by hellointech.com | Sep 9, 2021 | App Management
UI & UX DESIGN
What is UI Design?
The UI & UX DESIGN stands for “user interface.” The user interface is the graphical layout of an application. It consists of the buttons users click on, the text they read, the images, sliders, text entry fields, and all the rest of the items the user interacts with. This includes screen layout, transitions, interface animations and every single micro-interaction. Any sort of visual element, interaction, or animation must all be designed.
This job falls to UI designers. They decide what the application is going to look like. They have to choose color schemes and button shapes — the width of lines and the fonts used for text. UI designers create the look and feel of an application’s user interface.
UI designers are graphic designers. They’re concerned with aesthetics. It’s up to them to make sure the application’s interface is attractive, visually stimulating and themed appropriately to match the purpose and/or personality of the app. And they need to make sure every single visual element feels united, both aesthetically, and in purpose.
What is UX Design?
“UX” stands for “user experience.” A user’s experience of the app is determined by how they interact with it. Is the experience smooth and intuitive or clunky and confusing? Does navigating the app feel logical or does it feel arbitrary? Does interacting with the app give people the sense that they’re efficiently accomplishing the tasks they set out to achieve or does it feel like a struggle? User experience is determined by how easy or difficult it is to interact with the user interface elements that the UI designers have created.
So UX designers are also concerned with an application’s user interface, and this is why people get confused about the difference between the two. But whereas UI designers are tasked with deciding how the user interface will look, UX designers are in charge of determining how the user interface operates.
They determine the structure of the interface and the functionality. How it’s organized and how all the parts relate to one another. In short, they design how the interface works. If it works well and feels seamless, the user will have a good experience. But if navigation is complicated or unintuitive, then a lousy user experience is likely. UX designers work to avoid the second scenario.
There’s also a certain amount of iterative analysis involved in UX design. UX designers will create wireframe rendering of their interface interactions and get user feedback. They’ll integrate this into their designs. It’s important for UX designers to have a holistic understanding of how users prefer to interact with their applications.
How They Work Together
So a UX designer decides how the user interface works while the UI designer decides how the user interface looks. This is a very collaborative process, and the two design teams tend to work closely together. As the UX team is working out the flow of the app, how all of the buttons navigate you through your tasks, and how the interface efficiently serves up the information user’s need, the UI team is working on how all of these interface elements will appear on the screen.
Let’s say at some point in the design process it’s decided that extra buttons need to be added to a given screen. This will change how the buttons will need to be organized and could require changing their shape or size. The UX team would determine the best way to layout the buttons while the UI teams adapt their designs to fit the new layout. Constant communication and collaboration between UI and UX designers help to assure that the final user interface looks as good as it can, while also operating efficiently and intuitively.
Research in UI & UX DESIGN
UI designers need to make sure the visual language they choose fits the class of application they’re writing. They’re trying to predict user expectations. If your team is designing a travel app, it’s important to research how other travel apps have been developed in the past. Which ones worked? Which ones didn’t? There are design lessons to be learned from the work others have done before.
Research might indicate that people prefer outlined icons instead of bold shapes. This is a visual shorthand that people are comfortable with and enjoy. UI designers would then do well to incorporate that lesson.
The exact aesthetic they choose is up to them, but the basic “rules,” or the need to conform to user expectations, is something designers ignore at their own risk.
Not to say risks shouldn’t be taken. UI designers want their interface designs to stand out and be memorable. But this must be balanced against making sure people recognize the purpose of the elements you’re placing on screen.
Research for UX Design
UX design is particularly interested in user expectations. All of the experiences and interactions that users have had with every application they’ve used in their lives have helped set their expectations for how interfaces are supposed to work. If a UX designer isn’t intimately familiar with these expectations, they could inadvertently design an interface interaction that seems logical to them but breaks commonly accepted conventions. Users don’t like when an interface behaves very differently than they were expecting, and this could negatively impact their experience.
UI vs. UX: Two Very Different Disciplines that Work in Harmony
UI design and UX design involve very different skill sets, but they are integral to each other’s success. A beautiful design can’t save an interface that’s clunky and confusing to navigate, and a brilliant, perfectly appropriate user experience can be sunk by bad visual interface design that makes using the app unpleasantly. Both UI and UX designs need to be flawlessly executed and perfectly aligned with pre-existing user expectations to create an excellent user interface/experience. And when those stars align the results can be astounding.
Importance of UI UX Design in an App Development Process
How many times have you opened an application and have found the button and element placement going beyond your device screen? Or do you remember how you felt the last time you clicked on an option and it took you to a screen that was filled with bold colors and a lot of text?
Every time we face an issue related to the app design, especially in terms of it being starkly opposite to what we expected, the outcome is almost always app uninstallation.
The design industry has crossed many rivers to become innovative and immersive. While there are some brands like Uber with its design guideline or MailChimp who have understood and went with the flow, there are brands that are still not giving app design its fair share of attention.
Many entrepreneurs and startups are making sure to get the right design by implementing design principles and rules for web or app development.
The intent of this article is to look back at the basics – at the importance of UI/UX design.
Read this blog as a beginner’s guide. One that will help you, an entrepreneur with the understanding of what makes the role of user experience and UX review process as important as the development and testing process itself – After all, the present time is operative in such a way that the importance of UX and UI design in app development is not just crucial but unquestionable.
by hellointech.com | Sep 9, 2021 | App Management
DEVELOPMENT
What Is App Development?
App development is the process in which developers create an application to be used on smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.
Mobile applications have become big business in recent years; in fact, statistics show that 21 percent of millennials open an app more than 50 times per day. While there is no denying the popularity of apps, the sheer number of these applications can make it difficult to see results when creating your own apps. With more than 2.2 million apps available for download in the Apple App Store, and an additional 2.8 million in the Google Play Store, it makes sense that your app will have to stand out if you want a lot of people to download it. In the end, it all comes down to app development.
Types Of Apps & What To Consider During Development
What is app development, exactly? It is the process in which a device, the application is developed for mobile devices, as smartphones and tablets. There are multiple types of apps created by developers, such as native apps, HTML5 apps, and hybrid apps. A typical app uses a network connection to work with remote computing resources.
When creating an app, developers must consider a variety of elements, such as screen size, configurations, and hardware specifications. Each component of a mobile app must come together to provide the end-user with a fast, clean, and easy-to-use interface design. Here are a few other things you will want to consider during app development.
The App Development Lifecycle
The app development lifecycle features several steps involved in a typical app development project. These steps include:
1. Planning
This first stage involves completing a business analysis and creating a mobile strategy. A business analysis, marketer and project manager are usually involved.
2. Technical
In this next stage, a technical writer is responsible for describing all technical details and requirements.
3. Prototyping
In the prototyping phase, the sketch, wireframes and app skins are created. This is usually completed by a UX/UI designer.
4. Developing
This phase includes front-end and back-end coding segments and is performed by developers.
5. Quality
During the quality assurance phase, tech requirements are tested and the device capability is reviewed to ensure that the app is working as it should.
6. Publishing
Finally, the app is published to the app store. Maintenance is provided on an ongoing basis as updates, new releases and new bugs arise.
Front End vs. Back End Development
During the coding process, developers encounter two main types of paths: front end and back end. What is the difference between these two concepts? Front-end developers focus on how an app looks, while back-end developers focus on how an app works. For example, if you were building an app, the front-end developer would be in charge of creating the theme, style, presentation, and images.
The back-end developer would work on the database, as well as the site’s security, users and overall site performance. Programming languages can also differ. For example, front-end developers often use HTML, JavaScript, or CSS, while back-end users may use Ruby, PHP, Python, Java, or Node.js.
Key Features Of Mobile Applications
Mobile apps often contain a wide range of features designed to enhance the user experience. When developing an app, you will want to think carefully about what features you want added to your software. Push notifications are an example of a feature often used by app developers. These notifications or messages create a direct line of communication between businesses and customers.
Other examples of popular mobile app features include one-click contact, QR scanner integration, Google Indoor-Maps, and augmented reality. Many businesses also rely on customized content, system functionality, and layouts to create a visual design that is both attractive and functional.
by hellointech.com | Sep 9, 2021 | App Management
LAUNCH & MONITOR
What is APM and why is it important?
In short, APM is the practice of proactively monitoring the many facets of an application environment in order to identify and mitigate issues before they become major problems. Across the typically complex and distributed ecosystems of today’s applications, we can think of APM as our guide in finding the needle (or needles) in a digital haystack that spans multiple locations, across various types of technology.
But why do we need APM, specifically?
Let’s look at a few key APM benefits and the role they play in solving performance problems.
Benefit #1: APM breaks down operational silos.
APM provides a unified view across your entire application stack, including every component, connection point, dependency, and user interaction.
This benefits the different teams supporting your application by equipping them with comprehensive visibility, which allows them to collaborate in a way that would be virtually impossible without APM. This is particularly important in the highly distributed, multi-cloud environments that support so many modern applications today.
Benefit #2: APM allows you to meet — and exceed — customer expectations.
As we discussed earlier, when an application experiences performance issues, or is unavailable, you run the risk of losing customers. APM provides real-time performance insights that allow you to react fast when issues arise, including contextual data that helps you reduce the mean time to resolution (MTTR) and restore your application to normal performance.
By proactively resolving issues, you’re better able to provide that flawless experience your customers expect from your applications.
Benefit #3: APM protects your company’s bottom line.
More sophisticated APM solutions provide business intelligence analytics, which can help you visualize and understand how application performance issues impact your mission-critical business metrics — revenue or sales conversions, for example.
This not only helps better align IT with the business, but it also helps technologists prioritize issue remediation’s by focusing on resolving the problems that directly impact key business outcomes.
What’s important in the world of APM going forward?
APM solutions are continually evolving to meet the demands of the rapidly changing technologies we use to build applications. At the time of writing, we’re on the cusp of a major shift that will bring APM to the next stage of its evolution. The two driving forces behind this shift are observability and Open Telemetry, which, at a high-level, can be considered to go hand in hand.
Observability has a pretty fluid definition, but in general, you can think of it as APM on steroids. Driven by the advanced needs of DevOps and SRE teams, observability provides the raw, granular data necessary to gain an in-depth understanding of complex and highly distributed systems — typically defined as M.E.L.T. (metrics, events, logs and traces). This fine-grained understanding of how applications and systems should work will help you further reduce MTTR when issues arise.
Sounds great, right? But it’s extremely challenging to get the correlated M.E.L.T data needed to make this a reality. Enter Open Telemetry. Open Telemetry is a vendor-neutral standard for collecting telemetry data for applications, their supporting infrastructures, and services, providing the consistent collection mechanism and format needed to understand and validate performance across the most complex of distributed applications.
While observability and Open Telemetry are still in their infancy, they’re both a testament to the industry’s ongoing efforts to simplify complexity and ensure applications are always driving better digital experiences and business outcomes. Be on the lookout for developments in this space.
by hellointech.com | Sep 9, 2021 | App Management
STRATEGY & ROADMAP
What is a roadmap?
he basic definition of a roadmap is simple: it’s a visual way to quickly communicate a plan or strategy. At a high level, this broad definition applies to all the roadmaps that can exist at a company, including marketing, IT, sales, finance, project-based teams and anyone whose work has any impact on the business goals of an organization.
Every team has a plan and strategy built around doing what pushes the business goals forward. When you’re busy executing the strategy, you can get lost in the day-to-day task management. A roadmap is one of the most effective tools for rising above the granular details and the chaos. Roadmaps give you a bird’s-eye view of everything that’s happening at your team or company.
And with the right tool, you can roll up all those different strategies into one master view that allows you to see how all these pieces are connected and aligned with the high-level plan of the company.
Ideally, a good roadmap should effectively communicate the following strategic pieces:
- Strategic alignment: Why (and how) the initiatives align with the higher-level business goals or product/business strategy
- Resources: How a team will achieve those goals (OKRs, for example) and what resources are required to achieve them
- Time estimates: When any important deliverables are due (and with the right roadmapping tool, you have the flexibility to define dates according to your delivery needs. Either by defining specific days, fuzzier months, or less specific soon/now/later buckets)
- Dependencies with other teams: The teams and team members that need to be involved and why
One of the most popular types of roadmaps is the product roadmap, and they’re instrumental to product management (it’s why we have an entire library of resources for product managers). Product roadmaps provide a crystal clear way for product teams to visualize how their product will evolve over time. Because a product roadmap is a visual plan, it plays really well in a presentation — making it a great tool for PMs to align all stakeholders on their one high-level product strategy.
Non-product teams have started to catch on to how they can use roadmaps to improve strategic communication and win executive buy-in for those plans. More and more marketing, IT and project-based teams are visualizing their strategies with roadmaps.
What can roadmaps help you achieve?
- Consensus and alignment. Roadmaps can create the transparent consensus needed to move forward with decision-making around strategy (from the high level business goals to the granular day-to-day tasks and projects)
- Better communication. Road mapping promotes and improves communication across teams and departments by creating an ongoing dialogue around strategy and goals.
- A more visual way of seeing a plan. The visual aspect of roadmaps makes it easy to communicate outputs, timelines, projects and initiatives across an organization.
- Breaking team silos. Roadmaps can be the key in creating alignment between resource allocation and a company’s goals, and between the technical side of the company (product, development, engineering) and the business.
In this guide, you’ll find the road mapping basics you need — best practices that are applicable to all types of road mapping teams — like how to create your first visual roadmap, what it should include and examples of beautiful roadmaps to inspire you.
What should a roadmap include?
How to create a roadmap and what to include in it really depends on the type of roadmap you’re creating. But generally speaking, there’s a set of essential elements and qualities that apply to all roadmaps.
- It has to be flexible. If you want to succeed at implementing a road mapping process at your company, you need to treat roadmaps as flexible tools, not static documents. Strategy-setting can get complex, ambiguous and uncertain—so you need the most flexible road mapping tool that can adapt to that reality.
- It has to be collaborative. What’s the best way to gain buy-in and alignment on a plan? Involve your stakeholders early in the roadmap planning process, listen to their objections and concerns and be curious about their reasoning for why some things should be prioritized over others. Learn how to say no, but also take the time to listen and understand where your teammates are coming from when it comes to prioritizing their work.
- It has to be visually beautiful. Good design elements = crystal clear communication. You want to be able to demonstrate to your stakeholders that you’re on top of your strategy. So it’s important that the roadmap meets you halfway when it comes to presenting your reasoning.
Your roadmap should also have these visual elements:
- A clear depiction of dependencies. Projects usually involve more than one team of stakeholders. With projects that involve many moving parts, it’s important to define those dependencies early on in the road mapping process.
- The right amount of detail. Things like key dates and milestones can create a linear visualization for stakeholders to keep track of everything that’s going on at the organization.
- Use color to your advantage. A good roadmap should use color to tell a story and establish relationships between the items on your roadmap. You should use color palettes to establish a visual relationship between the different categories on the roadmap
