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Boost Your Business with Enterprise Mobility Solutions for Retail

Like pagers in the 80s and 90s, smartphones have become an essential part of our day to day lives. According to Statista, the usage of smartphones has been reached to 2.87 billion in 2018 which is 10% more than 2011. With the increase in smartphone usage, app downloads have also increased in both Android and iOS platforms. There is an ocean of opportunities for retailers to grow their business with the help of retail mobile solutions.

Mobile apps have changed the face of retail industry from inside out. It has changed the way retailers used to advertise, market, sell and took feedback for their products from the customers. Managing goods and products have become more comfortable. Retailers like Walmart, Amazon, Flipkart, and Starbucks have changed the way other retailers used to do business by introducing their mobile apps. They have added a new flavor to the whole shopping experience for consumers.

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Benefits of a mobile app for retailers:

Mobile apps in retail business were not generating much revenue till 2012. According to Statista, global mobile app retail commerce revenue hit $98 billion in 2013 and $669 billion in 2018. A staggering 582.65% increase in total revenue in just five years! These numbers are enough to convince any retailer for mobile app development. Below mentioned are the top 5 benefits which retailers can gain through mobility solutions for retail industry.

1. Improved Shopping Experience

According to a report by The App Solutions, 54% of the customers choose a mobile app for shopping because it is more user-friendly and loads faster than a mobile site. Integrating third-party payment applications and payment gateway, allow customers to make safer and faster transaction. Apart from these, there are some small features found only in apps enhances the customer experience and makes them shop using the app.

“The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best but legendary”
-Sam Walton, Founder Walmart and Sam’s Club

2. Increased Brand Awareness

Building brand awareness via mobile advertising is a smart idea to let future customers know about your brand. There are billions of people around the world watching the advertisement on their smartphones in any app. It is easier for a retailer to attract customers via mobile advertising if they have a enterprise mobility solutions for retail. Advertising your brand on a smartphone is not only more comfortable than traditional marketing techniques but also effective than them. As soon as customers start understanding the brand value, they will shop more often using the app.

3. Enhanced Customer Engagement

One of the reasons why customers prefer to download an app is because they can connect with the retailer at any time and from anywhere. It is easier to provide information about the latest offers and discounts on the app. With GPS technology, retailers can send promotional offers to the customers whenever they come near the store. Retailers can also provide exclusive discounts on app referrals which helps them get more new customers.

4. Build Customer Loyalty

Develop customer loyalty program in your retail mobile solutions. Push notifications informs customers about discounts and coupon codes and engage them with the app. Retailers can also provide points to the customers whenever they make a purchase using a credit card and later on when a significant amount of points are gathered they can shop from the app using points without spending a penny.

5. Enhanced Productivity with Analytics

Integrate latest app analytics tools in your retail mobile solutions. It will help you determine the results of your investment in different domains of the company. For example, using analytics, we can learn how a particular marketing strategy made customers explore certain sections of the app or which type of offers and discounts attracted the majority of the customers, etc. There are many options available in analytics for an app compared to a website.

Verdict

An app featuring all the above specifications can help you skyrocket your sales by means of improving customer experience and customer satisfaction. We would love to hear from you! Hire iPhone app developers who gave enterprise mobility solutions for retail businesses multiple times and get the best service in the field of enterprise mobility.

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Transformation for Employees – The Intranet Is Dying!

It’s an era of digitization we live in! It is changing the way individuals and businesses interact with each other. Especially, organizations have a quite complex ecosystem as they have to deal with multifaceted audiences. This blog explains how enterprise mobility improves employee engagement with the company.

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Ecosystems of A Business

Every company has 3 ecosystems – Customers, Partners/Vendors, and Employees. The mentioned ecosystems revolve around the products or offerings of the company.

Smartphones Accelerate Digital Transformation

When smartphones started getting popular in 2008, businesses quickly grabbed the opportunity to use the smartphones for customer engagement. Customers Ecosystem was the first that benefited from the wave of digital transformation. After 2008, businesses that had a basic web presence rush to use the smartphones as a medium to get engaged and transacted with their customers. Companies started creating mobile apps that the customers could download from the different application stores. It resulted in increased revenue for the businesses and enhanced convenience for the customers.

Around 2012, new businesses emerged that completely relied on the smartphone like Uber, WhatsApp, and others. The millions of mobile apps for games started exploding in the App Store. It resulted in the famous line being framed way back in 2010 by Apple – “There is an App for that!”

In 2016, for the first time, mobile internet usage (smartphone and tablets) surpassed the desktop Internet usage.

By 2013, the big businesses had already established a strong connection with their customers using the smartphone. The small and medium enterprises were on their way to do the same.

The Partners Ecosystem was the next to get benefits. Businesses continuously sought out the ways to enhance collaboration and streamline activities with their vendors. Thus, businesses started creating enterprise apps for their partners.

The Employee Ecosystem

Until 2017, businesses never focused on the third and probably the most important ecosystem – EMPLOYEES.

Since last 2 years, I have been talking with several large and mid-sized companies who wanted to connect with their employees using the smartphones. Well, you must be thinking why to create a mobile app for employees. They have the intranet to stay connected with various internal systems like Expense Reporting, Leave Management, Payroll, Training, etc.

The answer is – that is not enough!

As the digital transformation wave progressed, it has become increasingly clear to the businesses that they are becoming more of a knowledge and product/offering-based business. Knowledge-based businesses rely on smart, productive, and more importantly happy employees. Now, businesses are fiercely looking to protect/retain their employees (who have the knowledge) and trying to attract better talent.

Core Concerns of Employees

An HR Head from one of the largest Insurance firms in the world told me once – “Our employees have started showing dissatisfaction the way they get engaged with the company and its internal systems. We need to find a solution for this”. After having detailed discussions with her, we started listing down pain points of the employees. They were as follows:

I do not feel connected to the company
I cannot collaborate efficiently with my peers
I have a little knowledge of what is going on in other departments
I have to log in to disparate systems to apply for a leave or upload a file of an expense report or consume training videos or consume corporate content or look at my pay stubs… and the list goes on and on
I feel that I have not been recognized by the company. No one knows about my achievements
I do not know when the company publishes a piece of content on the intranet
The intranet is an ocean. I cannot find the relevant content

Solution Offered by Credencys

We started finding out the possible solutions. After deliberating around 2 hours – WE FOUND IT!! Eureka!! Well, this is a bit of an exaggeration on my part. But the solution was simple, a mobile app development for the employees. The Employee Mobile App becomes a single window for the staff from where they can access all or most of the internal systems within the company including content that is customizable as per the employees’ nature of work.

Then, we listed out the features of the mobile app. They were as follows:

Pushing relevant content to the employees
Leave Management
Expense Reporting
Training Videos and Articles
Company Policies and update to these policies
Compliance Policies
Collaboration Platform for teams that work on specific projects
Talent Searching – like an internal LinkedIn within the company (The HR Head told me that they do not know if certain skill sets exist in other departments and they end up doing the redundant hiring which could have been prevented)
Ride Sharing
Rewards and Recognitions
Publishing Employee Blogs
Content on Company Events
…

And, the list continued to grow over the next 3 months.
After 3 months of listing down the features of the App (which became a 10-page document), the HR Head had 2 questions for me as the reality sank in.

1. It is not as -simple- as we thought. It is a huge system. How are we going to build it?
2. What will happen to our Intranet that we have maintained for over 15 years and poured millions into it?

The answer to her 1st question was…

Well, obviously the mobile app development for employees was not a simple undertaking. It required integration with existing systems of the company and needed a new custom platform to be created where employees could start to get engaged. We understood that it was going to be a long-term effort to achieve everything mentioned in the document. Thanks to Agile development processes, we decided on the most important user-stories (use-cases) and started working on them. The first version of their app was out in 4 months with the following set of features:

Pushing relevant content to employees
Pushing corporate content to employees (the content that generally gets published on the Intranet)
Leave Management
Expense Reporting
Training Videos and Articles

The HR Head was skeptical if there will be an adoption of this app after they had made the investment to build it.

Within 30 days of releasing the app and making the announcement, 85% of the employees had installed the app on their smartphones and the adoption of the app continued to grow after that.

The answer to her 2nd question was…

The Intranet is dying and soon it will rest in peace!! The intranet paid off for 15 years by being the single point of contact for your employees. But now, times have changed, technologies have changed, and expectations have changed. It is time to move on. Move on to the new platform – THE EMPLOYEE APP.

Benefits of Employee Mobile App to the Insurance Company

60% reduction in traffic of the Intranet in the first 2 months after releasing the app and it continued to go down as we started adding more and more features in the app.
Employee engagement rate on the Intranet was an average of 0.8 visits (site visits) per day per employee. With the new app, the employees were engaged with the company and their peers at an astounding 7.6 visits (app opens) per day per employee.
The Insurance Company saw a dramatic improvement in their social footprint when we integrated Social Media in to the app. Employees started liking and commenting on the company’s social media pages.

Overall, it was a WIN-WIN situation. The employees loved the app and the company benefited by having a workforce that is more productive and more satisfied.

Verdict

Since the project started 2 years back, I have now been approached by at least 12 other companies who are interested to embark on the journey of Digital Transformation for their Employees Ecosystem.

I can see a huge wave of digital transformation that will completely change the way employees get engaged with the company.

Alas, the wave of digital transformation has reached to the employee coast!

Let’s Discuss Your Mobile App Requirement

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Improve Customer Experience with Enterprise Mobility Solutions for Retail

If you start counting the most competitive industry in these days than probably retail top the list. Incremental use of technologies has made this domain more tech-savvy and sophisticated. Especially, enterprise mobility solutions for retail has transformed the way industry operates. It has unveiled new direction for retailers to interact with customers, suppliers, internal staff, and partners.

To be the first choice for customers, it is imperative to deliver a meaningful customer experience. Optimize customer engagement by delivering interactive and seamless user experience on different mobile devices.

Here’re a few touchpoints that end up you by winning the customer loyalty, establishing lasting relations with them and generating repetitive business.

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How Mobile Application Development for Retail Enhance the User Journey?

Embrace enterprise mobility solutions for retail to drive tremendous business opportunities. Simplify the product selection and purchase processes for the users. Use advanced technologies to develop an easy-to-use mobile app to enable people with immersive experiences. To cover your app visitors into loyal customers, create an intuitive user journey and offer them maximum benefits.

Increase Order Volume with Appealing Digital Product Catalog

Bring your products to the mobile platform by creating an interesting digital catalog. Deliver streamlined shopping experience for the buyers by allowing them to access required product information in a few seconds. Buyers can review the product such as product name, description, features, price, reviews and ratings, similar options, and more in one go.

On-Timely Product Delivery through Seamless Order Management

Provide better customer service by enabling shoppers with real-time order update and order tracking facilities. Retailers can effectively address the challenges of faster delivery expectations, supply chain complexities, and increasing marketplace channels by harnessing the potential of enterprise mobility solutions for retail. With an advanced order management, retailers can

Simplify & streamlined order processing
Provide real-time access to inventory, order and delivery information
Product stock monitoring to meet quantity demands
Improve user engagement by responding to customer inquiries instantly

Gain Customer Confidence by Offering Product Comparison

Allow customers to compare the pricing and features of the same product from different brands. Help them in making the suitable choice at the best price by evaluating various products in one go. You may lose the business at initial phase but you build a trust with customers for selling cost-effective products. Gradually, they get attached to your brand start buying your products.

Provide Better Visibility of Returned Products

Product return usually ends up getting either getting refunded or a replaced. Both the aspects require different processes. To deliver a better customer experience, go for mobile application development for retail that allows customers to track the status of returning products in real-time. So, they get the idea when they will receive the refund or a replaced item.

Simplify Offline Shopping through GPS based Personalization

Provide the ease of access to the customers to your retail stores by offering Geo location facility. Buyers can check all the locations of your stores on their mobile phones and visit the nearest one to buy the products. Thus, mobile application development for retail not only boosts the online sales but also improve foot traffic in your physical stores.

Boost Up Your Sales Funnel Integrating Mobile Payment Gateway

Help customers in making an instant purchase by integrating popular payment gateways like PayPal, Amazon Payments, Authorize.Net, etc. Simple and secure payment process increase buyers’ trust in your brand and encourages them for repetitive purchase. With enterprise mobility solutions for retail, you can reach out larger target audience, increase the sales and boost the revenue cycle.

Keep Customers Well-informed with Your Current Offerings

Update your product offerings on the mobile app regularly. Allows the buyers to discover what you are selling. Stop displaying the products that you are not dealing with anymore. Help shoppers to explore the latest offerings of your business and make the suitable purchase decision instantly.

Credencys Brings Your Ideas to Life for Enterprise Mobility

Leverage the Credencys’s mobile app development experience to build your desired enterprise mobility solutions for retail. We bring your offline retail business in the online platform and help you in generating more sales and ROI by engaging wider customer base. Integrating the latest technologies like Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented Reality (AR), and Virtual Reality (VR), we create an outstanding experience for your customers.

Credencys delivers next-gen mobile applications that go beyond just selling products and help you in establishing a lasting relationship with your customers by offering them highly personalized experience.
Get in touch with us for mobile application development for retail.

Let’s Discuss Your Mobile App Requirement

Ultimate Guide to Development: Evolve Dynamic Web Applications Through Proven Practices

Trends and technologies of web development are evolving with each passing day. Every day, it becomes better and omnipotent. Embracing a variety of web-based frameworks and programming languages, programmers build exclusively customized websites that work coherently with other technologies such as mobility, cloud, IoT, augmented reality, virtual reality, wearables, and more.

You already have a profound insight into web application prototype and core development activities. Now, it’s time to execute the client’s requirements and project assumptions. Explore the various web application development and deployment processes. Also, have a look at the ultimate deliverables!

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Agile Development Using SCRUM

Agile Methodology

Agile is a highly preferred software development methodology in the mature technology markets like Europe and USA. The methodology covers several incremental and iterative web application development practices. Amongst all, SCRUM is the most renowned and widely used agile practice for website development across the globe. Credencys has hands-on experience working with the Agile SCRUM processes.

To build robust applications, Agile supports continuous feedback gathering and iterations throughout the web development process. Experience an extreme flexibility as the method allows for ongoing planning, testing, integrations, and evolution of the software and project. Core benefit of adopting Agile is, it empowers the people to interact with each other and make effective decisions together rapidly.

Agile Traits for Effective Web Development

Constant availability of customers is preferable throughout the web application development lifecycle.
Leverage facility to change the requirements at any point in time.
Prioritize the imperative features and functions first. Launch a valuable MVP by developing and deploying the important elements. It reduces the risk of investing in an unusable product development.
A dedicated team of business analysts, project manager, designers, coders and quality analysts works on the project by establishing a high degree of synchronization and coordination with the stakeholders.
It goes in-line with Time & Material model.

SCRUM Practices

Well-defined concepts and practices distinguish SCRUM from the other agile website development practices. It’s a subset of Agile and a lightweight framework for project development that is widely used by the reputed web application development company. SCRUM easily adjusts with frequently changing business requirements and creates pioneering websites that meet evolving organizational objectives.

How SCRUM Works?

Create Sprints

SCRUM divides the tasks into sprints. In agile methodology, sprints work as time-boxes. The timeline of the sprints is pre-decided. Ideally, web application development company needs to release the sprints after two weeks. It is not preferable to extend this timeline as it disturbs the overall development cycle.

Prioritize the Tasks

After analyzing user stories, developers create the list of required features and functions. They set the priority of all functionality and convert them into sprints. While creating sprints, programmers figure out the approx. time duration to develop each feature. Accordingly, they add the task to SCRUM backlogs.

Development and Deployment

As per the priority, engineers create a set of features and move ahead to execute them in order to build avant-garde web solutions. The website development cycle starts from writing the code, test the functionality, integrating third-party tools and technologies, to deploying a fully functional software on the server.

SCRUM Meeting

A meeting that involves developers, SCRUM master and stakeholders takes place every day in the morning for 15 minutes. All participants discuss the web development what they worked on the previous day, what they will work on that day, what are the roadblocks, and how to address barriers to website development process.

Feedback Gathering

When delivering the sprints, technical team offers a demo of developed features and functions to the stakeholders. Product owners review the sprints and share feedback. Though the feedback is related to current sprints, required modifications won’t be the part of existing sprints. Developers create fresh sprints of the changes and set them in backlog with the suitable remarks of adding and revising the items.

Sprint Retrospective

At the end of each sprint, SCRUM project management performs sprint retrospective. All members participate in the meeting including stakeholders and ScrumMaster. They discuss various aspects of the completed sprints and identify opportunities for improvement.

Benefits of Web Application Development Using SCRUM Practices

Create more precise estimation within less time
Improve the quality of deliverables
Effectively address the required changes
Control the project schedule and state
Focused and self-organized team
List out the requirements precisely in the form of stories
Cross-functional teams work as a single unit
Continuous improvements
Open interaction with the client to decide priority of features
Lower cost of development

Web Application Deployment Process at Credencys

Credencys’s web application deployment process involves various phases starting from check-in to the product to test automation. Every step plays a key role in completing the deployment cycle effectively.

Step 1 – Check-in: Development team check-in the version control system to set up a web application development environment.

Step 2 – Fetch: System fetches various details of a web application like architecture, programming language, framework, technologies, 3rd party integrations, web services, etc. and send the data further for in-depth analysis.

Step 3 – Analysis: Programmers analyze the website development environment, check the compatibility of coding and generate a code coverage report.

Step 4 – Build: If the structure and development environment of a web application seems suitable, then move ahead to configure the code and build a success report.

Step 5 – Test: It’s a very imperative part of the web application deployment process. Developers generate a unit test report that contains various data such as

Define and execute acceptance criteria and test-cases
Coding standard tests
Performance and load testing
APIs, UI/UX, functional and integration testing
Bug reporting
Test-case, bugs and performance reports

Step 6 – Deployment: Once the web application passes through all tests, next move is to deploy the code in a real-time environment.

Note: Activities from web application analysis to deployment are performed in the continuous integration server.

Step 7 – Automation Test: Once the code deployed in a suitable environment, the final web application passes through automated testing before going live. Engineers generate automated reports for each testing environment. Automated testing enables developers to deliver more reliable and authenticated websites that run smoothly and seamlessly.

Deliverables

Fully Functional Application

After completing a development and deployment cycle, the stakeholders receive a fully functional web application. Tested in an isolated environment, the website helps businesses in achieving expected organizational objectives. The deliverable product went through the several stages of development and deployment processes. In every phase, each of the features and functions is verified again and again to build error-free web solutions.

Test-cases and Quality Assurance Reports

Test cases are the cornerstones of quality assurance. Testers check out variables or conditions applied in the web application and determine whether it satisfies the client’s requirements properly and effectively.

Progress Reports

Following Agile SCRUM practices, the web application development company submits progress reports after every two weeks. During these 15 days, developers work on predefined features and functions. While delivering a progress report, engineers hand over the updated system along with the demonstration of new development. Thus, clients can test the system from their end, and operate the software smoothly without any technical assistance.

Source Code

Once a fully-fledged solution starts running seamlessly, developers deliver application source code to the stakeholders. It eliminates the chances of software duplication.

Documentation

While developing a website, coders have to create a document that explains all the features and functions in detail. It guides users about the activities performed by each element. Documentation works as a helping hand for the clients if they stuck somewhere while operating the system.

Why Choose Credencys as Your Web Application Development Partner?

Design Thinking

Team Credencys creates amazing UX and intelligent architecture following simplified processes. Experienced designers of the company make interactive and intuitive web applications that not only impress the customers but also encourage them to explore more about various offerings. Work closely with industry leaders who excel in creating solution-centric website designs that fuel your revenue cycle.

Open Communication

If you want to understand others, it is important to listen up them carefully. Credencys always listens to the customers, understand their expectations, convert their unique ideas into concepts, and innovate the revolutionary web applications. Following Agile SCRUM practices, the company stays connected with the clients throughout the development phase in order to collect information and feedback.

Continuous Development

Going beyond the obvious and getting into the depth allows Credencys teams to solve complex problems and make the customers succeed.

Verdict

Now just check it out! Your web application runs smoothly and effectively. Offering end-to-end web development services, Credencys believes in a win-win partnership. Being a leading web application development company, it helps clients in gaining the ultimate output.

Rather than working for the clients, the company believes to work with them and attains various milestones by adopting and implementing emerging technologies. Developing innovative web solutions, Credencys makes clients happy, satisfies their expectations and keeps them coming back for all IT needs.

Let’s Discuss Your Web App Requirement

Ultimate Guide to Prototyping: Wireframing and UI/UX Design Is The Cornerstone of Successful Web Application (Part 2)

Prototyping is a journey in which an idea transforms into a proof of concept. Creating functional and interactive wireframes, get the clarity on what is your ultimate purpose for building a website or web application. Because without a destination, the journey will end up nowhere. Experienced and well-trained engineers of Credencys provide end-to-end website development services to help you in achieving the intended target. In Ultimate Guide to Prototyping: Wireframing and UI/UX Design Is The Cornerstone of Successful Web Application (Part 1), you have learned about the importance of prototyping in website development process and benefits you can avail by using it. In this blog, explore prototyping activities and deliverables of Credencys.

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Web Application Development Life Cycle at Credencys

Prototype Activities

Wireframe works as a master plan for developing a website. Through a clickable prototype, stakeholders can experience the would-be interface of the website. Functional prototypes enable users to test the structure from more than one dimension.

Understand Product and Vision

Usually, businesses misunderstand prototyping as web application design. Wireframe represents a logical flow of the website. Create a structure of your website in a functional or static wireframe by considering the ultimate business vision. Depict the entire flow, essential features, important functions, design patterns, and other essential elements into it.

Transparent and consistent interaction with the client helps a web application development company in understanding the project requirements. Gather and analyze the detail provided by stakeholders and check out the possibilities of practical implementation.

Research and Ideate

Rather than directly jump into the prototype designing, it is better to carry out detailed research in order to understand the expectations properly. When you have a brief of requirements, pick them one by one and start researching about them. List out the features, functions, 3rd party tools, design elements, etc. that you need to develop and integrate into the website.

The web application development company has to perform in-depth research to identify how these aspects help in achieving the ultimate business goals and what benefits they drive to the website. Create a functional prototype and share it with the stakeholders. Inform them about the technical feasibility and collect their feedback. Make the necessary changes in wireframe and start ideation of the website development.

Determine the User Journey

Define a smooth route for your web application so that users can easily move from one page to another. Set up the navigation accurately and establish logical interlinking amongst the site pages. Focus on creating a structure rather than wasting the time in improving its look and feel.

Draw out the user’s journey for each page. Prototypes help in identifying how many assumptions you have made and which details you have not considered. It is suggested to identify and work out on such issues at the initial phase rather than creating disputes during coding.

Define Features and Functionalities

Have you decided user’s journey? Great. Now, it’s time to decide features and functions of the website. Every organization has different objectives to build a web application. To achieve these goals, they have to identify, develop, integrate, and deploy the features and functions that work seamlessly with each other.

Usually, the first version of prototype contains lots of features as clients want to explore the idea. Later on, stakeholders realize that there are several unnecessary elements in the wireframe. They identify the important features and functions and remove extra integrations from the web application. Keep the website neat and clean by developing and deploying only required aspects.

Create Intuitive Designs

Start creating a basic and intuitive prototype design for your web application. Make it clickable so that stakeholders and users can have a high-level overview of navigation. Also, determine the places for content, images, call to action, etc. When you receive the approval from the client, you just need to convert the dummy structure into a beautiful website with all the required features and functions that run in real-time.

Prototype Development

Design a prototype that contains user journey, advanced features and functionalities, intuitive design format, and more. It should offer an exclusive overview of the would-be web application. It provides the basic format of the website’s look and feel, placement of text, images, call-to-action, as well as features and functions along with their would-be operations.

Proof of Concepts (POC)

Create a proof of concept of your idea. It is a kind of demonstration which verifies certain concepts and theories as well as check out their potential for real-world application. POC is a prototype that is designed to decide feasibility but it doesn’t represent deliverables.

Planning and Budgeting

It’s quite easy to plan out the development phase as you have everything in-line. You can provide the estimation of efforts, hours, and money. All you need is to move ahead for real-time implementation of the project. At Credencys, project planning and budgeting involve prototyping, preparations, development & integration, UAT, Pilot, and support.

Prototyping Process at Credencys

Journey to Create a High Fidelity UI

Prototype Deliverables

Prioritize feature set for agile development

Every feature carries a different level of importance. Prioritize them as per your preferences. Follow the Agile methodology to boost up your prototyping process. Define a set of functions under each feature and also introduce them in the wireframe. Determine all the essential features and develop them one by one in descending order from high to low priority. It helps in releasing the web application within a short time span.

User Persona and Use Cases

User persona is all about understanding the target audience. Knowing your customer helps in making your product more successful. Choose influential features and design elements to create the wireframe based on well – defined user persona. It enables clients to efficiently recognize and communicate the user’s’ needs.

Also, integrate use cases in prototypes that aid stakeholders in understanding the user’s journey and the different touchpoints. It works as a framework and guideline principles to deliver interactive user experience design. In the user experience brief, it is important to perform end-user research, competitor analysis, business objectives, key performance metrics, and more.

Designs and Style Guide

Create a style guide for your brand using intuitive website design. Add both of these factors in the prototype in order to make your would-be website eye-catchy with bright colors and professional look and feel. Use attractive images and dashing infographics to represent the information in a more engaging way. Set a simple navigation so users can easily switch from one page to another. Execution of decent style guide impresses the customers and inspires them to explore more about your offerings by visiting the website.

Click-through High-fidelity Prototype

The prototype should be clickable. It helps users in understanding when they click on A, they will land on a page B that unveils the relevant information related to A. Rather than using a diagram, wireframe offers a more appealing presentation format of website page navigation. Moreover, in a functional prototype, you can add a few pieces of content too.

Project Plan, Timeline, and Cost

Wireframe allows businesses and website development companies to decide the project plan at the initial phase. So, it becomes easy for them to step into development part and release the product on time. Brainstorming is over with the finalization of prototype. Based on the approved prototype, a web application development company can effectively plan out the project progress path and provide approx. estimation of time and cost.

Team

To create an accurate and perfect prototype, you need a team of business analysts who gather and understand the requirements, analyze them, prepare a wireframe and share it with the stakeholders. Analysts make required changes in the prototype as per the changing needs of clients. Once project scopes are determined, they share the wireframe with technical architects and designers to get the approx. estimation of time, efforts, and cost.

Final Words

Website prototyping is the best practice to accomplish the business objectives successfully and swiftly. Credencys works closely with the client to bring ideas to life. After the successful completion of prototype design, Credencys team steps into the development phase. Now, it’s time to develop and deploy the features and functions to shape out a website. Explore the website and web application development process of the company by reading the upcoming blog.

Let’s Discuss Your Web App Requirement

Ultimate Guide to Prototyping: Wireframing and UI/UX Design Is The Cornerstone of Successful Web Application

Before buying a mobile, you check out a sample of the device, explore the look and feel of it, ask for color options, take a demo of the product, learn about high-level features, and more. Of course, it is imperative to have an overview of ultimate tangible output. While investing in something, you always prefer to have some sort of proof that works as a source of reliability.

Appreciating your efforts of choosing a better smartphone that addresses your needs. But, are you equally concerned about your website and web applications? Have you ever asked your website development company to provide a mockup that contains would-be features and functions? If your answer is “NO”, then you might face complications in attaining the ultimate business objectives.

A website is the first point of interaction for any organization so it must be impressive. Make a smart selection while choosing a web application development company. Tie up with a reliable IT partner that holds a legendary presence for offering best in class website development services.

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Credencys – A Prime Web Solution Provider in India

Early adopter of emerging technologies accomplishes all commitments and maintains transparency throughout the project lifecycle. Credencys is a renowned website development company that has streamlined processes in place for website design, development, and deployment.

Owning enduring industry experience and wider exposure, the company has worked with startups, SMEs, and corporate. Embracing latest and emerging technologies, Credencys effectively addresses custom needs of the clients.

Web Application Development Services at Credencys:

New Web Application Development
Web Application Re-engineering
Web Application Re-designing
Migrating legacy infrastructure of web application to the cloud
Support and Maintenance

Creating A Successful Web Application Involves

Creating A Prototype

Prototyping is the crux of website development process. It gives an overview of the would-be website and defines the user’s journey. A fully functional wireframe offers a click-through high-fidelity demo version of the website. Also, it could be a quick sketch or a detailed and well-framed vector file that depicts an exact flow of the website’s functionality.

Development

Coding and deployment of the website or web application take place in this phase. An implication of the pre-decided features and functionality comes under development. Using Agile methodology and SCRUM practices, you can improve time-to-market of the website and launch MVP with must-have functionalities within a very short time span.

Support

Most of the website development companies believe once the website goes live their job has been done. That’s not the case with Credencys. The company offers performance analysis and end-to-end tech support by following solution centric approach. During this phase, clients can ask for technical enhancement in order to keep the website updated as per the latest technology standards.

Prototyping

Benefits of Prototyping

All stakeholders see the same vision with Business objectives at center

When there is more than one stakeholder, they must have different views and opinions. If you create a website by considering all the suggestions provided by them, then it will be a mess. Better to put all of them into a wireframe and share it with the clients. It will be easy for them to make strategic decisions like which features and functions help them in achieving the business objectives and which could they avoid. It synchronizes and channelizes the application development efforts as well.

Set Right Expectations between Business and IT Teams

During the prototyping, web application development company finalizes the project scopes. Well, the process takes time. Project scopes keep changing as per varying demands of the clients. When stakeholders agree on common points, IT professionals move ahead to transform a scope document into a fully functional wireframe.

Enhanced Team Collaboration

Collaborative prototype makes website development more powerful. It reduces the misunderstandings, rework of the team, delivery time, and cost. Wireframe allows developers and designers to work simultaneously. The teams need to focus on pre-decided development scopes so there are no changes in design and coding. Prototype fills the gap between expectations and deliverables by optimizing collaboration amongst developers and designers.

Increased Velocity in Development and Delivery

After the requirement finalization, start focusing on executing the features and functionality. It accelerates the web application development and design processes and helps in delivering the product on time.

Clarity of timelines and budget planning

Based on the predefined singularity, a web application development company can offer an accurate estimation of efforts, time, and cost. They count the approx. hours to develop each and every feature and function. Once the time duration is in place, it is easy to calculate the approx. cost of project development. So, stakeholders can plan their budget according to the approx. timeline.

Why Is Prototyping An Inseparable Part of Development Process?

Determining the Product Functionality

A prototype is all about creating a structure of the would-be web applications. It can be clickable or static. Wireframe enables businesses with a high-level overview of deliverables. At the initial level, stakeholders do not have clarity about the required features and functions. They just provide a rough idea of their expected ultimate output.

Collect requirements, analyze them, develop the wireframe, insert all the functions into it, and share a prototype with the client. It might not be the exact one that business owners expect. Prototypes help them in identifying and removing unwanted features as well as adding or replacing the important functionality. Moreover, businesses can have an overview how the website will look like.

Drive Desired Output

The functional prototype contains all the essential functionalities and enables stakeholders with a basic structure of the would-be website. Stakeholders and website development company can analyze are they on a right track or missing any essential elements. They can visualize the future website. Also, they can estimate the time, efforts, and money to build a web application. Making required changes in features and functionality list, companies can achieve the ultimate goal and drive the expected output.

Iterate More Quickly

Wireframe designing is the beginning stage of website development. It would be great if the client has clarity about what is the ultimate purpose of developing a website or web application and which features and functions they want to integrate. Prototypes help them in understanding core requirements and incorporating new functions or replace the features at any point in time. Thus, iterations are quite easy to implement during the wireframing.

Reduced Overhead Cost

Ignorance of wireframe as an integral part of the website development lifecycle causes financial loss. Let’s say, when stakeholders approach a web application development company, they share their vision. They are unaware of the practical feasibility of their expectations. Clients are not clear what features and functionality they want to integrate into the website.

In such cases, if developers directly hand over the final product and later on the client realize it is not the piece they were looking for. Imagine the loss of time, efforts, and money. Prototyping helps in streamlining the web application development that saves a lot of time and money of the engineers and stakeholders respectively.

A Reference Tool for Developers

The prototype allows developers to illustrate the functionality that is not possible with the screen specifications. Let’s say if developers want to look into how a functionality will work, they can use a wireframe to get the basic idea about how a specific control or widget will help in attaining an ultimate goal.

Improved User Involvement

Developers interact with the stakeholders throughout the prototyping phase. They collect client’s feedback and improve the wireframe accordingly.

For an example; if a company wants to develop a web application to streamline its business operations. The app is going to be operated by different people of all the departments to perform versatile jobs. In such cases, the involvement of all the website users helps in driving a better understanding of the project. It aids coders to steer development and provide expected deliverables.

Interaction with users also assists companies to avoid any misunderstanding and confirm the project requirements or scopes. Moreover, developers move ahead for coding with precise requisites.

Gathering valuable user feedback on design concept

Create a basic version of the website using prototype. Cover all the essential and anticipated functionality into it. Share it with the clients and allow users to test it. Collect feedback from both the parties, judge them from a technical point of view and implement them into a wireframe. Develop a robust and attractive website by executing the required modifications.

Collect More Precise Requirements

Prototype covers all the major features and functions. The user’s journey also gets decided in this phase. After reviewing the prototype, clients can share their feedback regarding the required modifications as they get more clear idea about what they want and what they don’t.

Analyzing the wireframe of the would-be website, stakeholders give their suggestions and feedback. All the changes get implemented during the prototype phase only. So, the development takes place smoothly and effectively.

Verdict

Credencys understands the importance of prototyping and invests considerable time in designing end-to-end wireframes. Thus, the development process takes place smoothly and improves the website’s time-to-market. Well, it’s not over yet. There is much more to come in “A Client’s Guide to Website Prototyping: Wireframe Is A Stepping Stone of The Journey (Part 2)”. Stay tuned to explore about Credencys’s prototype activities, deliverables, process, application development lifecycle, and more.

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The Secret Science of App Launch To Make Your Mobile Application Go Viral

Usually, clients complain about not getting expected responses from users though they have an excellent mobile app. Undoubtedly, you own a brilliant mobility product that contains robust features and runs seamlessly across various app stores. But, the crux is how to reach out the target audience and pitch the solution when you have competitors in millions.

“As of March 2017. Android users were able to choose between 2.8 million apps. Apple’s App Store remained the second-largest app store with 2.2 million available apps.”
– Statista

It seems like a nightmare to get prime visibility by beating such a huge number of competitors. To get users attention, your mobile application has to be in limelight. That’s where almost all the developers either get stuck or fail!.
The real game starts once you launch the mobile app on different platforms. It takes almost 72 hours to get approved. The app store algorithms notice and analyze the mobile solution in order to optimize its ranking. Here we have listed a few smart and strong marketing strategies for quick and effective app launch.

Table of Content

Best App Launch Practices to Win Top Position on the Application Stores

1. Launch Time

It is suggestive, not to launch the app on weekends or Friday or Monday. Weekends are obviously a relaxation time for the people. On the other hand, Monday is the opening day and Friday is the closing day of a week when people mainly focus on accomplishing their high priority tasks. So, if you launch the app during these days, you won’t receive a good response.
Launch the app on Tuesday. By the weekend, it gains a good rank in its respective category. During the weekend, if people will have spare time, they will spend it on exploring and trying your new mobile applications.

2. Cover All Application Stores

Do you really think that launching an app on Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store is enough? To increase the app downloads, cover all the other popular stores like Windows, Blackberry, Opera, Amazon, and more. It helps you in achieving a competitive edge.
Enable users with something extra. Of course, allowing them to download the app for free doesn’t help you in winning a large user base. There are a few application stores that help in improving the app downloads by launching smart schemes. For example; Amazon allows users to download the app for free for one day. People will definitely like to try a paid app for free for a single day. Thus, organizations can gain increased app downloads.

3. Social Media

Create a buzz about your mobile app by promoting it on social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more. It helps in attaining more eyeballs, early reviews, and extra downloads. By retweeting appropriate posts with a specific hashtag and responding people with simple “Thanks”, you can boost up your social media presence and also optimize your app ranking.

4. Cross Promotion

In order to create hype of the mobile app, this can be one of the best tactics. Start cross-promotion from a network of applications or you can buy the users through PPI (Pay Per Install) program. It helps in driving tremendous traffic by grabbing users’ attention. Several cross-promotion tools are available in the market such as Admob, Chartboost, Tapjoy, Fiksu, etc. that aids in optimizing the visibility of your app.

5. App Reviews

Submit the app on leading app review sites such as Techcrunch, IGN Wireless, Mashable, 148apps, and more. Applying this strategy, organizations can drive the users’ attention and improve the number of installs. Well, when it comes to app review websites, there are numerous websites available online. However, pick up the one that holds Alexa rank more than 50k. With this technique, your mobile solution will gain tremendous popularity across the market.

6. Press Releases

If the budget permits, then you can endorse your mobile app in a form of press release on various news platforms such as eRelsease, PR Web, NewsWire, and many others. By publishing your app on these premium platforms, you can get the attention of thousands of industry influencers.

7. Video

Instead of content, try to promote your mobile application through a video because pictorial presentation is always more effective than textual. Launch a video of your app with a sizzling background. Explain all the features in 1-2 mins long video and share it on Facebook, YouTube, and Vimeo.

Real-world Examples

Everybody is aware of Angry Bird, one of the most renowned gaming application. The overnight success of the app is due to the immense marketing efforts. The game is developed by Rovio Entertainment. Previously, the company launched 52 games and all faced a great failure. By reforming their marketing strategy, Rovio earned the iconic success.

The company promoted the app on social media website, online marketing, press releases, media rich advertising, etc. that helped them in achieving the prime position in the top 25 charts. Today, the app is ruling the world of games.

Verdict

Design a powerful marketing strategy for your mobile app launch because it will decide the success or failure of your application. Implementing the above tactics smartly, your mobility product can gain one of the top 25 slots on the various application stores.

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7 Proven Strategies To Build Productive Enterprise Mobile Applications

It was a great move in tech history when the industry shifted from desktop-based development to the web and mobile app. The transition happened smoothly yet swiftly. Nowadays, web applications are mainly used as a centralized system that runs and manages multiple functionalities from different platforms using various technologies. It is mainly used by the large-scale organizations to maintain their huge project effectively.
But, mobility is the hottest and most trending technology of this time. Allowing people to get everything with one touch, Enterprise Mobile Applications have changed the business landscape as well as customers’ buying behavior. While comparing with software development, mobile apps consume less time, money, and efforts. Eventually, it ends up with generating greater ROI by investing less.
According to Statista, “In 2016, consumers downloaded 149.3 billion mobile apps to their connected devices. In 2021, this figure is projected to grow to 352.9 billion app downloads.”

Above statistics predict about the tremendous improvement in mobile app downloads within the 6 years of time span.
Wider adoption of mobile apps encourages organizations to develop advanced customer facing mobility products. Moreover, companies become conscious about the contribution of these handy devices in streamlining their business operations.
Innovative enterprise mobile application development is not a piece of cake in any way. Organizations have to consider various aspects such as end-user requirements, core objective, cost factors, technology to be used, usability, and more. Here, we share some insights that help in the effective planning of your mobility product development.

Table of Content

1. Define A Strategic Objective

Are you clear what you want to achieve through your mobile solution? It can be either simplified business processes or set up a long-term relationship with the clients. If you are not clear about the objectives, how could you judge the output? Eventually, you will end up by achieving nothing.
Let’s take an example of a textile industry. On-time production, dispatch, and delivery of the fabrics are more important aspects for a garment manufacturer. He can develop an enterprise mobile application that streamlines its manufacturing and supply chain processes. While a garment retailer needs to increase customer engagement and satisfaction so he has to develop a mobility product by considering the customers’ mindset.
An objective-driven enterprise app adds value to your business. Use of advanced technologies cannot give a purpose to your mobile app. Technology is just a way to achieve what you are aiming for.

2. Have The Best Tech Practices In Place

Following the best Enterprise Mobile Application Development Practices, you can create a revolutionary product that engages customers and generates greater revenue. Working with proven practices, brands can develop a high performing mobility product that helps users in accomplishing their tasks seamlessly. Develop customer-centric mobile products that address the various requirements of the end-users.

3. Create Awe-inspiring UI/UX

Through the conceptual user interface and interactive UX, you can convey your brand proposition to the customers. Pay attention to make a creative and unique design for the enterprise mobile application but don’t make it complex. Keep it simple and easy-to-use, so customers can easily understand the product navigation flow.
For an instance; while creating an online shopping app, you need to consider various factors like attractive product display, simple navigation, secure checkout process, etc. Design an application that appeals to end-users’ senses and encourages them to take positive actions.

4. Scrutinize Before Coding

Don’t jump into coding once you have requirements in place. Hold on, and get a proper understanding of client’s demands. Once you are clear in what client is expecting and what you need to deliver, start coding from scratch. Gain the detailed insights about what will be the workflow of the app, what will be the back end system like, whether the application will run online or offline, etc. Consider all these crucial elements before writing the long piece of code.

5. Keep It Simple but Significant

In order to impress users, app owners end up by developing a complex design and features for their mobility products. Keep your enterprise mobile solution simple, so users can easily access it and finish their expected tasks. Use simple design and develop groundbreaking features and functions to facilitate users with a memorable experience. Avoid to develop and integrate unnecessary features in the app.

6. Interact with End-users

Involve your end users in tech development process to develop next-generation enterprise mobile applications. Core expectation of users is to accomplish their task easily and quickly using a mobile product. After developing a few features, ask end-users to test them. Incorporate their feedback in the app to create a killer UI/UX and deliver a WOW experience.

7. Never Compromise on Testing

An avoidable part of an enterprise mobile application development process. Once the development part is over, QA team tests the compatibility of the app across various devices and different mobile OS to see how it performs. Most of the mobile application development service providers avoid the testing as it is too much expensive and time-consuming. However, testing is essential to identify the loopholes in the solution and make it more productive, effective, and secure.

Takeaway

It seems like the mobile app market will never go down. Through the seamless integration with other hi-tech technologies, mobile apps are reaching to a next level. Enterprise mobile applications are gaining more and more popularity by automating various business processes and engaging customers. Apart from the above-mentioned points, organizations have to identify and measure the success of the mobile product on a constant basis. Make sure the app has to be revolved around your business goals.

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Boost your Quality Assurance with Agile Testing

On July 1st, India rolled out its much-hyped goods and services tax (GST). However, the software development community was particularly amused by a report published in a newspaper. Quoting Navin Kumar, the chairman of the GSTN (the network system which will support the nationwide rollout), the report said – “there is no time to do beta testing…it (software) will stabilize over three-four months from the GST introduction.”

Here’s his statement in verbatim:

“Nowhere in the world does the hardening of software take place before the roll-out. We would have loved to have a couple of months more before the roll-out. When you are about to deploy the software, there is a code freeze when code writing stops. In the next 10 days you do the testing. There is no time for that now. It takes three-four months for stabilization to happen.”

We can only hope that Mr. Kumar and his team have taken lessons from the failure of the “Obamacare” website in 2013.

Apparently, quality testing remains to be on the back burner for teams across the globe. While developers have become accustomed to the Agile software development practices, software testing teams are still facing issues. That’s why we often hear complaints about –

Testing being pushed so late in the sprint that there is no time to review, fix and retest the defects

Not having enough time to go through functional, integration, regression, usability, security and other testing

This is despite the fact that Agile by definition makes Quality an uncompromisable entity. In Agile software projects, teams are expected to deliver a functioning, defect-free, potentially shippable product increment in every Sprint. Yet quality assurance is not an easy task. It might require the adoption of different approaches to testing to accomplish a superior quality code. This means that depending on the requirement, teams have to write different kinds of test cases as described below:

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Functionality Test Cases

A type of black-box testing that checks if the application’s interface is working with the rest of the system and its users.

Performance Test Cases

These test cases check the responsiveness of the application under various loads. In large applications, performance tests are usually automated.

Integration Test Cases

An application consists of multiple software components, coded by different programmers.

The purpose of integration tests is to check that when all these components are put together, they function as per the expectation.

User Interface Test Cases

As the name suggests these test cases check the look and feel of the interface, design inconsistencies, typography, grammar, spellings etc. It usually also involves cross-browser testing.

Usability Test Cases

Usability testing evaluates the ease of application usage. As a test, users who may not have any prior knowledge of the application, are given certain tasks to perform. This helps in identifying issues from the first-time user perspective.

Database Test Cases

Database tests are performed to check if a developer has written the application code ensuring proper data storage and secure handling of data between the source and the destination database.

Security Test Cases

In the age of high-profile data breaches, application security testing is becoming a specialized endeavor and organizations sometimes maintain a full-time team just for the purpose. According to Open Source Security Testing Manual, Security Testing consists of seven major test areas:

Vulnerability Testing
Security Scanning
Penetration Scanning
Risk Assessment
Security Auditing
Posture Assessment
Ethical Hacking

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In addition to above test cases, quality assurance in Agile involves “User Acceptance Criteria” and “Definition of Done”.

User Acceptance Criteria

In Agile testing, User stories are incomplete without their Acceptance Criteria (AC). AC are critical documentation bits which help developers in a team to write accurate test cases without any ambiguity and understand business values better. Although, the Product Owner writes AC, Quality Analysts and Developers also contribute to improving the AC.

Standard Acceptance Criteria Format (derived from Gherkin)

Given <precondition(s)> When <some action> Then <a result/set of results>

Example: Given the user hasn’t ordered yet, when the user adds any apparel into the shopping cart, then apply a discount of 20% to the total

AC ensure that all the parameters of a User Story are met as per every stakeholders’ agreement. As these test cases are also used by the end-user or client, they together constitute an important phase of testing before going into production. Also, only when the AC are “Accepted” the user story is marked as “Done”.

Definition of Done (DoD)

It’s the final piece of document in Agile testing used by cross-functional teams to evaluate the completeness of a business requirement. DoD is often confused with AC; in a discussion on StackExchange, an Agile practitioner writes:

“In my opinion, there is no difference. Definition of done and acceptance criteria are used interchangeably. You cannot meet the definition of done without all criteria being met and you cannot be not done if all criteria have been met. If you find yourself in the latter, then you simply have two sets of criteria for some unknown reason”

Another user in a blog on Scrum Alliance writes:

“…both the DoD and user story acceptance criteria are musts (and different). The Definition of Done (DoD) is a clear and concise list of requirements that the user story must satisfy for the team to call it complete. The DoD must apply to all items in the backlog. It can be considered a contract between the Scrum team and the product owner.”

If you have used AC or DoD, but not both, here’s a comparison which can help you understand their difference and significance:

Quality Assurance in Agile software projects depends on how well the team is collaborating. QAs have to be an integral part of the team and should be engaged throughout the sprint employing TDD/BDD approaches. This means the tests as described above, should be performed in parallel. While QAs can stick to black-box testing, developers should complete white-box tests. Further, your teams will need better project management tools for realistic sprint planning with accurate effort estimation, and user story prioritization to deliver quality builds in the committed time. Also, Automation will improve the reliability and speed up Agile testing to a great extent.

Credencys Credencys Solutions Inc is a leading mobile applications development company and solutions provider which has helped numerous businesses in their business growth. If you wish to develop a POC/Prototype/MVP, we can help you out with our Blueprint workshop.

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Why you should adopt the Agile UX Design Process

From the very outset “Agile UX Design Process” sounds a bit of a mouthful and borderlines marketing jargon. However, it is a very practical process with tangible benefits for designers seeking efficient and intuitive designs, keeping user feedback at the center of the design process. In fact, for teams accustomed to Agile ways of working, the process is nothing new. It is just an application of Agile software development methodology to mobile app design.

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How to design mobile application in an Agile way

You can checkout Interaction Design Foundation’s article describing the “The 5 phases of Google’s Design Sprint” as:

Unpack – An initial get-together to develop common understanding of the problem, its solution, and the market scenario
Sketch – Solution detailing
Decide – Prioritization of features required for prototype
Prototype – development of prototype
Test – Google recommends 6-20 users for testing of the prototype

While this can approach can be useful for those who are seeking guidance on how to design mobile application in an Agile way, UX designers who haven’t worked in an Agile team will take some time to adapt. Further, as every organization has it’s own work culture and methods to practice Agile, they can develop their own version of Agile UX design process.

To learn more about Credencys’ design thinking process, you can join our Blueprint workshop. Blueprint is a 15 day collaborative workshop which helps our clients create a roadmap for their application development starting from building a proof of concept to creating clickable prototypes and MVPs.

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The need for Agile UX Design Process

The biggest challenge in the adoption of Agile comes from the decentralization of accountability. It is also its biggest advantage. Agile makes every team member accountable for the success or failure of the project. This, in theory, means that the UX designers have to be a part of the entire software development cycle. The idea is to keep the entire team of business analysts, designers, and developers on the same page.

The work of a UX designer starts even before the start of a development Sprint. They need to work closely with project stakeholders in envisaging the software behavior and pinning down the mobile app design requirements. This often requires UX designers to collaborate within the same project management tools (Scrum, Kanban boards etc) as those used by the development teams.

This would mean that the designers would have to work on user stories defined for the design features by the project owner. However, in Agile it is often stressed that the most critical bits of software must be developed first in the initial sprints. The criticality of the features or user stories in a backlog is decided by the product owner. Usually, the sizing and prioritization of user stories in a backlog are done with Fibonacci effort points and MoSCoW prioritization method, respectively.

UX designers need to be a part of these early stages, not only to help in the grooming of the backlog but also to develop a better understanding of the business goals. Early collaboration between UX designers and business owners is also desirable as the designers can make a huge impact on the success of the project. As failing early, failing small is becoming an acceptable trend, UX designers can ensure that complacency in the design is not among the factors for this failure.

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Integrating Agile Methods with the Design Thinking Process

Design Thinking is an exploratory approach which relies on identifying end-user needs and discovering solutions to meet those needs. UX designers are generally better placed when it comes to thinking from the end-user’s point of view. Their job is to help in the development of solutions which are fun to use. That’s why being truly Agile goes beyond the use of tools – the designers need to understand their importance in the team and should be actively involved in providing design suggestions for the improvement of the software at all stages.

Sometimes, a small change in the interaction design can reduce a lot of problems faced by the developers. However, such changes in mobile app design are usually accompanied by an increase in the development work. The point is that Agile will need such changes being an iterative process where all those changes that help in achieving a business goal are always welcome. That’s why Agile is so effective in delivering quick value – it allows you to adapt quickly based on feedback and learning. This also means that the work of a UX designer is never over in an Agile project.