain hardware or buy additional equipment when the business starts to grow.
Access to advanced technologies
Besides continuously working on introducing new services to their offering, cloud service providers already deliver a wide range of services based on cutting-edge technologies such as AR/VR, blockchain, machine learning, and IoT. For example, Azure offers Machine Learning Studio (predictive analytics technology), while AWS provides Amazon SageMaker tool for quick machine learning model deployment.
Choose cloud computing for your project
Cloud computing solutions can become highly beneficial for your business. However, you shouldn’t underestimate the knowledge and competences needed to deliver and implement such a solution. Your team needs to be proficient in DevOps, know how to work with AWS, Azure or Google Cloud Platform, and establish ample cybersecurity measures.
Asset management is a process of tracking, organizing, and maintaining a company’s assets. It covers numerous types of assets, both tangible and intangible, depending on business type and scope. Asset management can be roughly categorize as follows:
IT asset management (ITAM) involves hardware (e.g., company-owned devices) and software, including subscriptions, licenses, patents, and network infrastructure components.
Financial asset management deals with investments, securities, loans, and more.
Infrastructure asset management is use by public organizations and large companies. It is focus on maintaining, updating, and removing physical infrastructure assets like roads, bridges, and utilities.
A common goal of asset management is to optimize the utilization of assets throughout their lifecycle, increase productivity, and reduce operational costs. Asset management software helps businesses achieve that via collecting asset data, tracking asset lifecycle, and providing automated reports for company management to analyze.
Improve accuracy of asset documentation as compared to manual document management, since human errors like typos or accidental omissions are minimize.
Better asset accounting. Asset management software help be aware of what assets are available and where, who should work on them and when. For example, the software helps identify ghost assets as well as avoid asset theft and loss.
Time and cost saving.Automated asset management workflows allow asset management teams to do more in less time.
Enhanced asset utilization. Asset management software ensures better visibility and control over assets. It provides means to analyze asset utilization patterns as well as plan asset availability and maintenance, thus helping improve asset utilization strategies.
Improved maintenance management. The preventive maintenance feature of an asset management solution help achieve stable and continuous operation of assets.
Better compliance. Keeping in mind all license entitlements and requirements of relevant laws and regulations can be challenging. An asset management system helps minimize legal risks and reduce non-compliance costs.
ManageEngine AssetExplorer is a web-based ITAM tool aim at managing IT assets and offering features for physical asset management. Its features include:
Comprehensive inventory management throughout the asset lifecycle from procurement to disposal for all hardware and software inventory.
Software license management to support compliance, identify unnecessary or underutilized licenses, detect unauthorized software installations, and more.
Contract and purchase order management to monitor contract expiry dates and get contract- or PO-related analytics by parameters like spending patterns, contractor/supplier performance, and more.
Asset reporting to generate pre-built reports or create custom reports on the key asset data in multiple formats. Reports can be schedule and automatically email to selecte recipients.
Configuration Management Database (CMDB) to track all configuration items and their details in one repository and categorize them.
Mobile app to track and manage hardware and software assets in any location.
The starting price is $995 per year for 250 IT assets.
Asset Panda is a cloud-based asset management and tracking platform that offers a range of features like barcode scanning, unlimited users, and custom reporting. Its features include:
Asset tracking, including asset assignment to users or workplaces, contract management, compliance and maintenance tracking, ticketing management, and more.
Barcode management to design and print custom barcodes and QR codes to optimize asset management.
Mobile app with built-in barcode scanning, GPS pindrop, and access to reports to manage assets on the go.
Pricing depends on the number of assets and is available upon request to AssetPanda.
GoCodes is web-base asset and inventory tracking software for companies that need to manage physical assets. Its features include:
Patented QR code tags with unique IDs show asset details like type, serial number, and assignment help eliminate duplicates, and prove ownership.
Automatic GPS tracking with a mapping feature enables managers to see and update asset location every time a barcode is scan.
Automated field service requests help review service records, schedule future repairs, and set service reminders.
Depreciation calculation and reporting for fixed assets based on common calculation scenarios.
Auditing financial performance and operation of assets using a fixed assets register with a possibility to review a complete audit history.
GoCodes offers five pricing plans on a monthly and annual basis, each including different number of assets, users, etc.
Make the most of your assets with asset management software
Asset management is a complicated and intensive process that plays a key role in the operation of every business dealing with assets. If you are looking for a partner who can develop a custom asset management solution to meet your company’s needs, or help you choose and customize an off-the-shelf product, just let us know.
The terms low-code and no-code are often confused with each other. While both low-code and no-code have some similarities, they’re actually two completely different solutions for app development.
With that said, some low-code development platforms also offer no-code capabilities. Other platforms that are branded as no-code tools have some low-code options built in. (It’s no wonder that even savvy business users confuse these terms).
If you need help distinguishing the difference between low-code and no-code platforms, you’ve come to the right place.
This guide covers everything you need to know about low-code vs. no-code, including a clear definition of each, the differences between them, the pros and cons of no-code/low-code, and the best no-code/low-code platforms for development. Let’s dive right in.
What is Low Code?
Low-code makes it possible for professional developers of varying skill levels to quickly build applications with minimal hard-coding efforts.
Using no code to create software can best be compared to traditional development. The only difference is that no-code platforms offer different shortcuts that streamline the process. Rather than spending time coding repetitive tasks from scratch, low-code platforms have basic software elements and infrastructure already built.
Low-code platforms follow a rapid app development (RAD) approach that includes things like automated code generation through drag-and-drop interfaces, pull-down interfaces, and other visual building blocks.
Developers can focus the majority of their efforts on writing code for the smaller parts of the application that make it unique compared to other apps on the market. But all the boilerplate and repetitive code is handled by the platform.
As a developer, you can still write custom code over the automated code provided by a low-code tool.
What is No Code?
No-code is exactly what it sounds like. It enables anyone, regardless of technical knowledge or programming experience, to create applications without writing a single line of code.
The possibilities of no-code development stretch far and wide. They’re trusted by citizen developers to create apps for business processes, entrepreneurs launching new websites, and business owners building mobile apps to expand.
Similar to low-code, no-code development also uses a RAD approach. But it’s completely hands-off when it comes to coding and programming.
No-code platforms are 100% dependent on using visual tools, plugins, modules, and drag-and-drop builders to create an app.
In simple terms, anyone can use no-code platforms without any specialized skills or training.
Some of you might have experience building websites with platforms like Wix or Squarespace. Both of those tools fall into the no-code category.
What’s the Difference Between Low Code and No Code?
There are definitely some similarities between low-code development platforms and no-code app makers. But at a granular level, you’ll see that there are major differences between low-code and no-code when you look at the details.
Let’s take a closer look at these differences below:
End-User
Low-code solutions are made for professional developers. These users need to have a background of programming and development to use a no-code tool. But they’re just looking for a shortcut that doesn’t require 100% custom code from scratch.
Anyone can use a no-code platform, including average business users who don’t have any development experience. While professional developers could technically use a no-code tool, most would prefer a low-code system—as it allows them to use their unique skills.
Open vs. Closed System
Low-code leverages open systems that allow users to add functionality to an application by writing code. For example, developers can create a custom plugin or feature on an open system and then re-use that code later for another project.
Traditional no-code platforms are close. This means that you’d need to rely on pre-built plugins and templates for functionality. There’s no manual code written that can customize anything beyond the platform’s capability.
With that said, there are some no-code platforms that do offer custom extensibility through an open system.
7 Tried and Tested Strategies to Make Your Website a Lead Magnet, Building a customer base is one of the biggest challenges that new businesses face. While large enterprises will spend thousands of dollars on pay-per-click ads and social media campaigns, small businesses don’t have those kinds of budgets and often have to rely on organic ways to find their customers. However, this should not dissuade you from starting your business.
Fortunately, there are several easy-to-implement and inexpensive methods of capturing useful leads for your business, such as your official website. The advantage of using your site as a lead magnet is that you have full control over what you publish and how you track visits and conversions. Moreover, it just improves the overall quality of your website, which is crucial when you are competing in cyberspace.
If you are looking for ideas on how to turn your website into a lead magnet, read on for seven useful tips.
1. Pick the right domain name
This may seem unusual, however, it is a great strategy to attract quality leads. Your domain name is the first thing people will see when they search for you. Finding the right one is a small yet crucial first step towards creating a strong web presence. By making it easier for people to find you and remember you, you increase the likelihood of converting them into leads.
When thinking about your domain name, you must consider the following:
Is it short?
Long and clunky domain names are hard to remember, prone to being misspelt, and may also seem spammy. For instance, if you are looking to buy a secondhand car online and find two links in the search results, would you rather click on www.used-carz123.com or www.usedcars.store?
Pick a domain name that’s short and simple, ideally not more than 18 characters. Avoid using a hyphen, numbers, or modified spellings that may confuse people.
Is it contextual?
Avoid going with something random and completely unrelated to your business just because the domain name of your choice wasn’t available. Try finding your top preferences on new domain extensions such as .STORE, .ONLINE, .SITE, .SPACE or .TECH.
Not only are they easier to acquire, but they also provide more context to your domain name. For instance, if you come across the domain name www.getgrocery.online, you immediately know what the website is about and the domain name has an appealing ring to it too.
Is it creative?
You need a domain name that sets you apart from your rivals and intrigues people to click on your URL and learn more about you. Try to be creative without being cryptic. For instance, www.yourzen.space is a great choice for a wellness and fitness center.
2. Focus on your website’s design
Your website’s design should be clean, aesthetically appealing, and easy to navigate. Cluttered layouts can be off-putting for visitors and also make you come across as unprofessional, whereas a well-designed site shows your visitors that you are skilled, experienced and care about the finer details.
Your design should inspire confidence in the visitors’ mind that they have come to the right place. It should reflect your industry and your brand’s personality. For instance, a website that sells children’s learning aids should use playful elements and bright colors, while a news website should focus on high picture quality and clear, easy-to-read fonts with less distracting elements.
3. Reduce the loading speed
The Internet is all about instant gratification. If your website takes a long time to load, the bounce rate is bound to be high. According to this 2020 report by Ezoic, loading speed of 1-3 seconds may lead to a 32% bounce rate, while a speed of 1-10 seconds may lead to a 106% bounce rate. Make sure that your website pages load within seconds by finding the right web host, compressing your images, installing fewer plugins and minimizing HTTP requests.
4. Start and maintain a good blog
Customers spend a lot of time researching the products they need online. Why not provide them with everything they need on your own website? Starting a blog is not only a great way to engage, educate and inform your audience but also to strengthen your credibility as an expert in the field.
Post content related to your industry and products, such as latest trends, product reviews, guides and how-tos in different formats such as articles, videos, infographics, and even podcasts. For inspiration, check out these blogs by Walmart, ExxonMobil, and Hewlett Packard
5. Provide clear call-to-action (CTA) in your blog
Make it easy for visitors to take the desired action by providing relevant product links and CTAs throughout your blog posts. For instance, if you are an online fashion store and your blog post is about 5 stylish must-haves this monsoon, you can provide links to the products mentioned in your post along with short and simple CTAs, such as “Buy these boots at flat 10% off”.
6.Optimize your website for mobile
A lot of online browsing and shopping takes place on mobile phones these days. According to a report published on Broadband Search, mobile traffic in 2019 had gone up by 222% compared to 2013. With so much online traffic coming from mobile phones, every website needs to ensure that it is optimized for use on phones. You don’t want visitors bouncing off your website just because it takes too much time to load or the layout looks weird on their mobile devices.
Test your website on various mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets to see how long it takes to load, how simple the navigation is, whether the layout looks good, and whether the pictures look high-quality and the text readable. You can even run it through an online test such as Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to get a report on what are the strong points of your website and which areas need improvement.
7.Ask for their email addresses
When visitors create accounts on your website, provide you with their email addresses, and subscribe to your newsletter, it helps you get repeat business from them. You can use their information to track what they are browsing, which products and services are of interest to them, their purchase history and whether or not they have abandoned their shopping carts.
This will help you retarget them with relevant information and products that they are likely to buy and even get them to complete the purchases in their abandoned cart through discounts and other special offers.
Your website would be the ideal place for capturing people’s email addresses. However, new visitors will most often be wary of divulging personal contact details unless you give them an incentive to do so. For instance, you could offer them a free product such as an ebook, access to tutorial videos and other premium content or attractive deals (Sign up now and get flat 30% off on your first purchase!). Once you have their information and have a fair idea of their shopping and content consumption behavior, your chances of converting them into leads and eventually into repeat customers will increase manifold.
Software as a Service (SaaS) has earned a high reputation in the market owing to which startups are joining the software industry on a wide scale. However, when it comes to developing software and releasing it in the market, having a simple idea is not sufficient. There are a bunch of failed software products in the market. But not all of them are successful in satisfying the target audience. Owing to this, software companies are suffering from hefty losses. In accordance with CISQ reports, the cost of development of poor quality of software in the market amounts to more than $2.84 trillion in the United States.
There is deterioration in the quality of the software for a plethora of reasons. One of the top reasons which can contribute to the cost is the failure of the software. The tech start-up industry is rapidly progressing whereas the competition is at its peak. In such a condition, launching a product of top quality is consider to be a start-up survival kit.
If a product, launch in the market is filled with bugs, a lot of time is wasted in the marketing of the product and a lot of money is spent from the pocket. Thus, software companies have to push the deadline for fixing the bugs. Such kind of issues are not affordable for start-ups and newbies in the market.
Immaculate Software Testing
Quality Assurance after the development of the software is useful to the team in detecting a bunch of potential defects which, in turn, helps in avoiding extra loss. Development of detailed software testing plans along with the effective strategies offers a wide array of advantages such as saving resources and time and ensuring the development of a quality product at the same time.
Development of strategies for software testing depends on the process which is adopt for software development. At present, the majority of the products are develop with the aid of microservices architecture which is known to be a variant of SOA. In such a scenario, it is recommend to opt for microservices testing strategies that are suitable for the product.
Third-party services might slow you down
Owing to the innovative technologies such as API integrations, it is possible to hook the website up with a plethora of service of your choice. For instance, you might use a plugin which is helpful in developing a promotional banner or customer analytics. Owing to these services, your website might start malfunctioning or slow down. Though it might not be apparent on the devices, real users with various geographical locations and browsers might get affect. Here is a list of the software testing strategies which helps in ensuring that a perfect and high-end product is being released in the market:
Let’s look at software testing strategies to boost business growth
1. Aligning the Quality Assurance strategies with the objectives of the business
Specific software is releasing in the market while keeping specific achievements in mind. The growth of the business is generally determine through various achievements. It is essential that the business owners ask different questions like the objective of software testing, the effect of the process on the achievement of the goals of the business. It is necessary to communicate such goals to the whole company which are inclusive of QA services, as well as, the software development team.
2. Developing a detailed plan for Quality Assurance and testing processes
It is a prerequisite that the QA companies devise unique strategies which are align with the objectives of the business. It is possible to execute the strategy effectively if the whole process of testing is document completely. Documentation is consider to be the key to the maintenance of consistency in quality. Thus, it is possible to divide the plan into four segments, which include a quality management plan, testing strategies, test plan, and test case.
3. Creating an ideal work environment for the software testing team
Developing a quality work environment is know to have a positive effect on the attitude of the testers. To ensure a healthy and sound work environment for the team, you require opening communication, expanding the knowledge base, involving Quality assurance team during the product development.
4. Testing for user acceptance
Good quality software is develop while keeping the requirements of the potential audience in mind. The quality assurance team should have a prerequisite understanding of the defined user persona for the test and product, on the basis of user types. In this scenario, it is possible to engage the end-users in the last stage of development. It is also necessary to conduct user acceptance during the time.
To achieve the same, you require defining a method for the User Acceptance Testing procedure. After this, you need to conduct the testing in a proper and organized way. After this, you require documenting the process. There are a plethora of applications which are know to include user onboarding prior to its entry into the app. In addition to this, it also provides a brief about different functionalities and how to use the app.
5. Measuring the quality of the code
Ensuring the quality of code is vital for software testing, there are specific metrics which play a vital role in ensuring the same. The code is free from bugs and errors and is running smoothly. According to the CISQ software quality model, there are certain metrics which are effective in measuring the quality of the code which include security, performance efficiency, rate of delivery, and reliability.
Let us begin by understanding the concept of Automation Testing for Mobile apps:
Smartphones are deeply connected with our lives. We use it to do things like call, use Facebook and Twitter, find directions using Maps, check the real-time weather, manage bank accounts, shop online and a lot more things. In short, for almost everything under the sun. Mobile application development in this regard is thus on the rise.
Google Play Store and Apple App Store have a plethora of apps. On average, every idea usually has more than one app. With this increase development of mobile apps, there is an equally increased demand for good quality applications.
More often than not, mobile apps are unresponsive and not compatible with different versions of operating systems. Hence, some users have a good experience while some others don’t. Overall this affects the quality of the apps as well as user experience. To overcome this, quality testing is a must.
As a web developer, testing is at the crux of delivering a fully-functional and bug-free product. Moreover, is an integral part of the Software Development Cycle. However, unlike with desktop software, testing mobile apps is an exhaustive and time-consuming process.
Let us begin by understanding the concept of Automation Testing for Mobile apps:
Automation Testing Life Cycle falls under the Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC). Unlike Manual Testing, Automation Testing hastens validating the software. However, automation testing comes with its fair share of challenges. Moreover, this task becomes more daunting with mobile apps as each smartphone is configure differently:
1.Software: Diverse Operating Systems (OS) is one of the key challenges when it comes to mobile automation testing. Automation Testing helps in testing the responsiveness and functionality of your app across various operating systems like Android, iOS, Windows etc.
2.Hardware: Taking into account the hardware specifications of a mobile phone and testing it is a challenge, as each phone has a unique design. Hardware includes different screen-size, RAM size & storage, processing speed, CPU optimisation etc.
3.Networks: Finally, the network plays an important role in the running of a mobile app. Speed and performance of an app may vary on different networks. Also, one should take into account the various network models viz: GPRS/GSM/Wi-Fi/LTE/4G/Bluetooth. Another important concern is that speed of a network may vary depending on the geographic location of the user. If your app, reacts differently to network speed then it could pose a problem.
To overcome these challenges there are different Automation testing tools available today. Let us check some of these.
1.Appium
Appium is an open source automation cross-platform tool, used to test the UI of an app. It is a tool for Android, iOS, Windows development platform. It can test three core types of apps – native, hybrid and mobile web apps. Appium uses Webdriver, Java, C and JavaScript for writing tests and supports several client libraries like Java, C#, PHP, Ruby, Python and JavaScript.As a web pro, this tool is both user and pocket-friendly, especially if you are a new startup and have just begun your development and testing journey.
2.Bugsee
Bugsee is a cloud-based freemium tool that constantly monitors the state of your app. It reports a bug when it is detect and sends you a detailed information report. To send a report to the app developer, a bug tracker software, in this case, an SDK is embedded in the app. Should you want to use Bugsee on a web app, it can be done by installing a Chrome plugin. Bugsee supports Android and iOS apps. It also supports apps built in Cordova and React Native framework. Bugsee can be use during beta testing, live deployment and initial development phase.
3.Cross Browser Testing
Cross Browser Testing is a Cloud tool allowing testers to run manual, visual and selenium tests easily. It is compatible with over 1500 mobile devices and most desktop browsers testing securely behind firewalls. The three core features of this tools are, live interactive testing, automated testing on several browsers at the same time and visual testing to capture screenshots, comparisons as well as testing if the layout of your app is responsive or not.As a web pro, since this is a web-based testing tool it allows you to share test results with your team easily and helps with collaboration.
Overall, mobile testing, though a relatively complex procedure, is the need of the hour. With the growing rate of smartphones in the market, user competition is also increasing. If you wish for your app to survive in the industry making it robust and agile is the only way to go.
Many different types of tests can be used in software development to make sure that changes to code are working as intended and expected. However, not all tests are based on the same assumptions. The following article describes the different levels of tests used in the software development process.
Levels of testing in software engineering
1. Module Testing
Module testing, often referred to as unit testing, is aimed at finding defects and verifying the functionality of the software (such as functions, objects, classes etc) that can be tested separately.
It can be performed in isolation from the rest of the system, depending on the context of the software development cycle and on the system itself. You can use plugs, test drivers, and simulators.
Module testing may include testing of functionality and some non-functional attributes such as resource utilization (e.g. memory leaks) or resilience, as well as structural testing. Test cases are designed from products such as module specification, software design, or data model.
Module testing is typically performed with source code access and with the support of a development environment (e.g. unit test libraries, debugging tools) and, in practice, usually also involves the developer who writes the code. All defects are fixed as soon as they are discovered without formally managing them.
In this case, it is also possible to prepare and automate test cases before coding. This approach is called “test-first” or “test-driven production”. It is a highly iterative approach and is based on a cycle of creating test cases, then building and integrating small pieces of code, executing component tests, fixing bugs, and repeating the process until the tests are passed.
2. Integration tests
Integration tests check if software components work together correctly, trying to detect errors during the interaction between systems or their parts. The interaction between a web application and a database or between two classes is a great example of this.
We can categorize integration tests as system integration tests or module integration tests which differ in scale.
When we talk about the integration of functions, methods, classes – we are dealing with module integration tests.
When we talk about connecting large elements such as programs, entire application modules, or systems, we are talking about large-scale system integration.
3. System tests
The main purpose of system tests is to check whether the solution meets the specified requirements (functional and non-functional). They take place on a fully integrated system. It is best if the environment in which tests will be performed is as close as possible to the production environment where the system will operate.
The difference between the environments comes with the risk that our tests will not detect a failure that may manifest itself in the production environment.
At this stage, you can run end-to-end testing. This includes functional testing from the user’s perspective. Ideally, system testing should be performed by people who know how the software should work. Therefore, for a tester, it is necessary to understand the tested system. There are situations when the system has incomplete or no documentation at all. As a Tester, you must be able to handle this challenge.
4. Acceptance tests
Acceptance tests are most often performed by the client or a team on the client’s side. Its purpose is not to find faults, but to verify that the software is acceptable to contract, law, and customer and user expectations. You can often find this level of testing referred to as “acceptance”. Remember that acceptance tests may not always be the last tests performed. There are three examples in the ISTQB syllabus that can be performed at multiple points in the software life cycle. Tests can be performed:
when installed or integrated
during component tests
tests of new functionality can be carried out before system tests
5. Soft skills required?
To be an effective tester one needs to have so-called ‘soft skills’. Efficient cooperation with team members daily requires a wide skill set including the ability to discuss complex issues, translating them (in a simple way) very often to non-technical people.
Furthermore, a good tester has to be a quick learner who is open to feedback. When Agile is a chosen methodology, good organization work and independence are of great importance, manifested in the ability to carry out individual tasks with a great sense of responsibility. A good tester should also be persistent, consistent and be able to cope with stress and fatigue.
Coming up with a unique app idea, no matter what goals you want to achieve with it, simply isn’t enough anymore the mobile app development markets is simply too competitive. It is getting harder to stand out, and the investment is large, both considering your time and budget.
Going into the mobile app development stage unprepared can result in costly, frustrating and brand-damaging mistakes.
However, if you invest your time to piece these building blocks together, you will make the development process fundamentally easier and give yourself lots of competitive advantage. It takes some effort to have a successful app, but it’s incredibly worth it.
So many app developers get too caught up in their app ideas and the big picture of a complete app, that they overlook the early stages. Forget about the day your app launches right now. You must learn how to start an app first, then you can move on to create an app and really dive deep into the app development process.
Let’s get started!
1) Deeply research your market
The first step to inform everything you do moving forward is a thorough market research. You need to know the current offering on the market and use this knowledge to find a gap your app will fill and serve a fresh, complete solution to the problem you’re solving.
Extensive market research should help you discover:
Who are your competitors?
What is their strategy?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of other app developers in this market?
What are their customers saying in the reviews and on social media?
What is their unique selling point?
When you have the answers to these questions, you will be able to avoid your competitors’ mistakes, double up on the strategies that work, and clearly define your unique take on the problem and the path to solving it. There are millions of available mobile apps, and this is your opportunity to ensure yours stands out.
Browse through the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store to see what else is out there. If few apps fit the description, it’s either good news or bad news. On the one hand, there might not be a market at all for the app. On the other hand, there could be a void in the market, opening the door for new app businesses to take advantage.
2) Define your elevator pitch and target audience
Can you articulate your app’s specific purpose? Can you name its difference from your website and its specific use cases? This is probably the trickiest step for business owners and marketers. Boiling all your ideas down to one or two sentences of clear purpose is hard, but it’s also one of the core steps to ensuring the success of your app.
This is the time to define:
What will be the app’s key functionality?
Can you define what problems your app solves?
Who are the potential app users?
Why would people want to use it?
What is the added value compared to a mobile website?
Which business goals will it help you achieve?
What audience will benefit from it?
What does that audience need and crave?
Being honest when answering these questions will ensure you don’t waste resources on redundant app features or targeting the wrong groups of people.
If you can’t clearly articulate the situation where your app solves a problem, there might not be an app business to pursue here. App ideas are useless if they don’t solve problems for real app users.
By now, you should also be confident about your elevator pitch. If you accidentally found yourself in front of a potential investor and they asked you about your project, how would you convey your mission in only a couple of sentences in less than a minute? Again, strong focus and clarity this early in the process can amplify your success in so many ways, so don’t miss your opportunity to be precise and clear with your app’s purpose early on.
3) Choose between native, hybrid and web app
There are a couple of technical decision to make early on, and this is a crucial one. Choosing between native, hybrid, or a web app carries many implications for your later development and maintenance. This is why it’s key to leverage your market research and the core purpose and functionality you’ve just defined, so you can make the best decision.
The core differentiations between native, hybrid and mobile apps are:
The programming languages they are built in. This affects and depends on your budget, desired time frames, and available expertise.
Access to native device APIs. This will depend on the device’s functionalities that you want your app to access.
Distribution method. This will largely affect the way you market your app and define your promotion strategies.
Multi-platform support. This will be based on your target audience and the market you want to penetrate; most often, you will want to be present both on Apple’s App store and Android’s Play store.
Native apps are perfect for heavy-duty tasks such as gaming or the use of photos or videos. On the other hand, web apps are best for solutions that require easy updates, but don’t require any access to device’s native abilities.
These two types sit on the opposite sides of the spectrum, with native apps being most expensive to develop and findable in different app stores, while web apps are quite quick and low-cost to develop, but you can’t amplify them through app stores or have your users download them to their device.
The best of both worlds are hybrid apps: they use the same code base for both platforms, they can access device’s features and they live in both app stores. In short, you can build an iOS app and Android apps simultaneously with a single build. They are also an ideal choice for most app goals and purposes, including productivity, utility and enterprise apps.
Once you’ve decided on your app type, you will much more easily allocate your resources and plan your entire development project.
4) Know your monetization options
An app can play many different roles for your business and your bottom line. Generating revenue directly off the app is an obvious one, while others may simply be serving as a resource for your audience, or indirectly assisting other phases of your sales funnel and increase your brand’s reach.
As with any other choice, each path as benefits and disadvantages. While your decision now can be changed later, it’s important you gain a solid understanding of all the models first, and steer your mobile app development based on what aligns with your business best.
5) Build your app marketing strategy and pre-launch buzz
If there is an element that so heavily affects your app’s success, it’s the preparation to market and amplify it, including your branding, PR, pre-launch efforts, outreach, and simply overall web presence.
This is the right time to start with the following:
Define your branding. How will your name, colors, logo and the tone of your content set you apart from the millions of other apps and businesses? Ensure consistency of all these across your app and all platforms you exist on.
Find your channels. Where does your target audience mostly hang out? Are they easier to reach through social media or email? Do they prefer video over written content? How much time are they spending on their mobile device?
Create content. Based on your answers in the previous point, you should now know what content your audience craves and where to reach them. Start mapping out your written and/or video content and sharing it on selected channels.
Kick off your outreach. What people are influencers in your industry, both small and large? Put some effort into reaching out to them in a personalized manner and provide them lots of value for putting your app in front of their audiences.
You can even create an app landing page that you’ll ultimately use to drive app installs and promote all the features. Even if you just have the app title right, it’s worth it to get this page build. Some of you might even take the app’s graphic design concept to create some nice visuals for the landing page. All of this will improve your app marketing strategy.
These steps will make promotion easier when the launch time comes, and you will have a warm community to launch for.
6) Plan for app store optimization
Many steps you’ve done so far, including your market research, your app’s unique purpose and your marketing strategy, largely affect your app store optimization strategy. This is the key to discoverability in the app store; over 60 percent of all apps are found through this organic search.
It’s important to respect both app stores’ requirements and best practices, and use this as a brilliant opportunity for your app to shine with its visuals, features and distinctive purpose.
While you won’t be able to complete all the ASO tasks this early in the process (nor should you), this is an ideal time to start sketching out your final app store look and feel, and ensure that the development follows your ideas.
The key elements for app store optimization are:
App name: it should easy to spell and pronounce, unique, and descriptive, fitting within the length limits (50 characters for iOS, 30 for Android)
Keywords: this is only applicable to Apple, and it’s an extra space to specify the search terms relevant to your app for the app meta data
Icon: use a clear color palette, avoid using lots of small details, and opt in for contrasting colors and a simple, clear concept
Screenshots: make sure to use all five screenshots and to leverage caption texts to tell a story and highlight benefits, including the app design
Preview video: it should be short and go straight to the point, with a clear and universal message that will work in any localization. You can create YouTube videos and repurpose the content for ASO as well
You’ll need different an app store connect account and developer account to manage your ASO. Things like your app icon and user feedback can also play a role in how the app market perceives your app project. Early adopters have a big impact on the long-term success of your iOS apps and Android app. Getting this right will make it easier for you to offer in app purchases from actual users.
7) Know your resources
Ideally, you’ll be able to announce your launch date ahead to create the buzz around your launch and make people excitedly wait for it.
For this to happen, you need to be aware of the development time frame in front of you. According to Kinvey’s report, most businesses need between 7 months up to over a year to develop and deploy a mobile app.
This is why you need to start conversations with your developers and technical teams as early as possible. This will help you guide your entire project more effectively and allocate appropriate due dates to various planning and development stages, including:
Use case(s) definition
Mapping of required functionalities
Minimum viable product (MVP)
Wireframing
Programming language/platform selection
Coding
App design
App analytics
Testing
You should also think about the way you’re going to make an app. Will you hire an app developer? Or will you use an app builder to make your own app?
These early decisions in the app making process will have a significant impact on your app business and development process over time. With an app builder, you don’t necessarily need to learn iOS development to make an iPhone app for the iOS app store. You don’t need to learn software development for Android apps either.
Another costly factor is the ongoing support of the app. It will require continuous monitoring, crash logs review, optimizing for user experience based on comments, and keeping up to date with the operating system updates.
Knowing what resources you’re working with early on will prevent any emergencies and delays further down the line.
8) Ensure security measures
And finally, you must include a privacy policy in case your app will collect any sensitive information from users. This policy needs to cover what information is being collected and how is it used.
Lots of app developers are so focused on their own apps and the app idea itself that they neglect crucial security features. But security is an important step whenever you make an app or start a new app project.
The security of your app is one of its key points, and you must ensure it is being built early in app development. Your users’ data is your most valuable asset, and you should ensure you have processes in place to collect, handle and store this data, as well as to manage any potential security risks.
Today’s web application development industry is one of the most competitive and inventive. New programming languages, frameworks, platforms, products, and tools are released every day. So it’s no surprise that even experienced coders find it challenging to stay updated.
Furthermore, it’s getting increasingly popular since it’s less expensive to create, has many features, and is quite adaptable. Although it has advantages and disadvantages, you will discover that the advantages exceed the disadvantages.
The purpose of this article is to inform you about the most popular web application development products today. When you have web application development services, the procedure will be simple. Moreover, these tools will help you speed up and simplify your web development process.
Here is the list of Most Popular Web Application Development Products Today:
Chrome dev tools
Google Chrome provides several features that can assist with web application development. These are incorporated within the browser and are helpful for web developers. For example, users of DevTools will be able to examine messages right in their console; execute JavaScript in real-time without having to write a single word of code. This might be useful when solving issues or speeding up a website.
For any web developer, Chrome DevTools are a must-have. The performance panel allows you to improve site speed, monitor runtime performance, identify forced synchronous designs in Canvas documents and investigate Network activity quickly due to its built-in Developer Tools feature.
Furthermore, it also has security features like identifying security issues and detecting Web page errors.
AWS Cloud9
AWS Cloud9 is a cloud-based integrated development environment (IDE) that helps you write, execute, and debug various programming languages like JavaScript, Python, C, and PHP using only a browser. It was open-source in 2010. However, in 2016, it was bought by Amazon Web Services (AWS).
AWS Cloud9 also allows you to share your development environment and code with your coworkers in real-time. It saves you time and dramatically enhances the quality of your work because it comes preloaded with over 40 programming languages. File dragging, debugging, and code completion recommendations are valuable features.
Angular
Angular is a TypeScript-based programming platform. It contains everything you need as an all-in-one set of libraries and tools for creating web apps that can expand from startups to huge enterprises with many developers.
It also includes a component-based framework that aids in creating scalable database-driven websites without the need to write a lot of code, comprehensive form management solutions such as sanitisation and data validation features, and routing capabilities that make developing easier by providing readymade components. With this fantastic toolbox, you will not have to go far to work on tasks.
Bootstrap
The Bootstrap toolkit is a set of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript development tools. This desktop tool is handy for creating Bootstrap-based responsive websites. It comes with various components that you may drag and drop to make responsive web pages.
The app’s framework is Bootstrap. It creates semantic HTML that is clear and easy to read. The app offers many premium, fully responsive themes, which you may alter. In addition, each design comes with various pages and widgets that you can mix and match to create your ideal website.
Many stunning components are included in Bootstrap Studio for creating responsive pages. Headers, footers, and galleries are all included in the design. Slides and essential components are also included. Bootstrap Studio can tell you which Bootstrap components are compatible.
ASP.Net
Microsoft’s ASP.Net framework is a web application development platform. It is employed in the development of web-based applications.
The initial version of ASP.Net was launched in 2002. The initial release of ASP.Net was version 1.0. Version 4.6 is the most recent version of ASP.Net. The HTTP protocol is intended to interact with ASP.Net. This is the universal protocol for all web apps.
ASP.NET is a module of the Microsoft.Net platform. ASP.NET applications are compiled scripts created with the.Net framework’s flexible and reusable components or objects. These scripts can access the whole hierarchy of classes in the.Net framework.
CodeLobster
CodeLobster is a handy and cross-platform IDE that is also free. Its primary purpose is to make creating PHP websites more accessible and faster. CodeLobster has been on the market for a long time, and each year it attracts a growing number of new users.
CodeLobster doesn’t work with PHP files. However, this IDE allows developers to modify CSS, HTML, Javascript, and Typescript files. Furthermore, it can give contextual help for any programming languages supported.
CodeLobster is likewise a highly user-friendly and straightforward tool. It combines a variety of essential elements into a single, well-organized location.
Visual Studio Code
Visual Studio Code is a “free editor that assists programmers in writing code, debugging, and correcting code using the intelli-sense approach.” In layman’s words, it makes it easier for users to develop code. Many people claim it’s half an IDE and half an editor, but that’s up to the developers to decide.
Any program we use is based on code that runs in the background. Traditionally, coding was done in traditional editors or simple ones like notepads. These editors used to give simple and basic assistance to developers.
App development is a constantly innovating field that always find new and intriguing ways to improve user experience. Android was introduced several years ago and started a revolution in mobile operating systems. Since then, many things have changed in mobile app development, mostly for the better.
If you are a developer or entrepreneur, this article will help you find the latest Android app development trends. It is aimed at helping you understand what new features you need in your Android app to make it stand out from the crowd.
1. Rise of Android Instant Apps
What are Instant Apps? Instant apps allow Android users to use apps without downloading them. It opens like a web page and can operate from the cloud. Android Instant Apps were first introduced by ‘Google I/O’. Check Google Play Instant.
Why do users like Instant Apps? Imagine that you need to use an app that you don’t have installed on your Android device. But you have a poor connection so installing may take a long time. In Instant Apps, you don’t require to install the app on your device. Instant Apps allows users to access in three ways:
Click “Try Now” on the app with Instant functionality.
Click on a link and reach directly to that app module.
Or by Searching on the web
When a user clicks on a link, banner, or anything with instant functionalities – that user will go directly to a specific page or app’s specific function.
Consider Android Instant Apps from the developer’s side:
Android Instant Apps require the same source code and APIs, which means you need to create only one app, and you will get users from downloads or web searches.
2. Android Apps Architecture
Google’s architecture guidelines help in building high-performance and robust applications. Moreover, they serve as a useful starting point building apps with a focus on the code that helps in making the app unique. The architecture helps in creating apps that are more stable and eliminates the confusion between MVC, MVP, and MVVM.
3. Cloud support
Cloud support is an excellent feature for those who tend to charge several devices and change them often. It helps you access apps on several devices without losing any data. Moreover, you would not need to download all the files again if you have cloud support.
If you need help with Cloud support, check out SupportPro
4. Improvement of Android app security
As we tend to store a large amount of personal data on our smartphones and other devices, we need to make sure to secure the exchange of personal information over wi-fi networks. With the growth of the mobile industry, there has been an increase in threats and attacks over the Internet. Moreover, app developers are expecting to implement stronger encryption of data and constant security updates to preserve privacy in mobile apps.
5. Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI and ML are used by smartphones every single day. For instance, you might be aware of Google’s assistant, which helps with the routine tasks efficiently. Moreover, there are several AI-based photo editing apps, which include FaceApp, Prisma, which make use of this technology.
AI-based features such as chatbots, smart predictions, and voice translators are going to gain popularity this year. Moreover, the combination of AI and ML will bring a lot of changes in the future Android development tools. With these technologies, it would be easier to analyze user behavior and make quick interactions with the app to make precise suggestions.
6. Rise of Chatbots
Chatbot has made it easy for the people to respond 24/7. 58% of the B2B businesses are now using chatbots, and it is one of the critical features in Android development. There are a lot of ways in which you can utilize the chatbots as an alternative to customer support as it helps in answering the customers faster.
7. Wearable App Integration
Wearable technology is becoming a part of our everyday lives and is going to revolutionize how we use digital products for handling our day to day tasks.
8. IoT-Enabled Mobile App
IoT has brought a lot of opportunities for users and developers over a couple of years, and it is one of the latest trends in Android development. These days you will find almost every device connected with the Internet, and IoT is one such technology that is going to be a developing trend.
According to recent stats, IoT is useful in a variety of industries such as logistics, healthcare, e-commerce, and so on. In addition to that, you can also use IoT for e-learning projects such as Edmodo, C-Pen, Nymi. Tutors can even share learning materials online and communicate with parents to update their children’s progress.
9. Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)
AR and VR are changing the way high-quality gaming applications are using. They have taken technology to the next level and have created a seamless experience for the users.
10. Mobile Wallets
Mobile wallets are going to rage this year as more and more people are now shifting towards using mobile wallets such as Google Wallet that will help in driving purchases over this year.
11. More Demand for On-Demand Apps
On-demand applications help in analyzing a user’s location and offer them the required services. Moreover, you will be able to appropriate suggestions on nearby places and can easily navigate as well.
12. Beacons and Location-based devices
There are plenty of developers who use location-based services to enhance user experience and incorporate real-time information. Moreover, with the success of games such as Pokemon Go, the location-based services have gotten a boost and implemented in a variety of ways such as retail, navigation, payment portals, and more.
13.Rising Trend of Blockchain Technology
Blockchain is becoming immensely popular in different industries and is going to evolve shortly as well. It is essential in providing security, public and private blockchain architecture as well as consortium architecture. The app development is achieving great heights and will lead to higher profits.
Android is becoming more fast-paced and is offering a more unified experience to the users to deliver exclusive customer experiences. The trends in Android app development are surely going enhance business strategies and ensure tremendous growth in the years to come.
I hope that this article helps you to make the best choices for your Android app development project according to latest standard and future-proof methodologies
We can help you to build web and mobile app development according to your requirements. We are best in the results of Clutch for Top Android App Development Company.
There are lots of programming languages that exist in the IT industry. But PHP is the most preferred programming language by the developer.
Programs and applications built with PHP technology are more robust. Now, you will know why you should use PHP rather than other programming languages.
What makes PHP development differ from other programming languages?
Some popular social media platforms and websites like Facebook, Yahoo, and more have used the PHP language for their development.
The following incredible advantages of PHP frameworks will force you to choose this language –
Open-source language and free of charge
PHP-based applications can run on every OS device, including Windows and Linux.
Less learning curve due to simple to use
Help in reusing an equivalent code; no need to write new code for the latest event of web development
Assistance in managing codes efficiently and effectively
The flexibility of PHP make PHP combine with other programming languages
Faster loading time over slow internet than other programming languages
Powerful library support
Reduce time and effort to build web applications and content-based sites
This is not the end of the advantages of the PHP framework. PHP development technologies also avail many benefits that you will experience during the use of PHP.
However, some professional developers also deny using PHP for your project. This is because it has several disadvantages, like PHP does not allow modification in the core behavior of online apps. But PHP is helping small businesses develop web applications and websites at an affordable cost.
PHP helps you to create futuristic and entertaining websites and applications. The latest version of PHP, known as PHP 7.4, enhances user experience.
You can also perform several incredible tasks with PHP 7.4. Want to know what you can do with the latest version of PHP and MySQL web development?
Top incredible uses of PHP development language
Some developers think that PHP and MySQL web development language is only used for web pages development. But you will be surprised after knowing the following use of PHP language-
Send notification to your client.
PHP is not only a programming language. It also helps you reduce dependence on third-party email services. For example, PHP lets you create an email list of clients.PHP also helps you send notifications to customers.
2. Cyber security
The number of cyber-attacks is increasing. 64% of companies have faced cyber attacks. That’s why the need for cyber security is increasing. Every company has to make its website safe from hackers.
You can integrate cyber security with your website with the help of PHP. PHP can hold the username and password of your client on a database with full encryption. This feature of PHP helps you to secure the data of your clients.
You can also add two or more step verification for the login of your client username and password. After login, your website will ask for the code sent to the client’s phone number or email address. Most websites and banks use two-step verification to secure website and user data from hackers.
3. CMS system
The needs of every company from their website is different, and these needs differ from time to time. For example, everyone needs to update data and content on their websites, and some of you want to change the website’s content.
The CMS system is one of the essential needs of every website owner. CMS System helps you manage and update data or content over the website. You can edit or manage the website’s content with some simple steps.
PHP helps you to create and secure a user-friendly CMS system. Some experts have suggested creating CMS with scratch for your website. So if you want to create a secure and user-friendly CMS, PHP is best for you.
4. E-Commerce development
It takes a lot of time to create an E-commerce website, and it needs extra effort to create E-commerce websites. However, PHP makes development easy. Therefore, you can avail many benefits by creating an E-Commerce website with PHP.
Instead of writing a complete code from scratch, you can use the PHP framework to develop an E-commerce website. Laravel, Symphony, CakePHP, and more are the most used framework to create an E-commerce website. In addition, you can readily access source code from the libraries of these frameworks.
PHP frameworks reduce time and reduce the effort to create an E-commerce website. As a result, many E-commerce companies use these frameworks to develop an E-commerce website and application.
5. Create images and social media filters
Many are unaware of this feature of PHP. You can also create images with the help of PHP. In addition, you can also create filters for social media platforms like Instagram, apart from photos.
A toolset of GD libraries function in PHP library lets you create graphics in a few lines of code. You can also create filters for Instagram with the PHP extension name Imagick.
Conclusion
Php development is an open-source scripted language used in the web development process. You can avail several benefits of using PHP.
The list of things mentioned above in this article is a quick view. You can also use this language to perform more tasks like AMP integration, cookie handling, and more.
Business strategies are becoming more complex and advanced and enterprises are now shifting towards mobile applications. However, the developers need to build an apt platform using the right set of development tools to reach out to consumers. Over the past few years, the number of programming languages increased for both Android and iOS.
The fate of a business is completely dependent on choosing the right technology for mobile app development.
Certainly, mobile apps are playing an important role in our day-to-day lives. If you want to book a ride, shop online, connect virtually, there are numerous advanced technological mobile apps available at your fingertips.
Have you ever wondered about the things used in making a mobile application that make your life easier? It is also a clear fact that location-based service apps are driving the generation of today.
Today, numerous mobile app development frameworks are available to give you the best user experience. And these app development frameworks help developers to build mobile apps within a specific time and budget.
Types of mobile development frameworks:
Native Mobile Development Frameworks
Cross-Platform Development Frameworks
As there are many options available, it is not easy to choose the best framework for app development. It requires more thinking!
While you search for which is the best mobile app development framework? the answer is there is no best. It depends on the requirements of your project.
To help you make a decision, Let’s understand some of the top frameworks for mobile app development.
10 Most Popular Mobile App Development Frameworks
Listed below are the popular mobile development frameworks that you should look forward to in 2023
1. React Native
Facebook launched React Native and is now one of the most popular cross-platform frameworks available today. Mobile app developers highly prefer it as it offers immense support to the IDEs, along with other mobile app development tools.
It offers an optimal Javascript framework for creating native apps for Android and iOS platforms.
React Native is used for the development of Android and iOS platforms. High-performance mobile apps can be easily built using this framework with less time. As its a cross-platform mobile app development framework, it uses the same code base for iOS and Android applications. To get more idea on React Native, have a look at Real Native vs React Native.
Features
Code Re-usability & Cost-Effective
Compatible third-party plugins
Declarative API for predictive UI
Supports iOS and Android
Ease of Maintenance
2. Flutter
Google launched Flutter. It is available as an open-source SDK written in Dart language. Flutter is a cross-platform mobile app development framework that uses one code base for Android and iOS applications. It is suitable for developing hybrid apps and makes use of a 2D rendering engine referred to as Skia, which is used to create visuals. Newly launched Flutter is the best hybrid mobile app development frameworks
Features
Built-in material design
Flexible User interface
Fast Development
Support both iOS & Android
Strong widget support
High-performance application
3. Ionic
It is free of cost and is another highly preferred framework for developing apps. A client-side framework and helps in building native-based apps with HTML, CSS3, and JavaScript. It supports the latest mobile devices and offers a robust ground for mobile apps. You can also build hybrid apps as they provide HTML 5. It works well with SDK kits such as Angular and is ideal for working with PhoneGap and Cordova.
Features
Intuitive UI components
Faster application development
Powerful & stable development platform
Platform Independent
Complete control over app building
4. Xamarin
Microsoft introduced Xamarin. To make the best use of Xamarin, it is essential that you carry out C# codebase and develops apps for Windows, iOS, and Android. It is possible to share code with Windows and Mac OS platforms with this tool, which in return saves a lot of the developer’s time.
Features
Versatile backend infrastructure
Easy API integration
Cost-Effective and Faster development process
Targets every platform
Storyboard files
5. Adobe PhoneGap
It allows developers to build apps in HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript. If you want to build a hybrid app, then this should be your go-to option any day. It has a cross-platform app development framework. It offers developers the freedom with work without hardware restrictions. You can build apps for both Android and iOS platforms with this tool.
Features
Robust Support
Flexibility
Compatible on all the platforms
Code reusability
Strong Backend
6. Corona SDK
It is one of the quickest frameworks when compared to its competitors. One of the best things about it is that it is supported by Lua, which is a light-weight programming language and offers speed, flexibility, and ease of usage to develop apps. If you want to code at a fast speed without compromising on the quality of the app, then you should try this out. It is supported on both Windows and Mac OS.
Features
Lua-based platform
Pre-dominant APIs
Multiple plugins available
Strong API support
Faster development process
7. JQuery Mobile
This is an HTML5 based mobile development framework and can be run across all devices with just a single code version. It is easier to build both mobile apps and websites with this particular app and is supported by operating systems such as Mac OS, Kindle, Firefox, Blackberry, and more.
It is easy to download the jQuery version with two variants, which include customized framework or the latest stable version. Its popularity and demand are growing day by day as it offers faster app development in combination with plugins.
Features
Lightweight size
Various Add-on plugins
Automatic initialization
Responsive framework
Simple API
8. Intel XDK
It helps in creating meaningful apps in combination with the plugin and offers a cross-platform app development framework. With this, it is easy to develop responsive and interactive apps for all devices.
It is also easy to test, debug, and emulate apart from developing the app. supports technologies such as IoT and popular frameworks such as Node.js. It is easy to preview your project live in case you are making changes in the code and can even drag and drop the apps.
Features
Available for Windows, Linux, and Mac
Compatible on all the platforms
Flexible User interface
Support multiple UI frameworks
Supports Cordova plugin
App debug and profiling options
9. Native Scripts
Native Scripts is an open-source framework to create native mobile applications. It is one of the top frameworks for developing hybrid apps. It uses Native scripts and utilizes similar APIs, which are similar to using Android Studio and Xcode. You will get enough help with the help of tutorials from the website. The framework helps to create Android and iOS apps with a single codebase.
Features
Cross-Platform Development
Direct access to Android & iOS APIs
Native Performance
Code Re-usability
Strong Backend Support
10. Mobile Angular UI
It uses the combination of Angular and Bootstrap frameworks and eases the process of mobile development. With this, you can build apps with the help of HTML5 with this tool. Moreover, developers can also use overthrow.js and fastclick.js to offer a seamless experience to visitors. Not only this, but it is also a free mobile development framework.
Features
Responsive Framework
Interactive Components
No jQuery dependencies
Build fully responsive interfaces with a super-small CSS file
Choosing the right mobile development framework is extremely important to build a robust website. Moreover, as the requirement for every framework is different, you should make a sound choice among the tools so that you can build and develop the mobile app effectively, which is easy to use.
If you are searching for a mobile app development team then our dedicated development team can help you to build your web or mobile application.
11 steps to creating a successful new mobile application.
Today, there’s an app for almost every service you can think of. However, this doesn’t mean no more apps are created. On the contrary thousands of new apps are created each day with very unique ideas. Whether it’s a unique idea that you haven’t found an app to solve or an idea that an app already addresses but you can do better, new apps will continue to be churned out every other day.
So if have had this idea for an app but don’t know how to execute it, here are 11 steps to creating a successful new mobile application.
1. Address a need
The first step to creating anything is addressing a need. If your app doesn’t solve a problem or satisfy a consumer need, why should people use it?
Of course, the need that your app addresses can already be addressed by another app or apps provided that your app does a better job. Of course, the really successful apps are those that address a need that no existing app has addressed yet. After all, every app that addresses the same need can be seen as in competition with each other. If your app addresses a unique need, it has no competition.
2. Identify your audience and revenue model
The next step is two-fold. It involves identifying an audience and in identifying a revenue model.
Identifying an audience is important for developing an marketing your app. If your app addresses a unique need, what kind of people will want to use it? If your app doesn’t address a unique need, why should people use your app instead of someone else’s? Figuring out the kind of people that will be using your app will help you to develop it with them in mind. Once your app is developed, it will also help you to market it to the people who are most likely to pay for it.
That brings us to the next thing that you will need to identify, namely a revenue model. Developing apps cost money. Ideally, your app will be able to raise at least enough money to pay for itself. The only question left is how. Some apps cost money. Having an identified audience can help you to determine how much to charge for your app if this is the revenue model you choose. The other revenue model is to have a free app that runs advertisements. The companies that advertise on your app will then pay your app for advertising space. That’s how radio works. It can be a good investment if you use your free app to advertise your investment. It can also raise your money if you get other companies to advertise through your add.
3. Market research
If you’ve been following along, you probably still have a lot of questions. Market research can provide those answers. Market research involves determining what similar apps already exist. It also answers other questions like how much are people willing to pay for those apps and how much are companies willing to advertise through them.
Conducting market research can cost time and money. Not conducting market research can mean sinking money into an app that no one is willing to pay for.
4. Design your app
Once you have done your market research, it’s time to design your app. Of course, you can hire people to design it for you. They’ll need something to work from, however. You can use tools like Marvel app, Invision app to make what’s called a mock-up. That’s a visual representation of what you want your app to look like.
If you aren’t that computer savvy, you can just draw the mock-up.
5. Identify your development approach
Once you have an idea of what your app will look like, you will have to identify an approach to develop the app.
You could hire someone to develop the app with you looking over their shoulder. You could also outsource app development to a company/agency. Regardless of selecting a full-time developer, freelancer or development agency, you as the product owner is responsible for the mobile app specifications. Here are a guide and editable template on how to write kick-ass specs for mobile apps. It also means that you spend less of your valuable time dealing with app development yourself. Which route you choose should depend on how much you want to put into the app and how much you know about app development.
6. Develop a prototype
Once you know what your app to be and how you want to develop it, the next step is to develop a prototype. The prototype will let you and some of your users know what the app will look like when it’s done. There are two major platforms out there for mobile apps: Apple and Android. For your first app, you should probably pick one platform or other and treat it as a learning experience. Developing an app for multiple platforms can be time consuming and expensive. In the long run, it might be worth your time but take things slow to start out.
7. Identify matrices and measurements
The next step is to identify the metrics that you will use to measure the success of your app. It is important to choose metrics that also relate to the success of your business. After all, if your app isn’t doing well for your business, it might as well not be doing well at all.
The metrics that you come up with will help you decide whether to launch your app as is or invest additional time and resources into it.
8. Identify beta testers
Now that you have metrics chosen, you must test those metrics through beta testers. Beta testers are a limited group of people that will be allowed access to prototype versions of your app. Also called user testing or beta testing is often a way to identify issues that programmers couldn’t identify.
Beta testers should be the kind of people that will use the final version of the app. These are the people that are most likely to identify problems that real users would run into.
9. Release the app
Once you have collected feedback from your beta testers and incorporated it into the final version of the app, it is time to release it to the appropriate app store. That’s the Android Marketplace or the App Store on iTunes. This will allow people all over the world to download your app. That means that this is where the app starts to make you money. It also means that it had better be the best possible version of your app.
Once your app has been released you can start collecting metrics from real users. These metrics should help you to understand how people use your app, but it should also help you to understand how people use your business. You can also continue testing at this time.
The most efficient mode of testing is called split testing. Split testing involves having different versions of your app available at the same time. This allows you to determine which version users prefer.
11. Upgrade your app
Once your app has been downloaded a few times and users are engaging with it, you can begin to think about updating or adding features to your app. Updating and adding features are great ways to expand your audience. This also makes your app more appealing to people who already use it. When an app updates, it reminds your users that you are catering to their needs by keeping an up-to-date mobile application.
Conclusion – Building a Successful Mobile App
Creating an app is always hard. It can be even harder for people who haven’t made an app before. Hopefully, this article will help you to navigate the complications that come from being a first-time app publisher. If you have a great idea for the next killer app, talk to our app developers.
When mobile-mageddon arrived last April, lots of businesses realized that building a mobile website wasn’t just a thing they’d have to tackle eventually, but an absolute must-have right now if they hoped to stay relevant and compete. That Google decided that mobile friendliness is going to influence search rankings is just icing on the mobile website cake.
But even though mobile search has overtaken its desktop cousin, the way people search on mobile and the way they interact with mobile websites once they’ve landed on them is different than the way they behave on desktop. And too few mobile website designers are paying attention.
You can make of that what you will, but here are some hypotheses:
➤Mobile users have a pretty clear idea of what they are looking for when they search—they are on a mission for specific information.
➤If they don’t find what they’re looking for right away on a site, they will look somewhere else.
➤They don’t have the patience to dig deep through a complicated navigation architecture; they expect to find what they’re looking for with just a few clicks.
So…what does that mean for your mobile website design? Quite a lot, actually. Too many designers approach their mobile website as just a scaled down version of their main site, which misses the point, in my opinion. Your mobile website should be an opportunity to really leverage the unique qualities of mobile devices and engage the unique behaviors of mobile users.
Your mobile website should do more than just replicate the information on your desktop, it should deliver the information a mobile customer is looking for in a way that’s optimized for a mobile device. And that means a mobile-first mentality and design principles.
1. Prioritize Performance.
Slow load speed is the biggest frustration factor for mobile web users and one of the main reasons a customer will bounce away from a site; in fact, over three-fourths of consumers will click away from a site that loads slowly or won’t display properly on their mobile device. So you need to worry about performance first or your customers won’t stay on your site long enough to see all your other fancy mobile-first elements. Here are some things to keep in mind while you’re planning your mobile pages.
Keep pages to 1 MB or smaller for fastest load times.
Think carefully about the images you need, and crop, resize, and compress them for faster loading.
”Minify” your code, especially JavaScript; JS requests increase complexity and slow page rendering.
If you want to know how your mobile site is performing, use this Google PageSpeed analyzer for concrete steps you can take if your site is loading to slowly on mobile devices.
2. Rethink Your Homepage Content.
For most small businesses, what mobile website visitors want to accomplish is probably different from what visitors to their main website want to do. All those flashy branding elements and images on your main site homepage aren’t going to interest your mobile visitors. Therefore, the information you put on your homepage should be directed at the needs of your mobile users, most likely some combination of the following:
contact info, with click to call or click to text
location/directions/hours of operation
search bar/product search
place an order/order status/order tracking
make a reservation/appointment/service request
customer login/account access
option to view main website
mobile app download
social media buttons
3. Simplify Menus and Navigation.
The “hamburger” menu is universally recognized and a very mobile-friendly solution to navigation and it also respects the generally accepted idea that mobile navigation should take, at most, three taps to arrive at the desired page. Ideally, you should have just one sub menu under each menu category for ease of use. Be sure to put your most important pages first.
The key consideration in both cases is making your navigation and menu options easy for fingers of any size to tap and touch. Too many options packed in too tightly makes fingertip navigation virtually impossible. Which brings us, logically.
4. Design for Touch.
This is actually more nuanced than doing the obvious: Making sure buttons are large enough and spaced far enough apart that anyone, even someone with fat fingers, can navigate with ease. The average finger needs at least 44 pixels in both dimensions for a good touch experience; anything smaller and user experience suffers.
But beyond that, you need to design your mobile website around the common gestures and motions mobile device users naturally use and using those gestures as much as possible to let users accomplish their objectives on your site. What does that look like?
Letting users tap a button or icon to call you, text you, email you, add an event to their calendar, use GPS to get directions, download a podcast integrating the mobile device’s native functions and apps.
5. Reform Your Forms.
For the most part, mobile users really, really hate to type on their devices, so expecting them to enter a lot of information on your website is a real turn-off that is likely to cause a lot of visitors to head for the exits. So what can you do?
➤Only collect the minimum amount of information you need for a particular transaction. For example, if someone is signing up for your newsletter, you really only need a name and an email address (and don’t forget to use the email keyboard!).
➤If you have an e-commerce site, don’t force customers to register for an account to check out, give them the option of checking out as a guest.
➤For longer, multi-page forms/transactions, give users a status bar to gauge their progress.
➤Use best practices when designing forms for your mobile website. Users have an easier time completing forms with labels above the input boxes like the one on the left.
6. Make It Easy for Them to Find the Products They Want.
Most mobile consumers have something specific in mind when they visit your site; mobile shoppers aren’t really browsers, as this chart showing Amazon’s visitors demonstrates.
A mobile visitor spends just four minutes and checks out about eight pages on average, which means he is spending about half a minute per page. That is a shopper on a mission; the desktop visitor spends twice as long on site per page.
For the mobile website designer, then, the challenge is making sure the menus and navigation makes it easy to find a specific product or narrow down the choices to meet a shopper’s particular needs that day. A mobile device user is most likely not going to spend a lot of time scrolling endlessly through products, so you have to be creative in providing menu options to help him find what he wants quickly.
Take a look at this menu from Paperchase, a UK stationery store. The menu options on the left are neatly organized with helpful submenus that will take the user to a very specific product category to help her find what she wants without a lot of searching.
7. Don’t Neglect Your Fonts and Colors.
One of the worst things you can do is design your mobile website with text too small to be easily read; your users shouldn’t have to zoom to read a single word on your site, especially your navigation text. This leads to a terrible user experience, which is something search engines pay attention to in determining page rank.
For some brands, font choice is a major part of their overall branding, so the decision to switch fonts for the mobile site needs to be made judiciously. If you market to a mainly millennial demographic, you don’t have the same font size issues as, say, a brand that markets to baby boomers.
For easier navigation, choose fonts that are taller and naturally structured to leave a bit of space between letters. Most device manufacturers recommend Arial, Helvetica, Courier, Georgia, Times New Roman, and Trebuchet MS. Pick font colors that stand out from your background colors for easy reading.
And don’t forget the effect fonts have on load times, which is extremely important for mobile websites. When you are choosing a typeface, check it for speed. And only use a limited number of typefaces to keep page loads fast.
Security testing is sometimes thought of as being hard to automate or a testing process that lacks tools and resources to help make it easier to learn.
I find most testers are not even aware of the amount of free, open-source security testing tools available to them.
This is a shame because I believe the next wave of DevOps is adding security tests to our pipelines. There’s even a name for this next wave: DevSecOps.
I thought I’d create a quick resource to point you to some security tools that you can start trying out.
Below are some of the best ones I’ve found or have heard about.
You’re probably aware that modern applications often use APIs, microservices, and containerization to deliver faster and better products and services.
This changing landscape means security folks need to step up their game. DevSlop (“Sloppy DevOps”) is an exploration of this area via several different modules consisting of pipelines, vulnerable apps, and The DevSlop Show.
If you’re looking to start learning more about adding security to your DevOps pipeline, this is a good resource to start with.
Exercise in a Box
Exercise in a Box is a free online tool from the National Cyber Security Centre in the UK. It helps organizations find out how resilient they are to cyber-attacks and practice their response in a safe environment.
The service provides exercises based on the main cyber threats that your organization can do in its own time, in a safe environment, as many times as you wish. It includes everything you need for setting up, planning, delivery, and post-exercise activity, all in one place.
Security testing is sometimes thought of as being hard to automate or a testing process that lacks tools and resources to help make it easier to learn.
I find most testers are not even aware of the amount of free, open-source security testing tools available to them.
This is a shame because I believe the next wave of DevOps is adding security tests to our pipelines. There’s even a name for this next wave: DevSecOps.
I thought I’d create a quick resource to point you to some security tools that you can start trying out.
Below are some of the best ones I’ve found or have heard about.
I recently interviewed Tanya Janaca, who told me about her project, DevSlop.
You’re probably aware that modern applications often use APIs, microservices, and containerization to deliver faster and better products and services.
This changing landscape means security folks need to step up their game. DevSlop (“Sloppy DevOps”) is an exploration of this area via several different modules consisting of pipelines, vulnerable apps, and The DevSlop Show.
If you’re looking to start learning more about adding security to your DevOps pipeline, this is a good resource to start with.
Exercise in a Box
Exercise in a Box is a free online tool from the National Cyber Security Centre in the UK. It helps organizations find out how resilient they are to cyber-attacks and practice their response in a safe environment.
The service provides exercises based on the main cyber threats that your organization can do in its own time, in a safe environment, as many times as you wish. It includes everything you need for setting up, planning, delivery, and post-exercise activity, all in one place.
To use it, you’ll need to register here first.
Mobile Security Framework
Mobile Security Framework (MobSF) describes itself as an automated, all-in-one mobile application (Android/iOS/Windows) pen-testing framework capable of performing static analysis, dynamic analysis, malware analysis, and web API testing. https://opensecurity.in
It can be used for effective and fast security analysis of Android, iOS, and Windows mobile applications and supports both binaries (APK, IPA & APPX) and zipped source code. It can also perform dynamic application testing at runtime for Android apps and has Web API fuzzing capabilities powered by CapFuzz, a Web API–specific security scanner.
Needle
Needle is the MWR’s iOS Security Testing Framework, released at Black Hat USA in August 2016. It is an open-source, modular framework, and its goal is to streamline the entire process of conducting security assessments of iOS applications. It also acts as a central point for you to perform all these security activities.
Needle was designed to be useful not only for security professionals but also for developers looking to secure their code.
Some examples of testing Needle can help you with are:
Data storage
Inter-process communication
Network communications
Static code analysis
Hooking
Binary protections.
Needle’s only requirement to run effectively is that you use a jailbroken device.
Frida
Frida is a dynamic instrumentation toolkit for developers, reverse engineers, and security researchers. I first heard about it from Jahmel Harris, an ethical hacker, security testing expert, and founder of Digital Interruption, who highly recommended it.
Frida is a framework or toolkit for instrumentation, also known as application hooking.
On the Frida website, it says to inject your scripts into a black–box process. Hook any function, spy, crypto API, or trace private application code.
No source code is needed.
Tamper
Tamper Chrome is an extension that allows you to modify HTTP requests on the fly and aid in Web security testing. Chrome works across all operating systems (including Chrome OS).
Tamper Chrome also allows you to monitor requests sent by your browser as well as the responses.
You can also modify requests as they go out and, to a limited extent, change the responses (headers, CSS, JavaScript, or XMLHttpRequest responseText).
Nishang
Is PowerShell your go-to security scripting language?
If so, you should check out the Nishang framework.
It’s a collection of scripts and payloads that enables the usage of PowerShell for offensive security, penetration testing, and red teaming.
Nishang is useful during all phases of penetration testing.
Faraday
If you’ve done any type of development in the past, you know how helpful a well-designed IDE can be to your productivity.
But what about security testing development?
Faraday calls itself an IPE (Integrated Penetration-Test Environment), which is essentially another way of saying a multi-user Penetration Test IDE.
It was designed for distributing, indexing, and analyzing the data generated during a security audit.
Faraday was developed to allow you to take advantage of the available tools in the community in a multi-user way.
They designed it with a focus on simplicity, so users should notice no difference between their terminal application and the one included in Faraday.
Developed with a specialized set of functionalities to help users improve their workflow.
InSpec
At a high level,InSpec is an auditing and software testing framework.
It’s basically an open-source testing framework for infrastructure with a human- and machine-readable language for specifying compliance, security, and policy requirements.
Pocsuite
Pocsuite is an open-source, remote vulnerability testing and proof-of-concept development framework.
It comes with a powerful proof-of-concept engine and many niche features for the ultimate penetration testers and security researchers.
Astra was made for automated security testing of REST APIs.
Their GitHub page mentions that security engineers or developers can use Astra as an integral part of their process so they can detect and patch vulnerabilities early during the development cycle. Astra can automatically detect and test login and logout (Authentication API), so it’s easy for anyone to integrate this into a CICD pipeline. Astra can take API collection as an input, making it able to test APIs in standalone mode.
Examples of the types of security tests you can perform with Astra are:
SQL injection
Cross-site scripting
Information leakage
Broken authentication and session management
CSRF (including Blind CSRF)
Rate limit
CORS misconfiguration (including CORS bypass techniques)
JWT attack
CRLF detection
Blind XXE injection
Pacu
Speaking of API security testing, are you worried about your Cloud-based application AWS APIs getting hacked?
Pacu is an AWS exploitation framework, designed for testing the security of Amazon Web services.
Taipan
Taipan is an automated web application vulnerability scanner that allows identifying web vulnerabilities in an automatic fashion. This project is the core engine of a broader project which includes other components, like a web dashboard where you can manage your vulnerability scans, download a PDF report, and a scanner agent to run on a specific host.
Archery
Archery is an open–source vulnerability assessment and management tool which helps developers and pentesters to perform scans and manage vulnerabilities.
It uses popular open-source tools to perform a comprehensive scanning tool for web applications and networks. It also performs web application dynamic authenticated scanning and covers the whole application using selenium. The developers can also utilize the tool for the implementation of their DevOps CI/CD environment.
Retire.JS
Have a bunch of javascript that you would like to scan for different types of vulnerabilities?
Try Retire.JS, which can scan your code for the use of JavaScript libraries with known vulnerabilities
mitmproxy
Need a way an intercepting proxy for your security testing and be able to run it from the command line?
Check out mitmproxy, which is one of the highest–rated (14,997 stars) on GitHub. Their GitHub page describes it as An interactive TLS-capable intercepting HTTP proxy for penetration testers and software developers.
Metasploit Framework
Metasploit Framework is one of the more popular penetration testing tools out there. It was designed specifically for penetration testing—like how to attack MS SQL, browser-based and file exploits, and social engineering attacks. This is one of the main tools used by hard-core security professionals.
Metasploit contains a suite of tools that can help you do things like performing attacks and testing security vulnerabilities. It contains a number of different modules that can test your application against common vulnerabilities that many hackers exploit. You can also use it to develop your own exploits. In Metasploit, a module is a software component that performs a chosen attack on a specified target.
Selenium
Umm… what is Selenium—a functional automation testing library—doing on this list?
Well, believe it or not, there are many ways to leverage existing functional automated tests, including security testing.
For example, in his Secure Guild session on integrated security testing, Morgan Roman will demonstrate how he leverages his existing Selenium tests to check his applications for cross-site vulnerabilities.
This works mainly by taking existing Selenium tests (or any other kind of test) and then adding a simple security payload to it, and finally injecting some extra detection into it.
This may seem complex at first, but he’ll show us just how simple it is. Register for Secure Guild and check out his session now
ZAP
Speaking of Selenium, another popular way of expanding its capabilities is to use it with the OWASP Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP).
ZAP can help you automatically find security vulnerabilities in your Web applications while you’re developing and testing your applications. It’s also a great tool for experienced Pen testers to use for manual security testing.
Many testers have leveraged ZAP within their Selenium tests to help with their security testing efforts.
Secure Guild
As you can see, there are many tool options available to testers who are looking to get more familiar with Security Testing.
Also, if you are just beginning your security testing career, another resource you should check out is Secure Guild, an online conference 100% dedicated to security testing. Learn more here.
Mobile App Design Process, the thought of creating a mobile app from scratch sounds like an uphill task full of corny, complex coding activities.
But it doesn’t have to be that way! Before developing a new mobile app, you need to design it first. It’s critical to plan every step, and at some point, you might want to retreat and examine what you’re building.
Global app downloads surpassed 218 billion last year. Businesses that made the mistake of not creating a mobile app will continue to suffer in the coming years too.
Having a mobile strategy is essential because this research shows that users spend 90% of their time in apps as compared to surfing the internet.
It’s great to have a mobile responsive website backed by a solid mobile marketing strategy with major resources being allocated to cross-device reach. In today’s competitive era, not having a mobile app has severe implications.
A mobile app helps businesses reach more customers, improve marketing strategies, provide value to the customers, increase brand awareness, increase customer engagement and loyalty, and create one or more competitive advantage(s). Plus, mobile apps can improve your bottom line.
When the average user spends more time looking at a mobile phone than watching television or using a desktop or laptop, what excuse does your business have for not having a mobile app?
The question remains, where and how to start?
There are two phases of any mobile app design.
Mobile app design strategy
App design process
Mobile App Design Strategy
It starts with a strategy. It defines the future and the path to reach your destination.
The issue, however, is with creating a mobile app design strategy. You simply can’t create an app just because your competitor has one. Your competitor might have a different business objective and mobile strategy which are quite different from yours.
Developing a mobile strategy links back to the company strategy and has four stages:
i). Understand the business strategy
ii). Business mobile app strategy
iii). App strategy
iv). Product management strategy
1. Understand Your Business Strategy
Understanding the overall business strategy should form the basis of your mobile app design. Misalignment between company strategy and the mobile strategy might be suicidal.
Recent statistics from the Harvard Business Review show that 70% of employees don’t have enough information about their company’s strategy or their perception of strategy is much different than the actual strategy.
There are several benefits of creating and executing a mobile strategy that’s derived from (and supports) the overall company strategy.
Improvement in quality, value, productivity, employee efficiency, and customer engagement.
2. Business Mobile App Strategy
Your mobile app strategy is your surefire path to achieving success with your mobile app design and marketing in general.
Yes, the success or failure of the app depends on the strategy since everything will be linked to the strategy. It will be easy to create if you have answers to these two questions:
What is the purpose of the app?
What is the benefit that the end-user will drive from using the app?
The simplest way to chart your app strategy is none other than:
“We will build this so that our customers can do that.”
The strategy has to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely. Anything that’s too vague or looks seemingly unachievable, strike it out. For example, having more downloads than WhatsApp isn’t a practically achievable goal.
Other Requirements
If you think a functional app idea, a roadmap, and budget allocation are all that you need for the strategy, think again.
Now is the time to define clear use cases on the basis of the customer journey. This calls for a clear definition of the single app strategy.
A use case is at the center of defining app strategy. It’s defined as the list of actions that define the interaction between a role and the system. The image below represents a simple use case that defines the actions of the buyer and the seller – the roles.
“The number one secret is to focus on one or two main use cases. Let’s not overwhelm the user, but really focus on one or two use cases and do them really, really well.”
The best app strategy is one that uses not more than two use cases. Think of Instagram, people use it when they have to share a photo. This is a perfect example of a single-use case.
4. Define Your Product Management Implementation Strategy
Once the mobile app strategy is defined and documented, it’s time to implement it.
The test strategy should be defined before the coders get to work. Here’s what to include in the test strategy:
What is the scope of the app?
What is not in the scope?
The features
Individual cases
Outcome
App versions and integration
Know The Required Tools
What tools do you need for development, testing, and for maintenance? Though, it mostly depends on the budget allocation.
List all the tools required at every stage of the development and post-development.
Google Analytics, Site Catalyst, or Omniture for analytics and performance.
Splunk, FogLight, or AppDynamics for app performance.
PractiTest, Test Collab, TestRail, or qTest for QA testing.
Basic App Design Process
Benji Hyam, the co-founder of Social Proof Interactive, stated that before you approach an app designer, you must have the following things ready:
Understanding your target market and the end-user
List of things that a user might want to accomplish with the app
Initial wireframes
Budget
This is, more or less, what we have covered in the previous section. Having a mobile app strategy will make app designing super easy.
Mobile app design strategy is an in-house process while app design process can be outsourced or done in-house.
The basic app design process consists of the following steps:
Setting the scope
User/market research
UX wireframe
Prototype
UI design
Animation
Software architecture
iOS development
Testing
Release
Let’s roll.
1. Setting The Scope
The scope refers to what needs to be done, what you want to achieve from the app, and how large/small it has to be. The scope may include all of the following:
The nature of the app
Target audience
Most crucial functions and features of the app
App’s visual design features
Potential technologies to be used
Consistency with the business strategy
Specific preferences
Did you notice that consistency with the business strategy is just one part of this process?
In order to document the scope of the app, it’s crucial to identify all of the following:
Objectives and goals of the app
Phases and subphases
Tasks and resources
Budget
Schedule
Based on the scope, the design and flow of the app will be prepared.
2. User & Market Research
This is the phase where the UX and UI designers will get to work based on the scope of the app and on the app strategy. It involves market research and user research.
How is it Done?
Start by conducting in-depth market research and analyzing the existing apps in your industry. If you’re going to create an image-sharing app, you’ll have to look at the existing image-sharing apps, their color schemes, patterns, flow, etc.
The user research will reveal colors and themes that will help you develop an emotional connection with the target audience.
What type of colors and styles will the end-users prefer? You can use different methods to collect data from potential users such as surveys, focus groups, design workshops, etc.
3. UX Wireframe
The visual representation of the user interface is known as the UX wireframe. You have to create a structure of the user interface, transitions, and interactions. It must be based on market research, user research, competition, and strategy.
You can use wireframing software or you can create a simple outline on paper. Lay down the user flow as you want it to appear on the actual app.
The purpose of UX wireframing is to define the flow of the app such as the number of windows, buttons, where each button leads the user, the registration process, the login screen, and everything related to the front-end of your app.
The low-fidelity prototype is a sketchy prototype that can be created right away as the wireframe is ready. There is no need to waste money on expensive prototypes.
Not only does a high-fidelity prototype consume resources but it takes time.
A simple physical prototype will show you how the app looks. The purpose of a prototype, by any means, is not to test or improve the functionality.
A lot of experts recommend using low-fidelity prototypes to save cost and time. Instead of wasting money creating expensive prototypes, spend money on app functions, features, and on coding.
5. UI Design
Do not confuse UX wireframe and prototyping with the user interface (UI) design.
The UX research, wireframing, and prototyping are about how the app works while the UI design is about how the app looks.
Once the UX has been tested, tweaked, and several prototypes have been tested and finalized, you have to move to the UI designing phase.
At this stage, you have to deal with the visual representation of the concepts, color schemes, fonts, shapes, buttons, font size, images, forms, illustrations, animation, etc.
You have to test multiple designs to see what works best for your users. The color schemes, skins, themes, and all the visual elements have to be tweaked several times to find what works.
It’s somewhat similar to A/B testing with the difference being that in the case of UI design, you have to make the judgments yourself. You cannot bring customers on board at this stage.
6. Interface Animation
The animation should be applied and tested with the UI design phase, so as to test different styles of animation in real-time.
Animation refers to the user interface animation such as how a new screen will pop out and how gestures are defined, and so on.
“Motion design can effectively guide the user’s attention in ways that both inform and delight. Use motion to smoothly transport users between navigational contexts, explain changes in the arrangement of elements on a screen, and reinforce element hierarchy.”
The animation should be functional instead of a simple design element.
Anatoly Nesterov has shared seven types of animations for mobile apps. You can choose from the following list.
Visual feedback
Function change
Element hierarchy
Orientation in space
Condition of the system
Visual prompts
Fun animations
7. Software Architecture Planning
This is perhaps the most crucial part of the entire design process. The core purpose of software architecture planning is to scale the app, and make it better in terms of functionality and design.
It involves the entire team including the designers, programmers, and managers. The idea is to improve the frontend and the backend processes by constructively tweaking the software architecture.
It calls for regular constructive discussion on platforms, frameworks, abstract layers, design platforms, technology, components, etc.
Understand the end user needs before designing and redesigning.
Do not hesitate to invest in architecture.
Identify key interfaces, layers, and subsystems.
Use an iterative approach to designing.
8. App Development
This is the phase where coding begins and the developers start creating the app.
This is something that developers have to do, so make sure you deal with the best coders. The app can be developed for android or iOS depending on your choice.
Instead of creating the app for multiple platforms simultaneously, the better approach is to create the app for one platform first.
Why?
Because developing an app for a single platform from an expert will cost you tens of thousands of dollars. If it turns out to be a poorly coded app, you will find yourself in the middle of nowhere.
Better yet, choose android app development first, since it’s cost-effective as compared to iOS.
9. Testing
When the average failure rate for app testing for android is 16.4%, you can’t afford to launch your newly created app without testing.
The purpose of testing the app is to ensure there aren’t any bugs and the app works as expected.
There are several stages in an app testing process. This type of rigorous testing process will ensure that your app works smoothly.
The app can be tested in-house, outsourced, or the developers can do the preliminary testing. The app testers should not be your developers or partners of the developers.
10. Release
Finally, it’s time to release your app once it has passed the tests.
The app must be submitted to the appropriate app store. It will take time since most of the apps are reviewed before they are published. It can take up to a week for the app to get approval so plan your release accordingly.
Most developers believe that a proper release strategy should be used for app launches.
Partnering with the right business is the best approach that worked exceptionally well for David and Goliath. They partnered with David Eckstein for the launch of their app which turned out to be a huge success.
Mobile Design Tips
The following mobile design tips will help you in achieving your set goals:
1. Iterate user interface designs: This tip comes from Amanda Cline, who is a developer with intensive experience under her belt.
She says:
“It is an excellent idea to iterate the interface design options so as to achieve apps that are fully engaging and retain the attention of targeted users.”
Every single iteration will help you learn a valuable lesson that might not be useful for this project, but it can help you in another project.
2. Understand your users: There is only one rule to designing better apps – understand your users. The best mobile app developers collect user feedback and apply it to the design. This is a crucial part of the mobile application design process.
“When I decided to put speed radar on a mobile device, the capability really wasn’t there, but I knew it would be.”
While designing an app, keep the future in mind. Never design for today because by the time you will finish designing the app, the hardware will have been upgraded and when you launch the app, you will always be behind.
System Architecture
This stage is often overlooked in the app development process. But taking the time to understand your system ensures that you can grow your business without outgrowing your app.
The best apps are scalable, reliable, and secure—but also achieve your goals.
Without a system architecture analysis, something will eventually get lost in the shuffle. So make sure you understand the various entities of your system. Figure out the different data flows between each entity as well.
What workflows will be required for each process? Do you need third-party integrations? What are the technical requirements on the backend?
Create a functional spec sheet that details all of the data flows and flow charts. This information can ultimately be handed off to your design team. A designer will need to understand your system architecture to create a design that makes sense for your specific app and its goals.
Wireframes
Your wireframe will be another crucial tool for your app’s design. Anyone can create a wireframe—you don’t need to be a designer to accomplish this.
Think of your wireframe as a rough sketch of your app’s usability. These can be super informal. I’ve even seen some wireframes sketched on napkins or pieces of paper, although most people today will create a digital version.
Conclusion
Mobile app design can be complicated, but it doesn’t have to be.
To nail the design of your app, make sure you follow the design guidelines explained in this article. Rather than trying to tackle this on your own, contact our team here at BuildFire. We can handle all of the design elements, and more, while providing consultancy services for your app as well.
Our mobile app designers and app developers will double as strategic partners for your app development project. It’s time to take your design to the next level. Let’s build something great together!
Technology is ever-growing, and so are the various testing techniques, such as AI mobile automation testing.
A study by Kobiton showed that companies are willing to invest more and more in mobile app testing.
Mobile app testing is something many applications have to go through. It can be slightly challenging, as Shannon, an evangelist at Kobiton, says, “mobile application automation is challenging to achieve however, new trends aim to ease the process.
Mobile testing continues to increase in importance. It’s essential to have the right strategy and tools for each type of mobile testing.
A big trend I keep hearing these days is about having the ability to integrate app testing with AI and ML. This new trend will help speed the mobile testing process effectively and efficiently.
In this article TestGuild writer, Laveena Ramchandani shares how mobile app testing has evolved and how AI helps deliver this successfully.
What is mobile testing, and why is it important?
Mobile device testing is a technique for testing for functionality, usability, and consistency on mobile apps. Testing on mobile devices is done manually or assisted by automation.
Mobile testing is vital for many reasons;
Conducting business
Make sure the app works as intended
Make sure it’s accessible to a broad audience
Mobile apps usually have more users and need to work on a broader range of devices, leading to greater complexity in testing. While web apps are increasingly used on mobile devices, testing them is not quite as complex.
When it comes to mobile apps, you need to consider various things when planning your mobile app testing.
What can you do before you start mobile testing?
Understand your application
Understand your needs
Critical components of the application and how they function ( eg, iOS device on an Android device)
Automation that needs to be done
Framework required (XY tests and Espresso to remove flakiness, aim for hybrid frameworks)
Make sure your tests are running
Test run at a decent speed
Tests completed in a timely manner
Aim for device fragmentation native frameworks however that work for one platform( could add Appium)
The frameworks for Mobile Automation Testing
There are various frameworks you can use when performing mobile app testing; however, the following frameworks are the highly used/ recommended ones.
Is Codeless Mobile app testing the way forward?
Should you focus on script-based testing or codeless automation?
Good question?
As you’ve seen, mobile testing is still in its infancy, and many scripting issues can cause your test to become flaky.
That’s why you are seeing a lot of frameworks coming out that try to combat issues, such as the Xpath error on Appium.
The answer might be to go codeless with machine learning behind it.
For instance, the ML code can look for another identifier if a locator is not recommended or can’t be found at runtime.
This is an area where artificial intelligence plays a significant role.
The new tech trend that we’re currently seeing ourselves in is commercializing artificial intelligence.
So that is why you see more codeless, scriptless automation solutions that AI is driven,
However, with some frameworks today, you still have to do a bit of manual collation of test steps to stitch everything up and then make it work via the AI enhancements, but this can increase inconsistencies.
That’s why Shannon thinks a solution like Kobiton, on the other hand, showcases true AI-driven, scriptless automation, and it’s true scriptless and based on machine learning algorithms. And there is no need to do the manual drag and drop step.
Pros of codeless
With AI the algorithm learns your application
Robust
AI becomes smarter every time you use the test case over and over
Not time-consuming
Cons of Codeless
More of a top-down approach from UI to the layers below
Not a lot of test coverage with scriptless automation
Not comprehensible, you can do some API tests and e2e but not as extensively
No granular control of what you are trying to automate
So how does Kobiton get around some of these cons?
Nova at Kobiton
The aim of Kobiton here is for Nova to go faster, forward, and be flexible. If you want to go scriptless using AI Mobile Automation Testing, then Nova helps with that too:
Nova captures the XPath associated with every element you touch
Nova generates an Appium script for you
Now you can run your scriptless script on as many devices as you wish
You can run the Appium script as many times as you like after that for any device set within your chosen framework
You can also run your scripts via a Jenkins job or on a CI/CD pipeline.
Kobiton supports CI/CD tools and has integrated with Jenkins. It’s a “first-come, first scriptless and not so much script-based at the moment.”
For those who are not going to go scriptless, Nova provides:
An auto-generated script that you can use
An in-house Appium server that is much faster can help with scriptless testing.
Appium being so great and how it can envelop both native frameworks or native app frameworks, Kobiton can do the same, but it can do it three times faster, leveraging Appium scripts.
flexCorrect to help AI with script-based automation
flexCorrect is the first of its kind coming to the market.
Shannon also mentioned that this is where we see artificial intelligence helps assist script-based automation, especially when it comes to flaky and inconsistent tests.
“So flexCorrect assists in script-based automation so that when you are running your Appium script and say it fails because an element not found on Page flexCorrect will prevent it from falling.
Furthermore, artificial intelligence comes into play by analyzing script-based automation.
So it’s capturing the object within the tree hierarchy of your application, and it’s also doing a manual session, or even just reruns of the test case on a real device Nova Kobitons AI engine can actually map elements across the screen, so if you’re tapping this element on the screen, it will pin that within the hierarchy and capture that XPath right there.
So that’s the two-pronged approach to how flexCorrect works in artificial intelligence, assisting script-based automation.
Also, have one prong that is again capturing the objects to capture the entire hierarchy and learning from it, analyzing it, and then the second prong of being able to map elements, map that element and pin it to the hierarchy. It will correct that instance for you, ensuring that your test continues running.
AI in Mobile Automation Conclusion
AI is currently enhancing mobile app testing and is an innovation again in itself coming from a really robust artificial intelligence engine that’s running it. Shannon says. that this is constantly being worked on with every release to really make sure that it has the utmost confidence and failures and passes and everything so that we can allow our users to know that they’re in good hands using Kobiton.
Wireframing is a crucial step in the mobile app development process. It helps provide a clear vision for stakeholders, development teams, designers, and everyone else associated with the project.
An app wireframe is a backbone for creating a successful design and building an app that users will love.
This in-depth guide explains everything you need to know about app wireframes, including how to make an app wireframe and best practices to follow.
What is a Mobile App Wireframe?
An app wireframe is a two-dimensional blueprint and visual guide that represents the skeletal framework of a mobile application.
The wireframe stage takes place early on in the product life cycle before any actual development or design begins. This initial stage of an app project helps demonstrate how the app will work and what it will look like.
Wireframes should visually illustrate different steps in the user journey as a way to identify potential pain points before the dev team starts building. It should include all of your page elements, navigation screens, content, and main objectives.
An app wireframe gets everyone on the same page, so the team knows what they’re building, and stakeholders know what to expect as the final product.
Wireframes do not include any colors, stylized graphics, images, logos, fonts, or mobile app design elements. They’re simply early sketches that show how the app will be used.
You can think of a wireframe as the blueprint of a house. It contains all of the rooms, doors, windows, electrical infrastructure, and plumbing but does not include any furniture or decorations.
Why Are Mobile App Wireframes Important?
App wireframes are a crucial part of the mobile app development and design process.
Wireframing helps provide a clear picture of how end-users will interact with your app. If you can’t explain how your app idea solves the problems of your customers, then you might need to go back to the drawing board.
Let’s take a closer look at the reasons why it’s so important to create an app wireframe.
Visual Blueprint of the App
Having an idea is great, and having a good idea is even better. But even the best ideas are useless if you don’t have a clear plan and vision.
Verbally conveying your idea to a development team and assuming they’re going to deliver what you want is unrealistic.
But a wireframe gets your point across and makes it easier to share your vision with project teams, investors, and stakeholders.
You can’t think about funding, user testing, or other business-related decisions without a wireframe. Putting these ideas into a wireframe first will make your life much easier.
Faster Iterations
An app wireframe helps simplify an otherwise large or intimidating development process. Breaking your project into smaller, attainable tasks is a much easier way to achieve success.
The great part about building a wireframe is that it doesn’t take a ton of time. This helps you build momentum and get the ball rolling as you’re assembling your team, giving presentations, and pitching investors.
Executing these iterations in the early stages of development is much easier, and you can continue building on these steps.
Avoid Mistakes
Your app wireframe should lay out the different screen functions.
It helps you determine where certain app features should be placed and if there’s enough room on the screen to accommodate those functions.
An app wireframe helps you establish a hierarchy of elements before you implement the design. It’s much easier to do this on paper than after you’ve committed any code.
Mistakes here are really easy to fix. But fixing mistakes post-development is much more challenging.
Saves Time and Money
As previously mentioned, an app wireframe helps you identify potential flaws and pain points before anything has been coded. This saves you a ton of time and money on development costs.
Wireframes also provide your developers and designers with a clear picture of what they’re building. So starting with a wireframe can actually speed up the development process and shorten your overall timeline.
Even things like content creation will be streamlined since the structure of your app’s screens has already been organized. Content creators and designers won’t have to ask any questions about where certain elements should be placed.
An app wireframe makes it easier to estimate costs as well. For example, if you’re outsourcing a UX/UI design team, they’ll likely provide you with a more accurate estimate since they know exactly what you’re looking for. So the chances of running over budget are reduced.
How to Wireframe Mobile Apps in 5 Simple Steps
Creating a wireframe is easy when you follow the step-by-step guide below:
Map Out the App’s User Flow
Organize the Mobile App Content
Determine the Layout
Create a Detailed Wireframe
Integrate the Design Elements
Step #1 — Map Out the App’s User Flow
User flows are the backbone of wireframes for mobile applications.
A user flow is a visual guide that showcases the series of actions a user must take to reach a specific goal. Not all user flows are linear—meaning there might be multiple paths to achieve a goal within your app.
You can start creating a user flow by sketching your idea on a piece of paper. Eventually, you can take this sketch to the next level with a digital version of the flow.
Remember, an app wireframe does not contain design elements just yet. So you can use simple rectangle boxes as image placeholders with arrows to showcase the flow.
You can start to think about dropdown menus or the bottom tab bar of each screen, but these won’t necessarily be included in the early sketches of UX flows.
After you’ve visualized the flow, you can share your early concepts with others. This allows you to get feedback from your team and other people. It forces you to create each screen with a clear purpose for achieving the end goal.
If a screen does not help a user do something related to the app’s purpose, then it can be removed from the flow.
For example, let’s say you’re designing a food delivery app. The app’s goal is to get food in the hands of users who can order from different restaurants.
After selecting a restaurant, should the user be brought to an “Our Story” screen for that particular establishment? No. That would disrupt the flow of ordering.
These are the types of things you need to take into consideration when you’re going through this process.
Step #2 — Organize the Mobile App Content
Now that you have a clear vision of your wireframe design, you can start to think about the actual copy and content that you’ll use in the app.
What is going to appear on different mobile screens? How will that content integrate with the user flow?
Using a simple spreadsheet or reusable content blocks is an effective way to organize your content. You can start to list things like headers, images, links, and anything else that will appear in your mobile frame.
For example, let’s say you’re creating a fitness app to expand your personal training business. You could put together a spreadsheet with your main app content that includes training videos, meal prep instructions, and fitness guides.
Then you could organize that content even further by segmenting cardio exercises from weight lifting. Within a weight lifting category, you can have sub-segments for arms, legs, back, etc.
It’s much easier to organize your content now, as opposed to later on when you’re mapping out the screen layouts. You can refer to your content list as you plug things in during the next steps.
Step #3 — Determine the Layout
Next, you can establish the visual hierarchy and interface elements of your key screens. This will eventually set up the interaction design.
Your app layout is essentially a combination of the first two steps we’ve already gone through. You’re going to take the content from step two and integrate it with the user flows in step one.
You can still use basic shapes and tab bar placeholders instead of using any actual copy. But you can eliminate at least some of the placeholder text or screens with headers.
For example, your home screen layout might initially include Lorem ipsum placeholder text. Now you can get rid of those placeholder headers and add the main headers from your content list.
You can establish the hierarchy of screen elements using size as a point of reference.
Larger buttons, text, and CTAs are more important than smaller text located at the bottom of the screen. You can play around with different variations of the screen layouts as you’re going through this process.
I strongly recommend using easily recognizable design patterns when you’re thinking about the screen layouts.
For example, let’s say you’re going to include a bottom tab bar navigation on each screen of your app that includes the app’s most important screens. Having a house icon for a home screen makes more sense than a random shape or icon. This is something that users are already familiar with, and they understand exactly where that button is going to take them. A smiley face icon is not appropriate for your settings page.
Look at the example above. You know exactly where the home button and settings button are, even without any text on the page.
Similarly, these icons would not fit in the middle of the screen, but they make sense placed at the bottom navigation.
These are the types of things you’ll have to consider when you’re mapping out the screen layouts.
Step #4 — Create a Detailed Wireframe
Detailed wireframes go beyond a basic sketch or hand-written notes. They are often high-fidelity versions of what your app will look like, including ready-made templates for your screens.
You don’t have to put in real images, videos, or anything like that just yet. But the wireframes should be digitalized and include the real spacing between buttons and content.
A detailed wireframe does not need to include any logos, custom fonts, or specialty UI elements. But they are a bit more formal for sharing with stakeholders and other team members. To make something stand out, you can use bold text, sizing, or spacing.
As you can see, there is still some Lorem ipsum placeholder text in the author bio section of that particular screen. But the sign-up screen has been replaced with the actual text.
The screen in the middle of this example shows how different book topics will be displayed on the screen, but it doesn’t actually go into detail about the genres.
Step #5 — Integrate the Design Elements
Technically, design elements are not part of the actual process for wireframing. Design is a completely different stage in the development process.
However, wireframing and design are so closely related that it makes sense to start thinking about it now.
If the design isn’t your strength, you can consult with multiple designers to show you different design patterns and ideas.
The responsive design development stages and other design elements will be implemented later on, but you can still add some of them now, depending on your goals.
For example, let’s say you need to raise money to fund your app. Pitching the app to investors is probably better if the wireframe includes more than just black and white placeholder text. Even some design elements can make the wireframe a bit more visually appealing.
Creating a ANDROID app is a mobile operating system practical approach to expanding an existing business. In addition, this is a chance to increase client loyalty by allowing them to use your services on their smartphone or tablet.
Starting an app begins with a concept or solution to a specific problem and selects an operating system for app development.
On the market now, iOS and Android are the only two solutions worth considering.
Let’s find out which one you prefer: IOS or Android development?
Android vs iOS
Unlike in the past, when there were multiple possibilities, iOS and Android are currently the only platforms worth considering. When combined, they account for about 100% of the mobile market.
According to the most recent statistics, Android and iOS control about 97% of the worldwide smartphone industry. As a result, you should develop and deploy your software simultaneously on both platforms, as there is no reason to explore the third platform.
Unfortunately, due to time, resources, and money restrictions, this strategy may not be feasible. As a result, many entrepreneurs and businesses must consider the advantages and disadvantages of Android vs. iOS apps and launch on one platform first before moving on to the other. There are obvious distinctions between the two platforms.
Aspects to consider while selecting a mobile operating system
When deciding between Android and iPhone app development, these are the significant considerations to consider.
They are as follows:
The availability and cost of talent
Android developers must produce apps that function on various devices, whereas iOS developers are only responsible for Apple products. It’s helpful to know that Android development might take longer in terms of money and schedule.
Target audience
The percentage of your target audience who owns a smartphone must be taken into consideration when deciding between Android and iOS app development. Next, look at demographic data like age, income, and gender to gain a clear picture of your target population. This is a convincing reason to choose iOS over the others if you discover that your target market favors this platform over the others. First, you need to know how many smartphones your target audience owns and which platforms they prefer to use.Â
Process of costing and reviewing
These are some of them:
Update to be compatible with the most recent operating system
Thoroughly test and update to work with the most recent devices.
While some developers’ app proposals are accepted within a few hours, there are numerous review horror stories of app submissions being stalled for weeks or even months. It’s crucial to remember that, regardless of how difficult App Store submissions maybe, if your market research suggests that your target market prefers iOS devices, this is the platform you should create first.
Monetization
The last thing to think about is your monetization plan or generating money from the app. Despite accounting for more than 75% of all worldwide app downloads, Google Play made around 88 percent less income than Apple’s app store last year (2018). This implies that selling an app via a subscription model or in-app purchases is more profitable if you create it for iOS. Ad-based monetization tactics, on the other hand, have a higher success rate in Android apps. Android developers are also growing better at driving customer spending, according to the data.
Creating an app is not easy. You might have worked on it for weeks or even months to get a version that you (or your clients) are happy with. However, this is only half the work, and the rest is concerned with getting your app live and running on the App Store.
Once you submit your app for reviews, it takes about 24-48 hrs for you to get a response from the App Store’s review team. Apple is infamous for its closed ecosystem and tight control. Any deviations from their app guidelines will warrant immediate rejection. The whole process is even more rigorous for apps that accept user-generated content.
What if Apple rejects your app?
The first thing to do is go through the rejection email carefully. Usually, the App Store team gives a detailed description of what has gone wrong.
For example, Suppose you violated section 1.2 of App store guidelines which deal with User-Generated content. In that case, this is the typical response mail you will receive:
Your app enables user-generated content but does not have the required precautions in place.
Next Steps
Please revise your app to implement all of the following precautions:
Require that users agree to terms (EULA). These terms must make it clear that there is no tolerance for objectionable content.
Have a method for filtering objectionable content.
Have a mechanism for users to flag objectionable content.
Have the ability to block abusive users from the service.
The developer must act on objectionable content reports within 24 hours by removing the content and ejecting the user who provided the offending content.
From this message, it is clear that your app was rejected for not providing enough features for users to control what they wish to see inside the app. Start building the solution from here.
Whatever be the reason for your rejection, the great thing about App Store is that it has a vast developer community, and most issues are well-documented. So even if you don’t get your answer from the email, there are multiple forums, guides, or agencies that can help.
Remember, the benefits of having a mobile app for your business far outweigh any minor inconveniences you might have during its development. So stick to it.
Why are ‘special guidelines’ for user-generated content required?
Consider you are a team of 5 people managing a social media app with 10,000 active users. Each user, on average, shares one post a day in the form of either text, image, or video. That’s about 10,000 content pieces in 3 different formats that your team has to go through every day to find out if they are within the App Store guidelines!
Now think about the case where you have a flag/report button on each content. Regulating your app becomes much easier with users actively participating in removing anything that doesn’t fit their taste (and your policies in the process). You can even prioritize the user reports- content that receives the most flags in a specific timeframe requiring the greatest attention and vice versa.
This level of app self-cleansing is why the App Store ‘Special Guidelines’ exist. It prevents the proliferation of offensive content like pornography, objectification, threats, and bullying.
How do you prevent UGC Appstore rejection?
If this is your first time creating an app with User-Generated content, keeping in mind these 7 points will drastically reduce any chance of the App Store rejecting it:
1. Written policy against objectionable content in T&C
It is essential to inform your new users about the app’s policies regarding user-generated content well in advance. Adding a section about this in the terms and conditions is the best way to go about it. No new user should be allowed to sign up without accepting your app’s T&C.
Your App’s T&C should elaborate on the following two points in much detail:
Respecting other’s rights: Dealing with privacy, IP, copyrights, spam, bullying, harassment, and defamation
Safety: 3rd party apps, external linking, use of bots and crawlers, soliciting login information, and similar infringements
2. Providing a flag or report button for objectionable content
The App Store requires you to provide a mechanism where users can flag or report objectionable content. There will be a 24 hr window before which you need to review the content and take appropriate action.
If the content is deemed inappropriate, you must remove it and warn or suspend the violating user, depending on severity.
3. Provision to filter objectionable content
It is also good practice to allow users to hide content and users they don’t want to see. Providing a simple ‘hide this content’ or ‘Do not show me again’ button should do the trick. These allow users not to see certain content which might not otherwise warrant a report or a block. These also reduce considerable strain on you or your moderators by reducing the number of false reports.
Explore Al-based content filtering systems for prominent apps with a large user base. These includes:
Using AI-bot to scan text-based content to find banned words
Using speech recognition software to detect hate speech in podcasts or videos
Photo filtering to find potentially objectionable images
4. Provision to block or report user
Similar to content, there must also be a provision for users to block or report other users. Moderators must then check the offending user’s profile for guideline violations and temporarily or permanently ban the user if required.
5. Add contact information
The Appstore’s UGC guidelines state that your app should have your official business contact information or support information so that people can easily reach you. A simple contact form will suffice for all intents and purposes, but you can go a step further by adding a help center on your app. This page will contain the most common issues and FAQs, apart from contact details.
6. NSFW content
‘Incidental mature’ content is permitted on the App Store as long as they come from a ‘web-based service’. This is why 9GAG is allowed to host an ‘NSFW’ section in their app. Such content should be hidden by default and only be allowed to turn on from the app’s website.
7. Other General guidelines you should know about
Apart from the above-mentioned specific guidelines for apps with UGC content, there are also a few general guidelines that you must keep in mind before submitting your app for review:
Proper age-rating
No inappropriate content
Shouldn’t imitate or copy another app
Have a strong Privacy policy
Have transparency in user data usage
It should be stable without bugs and crashes
Remove any broken links or dummy content
Compatibility across various devices and iOS versions
THE MOST POPULAR WEB APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT PRODUCTS TODAY industry is one of the most competitive and inventive. New programming languages, frameworks, platforms, products, and tools are released every day. So it’s no surprise that even experienced coders find it challenging to stay updated.
Furthermore, it’s getting increasingly popular since it’s less expensive to create, has many features, and is quite adaptable. Although it has advantages and disadvantages, you will discover that the advantages exceed the disadvantages.
The purpose of this article is to inform you about the most popular web application development products today. When you have web application development services, the procedure will be simple. Moreover, these tools will help you speed up and simplify your web development process.
Here is the list of Most Popular Web Application Development Products Today:
Chrome dev tools
Google Chrome provides several features that can assist with web application development. These are incorporated within the browser and are helpful for web developers. For example, users of DevTools will be able to examine messages right in their console; execute JavaScript in real-time without having to write a single word of code. This might be useful when solving issues or speeding up a website.
For any web developer, Chrome DevTools is a must-have. The performance panel allows you to improve site speed, monitor runtime performance, identify forced synchronous designs in Canvas documents, and investigate Network activity quickly due to its built-in Developer Tools feature.
Furthermore, it also has security features like identifying security issues and detecting Web page errors.
AWS Cloud9
AWS Cloud9 is a cloud-based integrated development environment (IDE) that helps you write, execute, and debug various programming languages like JavaScript, Python, C, and PHP using only a browser. It was open-source in 2010. However, in 2016, it was bought by Amazon Web Services (AWS).
AWS Cloud9 also allows you to share your development environment and code with your coworkers in real-time. It saves you time and dramatically enhances the quality of your work because it comes preloaded with over 40 programming languages. File dragging, debugging, and code completion recommendations are valuable features.
Angular
Angular is a TypeScript-based programming platform. It contains everything you need as an all-in-one set of libraries and tools for creating web apps that can expand from startups to huge enterprises with many developers.
It also includes a component-based framework that aids in creating scalable database-driven websites without the need to write a lot of code, comprehensive form management solutions such as sanitization and data validation features, and routing capabilities that make developing easier by providing readymade components. With this fantastic toolbox, you will not have to go far to work on tasks.
Bootstrap
The Bootstrap toolkit is a set of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript development tools. This desktop tool is handy for creating Bootstrap-based responsive websites. It comes with various components that you may drag and drop to make responsive web pages.
The app’s framework is Bootstrap. It creates semantic HTML that is clear and easy to read. The app offers many premia, fully responsive themes, which you may alter. In addition, each design comes with various pages and widgets that you can mix and match to create your ideal website.
Many stunning components are included in Bootstrap Studio for creating responsive pages. Headers, footers, and galleries are all included in the design. Slides and essential components are also included. Bootstrap Studio can tell you which Bootstrap components are compatible.
ASP.Net
Microsoft’s ASP.Net framework is a web application development platform. It is employed in the development of web-based applications.
The initial version of ASP.Net was launched in 2002. The initial release of ASP.Net was version 1.0. Version 4.6 is the most recent version of ASP.Net. The HTTP protocol is intended to interact with ASP.Net. This is the universal protocol for all web apps.
ASP.NET is a module of the Microsoft.Net platform. ASP.NET applications are compiled scripts created with the.Net framework’s flexible and reusable components or objects. These scripts can access the whole hierarchy of classes in the.Net framework.
CodeLobster
CodeLobster is a handy and cross-platform IDE that is also free. Its primary purpose is to make creating PHP websites more accessible and faster. CodeLobster has been on the market for a long time, and each year it attracts a growing number of new users.
CodeLobster doesn’t work with PHP files. However, this IDE allows developers to modify CSS, HTML, Javascript, and Typescript files. Furthermore, it can give contextual help for any programming languages supported.
CodeLobster is likewise a highly user-friendly and straightforward tool. It combines a variety of essential elements into a single, well-organized location.
Visual Studio Code
Visual Studio Code is a “free editor that assists programmers in writing code, debugging, and correcting code using the intelli-sense approach.” In layman’s words, it makes it easier for users to develop code. Many people claim it’s half an IDE and half an editor, but that’s up to the developers to decide.
Any program we use is based on code that runs in the background. Traditionally, coding was done in traditional editors or simple ones like notepads. These editors used to give simple and basic assistance to developers.
Are you looking for tips to calculate your Web App Development Cost?If yes, you must read this article to learn about the cost of web app development.
Web app development is essential for every business as it has several benefits. But it is necessary to calculate the cost of web app development to make a budget for it.
People new in this field who wanted to develop their first web application found it challenging. But it is not as hard as you expect. In this article, you will get essential and valuable tips that will help you to calculate web app development costs efficiently.
Factors that affect web application development cost estimation
You might think that web developers only decide costs with their minds. But it is not correct; web app development costs depend on several factors, stages, and requirements. This section will tell about essential factors that affect the price of web app development.
Complexity
The more complex pages you want, the more cost will be needed. The difference is decided based on design, animation, and more. If you plan to make your application unique, you must spend more on it.
App developers and designers need more time and effort to make an app with solid UI or UX design. That is why they ask for more money.
They need up to 20 hours to design simple landing pages, which cost up to $1000 based on vendor rates. If you need more complex pages in your app, it will cost up to $5000 as they will add 3D animation, UX design, and more.
Developers area
The cost of web development differs from area to area. Countries like the USA, Canada, and more are charging high from other countries. At the same time, some countries of UKs are offering the lowest cost for web app development services.
Deadlines
The deadline of submitting a web app also affects the cost of it. If you need it as urgently as possible, app developers will charge extra for the urgent delivery of the app.
Hiring teams
The development of a web application is not a single person’s work. You have to hire some members to build a web app. Business analysts, frontend developers, backend developers, database engineers, and more are required for this team.
You do not have to hire all of them. You have to hire some of them, depending on your requirement. So the number of members in your web development team will also affect its cost as the price of each member differs.
Stages of web app development and estimated cost of web development
The process of web development goes through different stages. However, all stages are necessary and have their cost. Therefore, this section will get a web application development cost estimation of every step and detail of every stage.
Research
You must build an idea of your web app before hiring a web app development team. First, the research is necessary to know the market and needs of your target audience. Then, you can conduct your research. Otherwise, if you hire a web app development team, they will charge up to $25000.
Discuss requirement
If you have conducted your research for your web app, you must share your research with your web app development team. It will save the cost of research for your web app.
Design
Designing stage is essential in the web development process because the app’s design is the first thing your user notices on your app. You do not have to compromise at this stage as a bad quality design can be a reason for failure for your app.
Developers and designers spend a lot of time building attractive and unique designs. This stage takes 3 to 6 weeks, and the cost of designing starts from $50 and goes up to $50,000. However, the cost of designing is dependent on the complexity of the app.
Development phase
The development stage is crucial as front-end developers and back-end developers work to turn the ideas and design into a web app using the framework and tools of coding.
The time of this stage is not fixed as it depends on the app’s complexity. However, the cost of this phase will start from $5000 to $50,000, depending on your requirement.
Testing
Testing is necessary for all types of apps. You must test all the features of the app before launching it. Testing can show minor errors and significant errors in your app.
This stage will take 1 to 4 weeks, and you have to pay $500 to $50,000 to testers for this phase.
Estimate the cost of different app category
The development of apps is divided into three types. The cost of app development also depends on the type of application you want. There are the following types of apps –
Simple app – these apps are the basic set of functions, simple landing pages, and straightforward designs. These types of apps take about one month to build. The cost of these apps starts from $500 and goes up to $15000
Medium web app – these apps are more challenging to make than simple apps as they have interactive pages and lots of content. It takes 2 to 3 months in the building process and costs $15000 to $60000
Complex apps – Complex apps are the hardest to build as they have a high level of complexity like exclusive CMS, excellent designing of landing page and layout, and more. The designing of these apps is also challenging. It takes almost six months to make, starting from $60,000.
Are you planning to deploy SaaS to your business? Are you confused about whether you should deploy SaaS to your business or not framework? Then this article will clear your confusion as you will get the five best things about SaaS in this article.
The demand for SaaS is increasing day by day in the market. As a result, most companies use SaaS software instead of traditional software.
The high demand for SaaS in the market is that SaaS software doesn’t need any extra hardware, and the development team does. However, you need an internet connection and a web browser to deploy it to your business environment.
This is just one good thing about SaaS; you will get to know more about the benefits of SaaS in this article. In addition, this article will also give quick information about the best PHP framework for saas.
What is Software as a Service (SaaS)?
Software as a Service, also known as SaaS, licenses software on a subscription basis. SaaS providers give the software to companies or users who need software for their business needs. Companies and users pay the subscription charge to the SaaS provider to use their software.
The SaaS is part of cloud computing along with several other services. SaaS provider has delivered several business applications, mobile applications, payroll processing software, CRM software, and more. SaaS is also known as on-demand software as SaaS providers give software according to their client’s demands and needs.
What is the best PHP framework for saas?
While developing a SaaS product, the developer faces many challenges. It is hard to find the best PHP framework for saas. Every organization has to know about the framework of SaaS before deploying it to their company.
Laravel is the best PHP framework for saas. It is an open-source software framework. It is considered the best framework as it has several benefits, including model view control architecture, modular packaging, etc.
So make sure to choose SaaS products developed with Laravel Framework.
Differences between SaaS and on-premise framework software
When choosing software for your business, one is SaaS, and the other is on-premise software. SaaS and on-premise software are almost the same, but both have several significant differences, which you will learn in this section.
On-premise software comes with a license certificate. Software licenses are limited to one user or company. Due to this, the cost of on-premise software is too high. The user or company has to make a one-time payment to purchase this software. Then they can use SasS without any problem and compensation.
On the other hand, SaaS companies provide subscriptions on a monthly and yearly basis. As a result, users or companies have to pay for the subscription of SaaS products without spending large amounts on licensing software.
Many individuals don’t require software for life, and then SaaS is the best alternative in this case, as one can discontinue SaaS after completing their need.
This is just the beginning of the benefits of the SaaS model. You will get more detail about the benefits of the SaaS model in the next section.
Five best things about SaaS development frameworks
The SaaS model is an alternative model to traditional software. You only need an internet and web browser to deploy SaaS solutions to your business. It is less costly than traditional or on-premise software, and the benefits –
Save money
You can save more by deploying SaaS software to your business. SaaS resides in a multi-tenant environment resulting in the less upfront cost of purchasing and installation. Apart from up costs, you can also save on maintenance and upgrade costs.
SaaS also saves hardware cost as it does not require any hardware for use; it is easily deployable in your business environment. In addition, you do not have to pay for the unused feature to SaaS Providers as they only charge for the feature you are using.
Time-saving
This software also saves your time as SaaS products require less time than on-premise software for maintenance and installation. On-premise and traditional software needs time to develop and install the software.
On the other hand, SaaS has already installed and configured software on the cloud. SaaS providers will give you access to their software or application, and you can access the SaaS software in a couple of hours. This will save your time in the installation and configuration of the software.
No particular space is required.
You can use SaaS software from anywhere, even from your home. You do not need to visit a particular area to access this software. In addition, the SaaS system offers the option of remote access.
It is only necessary to have fast-speed internet and a web browser to access SaaS. SaaS products are helpful in the work from home. Anyone can access SaaS products from anywhere.
Flexibility
Relatively more flexible than other software. You do not have to purchase an additional server. You have the flexibility to scale up and down in your software based on your requirement.
Easy to adapt
The adaptation rate of SaaS solutions is significantly higher than traditional software. The learning curve of SaaS products is less means more efficiency for employees. Software-based SaaS is easy to handle, and some employees can take it alone.
That is why the adoption rate of SaaS solutions is very high. The High-efficiency rate has become one of the best things for developers and companies.
Scaling up your business requires a change of approach toward project definition. In the context of software, we refer to it as all the aspects that need to be covered during the process of planning and execution. A good project definition should answer the following questions:
Why?
All projects should start by providing their business justification, Scaling up a prerequisite to initiating any project. We can see this phase in almost every project management approach, including PRINCE2, DSDM (Dynamic Systems Development Method), or even AgileSHIFT. The latter one, which is relatively new to the market, distinguishes a phase called “Startup” which asks if the project is worth doing.
What?
Everything that needs to be done during the project. The scope of work has to be established before the project starts. As change is a part of every software-based project one has to take it into consideration when defining technical and system infrastructure, and the rules and procedures which will be used to operate the software. There is also a need to provide your team with training on maintenance or new organizational procedures introduced after scaling.
Who?
There is a need for a simplified structure within the team, with a clear set of responsibilities assigned to every person.
When?
A project definition has to include both a general and a detailed (with every task required) timeframe allowing the team and all stakeholders to track the progress.
How to define the project scope?
Even if you have vast resources, without a well-defined project scope there is little chance of success. So what is a scope and how do you define it when you have to make frequent changes to your product during the software development process? In simple terms: by defining scope we mean adopting a clear vision and an agreement on the deliverables expected from the project.
While defining the scope you have to prepare a detailed description of what the project is supposed to achieve and what it cannot accomplish. Of course, in today’s world changes to the project are inevitable, especially if you assume scaling up. To deal with that situation project managers use project scope management which includes defining project needs, understanding the project objectives, and the project scope definition.
By using Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), Product Breakdown Structure (PBS), or Resource Breakdown Structure (RBS) you can determine the impact of the change on the project scope.
These structures identify the features, components, or resources that would need to be added, changed, or deleted during the lifecycle of the project. Doing so will help to avoid scope creep. Furthermore, you must frequently update your project scope and communicate any changes to all stakeholders.
Tips:
Use WBS, and PBS RBS to identify any changes that can impact the project
Update your project scope frequently
How to re-organize a software development model when the product continually Scaling upchanges?
To maintain both high-quality and high value when the product continually changes there is a need for a re-organization of the software development model, which means choosing the right methodology, preferably the agile one (Extreme programming, Scrum, etc.) When it comes to requirements, project managers using Scrum tend to freeze the model for the current iteration so developers have a certain level of stability, although XP and DAD practitioners allow a change during the iteration. Whichever you choose, it is important to bear in mind that it may result in moving some requirements to the next iteration.
When working on the software project, stakeholders are responsible for defining and prioritizing new requirements, whilst developers are in charge of estimating the effort it takes to implement them. As many examples show, dealing with smaller requirements is easy to estimate, while bigger ones can be challenging.
So how to manage more difficult requirements? You must reorganize them into smaller and more manageable parts, so they can be implemented within a single iteration. As for iteration itself, it has to be shorter than in Scrum because it reduces the feedback cycle, making it easier to stay on track for both developers and stakeholders.
Tips:
Incline toward Agile rather than traditional methods.
Try to manage any change to requirements within one iteration.
When it comes to software development outsourcing, most people associate high-quality work with high prices. However, those who have outsourced IT services before are familiar with their time and budget-friendly benefits. So, whether you need a custom software development service or wish to work with freelance developers for web/mobile application development, you will find several options to fit your needs. If you’re on the lookout for an outsourcing company or vendor to provide you with the best services and value, this list will be extremely useful.
Before you hire someone for IT-related services, you should consider several factors that will play an essential role in planning the budget for such operations. Once you’ve carefully defined the budget, the benefits of outsourcing are endless.
Let’s take a look at the factors you should consider:
1. Average Cost of Software Development Outsourcing
Software development outsourcing companies typically charge by the hour, and their rates can be anywhere between USD $20 and $190 per hour. The type of outsourcing company you choose and their experience will determine the total cost you’ll pay for your work.
It’s best to check the vendor’s operational maturity level, list of services they offer, the quality of their work, and their work ethics before moving forward with the contract. More money often means higher quality, but that’s not always true. You can ask the vendor to provide work references and check online reviews, if available, before deciding. Additionally, there are four specific pricing strategies to consider before outsourcing software development services:
Fixed Price Plan: If you have clear goals and have agreed on all the deliverable details and deadlines, the vendors or freelancers will provide you with a fixed price. This pricing model is not flexible and any changes in the project will lead to cost adjustments.
CAP Plan: the CAP plan has features of both the pricing models mentioned above. While it is flexible and the project requirements are discussed in advance, there is an upper budget limit set by the client that the parties cannot exceed.
Monthly Flat Rate Plan: As the name of the plan suggests, if your vendor offers this pricing plan, you will pay a fixed monthly rate no matter how complicated or straightforward the software development process is. Typically, companies use this pricing plan for short-term services and when the scope of work is clear for both sides.
2. Evaluating Needs and Company Resources
Which IT services and operations will you need to outsource? If you need a complete software development project, including development, UI/UX design, quality assurance, project management, you will need to outline such needs from the outset.
If you decide to invest in IT outsourcing services without a clear goal, the project processes will not be optimized, and you will not get the best results from the services provided to you. It will be best to talk with the vendors and tell them which services you require in particular. An experienced service provider will conduct thorough research to identify product specifications and requirements before quoting a price.
3. Setting Expectations before Research
If your priority is finding vendors with the lowest rates, and you initiate your research based only on costs, there’s a higher chance that you’ll end up with an unqualified vendor. It’s always best to set criteria and a list of expectations (not just price) before conducting research.
First, you must analyze factors such as communication, management, and other processes and define the expectations of your ideal partner. Then you can conduct research to find a suitable software development outsourcing company.
4. Defining the Communication and Cooperation Model
Several companies report poor experience when outsourcing because communication issues overshadow the benefits of outsourcing. The communication gap is usually found when you hire off-shore outsourcing vendors. So, analyze how well the vendors understand your company goals and needs from the outset.
Additionally, following a specific cooperation model, such as a dedicated team, time and material, or fixed price, will make the services better for both you and your vendor. Before you set a budget, you need to analyze companies that offer clear communication platforms and control over the project. Ask vendors for their quotes so you have a clear idea of what they charge for scheduled reporting throughout the project. Poor communication can lead to delays and errors, which can cost your company more in the long run.
5. Examining Several Payment Models for Outsourcing
Choosing a payment model will help you consider all factors and apply them to a specific payment plan to calculate your budgeting needs.
Additionally, you can select either a fixed-fee pricing model or a per-hour pricing model. The model you choose will depend on the type of services you require and the contracted period. For example, a short-term plan can be based on a monthly flat-rate plan. In contrast, a long-term plan could follow the time and material pricing strategy. It’s best to discuss this with your vendor and find the most suitable payment model for a specific project.
6. Short-Term vs Long-Term Contracts
Depending on the extent of the work and the services you require, you will need to determine whether the company requires a long-term or short-term plan. This will help you greatly in managing expenses and setting a budget according to your needs.
A short-term plan typically covers portions of a service or a smaller project, while the long-term plan will cover all aspects of a service or department and typically include relatively bigger projects. It would also be worth evaluating whether carrying out these operations in-house can be completed within the specified budget, thereby offering better value for money.
Determining whether your goals are short or long-term will help you communicate with the vendors clearly and precisely. You will also be able to set a budget according to pricing models and the length of the project before work begins.
Countless articles compare C++ and Java’s technical features, but which differences are most important to consider? When a comparison shows, for example, that Java doesn’t support multiple inheritances and C++ does, what does that mean? And is it a good thing? software Some argue that this is an advantage of Java, while others declare it a problem.
Let’s explore the situations in which developers should choose C++, Java, or another language altogether—and, even more importantly, why the decision matters.
Examining the Basics: Language Builds and Ecosystems features
C++ launched in 1985 as a front end to C compilers, similar to how TypeScript compiles to JavaScript. Modern C++ compilers typically compile to native machine code. Though some claim C++’s compilers reduce its portability, and they do necessitate rebuilds for new target architectures, C++ code runs on almost every processor platform.
First released in 1995, Java doesn’t build directly to native code. Instead, Java builds bytecode, an intermediate binary representation that runs on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). In other words, the Java compiler’s output needs a platform-specific native executable to run.
Both C++ and Java fall into the family of C-like languages, as they generally resemble C in their syntax. The most significant difference is their ecosystems: While C++ can seamlessly call into libraries based on C or C++ or the API of an operating system, Java is best suited for Java-based libraries. You can access C libraries in Java using the Java Native Interface (JNI) API, but it is error-prone and requires some C or C++ code. C++ also interacts with hardware more easily than Java, as C++ is a lower-level language.
Detailed Trade-offs: Generics, Memory, and More features
We can compare C++ to Java from many perspectives. In some cases, the decision between C++ and Java is clear. Native Android applications should typically use Java unless the app is a game. Most game developers should opt for C++ or another language for the smoothest possible real-time animation; Java’s memory management often causes lag during gameplay.
Cross-platform applications that aren’t games are beyond the scope of this discussion. Neither C++ nor Java are ideal in this case because they’re too verbose for efficient GUI development. For high-performance apps, it’s best to create C++ modules to do the heavy lifting and use a more developer-productive language for the GUI.
Is most internal audit report the right length? For many consumers of audit reports in the executive suite and boardroom, the answer is probably that they’re “too long!”
Audit reports may run to extraordinary lengths these days. For example, I recently talked to one organization where they could easily extend over a hundred pages. One hundred pages are clearly too long for anybody to rationally expect our stakeholders in top management and on the board to want to read them. When are there 100 pages of value, actionable information, in an audit report?
So, is the answer ten or twenty pages? Is it two or three? Let’s tackle the question in a different way.
Audit reports are a communication vehicle. The IIA Standards do not require that we write an audit report. Instead, they require that we communicate the results of our work to our stakeholders. So, a better question is: What should we communicate?
When is Will It Stop Hurting? When you visit the dentist because you have a toothache, do you want even a three-page report? Probably not. You want to know: (a) Can he or she stop the pain? (b) When will that be done? (c) Is there a serious problem? And (d) What is this going to cost me? You don’t want to be asked to read a recap of your dental history, the status of recommendations from your last visit, or a report on the depth of your gums. You want to receive the information you need, concisely and clearly written, without wasting a minute of your time.
What about your executives and board members? What information do they want to get from you? They want to know:
Is there a problem that is serious enough to potentially affect the organization and the achievement of its objectives in a material way? Is there a problem I need to worry about at my level?
Are the right actions being taken?
Is there anything I need to do personally?
Is there anything I need to make sure others are doing?
So why do we include more? Is it because we feel a need to justify our existence? I know of chief audit executives who insist that every audit report has at least one finding and recommendation. Why? If you have this need, this irrational compulsion, stop!
Is it because the report is a form of documentation, or because it is really being written for a regulator rather than the executive readers? Both are equally wrong.
The Elevator Version Imagine this. You enter the elevator at your company’s head office and are greeted by your CEO. She asks you about the audit your team recently performed of the Treasury function, saying that she is interested in the results. Do you tell her about the background of the audit? How about your scope and objectives? Do you list all the medium and low issues? Or do you just tell her whether there were major issues that merit her attention, whether management is taking the right corrective actions and any other insights that would be of value to her?
So why do we put more than these essentials in a written audit report? Why hide valuable, actionable information in a haystack of unnecessary detail? The length of the audit report, if one is even needed, should be just enough to tell the consumers of the report what they need to know—and no more.
Ah, I can hear you saying that the report has to include all the findings so you can make sure management owns the issues and will take necessary corrective actions. But do the executives and board members need to see that level of detail in the report? Weren’t these all discussed and agreed upon at your closing meeting (and if not, why not)?
Send a note to those present at the meeting, confirming the discussion and the corrective action details (who will do what by when, and other details). And then keep what you send to the executives and the board limited to what they need to read and no more.
Make it easy for them to pick up your reports promptly, digest the actionable information, and take whatever actions are needed—now when they are needed. Make it easy and not hard for them to read, understand, and take any necessary actions.
If you don’t waste their time with trivia when you have something to say they are far more likely to listen.
What say you? Can we cut most audit reports back to half a page? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comment section below.
I have always been on the lookout for clever ways to describe an internal audit role in an organization. Elevator speeches are fine when you have 60 seconds to describe the value your profession brings to an uninformed bystander. I even shared some ideas for the elevator speech in a blog earlier this year. However, an elevator speech doesn’t hold a candle to a well-crafted sound bite that will leave a lasting impression.
One of my favorites used to be “internal audit is the brakes that allow the organization to drive faster.” The reasoning behind this analogy is that brakes are a critical component in a vehicle. To be sure, they are used to prohibit a vehicle from moving. But more importantly, brakes are crucial to maintaining control of a vehicle. Of course, well-resourced, independent internal audit functions add little value if they impede an organization’s ability to take risks and achieve results. But they add value when, like brakes on a car, they empower management and the board with information to slow down or stop if critical risks lie ahead.
Over the years, I have come to view the “internal audit-as-brakes” analogy to be a bit outdated. It envisions internal audit as being primarily control-focused. Today, internal audit provides much greater value than merely a set of brakes. After all, a vehicle with an outstanding braking system can still end up in the wrong place. Brakes are great for stopping or slowing down. However, they do little to help change course. Internal audits in the 2020s must help create – not just protect value!
I believe a more powerful analogy is that an internal audit is a critical component of an organization’s navigation system. Consider the value of a modern navigation system. Once the departing and arriving locations are enter, a navigation system provides timely and crucial feedback on the progress of the journey. The friendly voice provides turn-by-turn advice on reaching the destination. It recognizes when a turn has been missed and quickly alerts the driver to “make a legal U-turn.” It can be program to recommend routes that are faster, less congested, or avoid tolls. Some alert the driver when the speed limit is being exceed, or the vehicle is being taken on unsafe roads.
Much like the navigation system in a vehicle, an internal audit shows its powerful value by:
Providing assurance that the organization is progressing on the course charted by management and the board.
Provide recommended corrective actions when the organization is of course (please make a legal U-turn).
Identifying risks in advance (much like a navigation system warns of an accident or road congestion ahead).
Alerting management and the board of compliance risks/failures (think excessive speed).
Providing assurance that the organization has “arrived at its destination.”
To succeed, organizations in the 21st century must manage risks – both internal and external, whether related to finance, operations, strategy, technology, regulations, or reputation. While organizations are raising the bar on effective risk management, executives face extraordinary headwinds spawned by a turbulent environment in which risks materialize virtually overnight. In the past five years, we’ve faced the most extraordinary global pandemic in more than a century, more global financial turmoil, cybersecurity breaches that even target our infrastructure, corporate failures induced by toxic cultures, the #MeToo movement highlighting sexual assault and harassment in the workplace, and more. In the immediate future, we are facing the prospect of severe supply chain disruptions, inflationary pressures not seen in 40 years, and likely more nasty surprises from COVID-19. Relying on a good braking system will be inadequate to navigate the hills and valleys that lie ahead. Instead, organizations need strong navigation systems with well-resourced and independent internal audit functions fully integrated to succeed.
Granted, my updated analogy may be oversimplified. Strong internal audit functions add value in a multitude of ways, and we are never more critical than management and the board in navigating risks that our organizations face. However, I find it is useful to think through analogies such as this one so that I can better articulate the internal audit’s role in ways that everyone can understand.
Upon scanning through the Common Criteria for a SOC 2, it doesn’t take long to come across criteria related to governance and the overall control environment. In particular, Common Criteria 1.2 (CC1.2)/COSO Principle 2 specifically addresses the role and expectations of the board of directors to provide oversight of internal controls. For small businesses or less mature organizations, this can be a potential hindrance in moving forward with a SOC 2. However, is a formal board of directors absolutely required to successfully address this criterion for a SOC 2 examination? Are other forms of governance sufficient? The purpose of this post is to examine this requirement in relation to a SOC 2 report and its application for organizations where a board of directors is not required or is not feasible or even unwarrant based on the nature of their entity.
What is a Board of Directors?
In the traditional sense (i.e. in relation to a corporation), a board of is a group of individuals, elected by shareholders, who form the governing body of the company and oversee management and the strategic direction of the organization. The board typically consists of internal executives as well as outside directors who are not employed or engage with the organization. The board of directors makes decisions on behalf of the company and its shareholders.
When is a Board of Required?
Certain organizations, such as public companies and S and C corporations, are legally required to have a board of directors in place. This is further defined by state laws. The board composition and roles and responsibilities are address in articles of incorporation, bylaws, and/or company charters. As such, public companies and corporations are well-positioned to satisfy requirements related to governance performed by the board of directors. However, limited liability companies (LLCs) and sole proprietorships, for example, are not require to have a board of directors. These organizations may elect to have a board of directors, but some may find it too costly or unnecessary to form a board of directors with independent board members.
What is the SOC 2 Requirement for a Board of Directors?
As set forth in TSP section 100, 2017 Trust Services Criteria for Security, Availability, Processing Integrity, Confidentiality, and Privacy, CC1.2 states:
“The board of directors demonstrates independence from management and exercises oversight of the development and performance of internal control. The following points of focus, specified in the COSO framework, highlight important characteristics relating to this criterion:
Establishes Oversight Responsibilities — The board of identifies and accepts its oversight responsibilities in relation to established requirements and expectations.
Applies Relevant Expertise — The board of directors defines, maintains, and periodically evaluates the skills and expertise needed among its members to enable them to ask probing questions of senior management and take commensurate action.
Operates Independently — The board of directors has sufficient members who are independent of management and objective in evaluations and decision making.
Supplements Board Expertise — The board of directors supplements its expertise relevant to security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy, as needed, through the use of a subcommittee or consultants.”
As stated, the criteria require that a board of directors be in place to provide adequate supervision and oversight of the organization. There appears to be little wiggle room when contemplating the need for a board of directors when engaging in a SOC 2 examination. However, the characteristics called out in the points of focus are not exclusive to a board of directors. A management team, or even an owner-manager, depending on the complexity of the organization, could fulfill the characteristics noted above. It seems reasonable that other forms of governance, depending on the nature of the entity, could provide adequate oversight where a board of directors is not in place.
Are There Alternatives to a Board ?
Per TSP section 100, 2017 Trust Services Criteria for Security, Availability, Processing Integrity, Confidentiality, and Privacy, the AICPA offers a broader definition of a board of directors:
“Individuals with responsibility for overseeing the strategic direction of the entity and the obligations related to the accountability of the entity. Depending on the nature of the entity, such responsibilities may be held by a board of directors or supervisory board for a corporation, a board of trustees for a not-for-profit entity, a board of governors or commissioners for a government entity, general partners for a partnership, or an owner for a small business.”
Based on the definition provided by the AICPA as noted above, those with responsibility for overseeing the entity are not confined to the traditional board of directors model. Rather, the AICPA recognizes that different forms of governance, depending on the nature of the entity, may be sufficient for the organization to achieve its services commitments and system requirements. So, yes, different forms of governance, depending on the nature of the entity, may be sufficient as an alternative to a board of directors
For example, for a less complex organization with fewer personnel, a service auditor may conclude that a senior management team or executive committee provides sufficient oversight of the company and that the achievement of the service commitments and system requirements is not impacted by the lack of a formal board of directors. In such an environment, management likely participates heavily in the supervision and reviews of key controls thus providing oversight of internal controls. They would be influential in the organization’s commitment to ethical and legal conduct and would also be involve in the recruitment and evaluation of employees and consultants to ensure adequate knowledge and expertise are present. In addition, management teams in this setting generally possess adequate competence and knowledge of the organization and its processes to provide adequate oversight without overreliance on others within the organization.
Cybersecurity is a complex and ever-evolving subject. Just when you feel you may have understood a majority of common threats looming on the internet, something new comes up. Catfishing, for instance, may be a new term for many and you’re perhaps one of that regular internet and social media users who aren’t too familiar with catfishing and what exact damage catfish can cause.
In this blog, we get into the details of catfishing, the motives of online catfish, and most importantly, how you can protect yourself from them.
Catfishing involves a person using information and images to create a false identity for themselves on the internet.
A catfish can sometimes steal another person’s full identity, including date of birth, photos, and geographical location, and pretend it’s their own. They then use the fake identity to trick others into doing business online or associating with them.
Catfishing is extremely common amongst dating app users as well. A catfish may pose as someone they’re not and trap others into romance scams.
It’s important to note that not all catfish are cybersecurity threats. Many people may catfish due to insecurities regarding who they are, mental instability, feelings of revenge, desire to experiment with sexual preferences, and more. While some catfish may not be malicious, many are fraudsters and perpetrators of cybersecurity scams against their targets.
How exactly do catfish scams work? Catfish trap unsuspecting targets to believe in their false identity and can extract vital, sensitive information in the process. Many can straight off ask for money and others may get precious credentials out of you. They may then use this sensitive information for monetary gains and in some extreme cases to unleash further sophisticated cyber-attacks or ransomware attacks against a business or organization you may be associated with.
While catfish are definitely out there in hoards and their intentions can range from impish to malicious, the only way to really deal with them is to know how to protect yourself from them. Below are ways to protect yourself and your personal information from potential catfish.
1. Do a background check
You can conduct a name search or an online background check with the help of services like Instant Checkmate. This can help reveal an individual’s social media profiles, news articles they could be mentioned in, or other digital content containing their name. After the initial search, you can confirm further personal details like their workplace, where they come from, their friends, etc. to make sure that who they claim to be matched with what the internet says about them.
2. Know the signs of being catfished
If the catfish’s description is thorough and detailed, it may be difficult to tell when you’re being catfished. Since the catfish’s profile is only created to target specific persons, they may not have a lot of followers or friends. A catfish may never want to voice or video call may avoid in-person meet-ups, and may even ask for money. These are all signs that you are being catfished and that you should put up your guard.
3. Never share your personal information
Oversharing personal information with strangers can be dangerous. If someone you’ve just met online begins asking for your personal data such as an address, additional contact information, or account details, or tries to push you to tell them things regarding your life or your work, they could be catfishing you.
If they ask you for a password on the pretext of an emergency, that’s a really major warning sign that something is up. Asking for personal data is another big red flag because that behavior isn’t normal, and it should raise cause for alarm.
4. Be suspicious of those you don’t know
Be careful when you receive friend requests, correspondence, or message requests from people you aren’t familiar with. Treat online conversations the same as real-life ones. While it’s okay to interact with new people and make more friends, you should be cautious and look out for catfishing signs discussed above.
5. Ask questions that require specific knowledge
If you suspect that someone is catfishing, ask them questions that only people with their reported background would know. You can ask about malls and restaurants from where they claim to come from or something particular about what they do. If they’re hesitant or try to avoid your questions, be wary of them.
6. Use reverse image search to identify fake profile photos
Social media is full of fake images and profiles. If you’re suspicious of the person you’re chatting with online, consider using a reverse image search to identify fake images. This tool also allows you to confirm a photo’s authenticity by looking at similar images and the original version of the photo.
Cyber Security Awareness amongst employees has emerged as one of the primary concerns that a business must focus on in the modern, digital age. Imparting basic skills needed for cyber security to employees has often been the critical differentiator between companies that get compromised and those that don’t.
The 2017 WannaCry ransomware attack is a case in point – the global cybercrime “epidemic” managed to attack those businesses that had not made necessary updates to their Windows systems.
Had the global cybersecurity awareness levels been higher and if more organizations across the world were following better cyber security practices, perhaps the number of attacks and the damage they’re able to cause today would be much lesser.
In this blog, we highlight some basic cyber security best practices that businesses should follow to protect themselves from cybercrime, as well as to protect the data of their customers, clients, and partners. This list is just indicative and only scratches the surface in terms of what you can do to ensure greater cyber resilience for your business.
7 Cyber Security Best Practices To Follow
1. Review Encryption Software: It is important to review your current encryption processes, and keep up to date with the latest technology. With cyber criminals getting more advanced every day and the number of people trying to steal information for monetary gains growing, encryption software and ensure that it is up to scratch.
2. Review Vendor Security: It is important to review the third-party security because your data gets transfer between your company and theirs. Your company can be as secure as you want it to be, but if the people who receive and handle your data do not have the same level of security
3. Invest in the IT Team: As a company, your IT team is your first line of both defense and offense. The people who make up your IT team need to be trained and updated with the latest information on what to look out for in terms of cyber-attacks and potential issues.understanding their concerns, and investing in the best possible resources for them are all great ideas if you want to ensure that you have a good cybersecurity posture.
4. Understand your Backups: Check and understand how you backup your data on a regular basis. Backing up your data is an important operation, crucial to business functioning; but it is also one of the key components of a ransomware readiness checklist. your backup processes are foolproof, that’s half the battle won against ransomware attackers as they won’t be able to block your access to your own data.
5. Review Authentication Processes: The way that authentication occurs in a business should always be record, and the way that employees use certain systems should have checks and balances to ensure that there is no use in bad faith. Authentication processes should be as watertight as possible, and it is important to have a record of who has what access within a business. Privileg access users should be monitored and trained with a greater degree of diligence.
6. Continue emphasizing strong passwords: As a security-focused business, you’ve probably already highlighted the importance of using strong passwords for your staff. But this is one aspect of good cybersecurity hygiene that needs continuous reiteration.
Often one leaked password is all it has taken for cyber criminals to unleash large-scale attacks on massive organizations. It should also be make mandatory for everyone to use multi-factor authentication to log in to their systems or corporate accounts. This adds another very important layer of security.
7. Staff Training: Finally, cybersecurity training is key not just for general employees, but also for IT teams and everyone in the management. It is important to make sure that your entire company is well trained in cyber security awareness and cyber incident response training.
In terms of cybersecurity awareness training, every employee must understand their individual roles and responsibilities when it comes to cyber security. They must understand the importance of not opening malicious links, suspicious emails, or pop-ups that look untrustworthy. These and other phishing tactics lead to most identity thefts and ransomware attacks.
The digital transformation of businesses around the world has accelerated significantly in recent years. With the spread of digitalization, there is a very high increase in the number of threats in businesses due to the deficiencies in traditional network security technology. This indicates that stronger measures are needed for data secure and network protection.
With the emergence of Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) as one of these measures, network and security professionals aim to adapt to the distributed nature of users and data. According to a recent global survey, 19 percent of respondents are planning to deploy SASE in the next twelve months to obtain high security.
SASE stands out as a security approach combined with cloud services that distribute traffic faster than traditional network services. Before deploying SASE in your business, you should understand SASE capabilities. To use SASE consistently and implement it strategically, it would be beneficial to get more information about SASE.
What Is Secure Access Service Edge?
Expected to be an essential part of enterprise network systems, SASE is an advanced network solution that offers superior performance and the highest security at an affordable cost. SASE also refers to the process of combining SD-WAN with VPN and in this way, they both run as a cloud service at the source.
The unified SASE platform aims to:
Reduce complexity and costs.
Prevent data loss wherever data is used, from the edge to the cloud.
Meet the instant and uninterrupted service demands of its customers.
Protect employees from advanced threats with cloud-based SASE wherever they are.
SASE runs organizations’ network and security functions closer to the endpoints and puts the cloud at the center of the network with cloud-built security tools. At the heart of the SASE platform, there is a data protection solution that gives you unmatched control over many aspects of your data and ensures uniform connectivity and protection from anywhere so you can work from anywhere.
SASE provides a distributed workforce with secure remote access to cloud resources. It’s easy to gain quickness, mobility, reduced complexity, and expense reduction by applying SASE to your business.
What Are the Main Components of SASE?
SASE combines multiple solutions and five key components at the center of its capabilities. These components are as follows:
Secure Web Gateways | SWGs:
Secure Web Gateways protect against malicious web-based software on SASE networks. Filters unwanted malware from network traffic and enforces corporate policy compliance. In addition, web-based applications are also regularly monitored by SWG solutions.
Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA):
Zero Trust Network Access offers secure remote access to any data or application. Unlike standard VPN solutions, it makes it possible to assign privileges and authorizations to users and devices. It works with the motto “Never trust, always verify”.
ZTNA maximizes security by subjecting devices and users accessing the network to authentication processes based on location, identity, and other criteria through advanced authentication protocols that can be replicated.
Cloud-Native Architecture:
Cloud-Native Architecture works with WAN architecture with a combination of network security functions. It offers extensive scalability and flexibility. Cloud-based services can be easily tailored to user and company needs and requirements. You can build a secure infrastructure for location, mobile devices, edge computing solutions, IoT technologies, cloud data centers, and more.
Firewall as a Service:
Firewall as a Service acts as a comprehensive intrusion prevention system for online businesses much more efficiently than a physical firewall. FWaaS can be adapted to any network and need thanks to cloud technologies.
Data Loss Protection:
Data Loss Protection can be defined as a data loss protection engine integrated into the SASE architecture. DLP makes it easy to track by providing visibility into data in use, in motion, and at rest. It can protect confidential data and important activities. This protection may require encryption. It can send network security alerts to minimize the overall risk of any security and data breach.
Cloud hosting for chief business apps including Sage HRMS, Sage CRM, or Sage ERP presents several advantages like IT cost reduction and workforce mobility. However, the decision to transfer the cloud frequently requires proper research and preparation. It is important for you to know that migrating Sage to the cloud may not be good for every business. Service providers will not only tell you if the move to the cloud is an accurate decision but also help you in leveraging your current software investments to their full potential. Transferring an on-site application, like Sage CRM provides the ability to increase its current investments.
1. Choose a cloud provider with Sage Hosting expertise:
The cloud hosting providers mostly understand the necessities required to transfer your company’s applications to the cloud. Since Sage CRM, Sage HRMS, and Sage ERP applications house the most relevant data of the business including customer information and finance-related data, selecting a service provider that has a good experience with Sage makes it simpler to troubleshoot issues related to applications and speed up the migration process.
CloudIBN offers reliable full-time support and the power of Softaculous to install many free applications with just a single click. We provide an easy control panel, free website templates, a 99.9% uptime guarantee, and 24 x 7 technical support.
2. Select applications you will like to host:
While thinking about hosting Sage, you must consider other apps that would like to host with your existing Sage application as well. Find out the applications that can be moved easily without any issues and apps that can take more time to transfer because of on-premise customizations.
3. Backup and Disaster Recovery:
Always think about backup and disaster recovery solutions before moving your Sage application to an environment. Making sure that you have a backup and disaster recovery plan gives your business a greater sense of security as well.
4. Industry Requirements:
To ensure compliance, know about your industry requirements. Some industries like finance and healthcare usually require specific certifications and are heavily regulated to ensure data security.
5. Cloud Security:
Around 95% of companies that suffer major data loss ultimately go out of business, according to experts. Ensure that you have encrypted logins, the right user roles defined, 24 x 7 incident monitoring, built-in firewalls, and antivirus protection to ensure that your information is as secure as it can be.
6. Reliable Internet:
You will need to ensure that you have a proper connection to the internet once your business has Sage business software running in the cloud. Think about your existing internet connectivity while moving to the cloud. If you have a bad internet service then be ready to have issues in connecting to your apps in the cloud. Your cloud service provider should provide connectivity support too to assist with troubleshooting all connectivity problems.
7. Comparison Analysis:
By offering a cloud hosting comparison analysis, the service providers offer customers the elasticity of knowing whether the move to the cloud is accurate or not.
Organizations that lack a high-level cloud strategy risk wasted investment and failure. Cloud computing, with all its features and benefits, also comes with some multidimensional perks. The cloud computing paradigm has been driving innovation in almost all sectors of the market; contrary to the popular belief that cloud computing is just beneficial for computing applications. It is imperative that IT leaders think ahead and prepare a Cloud strategy for their Organizations.
To make full use of the Cloud computing arena, one needs to have a strong strategy in place. One that works for the business as a whole, and also one that works for the employees. There are some brilliant options to choose from and some great support services to avail but which one to choose? And what investment to make? We look at some cloud computing strategies that leaders should keep in mind while building from the bottom up.
4 Things to Consider for Building an effective Cloud Strategy for your Company
1. Private cloud or public cloud or hybrid: A very confusing but one of the most important decisions a leader has to make is to choose the type of Cloud he would like to deploy on. A Private cloud is definitely more secure and robust but costs more. A Public cloud is lean and relatively cost-less but comes with security concerns. A Hybrid cloud needs expert developers and careful planning to deploy, which increases operating costs as a whole. Careful consideration should be done while selecting the cloud and the pros and cons should be weighed against each other.
2. Value your options and choose: Cloud computing was first adopted by small and medium-sized companies for simple and low-cost solutions because their needs dictated that. Many large organizations are adopting cloud computing for cost-cutting and speed-to-market benefits. They view clouds primarily as an enabler of process improvement and a means of reducing costs in specific pockets across IT. You need to see where you fit, and what the purpose of the shift is. Do you need it for IT support or do you want to induce the BYOD paradigm in your workspace? Your choice would also depend on your bandwidth needs. In the end, choosing a Cloud computing platform is all about dealing with trade-offs.
3. Plan your budget: If you have made a decision on what fits your needs, you need to next choose your IT support backbone. There would be a minimal investment in the storage hardware, but you might have to invest in hiring the proper workforce for Cloud development.
4. Technology: After you have locked in your needs and the budget available for it, take a look at the best technology stack available for the task in the money that you have allocated for the shift to cloud computing. Keeping in mind your Go-to-market strategy, choose from among many of the Cloud service providers in the market today. A lot of them would provide additional features like social media integration and higher security measures, which might be valuable to you, so choose wisely.
Disaster Recovery, Backup, Scalability, Resilience, High Availability, and other capabilities of the Cloud have helped create an interesting solution set for Organizations to choose from. The power of the cloud lies in its versatility and flexibility. With more resources available to the average user on demand and without locking up its CapEx, Cloud computing is capable of delivering more content faster, and to more devices. There are many ways to utilize the cloud and each can have its own considerations and best practices. Aligning those best practices with your business goals is the key strategy that should be followed.
Cloud consulting services are part of many IT enterprises as well as other organizations. As more and more companies are realizing the potential of going cloud for better utilization of resources as well as lower dependence on hardware. Companies and the end-users get complete access to a variety of services such as software, information, and resources. You only need effective internet connectivity to build and run your application and software.
A cloud model usually provides three service models; namely Infrastructure-as-a-Service (Iaas), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Software-as-a-service. Let us dig each in detail.
IaaS – Infrastructure-as-a-Service
IaaS is one of the renowned cloud service models where you get access to distributed virtualized computing resources such as networks, storage, and servers. System administrators manage everything in this model and they provide convenient access to all users.
IaaS cloud infrastructure pattern provides the following benefits:
Transparency – You can request a general location zone for virtual machines
Pay-per-use – You can save hardware investment and pay for the resources you use
Flexibility – You can request a variety of computational and storage resources
Shared Resources – You can access a pool of shared resources and thus higher utilization rate can be achieved
On-demand Services – You can access or request services as you like
Manageability and accessibility – You can access resources from anywhere and anytime.
PaaS – Platform-as-a-Service
In the PaaS service model, you need not buy and own the hardware and software. PaaS offers a virtual environment for developing, running, deploying, and managing applications online. Developers are the principal users of PaaS. It is also known as the middleware service model used to provide a virtual environment with shared tools and resources by eliminating the need for managing the complexity of infrastructure.
IaaS cloud infrastructure pattern provides the following benefits:
Collaboration – geographically situated people can come together and work on a project
Versatility- You can access different databases and programming languages and other resources for the development
Simplification – You need not worry about updating servers. Everything is managed by a PaaS provider.
Testability – Different tools make the testing application programs more convenient
Elasticity – The resources such as network, storage, and servers required to deploy an application can be accommodated as per the varying volume of requirements.
Transparency – Your PaaS provider manages everything from patches to maintenance. There will be no server issues.
On-demand services – You can use additional software development tools if you want to
Accessibility – You can access all PaaS services through thin web browsers anytime from anywhere.
Pay-per-use – You pay for what services you consume
SaaS – Software-as-a-Service
The most sought-after part of any cloud platform will be SaaS. It is widely used by all sorts of companies and persons. The volume and different services the platform provides include applications, storage, servers, and so on.
SaaS cloud infrastructure pattern provides the following benefits:
Scalability – Scaling up and scaling down is easy
Reduced time to benefit – The software is ready to use and no need to waste time on installation and configuration
Lower costs – license costs for software and the maintenance cost are lower since its a multi-tenant environment
In a nutshell
All these service models ensure cloud security and considering the business goals you can choose a service model. IaaS provides sharing of distributed resources such as storage, networks, and other relevant computing resources for the end-user. He can run and deploy applications including operating systems. Operating system support and software development frameworks are provided in PaaS. SaaS delivers end-user applications on the cloud infrastructure. You can access it from any device as long as you have the credentials.
Staffing software (temporary staffing software and long-term staffing software) can help staffing agencies find and manage recruits as well as corporate clients. More specifically, it can facilitate communication with clients and recruits, managing recruit profiles, and posting jobs. Also, staffing software helps perform tasks related to matching recruits to job openings, including candidate screening, applicant tracking, and more.
Sometimes, staffing software is referred to as applicant tracking software or recruiting software. But applicant tracking software and recruiting software may also be used by enterprises for their own recruiting needs while staffing software handles the demands of a staffing agency.
Staffing agencies software key capabilities
Staffing software can integrate with email services and calendars, job boards, social media, a staffing agency’s website, and more, which helps increase the efficiency of staffing processes. As regards built-in capabilities of staffing software, we can distinguish the following components:
Applicant tracking system (ATS)
An applicant tracking system is a key component of staffing software. The ATS offers candidate sourcing, resume management, applicant evaluation, and candidate tracking.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Staffing CRM functionality is required for the effective management of an agency’s relationships with clients and candidates. It helps reduce time to hire, add and view candidate data easily, track opportunities, generate detailed real-time reports, and more.
Throughout the food manufacturing process, from purchasing raw materials to distributing end products, manufacturing companies rely on different types of software to facilitate their business-critical operations. An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution is one of the key elements of a manufacturing software ecosystem. It helps plan raw material procurement and utilization, monitor inventory levels across various stages, automate customer order processing, and track finished food items through the entire supply chain.
The key functionality of food manufacturing software
All ERPs for food manufacturers is unique and may provide different functionality depending on the manufacturer’s size, the production process specifics, the existing digital environment, and more. customers from the food domain are typically interested in the following food manufacturing software features:
Planning of food production and distribution. To analyze sales history, get analytics-based recommendations on the optimal time for raw material purchasing, manage order grouping for bulk processing, and plan product shipping.
Bill of Materials (BOM) creation and management. To centralize information on the amount and cost of raw materials required to manufacture a particular SKU, create and edit product manufacturing and packaging instructions.
Inventory management. To track the number of raw materials and finished goods, timely reallocate inventory between multiple , storage, and distribution sites, identify slow sellers and popular products, and predict high and low sales periods to avoid overstocking and stockouts.
Supply chain management. To monitor the transfer of raw materials and end products between manufacturing facilities, storage locations, and distribution centers.
Recipe management. To facilitate the creation and storage of food and beverage recipes, record information on ingredients and their substitutions.
Quality management. To establish quality control checklists and procedures, monitor the quality of raw materials and end products to ensure food safety and quality, and maintain compliance with relevant governmental regulations.
Cost management. To accurately value inventory based on a preferred costing method, track the spending on raw materials, consumables, etc.
Make the first step in your future food software
Food manufacturing and distribution software can facilitate planning, optimize inventory management and supply chain operations, and help guarantee the compliance of food products with the required industry- and country-specific regulations. If you consider implementing effective food software to improve the transparency and overall effectiveness of your food and distribution processes.
IT infrastructure has expanded rapidly over the last decade and has positioned IT as an active business partner. This drastic expansion means IT teams need to look for effective and scalable mechanisms to manage the IT infrastructure at optimal costs and efforts. Here we discuss how User Interface (UI) can play a significant role in effectively executing IT infrastructure management.
Importance of User Interface in IT Infrastructure Management
The IT department has a broad view of business services and infrastructure. To manage and serve dynamic IT infrastructure needs with ease, businesses are adopting various automation solutions to scale up efficiencies by improving visibility into infrastructure services while avoiding service outages and maximizing operational agility. Automation can save a lot of manual efforts and provide data to drive business decisions but, without proper UI and visualizations, IT teams cannot completely understand the data and service flows provided by automation.
Data visualization isn’t as simple as it appears, having the right information at the right time is the key. Without this, the entire process can slow down which decreases overall efficiency. This can greatly affect IT system administration and troubleshooting activities. For example, discovering and analyzing an issue is a time-sensitive task without proper data visualization and UI, it can compromise SLAs.
Binding complex functionalities under a well-defined UI enables IT, teams, to get results immediately. So, having a strong UI can simplify the process of IT administration and troubleshooting.
UI/UX Considerations for IT Management
The UI and User Experience (UX) design process is completely agile. For IT teams to achieve better results, striking the right balance between the UI design requirements and UX is important. There are a few things to consider to get this right.
UI/UX Considerations for Infrastructure Deployment
Expanding IT Infrastructure with new capabilities and resources is common. Initiating new deployments through UI requires following a structured process to guarantee all modules are installed properly. UI design patterns keep the process simple and provide transparency throughout the installation process. Generalization can simplify the process to prevent errors and speed up the entire process. Typically, in the deployment process, mostly wizards are used.
UI/UX Consideration for Infrastructure Monitoring and Management
The type of UI that goes into IT infrastructure monitoring isn’t the same as in the deployment process. The goal is to optimize IT operations management. This process involves checking the utilization and performance status and extract deeper insights of performance. IT teams need better data visualization and dashboards that enhance understanding of efficiency in IT infrastructure with a report specific to each business case.
UI and UX reporting should vary based on the hierarchy of access. For example, IT admins need an IT infrastructure map and access to data about each deployment. The UI deployed should provide visualizations with appropriate information in dashboards that are easy to understand. If you consider roles like users, the UI should be simple interfaces, so if there is an incident, users can troubleshoot without getting into technicalities.
The cloud-native infrastructure is a cloud environment that enables the entire life cycle of applications designed and developed to operate in the cloud. A classic cloud-native app consists of a mesh of isolated services ensuring the overall app stability as the app does not cease to operate when one service is down. The granular infrastructure of such apps enables their on-the-go improvement without operational downtimes and systemic failures.
Important aspects of the cloud-native infrastructureContainerization
For the deployment of cloud apps, I recommend using containers to package up software code with all the dependencies necessary to run an app or a service. Containers consume fewer cloud resources and can be easily configured, scaled, replicated, and orchestrated via such management systems as Kubernetes. The use of containers facilitates CI/CD implementation and infrastructure automation.
Paas
To make the cloud more attractive to users, major cloud providers offer PaaS services for developing, testing, deploying, managing, and updating cloud applications: AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, Google App Engine, etc. PaaS releases you from cumbersome server management and lets you extend your cloud infrastructure with special modules for AI, machine learning, IoT, blockchain, etc., with no extra development efforts.
IT infrastructure automation
With the Infrastructure as Code (IaC) approach, your DevOps team can automate cloud infrastructure setup and management of its components. They use configuration files to organize unified and instantly configured development environments and trace changes committed to the infrastructure.
Parallel development environments
As services of a cloud-native app are detached and have clear criteria for their functional operability, they enable a high level of automation and can be simultaneously developed and then assembled, tested, and deployed through the branching CI/CD pipelines.
Autoscaling
Cloud infrastructures are driven by virtual computing nodes like EC2s in AWS and VMs in Azure or Google Cloud Platform. Each component of a cloud infrastructure consumes CPU, RAM or storage capacities attributable to it and the consumption should timely follow the demandThat’s why I recommend automating resource orchestration to:
Reduce cloud consumption by scaling down when a service is idle.
Ensure sufficient performance of a service by scaling up.
Depending on the objectives, you can make the virtual instances scale dynamically against metrics of interest (including predictive metrics) or as scheduled if you expect load surges.
Load balancing
Application monitoring
Monitoring of a cloud-native app can be divide into two layers:
Health checks to define whether a microservice is functional at all. because The functional state is automatically reported to a host platform, which can scale up
Metrics analysis certainly gives an advanced picture of app performance. because It is mostly use by the developers to automate
Security
A cloud-native app lets you build perimeter and component-level security. However, the integration of access verification mechanisms into each app component may become a burden on performance. To avoid this, I suggest use intra-component authentication: a sign-up user gets a taken, which is then compare with a reference token cashed in each service to grant or deny access. This technique greatly contributes to app security with the least effect on its performance.
In the technology industry,IT Infrastructure Consultants much of the focus is placed on applications and solutions, and rightfully so. It is the applications themselves that enable a company to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and provide their services for their customers. However, without the right infrastructure in place, the application is either going to perform poorly or not function at all. As IT infrastructure consultants, here’s where Mindsight comes in. We provide expert insight and guidance at an infrastructure level to help our clients deploy, manage, and maintain their IT environments.
The Value Of IT Infrastructure Consultants
Purchasing your IT infrastructure is not as simple as ordering SKUs online and waiting for the parts to arrive. Truly, infrastructure consulting occurs in two phases.
Design and Strategy
Our approach to these consulting engagements is a holistic one. We don’t only meet with the IT department. Instead, we seek to understand our client’s business at every level. We meet with other business units, such as the finance department, sales, marketing, and more to discover how the technology empowers and hinders that department. Once we understand how the business operates, we are in a much better position to offer the best recommendations and guidance possible.
Deployment
The deployment phase is exactly what you might imagine. By choosing Mindsight as their preferred IT infrastructure consultant, our clients gain peace of mind in knowing that their new equipment will be deployed in their environment on time and on budget.
The software selection process can be complicated and overwhelming, and it often leads to analysis paralysis and organizational conflict, among other things. Navigating that terrain often requires external, objective help to help guide the process and ensure an organization is focusing on the right things as they vet each system.
It all comes down to gathering the right requirements, enabling project management, and other digital transformation best practices that you can find in our most recent digital transformation report.
Whether you do it yourself or decide to bring in a third-party consultant, these 10 proven tactics can guard your company against risks and pitfalls that come with the software selection process. Follow these vetting tactics when going through software evaluations. Although it may take a little longer, these simple due diligence asks will save money and heartburn in the long run.
10 Tips for Vetting Software Vendors Through the ERP Software Selection Process
Measure twice, cut once.
Allow your team the time to do real due diligence upfront. Red flags are ignore many times when the company is hurtling toward a fast decision. A proper selection process can take anywhere from 6-to 18 months depending on the size and scope. Allow them time and resources.
Get references.
Ask to speak to references who are on the same version you are planning to deploy and if it’s on-prem or cloud. Preferably in your industry, size, and with some of the same nuances or challenges you are solving for.
Probe beyond the surface.
Ask them to further demonstrate areas where they say “yes, we can do that” This may require mini demonstrations of said functionality and the vendor should be willing and able to accommodate.
What you see is not always what you get.
Ask if that functionality they are selling or showcasing is “out of the box” or requires customization. In addition, ask for details about the time and cost tied to building out the customizations. As well as any recurring fees to maintain the integrations that are built to accommodate those customizations.
Remember that vendors are selling.
There may be claims made in the sales process that simply can’t be fulfill by the professional services team. There have been many companies who have fallen subject to the professional services team being blind-side by a request, and they can only say that that functionality was not include or that it is the customer’s responsibility. Assume positive intent with your sales representative, but verify everything. Once you sign the contract, there’s no going back.
Understand the product road map.
Ask to have someone walk you through their product roadmap. Understand if what they are selling/showing is what will be deployed on your go-live date. Vendors will have their demo environments, websites, and web videos set up to show all the bells and whistles functioning at a high level. Again, they are selling. Remember that most ERP software does not come out of the box looking/operating like that. Dig deep into their product roadmap and the stability of the product over the next several years.
Do your due diligence.
Check the forums and real user feedback about how good their technical support and service teams are. SLAs, response times on service tickets, etc. There are many resources out there. Consider looking at places like Gartner and Software Advice.
Adding on too early in the process.
Be wary of doing customizations or buying additional modules too early in the process. Learn what is core functionality first and work with the system for a while before spending more time or money on additional bells and whistles you may not need right now. The 20% contingency budget built into these projects should not be spent on things that could have accounted for ahead of time.
Request sales back-up.
Ask the vendor to include a solution architect and professional services/delivery team resource in the demonstration if possible. This will keep the sales team honest in terms of what they are promising general cost, time, and complexity estimates.
NEGOTIATE!
There is almost always room to negotiate on price. There are a couple of vendors who are notorious for not negotiating, which I will not name here.
Know when fiscal year-end is for your vendors, and try to time negotiations/close around that time when they are most incentivized to offer discounts.
Oracle: May 31. Microsoft: June 30. Infor: April 30.
The end of the quarter can also be a good time for that as well.
A few other ways we’ve seen customers reduce spending include caps on maintenance fee increases, extended maintenance and support time, future options on additional software purchases, and reduced hourly rates on professional services.
Despite the fact that a large number of couples forget to make this beyond daylight hours first 365 days, there are a few marital relationship worthy features that can help be sure a happy and healthy long term romance. Marriages which can be based on mutual admiration can help you communicate your emotions in a more effective fashion, and help you stay calm once complications happen. The key to using a successful marital relationship is to be selfless and not reluctant to make eschew for the other.
The most successful marriages are the ones that are built around a common set of interests, values, and desires. Once two people will be connected by shared areas, it makes sense to share the tasks and chores at home. Good marriage partners should also discuss finances, exactly where they want to live the moment their kids will be grown, and also other such important matters.
There are a number of qualities that will make a marriage powerful, and picking the best types for your marriage is not easy. However by looking about and playing your partner, you may discover some of the even more essential ones.
One of the best qualities to get a good relationship is having a strong work ethic. It is not unusual for a good man to want to assist his better half out throughout the house, or to make her feel special. If he’s an attentive dad, he’ll make sure to provide her with the time and space the woman needs. In fact , a good guy may even use hours aiding his better half learn how to operate the computer.
It is also essential to be honest along with your partner. The best marriages are those where each are willing to look for the best solution and compromise to the details. For instance, your partner mylistingbride.com may want to use all of your financial savings on cryptocurrency, while you might not be so fired up about that. However , if you fail to see eye ball to eyesight, it might be far better to cut the losses and move on.
The best partnerships also amuse recognize and appreciate every other’s successes. It may be difficult to do this while you are dealing with a number of drama, yet a little compliment goes a long way. Whenever your spouse has a huge job advertising, it’s a good idea to let him be aware that he’s liked, and that you will be there to aid him in his new position.
A good matrimony is the one that anyone looks toward coming home to every night. A very good marriage partner could dream of becoming a business tycoon, nevertheless, you need to be capable to work together to produce that happen.
The best marriages are those wherever both parties talk about a great enlightened perspective on lifestyle, work, and family. These are the marriages in which the partners are motivated to work towards every other’s goals and successes. The most effective marriages https://hridoy.me/rrfpractice/2020/07/04/exactly-what-is-a-mail-buy-bride/ have one perspective on the upcoming and one eye ball on the present.
