April 2020 - Galaxy Weblinks

5 Onboarding Flows to retain your mobile app users

Posted on April 23, 2020October 11, 2024 by galaxy-admin

Contemporary mobile apps have different ways of onboarding and retaining their users. Duolingo, a very popular language-learning application offers free sessions before they ask you to sign up. On the other hand, Airbnb’s onboarding flow starts strong with an authentication page, saving users from a simple account creation overkill.

There are multiple onboarding practices that businesses use to engage their users. It is vital to strike a balance in gathering essential information as a lack of context can drive away your users and information overload can lead to a higher bounce rate.

However, the data unveils a bitter truth:

1 out of 4 people abandon mobile apps just after their first use.

Your users must understand the core value of your product faster for an enhanced retention rate.

In this article, we share a list of 5 different onboarding flows, to help you get your users hooked to your app.

1. Keep your account setup process simple

If your mobile application necessitates users to sign up to access the app features, the setup process needs to be quick and simple.

This especially holds for Social media or Messaging apps that request device permissions and include an explanation of why the access is required.

Communicating with users builds trust and alleviates security concerns. Avoid scaring away your new users by coming across as too intrusive.

Avoid: Do not ask your users to fill up their information on numerous screens. We recommend authentication via their social accounts, such as Google or Facebook.

2. Highlight the value

Ask your users the problem they want to address with your mobile application. In this onboarding flow, do not focus on the awesome features of your app. Instead, help them understand why they need to use it.

We recommend communicating the value or specific benefits instead of highlighting features and functionalities.

This has worked out well for apps like Netflix (mobile) and Evernote. Your onboarding process must showcase how the app will meet the user’s expectations.

Impress your users with the various benefits they can reap while using your mobile application. ‘Here is what our product can do’ and ‘Here what you can do with our product’ are completely different approaches and need to be deployed as per your discretion.

Avoid: Don’t overwhelm the users with numerous screens. The key benefits of your app must be displayed in the minimum number of screens during the onboarding process.

3. Showcase the key functionalities

Introducing your users to the functionalities of your app is another way to onboard them. This onboarding flow is appropriate for apps that have complex features.

This approach fits well for apps like payments, Ecommerce and professional services. Engage your audience, explain the critical features and make them curious about the way these functionalities will help them.

It is essential to communicate the key features upfront to effectively help users understand how your app works. This approach clears up any confusion that the new users may encounter while using your application.

Avoid: Don’t use long texts and jargon. We recommend using illustrations for showcasing the core features in place of long text. This makes it convenient for the users to understand how the app functions.

4. Get users to commit to a mission

If you want users to get familiar with your product quickly, encourage users to interact actively with gradual engagement. We suggest that you gather crucial information about users, but in an interactive way. This would usually postpone the signup process.

Gamifying your mobile app onboarding process is an example of this interactive approach. e-learning apps (Duolingo), fitness apps (Fitbit), productivity apps (Habitica) have encouraged their users to interact actively.

The possibility of users to stick with the platform is impacted hugely by having them commit to a mission before signing up.

Avoid: Discourage complicated reward systems. We suggest offering small rewards on completing a module or breaking it down to small units.

5. Create tailored user experiences

Many apps improve user retention by helping users continuously discover relevant content while helping them select their preferences. If the users can’t discover the content they are interested in, they are almost guaranteed to abandon your app.

Apps like Spotify, Hulu, Pinterest and other entertainment apps leverage user onboarding to create tailored user experiences by inquiring about users’ favorite genres or preferences.

This approach requires you to either ask your users for data or obtain it through a third-party source such as the users’ browser. Alternatively, you can ask the new users for their date of birth and gender as they sign up for a free account during onboarding.

Avoid: An endless content repository is a double-edged sword. The suggested preferences should be categorized in broadly, to avoid overlapping and boredom.

The Next Step

They say it’s all about the first impression! No second chance..

However, many apps including Instagram, Airbnb, LinkedIn, Slack, etc. have adopted onboarding flows as an ongoing process using multiple A/B tests. These companies are successfully onboarding users that align best with their corporate goals and user’s needs.

It’s true that from the user base to the business model, each app is wildly different. One-size-fits-all practices rarely work. The only way to implement the best onboarding flow for your users is by testing various practices.

About the Author:

Animesh is a Sr. Project Manager at Galaxy and an expert in aligning client objectives with our mobile development team to deliver amazing digital products.

About Galaxy

Galaxy Weblinks has extensive experience in building Mobile Applications using iOS, Android and Hybrid Technologies. We provide specialized technology solutions to address complex business problems, across different industries. From idea to design to development and all the way to the app store, Galaxy Weblinks will work as an extension of your team to handle the entire mobile application development lifecycle. Visit Galaxy to know more about our capabilities.

3 Remote work problems and how to deal with them

Posted on April 10, 2020October 11, 2024 by galaxy-admin

Since Covid-19 is what everyone is talking about, so we are going to spare you the gruesome pandemic details. Instead we’re going to talk about remote work challenges and how to deal with it.

In order to flatten the curve numerous industries have ceased operations, while some which can still be operational with distributed teams are trying to make the most of it.

Modern jobs are suitable for a distributed workforce but working remotely and managing teams while sitting miles apart is more difficult than it seems.

A little background about remote work before we begin. It was in 1983 that a legend named Steve Roberts showed the world that working remotely is possible; when he embarked on a 17,000 mile trek across America. All he had was bicycle and a solar powered portable computer on which he penned his iconic book ‘Computing across america’.

Since we are not on a bicycle trekking/working across America, this should be fairly easy for us with an arsenal of tools that are literally made to serve remote work, right? The truth is, while it is relatively easier but it isn’t a cakewalk either.

There are other problems that we need to take into consideration while talking about work that thrives on collaboration.

1. Having to work in Isolation

In contrast to a remote working environment teams in offices solve problems by arguing, empathizing, and celebrating together. The informal chats of the peers away from their desks is also one of the contributing factors to the birth of new ideas.

Whereas in a remote environment there are no such opportunities or need of small talk or relationship building. As a result people feel disconnected from their coworkers. Just to get everyone on the same page remote work requires a lot of communicating and alignment.

What to do?

Filling communication gaps with tools

There are a lot of tools to facilitate real time communication in between teams. You also have to make it clear to your team that these tools are not strictly for work communication.

Try to initiate casual and transparent communication by hopping through tools like Slack or Skype to check in on your coworkers to see how they are doing. Share funny news or memes to keep it light and to let them know that it’s okay to slack.

2. No structure or discipline

Unplanned sessions and meetings help maintain a sense of constant ideation and alignment. The problems are discussed and solved in real time with immediate feedback. It’s not that ideal for a distributed team.

What to do?

Scheduled check-ins with flexible agendas

Getting meetings on a calendar can help you establish a structure that in turn keeps your team regular in communication and in deliveries. Slack can be your friend here, as you can make separate channels for informal conversations, ideas, agendas, task status, and updates.

For the people who need urgent assistance they can get on a call with concerned coworkers easily.

3. Deadlines delaying Burnout

One week you will be full of fresh ideas and energy to execute them and the next you’ll be entertaining your imposter. Isolation might lead to other problems that might not surface in an office environment when you’re working alongside other people.

Being sedentary all day in isolation might make you less productive eventually causing a burnout.

What to do?

Put everything on the calendar

Identify your most productive hours and working from there define your time slots for working and slacking for the day. When you give yourself time to go outside away from the screen and allow your mind to wander, you feel refreshed and relaxed. Avoiding onset of a potential burnout.

The secret to good remote work is treating it like you would at your office. Start small like taking shower and getting dressed before logging in, then move on to more important stuff like checking in with your manager for feedback and informal chat. Like everything difficult, remote work demands discipline and discipline starts with small meaningful steps.

5 common but extremely important DevOps practices

Posted on April 7, 2020October 11, 2024 by galaxy-admin

Gone are the times when teams worked in departmental silos on a single project. The IT industry was convinced long ago that internal collaboration is a vital for delivering high quality products with maximum efficiency.

And DevOps is known for bringing together teams and building a common platform for teams to collaborate right from the early stage of software development. This results in frequent deployments, less error codes, more clarity and transparency in any organization.

But when it comes to finding the suitable path for you, this can be a nightmare. To lessen the intensity of this nightmare, we have searched for most common practices followed by industry giants which helped them in getting the best ROI from devops.

Version control system

When there are more than two developers working on the same project, version control will help in keeping a log of all the changes which can be referred by other developers.

Version control will make the error identification process quicker by giving you a centralized platform to compare different versions, and locate the one causing trouble. Introducing new features can go wrong in many ways, version control will help you in retrace your steps.

Source code, database changes, configuration docs all can be seen and stored via version control softwares like GitHub and BitBucket. They allow you to save multiple versions of the source code and switch between them as per your needs.

Test automation

Automated tests can be executed at every stage of the SDLC. You can write cases and scenarios based on the functions specification documentation, run them multiple times in a day, and validate their results in the development stage itself. This way you are actively looking for issues from the start instead of fixing them after, like in QA or worse after deployment.

And not to forget, automation will save your coders and developers from the monotonous task of carrying out testing which are repetitive in nature. Tests which can be automated are:

Regression testing
Stress and load testing
Integration testing
Smoke testing
Black box testing

To automate the whole testing process there is a range of tools available like Selenium, JMeter, Appium, TestRail, etc. Automating the testing process will result in increased testing frequency thus, getting you step closer to an bug-free software.

Configuration and change management

Dealing with new configurations in any sphere of your product can be troublesome at any point of time, especially after the deployment. Configuration management helps you in finding change requests, change logs and current status of all configurations in one place. It lets you see the configurations done within servers, storage bases, networks, etc, thereby giving you a holistic view of the system.

Change management on the other hand deals with the process of configurations carried out. It will paint a picture highlighting all the possible affected areas because of any new configurations, determining its ripple effect on the existing product. It will consider and recognize any red flags that you will need to take into consideration.

CI/CD

Continuous Integration looks out for any troubles in the current and modified code which may lead to in the future. It does so by leveraging Version Control System and automation testing tools which look out for any vulnerabilities on a frequent basis. Jenkins, TeamCity, Bambooa are some of the popular CI tools.

Continuous delivery is facilitated in devops as new features are pushed as and when they are developed and tested instead of being restricted to a specific timeline. Any glitches found can be solved in the early stage itself, thus the feedback loop is cut short. This also reduces the time between user feedback and its subsequent corrective actions.

Automated dashboard

Automated dashboard provides data insights via detailed reports. These reports will let you know the success and failure rate of testing, number of tests done, their duration, errors found etc. This database is a goldmine of insights for developers, testers, coders to find the loopholes and avoid any repetitive errors.

The graphical representation of the information will help in drawing comparisons for all the changes done in the system and pinpoint the most effective ones. A track of all the deployments done and the effects of them can be seen in one place, making it accessible for all the teams involved.

The above mentioned practices have helped companies like Netflix, Etsy, Facebook, Walmart, Target to increase their overall efficiency and collaboration. They have adopted the practices after many failed and successful attempts.

Devops planning and implementation take years to master, but taking inspiration from our surroundings will smoothen this journey for you and all your stakeholders. At the end of the day, deploying high qualit

Practices to quickly shift from in-person to remote user testing

Posted on April 3, 2020October 11, 2024 by galaxy-admin

The sudden change in lifestyles; professional and otherwise, has made remote work critical for many fields around the world, including UX testing.

Remote user testing has been there in the process since many years making sure that our users are having the best possible experience with our product. Especially mostly by those business organizations who reckon the fact that consumer-centric products sell better.

Although the biggest challenge is not the geographic distance while performing user testing. It’s instead, planning the right strategy, finding the right participants, and communicating with the right tools available. Absence of which can have a negative influence on testing results.

Choose the type of user testing that fits your need

There are two main types of remote usability tests, among which you should select one according to your need and to further validate your designs.

Moderated remote testing

In this type of testing you and the participant both communicate via phone or video conferencing software.
This technique is often used earlier in the design process that allows you to offer support in real-time and ask further questions for deeper clarification from the users as particular issues arise.

Unmoderated user testing

These tests are completed through survey forms mostly alone by the participant, without any phone or video call.
It works well while testing a few specific elements in a time and budget crunch, like a particular widget or a minor change.

Since every business is going user-centric, moderated remote testing has been adopted to interact directly with the target audience and gain a rich understanding of their goals and pain points.

So, if it suits your testing needs to gently nudge a quiet participant to share more about what he’s doing, then here are the best practices of shifting from in-person to easy going and cost efficient remote user testing.

Plan your ultimate testing goal

Define your target user and decide which specific areas of your site or app you plan on testing. In your test prep meeting remotely, discuss the agenda to focus on the goals of testing. It’s important to:

Develop straightforward tasks that have well-defined end states.
Prepare introductory and/or test materials so the participants will know what is expected of them as well as what they can expect from you.
Define the turnaround time of user testing, defining number of participants for each session.
Craft good task scenarios that are clear to your participants and have no ambiguity in understanding what you want them to do.

Explore mediums to recruit right testers

Since tests are remote, you are able to recruit people from just about anywhere! It is important to make sure they are representative of your target audience as you are choosing from a pool of participants around the world. There are ways where you can find them:

Social media channels such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook are good options for contacting people who may be interested in testing out your product/prototype.
There are a number of recruiting services that exist out there. Some are traditional where live representatives contact users from all over the place and screen them based on your requirements.
Others are almost fully automated web-based services where you can basically run a recruitment project on your own just by a few clicks, and potential candidates are automatically added to your project and ready for your approval.

How many participants do I need?

You want to avoid recruiting too few users yielding in insufficient results; nor do you want to recruit too many users and waste time and resources on additional tests.

It’s always better to learn from 6-8 users for each user role, update the design to fix the issues identified, and then test again.

But as a general guideline, if you are on a small budget and interested in DIY usability testing, 5 is a good number to start with. If budget is not a constraint its best to consult experienced professionals to determine the number of users.

Arrange Session and Kick-off Call

Join over a call with your participants using software like Zoom, GoToMeeting, or Lookback. (Stakeholders and other observers can join too). After a brief introduction to explain the setup and establishing rapport, share your screen with the participant, give them control of it, and ask them to complete tasks while thinking aloud.

Observe the participant’s actions, hear their commentary, and see their facial expressions (if webcams are on).

Ask probing questions to explore the participant’s understanding of the interface, just as if you were sitting beside them. Identify and diagnose any usability problems in the design.

Based on those insights, you can provide concrete, actionable recommendations for improving the product’s user experience – all without anyone leaving their homes.

How Costly is Remote User Testing?

Getting a moderator, participants and the product in the same room for about an hour per participant can get really expensive. Expensive enough that this kind of user testing is just not within the reach of many designers.

Moderated remote testing helps with the nasty bills by allowing the moderator to interact with users online through sharing screens instead of face-to-face. Even by choosing a relatively expensive user testing tool, the cost of on-site and remote testing can seldom be compared.

Conclusion

In a global situation like this, when you’re under pressure with deadlines looming – usability might seem trivial enough to skip. Don’t make this mistake: it will cost you more in the long run. Usability testing will, of course, require a degree of investment in time and money, but it pays off.

Remote usability testing has become more and more popular as companies work to cut costs without sacrificing the ability to gain insight into future product success. It is up to us UX designers to know the in’s and out’s of this methodology in order to utilize it most effectively.