Month: June 2021

Google Core Web Vitals for your WordPress Website

Posted on by galaxy-admin

All WordPress sites are made different, and they all react differently when exposed to different kinds of stress and scenarios. The speed and performance can be attributed to various factors. Fortunately, there are some guidelines for a robust foundation and optimum performance. These guidelines will also help you improve user experience and search rankings. The latest in the line of these guidelines is Google Core Web Vitals, which helps measure User Experience quality. 

Talking of UX, here is a blog that we recommend for UX tweaks to improve customer retention by DesignRush.

Before we go further to understand what Google’s CWV metrics mean for your WordPress websites, here is a primer on Google Core Web Vitals.

Understanding Page Load

Let’s understand the fundamentals before we get down to tweaking for speed and performance optimization. This is what goes behind every page load:

>>Server receives request

>>If HTML is cached the server responds instantly, if not then it takes time to build it

>>Browser reads through the HTML and makes a rough outline

>>Browser loads CSS from the HTML, if any

>>Browser loads JavaScript if required

>>Browser matches styling with the outline

>>Images and other elements load as encountered

>>Font files are applied to the text

While all of this is happening in the backend, it’s easy to take page loads for granted. It only becomes a problem when it’s taking more time than usual. Performance metrics can help you identify problem areas and take actions accordingly and subsequent optimization can shave seconds off of your load times. 

Optimize your hosting environment

Poor performance can be caused by various factors. But in most cases slow page speeds can be attributed to the hosting environments and time it takes for servers to respond. Since the server has to load the WordPress framework, connect the database, and process content into its final structure, all in an instant. 

Cached pages are instantly available to the visitors and the server doesn’t have to generate fresh pages upon each page request. An ideal approach would be to go with a hosting solution that provides a caching facility. WPEngine and Pantheon are such options for WordPress needs.

Keep a check on resources needed to render a page

Even after receiving the HTML, the browser doesn’t show anything until it figures out how everything needs to look. That includes downloading and parsing stylesheet data. These are additional files that can be kept in check to render things faster.

Best practices to keep resource dependency in check:

  • Use a pipeline to compile scripts and styles into single resources. Similarly, you can also combine all of your JavaScript and CSS into single files using plugins.
  • Reduce the number of font file downloads. The lesser the number of custom fonts used the better.
  • Make use of critical CSS/fonts that load in the order of their appearance on the viewport.

Keep everything up-to-date

When the caches expire, the pages regenerate and the page loads all over again. Large monolithic site builders like DIVI or WPBakery add to the loading time as they add numerous database calls to every page on the site. 

Audit your installed plugins and see if they are contributing to slower load times. Update all your plugins for security and performance purposes as bugs or flaws can be used as a backdoor for attacks. 

Hosting and managing WP Servers

Apart from cosmetic optimizations, you can get more control and performance out of your WordPress website by hosting and managing your server. In case you’re thinking of getting your server, these techniques will help. 

  • You can reduce the number of data calls needed to generate a page via object caching.
  • WordPress loads and compiles several PHP files while building a page. Using OPCache to store compiled code will improve your page generation time.
  • Use a reverse proxy for page caching. You could look at tools like Varnish and NGINX for that.

Wrapping Up

We are yet to see the major implications on search rankings of this algorithm update but we suggest that you incorporate all these updates on your WordPress website. The optimizations and tools that we have mentioned here will only help you to keep your site up and running and faster than ever.  

About Galaxy Weblinks

We specialize in delivering end-to-end software design & development services and have hands-on experience with popular front-end and back-end frameworks. Our back-end and front-end engineers also help in improving security, reliability, and features to make sure your business application scales and remains secure.

3 Ways Microservices Save you From Drawbacks of Centralized Data

Posted on by galaxy-admin

The microservices approach is made possible in large part by favoring decentralization of software components and data — specifically, by breaking up “monolithic” elements into smaller, easier to change pieces and deploying those pieces on the network.

Their goal, in organizational design terms, is to decentralize decision authority. Instead of having a few people make architectural and software decisions for everyone in the organization, decentralization allows them to distribute decision-making power amongst the people who do the work.

When it comes to data, companies that create individual services for specific business logic frequently feel compelled to consolidate all application data into a single, centralized datastore. Their goal is to make sure that all the data is available for any service that may require it. Managing a single datastore is simple and convenient, and data modeling can be consistent for the entire application to use, regardless of the service that uses it. 

However, we would recommend that you avoid doing this. Here are three reasons why centralizing your data is a bad idea and how microservices help in checking the drawbacks.

1. Centralized data is hard to scale

When the data for your entire application is in a single centralized datastore, then as your application grows you must scale the entire datastore to meet the needs of all the services in your application. This is depicted in the diagram below (Figure 1). If you use a separate data store for each service, only the services that have increased demand need to scale, and the database being scaled is smaller. This is shown on the right side of Figure 1.

Centralized data

It’s a lot easier to scale a small database bigger than it is to scale a large database even larger.

How microservices help in scaling?

Scaling is the process of dividing software into smaller units. Scalability refers to the application’s ability to implement more advanced features. It contributes to the application’s security, durability, and maintainability. In the industries, three types of scaling procedures are used. The microservice scaling methodologies include x-axis, y-axis, and z-axis scaling; below is one of the methods along with the corresponding real-world example.

Scaling on the Y-Axis:

Vertical scaling, which includes any resource level scaling, is also referred to as Y-axis scaling. Any DBaaS or Hadoop system can be thought of as Y-axis scaled. The user’s request is redirected and restricted in this type of scaling by implementing some logic.

As an example, consider Facebook. Facebook must handle 1.79 million users every second, so traffic control is a major responsibility for Facebook network engineers. To avoid any danger, they use Y-axis scaling, which entails running multiple servers with the same application at the same time. To control this massive amount of traffic, Facebook redirects all traffic from one region to a specific server, as shown in the image. In architectural terms, this transferring of traffic based on region is known as load balancing.

2. Centralized data is hard to partition later

A common thought that pops up in the mind of every app developer is, “I don’t need to worry about scaling now; I can worry about it later.” As your application grows in popularity, you must consider rethinking architectural decisions to meet increased traffic. 

Distributing your datastore into smaller datastores is one of the common architectural changes. It is much more convenient to do at the beginning of the application’s life cycle than it is later. When the application has been around for a few years and all parts of the application have access to all parts of the data, determining which parts of the dataset can be split into a separate datastore without requiring a major rewrite of the code that uses the data becomes extremely difficult. Even simple questions become difficult to answer. What services are making use of the Profiles table? Is there a service that requires both the Systems and Projects tables?

The longer a dataset remains in a single datastore, the more difficult it is to later divide that datastore into smaller segments.

How microservices help in data storing and partition?

A microservice may use one, two, or more databases. Some of the data stored by the microservice may fit well in one type of database while others may fit better in another. There are numerous viable database technologies available today, and I will not compare them here. However, there are some broad database categories to consider when making a decision, such as relational databases, key/value stores, document databases, column stores, and graph databases.

By separating data into separate datastores based on functionality, you avoid issues associated with separating data from joined tables later, and you reduce the possibility of unexpected data correlations in your code.

3. Centralized data makes data ownership impossible

The ability to divide application ownership into distinct and separable pieces is one of the major benefits of dividing data into multiple services. Individual development teams owning applications is a core tenet of modern application development that promotes better organizational scaling and faster response to problems when they arise. The Single Team Oriented Service Architecture (STOSA) development model discusses this ownership model.

This model works well when you have a large number of development teams all contributing to a large application, but it also works well for smaller applications with smaller teams.

The issue is that for a team to own service, they must own both the code and the data for the service. This means that one service (Service A) should not have direct access to the data of another service (Service B). If Service A requires something from Service B, it must call a service entry point for Service B rather than directly accessing the data.

ownership

This gives Service B complete control over its data, how it is stored, and how it is maintained.

So, what are your options? Each service in your service-oriented architecture (SOA) should have its data. The data is a component of the service and is incorporated into it.

Designing Microservices: Best Practices

The design of microservices must ensure a weak coupling for services to be modified independently and to operate autonomously. Services that are weakly coupled will benefit fully from the microservice architecture, such as fault tolerance, load adaptation, implementation ease, and so on.

Furthermore, it must be highly cohesive to ensure that exchanges between these services are as coherent as possible via the following rules:

  • Design simple microservices that can be composed or linked to others according to the modularity and composability rule.
  • Engine interfaces must be isolated according to the separability rule. Internal microservices are not structured, whereas interfaces are.
  • Representation rule: design data-controlled microservices that have a simpler operation, are more robust and have better scalability.
  • Generation rule: avoid encoding repetitive and trivial things and encode using programs rather than WSDL files to generate code for the interfaces.
  • Make the necessary technological and methodological decisions based on the problem to be solved, not on a software catalog or a stack certified by a corporate guru.

Here is how Galaxy can help you

When release cycles take months rather than weeks, your company is frequently unable to deliver modern online experiences. Development bottlenecks impede your ability to update applications, preventing you from innovating and iterating. And an out-of-date or clumsy user experience prevents you from retaining and winning over customers.

Galaxy’s experts will assist you in implementing an end-to-end vision by developing a modern development stack for building enterprise applications with the necessary frontend and microservice technologies for your business. We will help your team quickly build, design, and launch applications based on microservices.

Learn about Galaxy’s Microservices, Frontend, Backend, and DevOps capabilities, which can help your organization build better and faster apps, sites, and portals.

About Galaxy Weblinks

We specialize in providing end-to-end software design and development services and have firsthand knowledge of backend and frontend technologies. Our engineers, DevOps experts, and UX/UI specialists work to improve security, reliability, and features to ensure that your business application and IT structure scale and remain secure.

How to Ensure Success in Your Next Software Release?

Posted on by galaxy-admin

The release of a new upgrade is typically a stressful time for software companies. It is all too easy to overlook some of the necessary steps or to fail to communicate something to another department. Developing an effective plan is a critical component of any release.

A successful plan integrates all departments, including engineering, quality assurance, marketing, sales, technical support, and training. Everyone must have a common goal and be moving in the same direction. In addition to developing the next release strategy, you must also plan for backward compatibility, effectively communicating with your customers ahead of time, minimizing and controlling bugs, ensuring users can install your product, and much more.

In our article, you will learn about:

  • Why is it sometimes important to curb your enthusiasm and wait for the right time before your next software release?
  • Our list of 4 major tips for planning a successful next software release.

When the software release rush isn’t in your favor?

Software update for the Nest ‘smart’ thermostat (owned by Google) went wrong in 2016 and left users in the cold. When the software update went wrong, it forced the device’s batteries to drain out, which led to dropping in the temperature. Customers were unable to heat their homes or use any amenities as a result.

Nest claimed that the problem was caused by a firmware update in December 4.0 and other issues such as old air filters or incompatible boilers. Later, it issued a 4.0.1 software release, which resolved the problem for 99.5 percent of the affected customers.

Each new release carries a high risk of failure or detection of serious defects by the end-user. These may cost us the trust of our customers. So, how can you avoid the losses that may result from the poor quality of a new version of your product?

#1 Automate the processes with CI/CD

Continuous Integration (CI) comes in handy here. It is a DevOps tool that starts the compilation process, unit tests, and any static analysis tools used after each commit/merge process. Any other quality-related tests that are automatable are also carried out. Whereas, Continuous Delivery (CD) allows you to automate the entire process from the development environment to the production environment. Learn about the best CI/CD practices here.

But what if you don’t have an experienced person on hand and/or don’t have enough budget or time to implement the entire CI and CD process?

Then you should put your money on people who will look after the quality of our product and will not be afraid to obstruct the next issue.

Working in an agile environment, the Product Owner always makes the final decision on the release of a new version. The individual should have a complete picture of the current situation in terms of work progress and product quality.

#2 Prioritize bug fixing list

As the product manager, go over the outstanding bug list with the testing team regularly. Examine the status of each open (unresolved) bug and comprehend the scenarios that led to their discovery.

If you find high-level bugs that need to be fixed, you can choose to postpone the release date. In the case of low-level/cosmetic bugs, you may wish to address them in a later release.

As an example, suppose you have the following bug list:

  • There are no show-stopping bugs
  • There are no high-level bugs
  • Two moderate-level bugs
  • The user is unable to access the address book without receiving an error message
  • When a user imports an address, the “country” field is filled with unreadable characters
  • 10 cosmetic/low-level bugs

In this case, you may decide that unreadable characters in the country field are an acceptable bug because the user can easily delete them. However, you acknowledge that you do not want to alert the user with an error message when they access the address book.

Place bugs in priority order, just as you did when you prioritize your product requirements, and make trade-offs as needed.

#3 Explain your test strategy

How will you carry out these tests? Go into as much detail as possible.

  • What rules will your tests adhere to?
  • What metrics will you collect and at what level?
  • How many different configurations or environments are you going to put through their paces?
  • Are there any special requirements or procedures that you must put to the test?

You must also be aware of the results of your test. To put it another way, what are the pass/fail criteria for each test? 

Thus, lack of access to the test environment may cause issues with the release infrastructure. It is critical, paradoxically, to be able to roll back our changes and restore the previous version of the system. Sometimes the test environment, in which the system performed flawlessly, differs significantly from the production environment, where undesirable effects may occur, necessitating a rollback to the previous version of the system.

#4 Introduce and test new functionalities

Critical paths are equally important because they serve as the foundation for the entire process that our users will follow, and they should not encounter any gaps or problems along the way. It is also a significant risk to release a new version without thoroughly testing the functionality associated with this path. 

Similarly, failure to provide end-users and the maintenance team with sufficient knowledge about new functionalities. Remember to notify stakeholders about the new functionalities that will be included in the next version so that they are not caught off guard by changes in the processes.

Conclusion

There are numerous reasons why your software should not be released as soon as possible and at any cost. It’s a good idea to weigh the “pros and cons.” Nonetheless, the development team must inform the Product Owner whether it is reasonable to proceed with the most recent software release launch. As a result, if you notice that something isn’t working properly, take the call to block a release. Also, proceed with the release when the Quality Assurance team approves the release as well.

Our Backend Development Technology Favorites in 2021

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Website development has become critical in business expansion as the business world has become more reliant on digital technology. Backend development plays a pivotal role in the software development process, enabling web developers to create high-quality websites, thereby resulting in business growth. 

Backend development’s role in website development

The server-side of the website is the primary focus of backend development. In general, the backend is made up of three major components:

  • Database 
  • Application 
  • Server

Backend power-ups the website’s operation on the server. Furthermore, the backend developers’ programs are used to communicate database information to the browser.

Backend development will be even more important in 2021 as businesses seek to expand at a rapid pace. We’ll take a look at the five best languages for backend development that will rule the roots in 2021.

#1 Kotlin

Kotlin, which is used by 60% of professional Android developers, has a strong position in the programming world. Some of its advantages include Kotlin being a code-concise language and providing solutions to common developer problems, such as null references. It retains all of the benefits of Java while also providing a condensed version of the language. Kotlin captures the spirit of today’s SSR development as well. According to the Kotlin Roadmap, it will have increased support for server-side development, which is critical for today’s website performance and user interaction.

Kotlin was the fourth most popular language in 2020, according to StackOverflow, with 62.9 percent of the vote. Global companies such as Google, Netflix, Amazon, Trello, and others use Kotlin. Pinterest and Uber are among the companies that have switched from Java to Kotlin.

Since it is compatible with Java, Kotlin will have a significant impact on future backend development. The developers have access to massive libraries, allowing them to write concise code. More than 61 percent of developers, with more than 5 years of experience prefer to work with Kotlin. 

Spring.io is a framework that supports Kotlin.

According to JetBrains, Spring is the most popular Kotlin-supported framework, accounting for roughly half of all JVM-based projects. As per the StackOverflow Survey, it is used by 16.4 percent of respondents. Its popularity stems from the simple and effective solutions it employs. One of them is dependency injection and inversion of control, which allow dependencies to be clearly defined and requirements to be easily resolved.

#2  Python

Python is a high-level dynamically typed programming language that has been gaining popularity in the IT industry for some time. It was conceived and first implemented around 30 years ago, and it is still the third best-known and most in-demand programming language in the modern developer community (according to last year’s CodinGame 2020 Developer Survey).

Python’s popularity is out of this world. It was named the TIOBE programming language of the year in 2020. Its popularity attests to its superior features.

In comparison to other backend programming languages, Python has a more open programming approach. It is an ideal language for new startups due to its flexibility and multiple paradigms. 

Python is the most popular programming language

Python ranks extremely high in community popularity rankings. It was named the TIOBE programming language of 2020 for the fourth time, after experiencing the greatest increase in popularity in a single year (2.01 percent ). The TIOBE Index is a programming language chart based on the number of professional engineers and courses available worldwide. According to the Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2020, Python is also the third most popular programming language (66.7 percent of respondents say it is their favorite).

If you’re about to embark on a software development project, one of the most important considerations is likely to be popularity. Whether you want to assemble a knowledgeable in-house team or find a dependable tech partner to assist you in building your product, choosing a widely used technology will undoubtedly help you start the development process much faster.

Go-to frameworks of Python: Django and Flask

Django includes a plethora of add-ons such as content management, site maps, RSS feeds, and many more. This complete package not only expedites the development of an MVP or proof of concept, but also simplifies the process of tailoring the product to the needs of its users by customizing, adding, or unplugging separate components.

If Django appears to be an overwhelming monolith, you should consider Flask as an alternative. It is a microframework that ensures flexibility and gives developers greater control over which components they use and how they are implemented by providing only the basic tools and capabilities.

#3 Golang

Go, also known as Golang, is a programming language. It was released in 2009 and has already been named the Programming Language of the Year by TIOBE twice. While it is undoubtedly less popular than the aforementioned Python, it has been named the fifth most popular technology by 62.3 percent of Stack Overflow survey respondents in 2020. So, why is it on our list of suggested backend development solutions for 2021?

The learning curve is progressive

To begin with, Go is simple to understand and use for both a novice programmer and an experienced developer. On the one hand, if you look at its specification, you’ll notice that its syntax is simple, and it shouldn’t be too difficult for a young IT specialist. Furthermore, there is an interactive Tour of Go on the Go website that you can use to become acquainted with the language. On the other hand, the simplicity of Golang’s code makes it simple for professionals skilled in other programming languages, such as C# or C++, to adopt.

Google engineers created Go to make their software development process simpler, more reliable, and efficient, which is why more and more programmers are switching to Go to increase their productivity. According to the Go Developer Survey 2020, a whopping 81% of respondents felt very or extremely productive in Go. 

Gin Gonic is one of the best Go frameworks

Golang, like Python, is supported by several frameworks, including Martini, Revel, and Goji. If you want to advance your Go backend development in 2021, we recommend Gin – a minimalistic web framework with 45.2k GitHub stars.

It is simple to learn and ideal for creating efficient REST APIs that are said to be 40 times faster than Martini’s. Furthermore, Gin appears to be a viable option for developing microservices, which, from a business standpoint, have the potential to significantly increase your product’s time-to-market.

#4 Node.js

When it comes to switching to the back-end, developers can reap all of the benefits of JavaScript development. Node.js is one of the best backend programming languages due to its vibrant developer community. The dynamic developer community contributes to the language’s development.

Irresistible microservices in NodeJS

Because it is a lightweight technology, Node.js is ideal for microservices architecture. It allows for the division of application logic into small modules, resulting in greater flexibility. Because developers can add new functions to the existing ones, Node.js has become a popular backend programming language. Furthermore, because the developers can reuse the codes, the website’s performance and productivity improve.

Because it allows for the creation of separate components that easily complement the larger application, Node.js allows for cost savings during the initial development stages, potentially shortening your product’s time-to-market. This feature alone makes Node.js an excellent backend development choice for MVPs and other scalable, high-traffic applications.

When asked about many of the other miscellaneous technologies that developers use, Node.js takes the top spot for the second year in a row, with half of the respondents using it.

Express: The popular framework for Node.js

After deciding on the JavaScript runtime for backend development, you’ll be wondering about the best framework to go with it. Express is our pick for the new decade, as it is currently the most popular Node.js framework, with 76.1k stars on GitHub.

According to the framework’s website, Express.js is a quick, unbiased, and minimalist solution. It gives programmers a thin layer of powerful web and mobile app features: not too many, but just enough to make the backend development process easier.

#5 PHP

In 2021, Ruby on Rails will play a pivotal role as it helps in reducing the time spent on standardized tasks. It minimizes the website development time by 25% as compared to other languages. In addition to it, there are some amazing advantages of Ruby on Rails that will help businesses in the long run.

PHP is a useful backend programming language with excellent features and flexibility. This is why PHP is regarded as the backend development language of the future in 2021. Furthermore, the syntax of PHP is very expressive, giving developers a lot of creative freedom.

PHP includes built-in website development capabilities. It encourages rapid website development by simplifying it with a simple structure. The app’s features can be added by the developers without the need to write complex and lengthy code.

This backend programming language enables developers to interact with a variety of relational databases. Furthermore, PHP automates common web development tasks such as session management, URL mapping, caching, and so on.

Laravel: Best PHP framework to use

Laravel is a web application framework that features expressive, elegant syntax. To be truly fulfilling, we believe development must be an enjoyable and creative experience. Laravel aims to make development easier by simplifying common tasks found in the majority of web projects, such as authentication, routing, sessions and caching.

Conclusion

Backend development programming languages like those listed above will be critical for businesses to grow in 2021. Once business organizations understand their requirements and choose the appropriate backend programming language, they can use them to the core.

Businesses must choose the best language for backend development based on their needs. Aside from the language, you must ensure that your project has the best backend developer. Don’t skimp on backend developer quality because it can make or break your project.

Contact us for a professional consultation on which backend technology will be best for your business project in 2021, and how to put them into action to create a trending product.

About Galaxy Weblinks

We specialize in delivering end-to-end software design & development services and have hands-on experience with popular front-end and back-end frameworks. Our back-end and front-end engineers also help in improving security, reliability, and features to make sure your business application scales and remain secure.

5 Tips to Choose a Low-code Platform for Your Business

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Are you replacing manual coding with a low-code development platform for your app development team? To make an informed decision, you must first understand the common requirements for business apps. Setting the right criteria for selecting a low-code platform to build apps is critical. 

Like every tool, there are free as well as paid versions of low code platforms. Free low code development tools frequently lack the enterprise features and custom code capabilities required to create apps that serve business users. If your new low code software is unable to meet app requirements, you will be forced to hire professional developers. That is why it is critical to establish informed criteria for selecting a low-code application platform.

What are the advantages of using low-code development?

Opening the doors of development to non-technical employees has several benefits. Businesses and organizations can reduce development cycle time by not having to send every new development request to overburdened IT departments. Individuals from all departments and teams can instead take responsibility for developing their applications, freeing up IT for more important tasks.

Low-code application development also aids in the retention of IT teams that are small, agile, and focused on more innovative and complex tasks. Businesses can eliminate the backlog of applications that IT is responsible for by utilizing existing talent from across the organization. Most importantly, low-code application development framework solutions enable IT departments to offload certain development projects to other teams. This makes room to transform customer and employee experiences by dedicating more time to innovation. 

“By leveraging the features available in the platform, an organization can avoid redundancies across solutions, simplify their IT stack, and accelerate time to market by selecting a platform with the broadest feature set.”

– Mike Hughes, Director of product marketing, OutSystems

(OutSystems is one of the top low-code platform vendors as per a Forrester report) 

Below are five key criteria for selecting the right low-code application development framework:

1. Specify who will develop applications

Some low-code platforms are designed for technology professionals and software developers. Others are development platforms that enable business analysts or subject-matter experts to create and maintain applications. A few platforms support both options, but each persona has different tools and capabilities.

The target developers should be eager to learn the platform, build applications, and devote time to ongoing enhancements. Engaging them early in the selection process ensures that they support the tool’s use to support business priorities.

2. Identify and evaluate multiple use cases

Low-code platforms should assist your organization in accelerating application development and making enhancements easier to support. However, this must be balanced against the types of applications desired for end-user experiences, data requirements, workflow capabilities, and other considerations.

When researching and testing low-code platforms, it is critical to consider multiple app development needs and use cases. Most importantly, determine what the platform cannot or cannot easily do, as well as its scope, strengths, and weaknesses. Choosing a low-code approach because it works well for one use case does not imply that it is the best standard for ongoing needs.

3. Define usage requirements and pricing estimates

The business and pricing models of low-code platforms are very different. Some have end-user pricing, which means you pay more for more application users or usage. Other companies price their platforms based on the development scale, which includes metrics such as the number of applications or development seats. Some provide multiple products that must be purchased separately, and the majority use capability-based pricing tiers.

As a result, while many companies provide simple on-ramps to trials and developing proofs of concept, it is critical to understand the end-state development and production requirements.

4. Investigate and prioritize integration needs

APIs, cloud, and data center databases and third-party data sources must all be integrated into applications. If your company is creating IoT data pipelines or machine learning models, chances are you’ll want to integrate them with low-code platforms.

Reviewing IFTTT (If This Then That) platforms to see if they integrate with the low-code platform and the actions and triggers they support is a good place to start. Even if you don’t use these platforms in production, it would prove beneficial to review their capabilities and to implement the integration proofs of concept.

5. Review hosting, and DevOps options

Low code was once synonymous with SaaS and cloud hosting options, with few offering hybrid cloud and data center options. That is no longer true, and low-code platforms are now competing on hosting flexibility.

Another important consideration is to go over your DevOps options. When it comes to DevOps capabilities, not all low-code platforms are created equal, particularly in areas such as:

  • Versioning applications or integrating with a version control system 
  • Assisting with the development life cycle across development, test, and other environments.
  • Enabling an agile development process with links to tools for managing backlogs and road maps.
  • Combining change management processes with continuous integration/continuous deployment, continuous testing, or IT service management.
  • Enabling data snapshots, mirrors, and replications, as well as extract, transform, and load processes, to aid in disaster recovery and data science.

Low-code platforms will not be as adaptable as Java,.NET, or JavaScript DevOps capabilities. Going with a low-code platform has trade-offs because the goal is to simplify all of the scaffolding required to support app development and operations. The question is whether they meet business and technical requirements, not whether they adhere to coding and software development tools and processes.

Conclusion

Low-code platforms are great but they can be time-consuming to set up. You can find the best solution for mobilizing your developers and rapidly delivering apps that meet the needs of both your end-users and your business with a little forethought.

Don’t let code stand in the way of superior app development. Want to consult the development process for your app or web development project? Contact our experts.

What is design thinking, and how do we apply it?

Posted on by galaxy-admin

While dealing with complex problems that are poorly defined or unknown, design thinking comes to the rescue. By understanding the human needs involved, this design methodology provides a solution-based approach to problem-solving. Understanding the five stages of design thinking will enable anyone to apply these methods to solve complex problems, regardless of the issue’s scale, industry, or context.

Industries are actively adopting the human-centric approach to evolve existing products and generate new ideas to better serve their customers. Let’s look more closely at what design thinking is and how to apply it to your organization.

What is design thinking and why is it important?

Design thinking is an ideology as well as a process for solving complex problems in a user-centric manner. Its emphasis is on achieving practical outcomes and solutions that:

– Are technically feasible and can be developed into functional products or processes

– Are economically viable, the company can afford to develop them

– Meets a genuine human need, thereby making it desirable for the users

According to the design thinking ideology, to come up with innovative solutions, one must adopt a designer’s mindset and approach the problem from the user’s perspective. Simultaneously, design thinking is all about getting your hands dirty; the goal is to turn your ideas into tangible, testable products or processes as soon as possible.

Five actionable steps in the design thinking process

#1 Empathize

What? You will interact with and observe your target audience during the empathize phase.

Why? The goal of this step is to create a clear picture of who your end users are, the challenges they face, and the needs and expectations they have.

How? You will conduct surveys, interviews, and observation sessions to develop user empathy.

For instance, you want to address the issue of employee retention and ask each employee to complete an anonymous survey. You then conduct user interviews with as many employees as possible to learn how they feel about the organization. 

#2 Define

What? The next step is to define a clear problem statement based on what you learned during the empathize phase.

Why? Your problem statement identifies the specific issue you will address. It will guide the entire design process from this point forward, providing you with a fixed goal to focus on and assisting you in keeping the user in mind at all times.

How? While framing your problem statement, you will prioritize the needs of the user over the needs of the business. A good problem statement is human-centered, broad enough to accommodate creativity, while also providing guidance and direction.

For example, “My employees must be able to maintain a healthy lifestyle while working in the office”, is far more user-centric than “I must keep my employees healthy and happy to boost retention.”

#3 Ideate 

What? With a clear problem statement in mind, you should now try to generate as many ideas and potential solutions as possible.

Why? The ideation phase encourages you to think outside the box and investigate new possibilities. By focusing on quantity rather than the quality of ideas, you will be more likely to free your mind and stumble upon innovation!

How? During dedicated ideation sessions, you will employ a variety of ideation techniques such as bodystorming, reverse thinking, and the worst possible idea.

To illustrate – Based on what you discovered during the empathize phase, you hold several ideation sessions with various stakeholders. With your problem statement in hand, you brainstorm as many ideas as you can for how you can make your employees happier and retain them. 

#4 Prototype

What? After you’ve narrowed your ideas down to a few, you’ll create prototypes—or “scaled-down” versions of the product or concept you want to test.

Why? The prototyping stage provides you with something tangible that you can test on real users. This is critical to maintaining a user-centric approach.

How? Prototypes can range from simple paper models to interactive, digital prototypes, depending on what you’re testing. Have a clear goal in mind when creating your prototypes; know exactly what you want your prototype to represent and thus test.

Example – During the ideation phase, one suggestion was to provide free yoga classes. You set up a dedicated yoga room in the office, complete with mats, water bottles, and hand towels, to test this idea.

#5 Test

What? In the fifth step of the design thinking process, you will test your prototypes on real or representative users.

Why? During the testing phase, you can see where your prototype works well and where it needs to be improved. You can make changes and improvements based on user feedback before investing time and money in developing and/or implementing your solution.

How? You will conduct user testing sessions in which you will observe your target users interacting with your prototype. You can also solicit verbal feedback. You’ll make changes to your design or come up with an entirely new idea based on everything you learn during the testing phase!

For example, suppose you decide to put the yoga idea to the test for two months to see how employees react. People enjoy the yoga classes, but they are put off by the fact that they are in the middle of the day and there is no place to shower. You decide to move the yoga classes to the evening based on this feedback.

Success stories in design thinking

The most obvious contexts to benefit from design thinking are product and service design. However, the design thinking framework can be applied to a wide range of problems outside the realm of design!

Design thinking is increasingly being used in business to promote innovation and teamwork. IBM created the Enterprise Design Thinking framework to “help multidisciplinary teams align around the real needs of their users,” claiming that businesses that use the framework are twice as quick to market, 75 percent more efficient in terms of teamwork, and enjoy a 300 percent return on investment.

The insurance company MassMutual used design thinking to solve the problem of getting young adults to buy life insurance. Over two years, they conducted extensive user research in collaboration with IDEO. They then spent another two years prototyping and testing based on what they had learned. The result was the Society of Grownups, a set of digital tools designed to teach young people how to make wise financial decisions.


We hope that our blog has helped you understand the design thinking process. Contact us for a professional consultation on how to put a design thinking approach in action for your product idea to create a trending product.

Best Practices for Implementing and Maintaining CI/CD Strategy

Posted on by galaxy-admin

The key to moving faster in software design and development is a collection of operating principles and practices known as CI/CD, which combines continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD). CI/CD enables software development teams to deliver code changes more frequently and reliably, allowing them to respond to the needs of the business and its customers more quickly. For many development organizations, CI/CD has become a standard strategy.

In this blog, we are covering some tips for implementing and maintaining a CI/CD strategy. But before that let’s understand the importance of CI/CD for businesses.

How CI/CD Impacts Software Development?

Continuous integration is a coding philosophy and set of practices that encourage development teams to make small changes and check-in code to version control repositories regularly. Given that most applications today require teams to develop code across multiple platforms and tools, teams require a method to integrate and validate these changes. 

Continuous delivery comes after continuous integration and automates application delivery to specific infrastructure environments. Most development teams today work in multiple environments, including testing environments, in addition to production. Continuous delivery ensures that code changes are automatically pushed to these various environments.

According to Kenefick, former vice president, and analyst at Gartner, recent “Agile in the Enterprise” surveys, more teams are doing agile development, and agile teams have significantly higher implementation rates for continuous integration, automated acceptance testing, and DevOps. More and more organizations are implementing CI/CD to improve the design, development, and delivery of software applications for internal or external use.

Implementing and Maintaining a CI/CD Strategy

1.  Understand the business drivers – Planning for future needs

An organization must understand why it needs to implement CI/CD so that the development teams can build the necessary competency to ensure that key objectives are met.

When done correctly, CI/CD can improve developer productivity, delivery framework optimization, operational efficiency, and agile transformation.

How?

Modern CI/CD capabilities use a modular architecture, allowing for ‘plug-and-play’ adoption models and pipeline configurability to support a variety of delivery frameworks. The pipeline implementation needs to be meticulous as the code enables engineering teams to develop advanced functions that meet the current business needs. However, it is also necessary to forecast future requirements.

2. Choosing and implementing the best CI/CD system 

The available CI/CD systems can provide tangible value to organizations. Their use indicates how healthy an engineering/product organization is. However, when looking into software that enables CI/CD processes, businesses must conduct adequate research and choose the best option.

When developing, testing, and deploying new features becomes routine, [an] organization’s ability to respond to change improves dramatically. 

How?

The stakeholders responsible for the product’s technical direction, longevity, or health need to spend time researching the ecosystem and the solutions available. Have them solicit feedback from the product developers. They will be the primary users of the CI/CD system because they will be dealing with it daily.

The majority of these solutions offer free trials and can be integrated with platforms such as GitHub. Set up integration and observe the results while it automates a build, test, or deployment. When people see that these systems add value to their workflow, they will naturally start shifting more tasks to them.

3. Involve key stakeholders in CI/CD early

It’s a good idea to involve all development project stakeholders as early as possible, as close to the project’s inception as possible.

The main advantage is that all stakeholders participate in project development decisions at each stage of the project. IT operations personnel, for example, will have a say in architectural decisions, allowing developers to work on infrastructure that has been approved by IT.

How? 

This should be done for all decisions involving all types of stakeholders so that all major decisions can be made with experts present. This practice significantly reduces the amount of technical debt that accumulates throughout the project life cycle.

4. Combine automated testing with manual approvals

Teams would focus on test-first methodologies that reinforce the creation of automated unit and functional tests. They create sets of automated regression, performance, and security testing. They would also set up automated testing to ensure that environments and orchestration platforms are properly configured.

There is no one set of testing that is more important. We recommend that you combine all the required tests. 

How?

It should be combined with other quality practices such as using static analysis tools, ensuring that peer reviews take place via pull requests, and utilizing continuous integration pipelines. Ensure that manual approval steps are in place at critical points in the deployment process. Manual approval procedures keep untested or unapproved code out of production and higher testing environments. This also gives you control over when the code runs in key environments.

5. Track metrics to ensure CI/CD success

By implementing CI/CD, organizations can achieve measurable improvements in development and engineering, and these improvements should be measured and compared over time.

How?

Understand the time and flakiness of your build/test/deploy cycles. Identify potential areas for optimization and improvement. Fast is preferable to slow, but dependability and correctness take precedence over speed. CI/CD processes and tools should be viewed as force multipliers, with benefits such as reduced engineering, testing, and feature time to market.

Conclusion

Software development is extremely complex, and getting it right is difficult. Use the right tools to keep you on track and to meaningfully support your development process. CI/CD is much more than simply automating tasks to eliminate human error. It enables us to get new solutions to users as quickly, efficiently, and affordably as possible.

Are you ready to set up CI/CD processes for your project? Contact our experts.

5 Key Mobile Metrics to Make Your App Profitable

Posted on by galaxy-admin

When you get an app idea, it’s natural to want to get started on it as soon as possible. While the idea could be the most unique and exciting, developing a mobile application is not cheap—and the harsh reality is that the majority of apps fail. So, before diving in and developing an app, it’s critical to plan out how to make it profitable.

If you have an app idea, or if you’ve already released your product to the App Store, this blog will help you learn how you can use a few metrics to help you build something that makes more money than it costs to build.

1. Acquisition

Downloads: The number of new downloads in a given period (daily, weekly, or monthly)

Download Attribution: The sources of your new users. Utilize this information to optimize marketing spend and increase ROI/customer LTV.

Where do your visitors come from? This is especially important if you are running advertisements or spending money to acquire new users.

You should track downloads daily to gain a better understanding of the impact of your marketing campaigns. Knowing where your users are coming from allows you to direct your marketing resources to increase new user growth.

2. Activations

Activation Rate: The percentage of downloads that resulted in the app being launched.

  • Metric Range: You’re doing well if your activation rate is 85 percent or higher. Anything less necessitates a more in-depth investigation to understand and resolve the problem.
  • Metric Range: For most rapidly growing mobile apps, the ratio of the first-time app launches to total app launches over a rolling 30-day period ranges between 5% and 15%.

You might be surprised at how many people download your app but never use it.

Many seemingly insignificant factors can trigger this decline – from UI typos to lengthy user registrations, but this is the first aspect that you should explore.

3. Retention

The longer you retain users, the more valuable they become to your company. In a nutshell, retention equals revenue. The issue is that the average person has between 60 and 90 apps installed on their phone, but only 10% of them are used daily. With so many other apps vying for your users’ time and attention, how do you break into the top 10%?

By tracking user retention metrics and determining where people are leaving the user journey. Calculating retention based on first logins will reflect the effectiveness of your app’s messaging, onboarding, and UX in keeping people around. 

For example – Day 3 and Day 7 retention after first app launch:

Metric Range: 24% of apps are uninstalled (or not used again) after just one launch.*

Weekly (and monthly) retention cohorts:

Use first-time app launches to create acquisition cohorts. You can then track how long each cohort stays active in your app and find out which in-app behaviors have a positive or negative effect on retention.

4. Engagement

Daily Active Users (DAU) and Monthly Active Users (MAU): The number of app users who are active on a given day or month.

Average Session Length & Frequency: The frequency with which users launch your app, as well as the length of an average session.

How often do users return to your app, and how much time do they spend on it? It is an important factor because not all apps are intended to be used daily. You’ll need to define what an “active user” means for your app. Does this imply launching the app, logging in, or performing a specific action?

These metrics can help you understand the effectiveness of your engagement campaigns, as well as the overall quality of your user experience.

5. Uninstalls

Number of Uninstalls: How many people uninstall your app on a daily or weekly basis?

Churn Rate: Users at the beginning of the period – Users at the end of the period – Users at the beginning of the period / Users at the beginning of the period.

To calculate the net result of your mobile app growth, compare the number of daily uninstalls to the number of daily downloads and daily activations.

If you discover that you have a significant churn problem, examine the performance of your app to rule out bugs, crashes, or latency issues. After only a few uses, 80 percent of users abandon slow-loading apps.

Conclusion

Now that you’ve got these metrics, you’ll want to keep measuring and testing to improve these numbers. One of the most important things you can do is keep these numbers in front of you and your team at all times. See how many different tests you can run in a single month and track that as you would any other metric.

About Galaxy Weblinks
We specialize in delivering end-to-end software design & development services. Our analytics team and UI/UX designers are creative problem-solvers with a decade of experience in all facets of digital and interactive design. We create compelling and human-focused experiences delivered through clean, and minimalist UI. Click here for a free consultation!

Top New Plugins of Popular CMS in 2021

Posted on by galaxy-admin

With over 50,000 plugins in a single CMS plugin directory, it can be difficult for business owners like you to find the right plugins from your favorite CMS platform. Plugins greatly enhance your website and there are several thousand plugins available on your chosen CMS platform and third-party websites.

Choosing the right plugins is critical for your website’s speed, security, and usability. Fortunately, some clear winners will benefit almost any type of CMS site.

In this blog, we’ve compiled a list of the best plugins for popular CMS. We’ll go over plugins designed to improve WordPress, Shopify, Craft CMS, and Joomla.

WordPress

Simple Responsive WP Slider

Simple Responsive WP Slider is a lightweight WordPress slider plugin. You can use the plugin to create and customize an unlimited number of sliders for your website. To add the slider to a webpage, you can use a shortcode or place it within Gutenberg blocks. The plugin’s features include unlimited sliders and multiple sliders on each page. Custom configuration options are available for each slide, including the navigation and slider. Adding dots or arrows to the slides is one of the basic configuration options for individual sliders.

Quick Audio Player

Quick Audio Player is a customizable WordPress audio player. The plugin is mobile-friendly and compatible with any WordPress theme. It works flawlessly on all devices and web browsers. The plugin includes an HTML5 audio player, live player editing, a player poster image, rich control settings, a player shortcode, player width and color customization, and a player color picker. The player supports a variety of audio formats, including.mp3,.wav, and.ogg.

Tutor LMS Elementor Add-ons

Tutor LMS Elementor Add-ons is a useful plugin that adds 25+ Elementor page builder add-ons. Users can use the plugin to create custom styling and layouts for Tutor LMS courses. You must install both Tutor LMS and the Elementor Plugin for this plugin to function properly. After you’ve activated all three plugins, you’ll be able to use Elementor to create single course pages. Course rating, course title, course author, course level, course duration, course thumbnail, course price, and many more are among the Elementor Add-ons. The plugin can also be used to change the appearance of your existing courses.

Job App Manager

Job App Manager is a simple WordPress plugin that allows you to display a job application form on your website for candidates to fill out and submit their information. To display the form on any webpage on your site, a shortcode is used. After completing a form, the user will receive a confirmation email. Go to the admin page and navigate to ‘All Submissions’ to find the submissions in the form. You can also search, filter, and delete forms from the admin page. There is also a dashboard widget that displays the most recent five form submissions.

Wall Pricing table

WordPress users can use the Wall Pricing Table plugin to create pricing tables for their websites. You can include the features of the various pricing plans as well as display the price table anywhere on your website. The pricing table includes the following fields: title, subtitle, price, button, and features (you can add as many as you want). Each plan can be distinguished by color. The plugin is available for free.

…

Craft CMS

Marketplace for Craft Commerce

Craft users can use Marketplace for Craft Commerce to turn their Ecommerce sites into a marketplace. Users can charge fees for your platform as well as add payees to products. You have the option of charging a flat or percentage fee. Stripe Connect is used to process payments.

Presence 

Presence is a Craft plugin that shows who is currently editing an entry. While editing any entry, the users are displayed in the right sidebar settings. For users who do not have a profile image, a default logo is set. Admins can review and approve the entries made.

…

Joomla

AA Tiny Audio Player

AA Tiny Audio Player is a Joomla extension that adds an HTML5 audio player to your website. The extension includes a responsive layout and animation support. It supports the video formats.mp3,.ogg, and.wav. It is also compatible with all templates.

MyRealPin

MyRealPin gives your website a Pinterest-like appearance. You can make your pinboards, and collaborate with your friends on them. You can modify the Joomla extension to meet your specific requirements.

AA Youtube Subscription Button

AA Youtube Subscribe Button is a Joomla module that displays a YouTube subscribe button along with the subscriber number of your site. It is simple to use and fully responsive. It is cross-browser compatible and can be used with any template.

…

Shopify

Advoz 

Advoz is a Shopify plugin that allows professionals to create high-quality Google, Facebook, and Instagram ads to promote your company. Once you’ve decided on a weekly budget, you’ll receive a custom graphic or video detailing how the ads will appear. The plugin will generate advertisements that will drive high-quality leads to your store.

Products Stories Convert Sale

Products Stories Convert Sale is a cool plugin that transforms your website into a trendy social network. Customers can view products in your store in a fun and easy way thanks to the plugin. Like Instagram feed stories, all of your catalogue will appear in carousel stories. Coupons will also appear in the stories to aid in sales. You will also receive real-time reports to assist you in determining what your customers are interested in.

ConvertOut Ambassadors

ConvertOut Ambassadors is a Shopify plugin that allows users to quickly set up an ambassador program. To get started, you don’t need any technical knowledge. The plugin begins working immediately after installation. ConvertOut will track the commission that must be paid to the ambassador for each sale. Payments are made to the ambassador’s PayPal account.

Wrapping Up

It is nearly impossible to run a CMS website without using plugins to add functionality. There is a plugin for almost anything you can think of on your website, whether you want to engage users through email opt-in forms, add social sharing buttons, compress images to improve website speed or optimize your content to rank in search engines.

Furthermore, plugins greatly improve and optimize the user experience, resulting in higher engagement and a better chance of reaching a larger audience.

If you’re not sure which plugins to install first, these well-known and trusted plugins will get you started.

About Galaxy Weblinks

We are your offshore CMS development partner and have state-of-art infrastructure and development expertise on the latest CMS technology trends. We have hands-on experience in customizing websites using multiple platforms, be it Shopify, Craft, WordPress, Joomla, catering to different business needs. We offer assistance from building custom CMS websites to website migration and maintenance processes.

Apple WWDC 7 June 2021 Keynote Highlights

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Apple knows how to make an entrance and the opening keynote of the WWDC 2021 that took place on 7th June was no different. It had everything for Apple’s line of devices from watchOS to macOS.

Although there were no new product announcements in this opening keynote, there are a few products that are awaiting upgrade like Macs with Apple M1X or M2 processors, which we can expect later this year. 

Highlights From Apple’s June WWDC 

The clear focus of this keynote was shared experiences and privacy. Here are some of the software updates planned for the autumn event that Craig along with the team showcased. 

iOS 15

The phones are getting bigger and more powerful so the software should follow suit. The next-gen iOS 15 brings powerful sharing and interoperability-rich features. As usual, it will also feature some tweaks to the interface and crucial security fixes.

Here are some of the iOS 15 features that were previewed ahead of the Autumn event: 

  • FaceTime Links
  • Interactive Memories within Photos
  • Keys & ID cards in Wallet
  • New night mode for Apple Maps
  • Notifications Summary
  • Live text
  • Focus
  • Enhanced offline Siri support

While a pre-release beta was made available for developers as the keynote came to a close, public beta is promised in July.  

iPadOS 15

iPad offers a different utility than that of iPhones and considering its significant user base it made sense that it had its OS and so it got it not long back in 2019. Both the platforms have similarities but the announcements made were hinting towards a more refined aesthetic and UX for iPadOS. 

Here are some of the iPadOS 15 features that were previewed ahead of the Autumn event: 

  • Larger Widget size for a bigger screen
  • App Library
  • Multitasking control menu
  • System-wide Quick notes
  • Swift Playgrounds is a fun way to learn to code on an iPad

iPadOS 15 is also intended to solve the stability issues of iPadOS 14.

macOS Monterey

The macOS 12 is now called Monterey. Craig showcased a host of new features along with the futuristic Universal Control and its crazy ability to utilize a single trackpad or mouse to move across mac and other Apple devices for interoperability. 

Here are some of the ‘Monterey’ features that were previewed ahead of the Autumn event: 

  • Shortcuts on macOS
  • AirPlay to mac
  • Spatial Audio
  • Redesigned Safari
  • Universal Control

watchOS 8

This update for watchOS 8 is about health and primarily mindfulness. It features a new Mindfulness app that integrates the existing Breathe app with a refreshed UI alongside a new Reflect experience which suggests mindful concepts to practice. 

Here are some of the watchOS 8 features that were previewed ahead of the Autumn event: 

  • Dynamic portrait photo face
  • Mindfulness app
  • Memories on Photos
  • Directly share photos with messages

tvOS 15

Although there were no updates that were geared towards tvOS, there are a few to accompany other devices like new multi-window security camera views for HomeKit-enabled cameras, Spatial Audio for compatible AirPods, and Watch Together support for iOS 15’s Share Play.

Other Updates

AirPods – AirPods were showcased with a new feature called Conversation boost that helps reduce ambient noise and provides boosted vocals for the hearing impaired. Also, AirPods are now a part of Find My network. 

iCloud+ –  This is more of an iCloud rebrand than an update but there are some new benefits like Encrypted online browsing and Hide my Email with unlimited temporary emails.

Conclusion

With this update Apple stands to change sharing, communication, and privacy for the Apple ecosystem, making it even more fluid, consistent, and tight-knit. All that was showcased in the keynotes was exciting but Universal Control stood out for us. We can’t wait to see it in action and catch that Minority Report feels. 

P.S.

We are pretty well-skilled with Apple iOS development. Get in touch with us here if you need a partner to help build, migrate, or scale your Apple projects.