Month: September 2021

Understanding the Importance of User Experience for your Business

Posted on by galaxy-admin

“User experience is everything that touches a product …more than just an app it’s the experience of the whole system around it.” – Don Norman, who coined the term ‘User Experience’.

The success of your company is largely determined by how happy your customers are with your product offerings. User Experience (UX) has become an essential part of any online business’ success in building a connection between your users and your brand. Logos are no longer the only medium used for branding. In the highly competitive online environment, every experience created when a user interacts with the company, via website or app, is an opportunity for it to differentiate against its competitors and enhance the brand image. 

UX is a foundational pillar of all marketing efforts for any company focussing on online business. Great user experience delights your customers, creates a loyal satisfied customer base, and helps reach out to millions of users online. Even if a business spends huge amounts of money and resources on online marketing, if the user experience is poor, the entire effort will be wasted.

In this article, we have highlighted how UX designers can help enhance the experience of your users. We have also listed the key benefits that come with an effective UX design.

How do UX designers help? 

UX Development is the procedure of improving the overall experience of users to provide maximum customer satisfaction during their interaction with the company’s app or website. UX focuses on having a deep understanding of users – what they like and dislike, what they need, and what they value the most, keeping the ease of use, a key priority. 

UX designers can help you map out your users’ experience before you invest serious time and money in developing a technology solution. They craft easily navigable digital interfaces that the users will ultimately interact with. They achieve this by –

1. Researching

A UX designer strives to understand users’ needs and motivation. The research responsibilities include everything from reviewing quantitative and qualitative survey results to user testing. They keenly observe how users complete key tasks within an app or platform. 

Researching helps in making your tech solution better by 

  • Identifying problems/pain points 
  • Assisting in visualizing how your product would solve niche problems

2. Ideating

After identifying the problems, it’s now time to ideate. Designers generate ideas by various methods such as brainstorming, exploring the worst possible ideas, sketching, etc. They produce various ideas/solutions to address a problem statement and its advantages/disadvantages. Ideations help in innovating and coming up with solutions beyond the obvious. 

3. Designing

Once the ideation stage is completed, the designing phase starts where the UX designer creates a rough draft of the concept by developing an early visual or blueprint. Typically, UX designers concentrate on wireframes to layout content and functionality on a page taking into account user needs and user journeys. It is a critical part of the UX design process. 

4. Communicating

Wireframes and prototypes are presented to the various stakeholders – clients and developers. The objective is to demonstrate how the solution will work and make changes if necessary based on feedback from clients and the development team who will take these inputs in creating the solution. 

Why is UX crucial for your business? 

A good UX design enhances usability, accessibility, and pleasure the user has while interacting with your website or app and ultimately your company. UX is a foundational pillar of all marketing efforts and the key benefits that come with a good UX are – 

  • Helps you understand your target audience better

The UX design journey clarifies your vision as the entire process follows a user-centric approach focused on understanding the needs of your future customers. It helps you come with innovative solutions that would appeal to your audience and ultimately would help you achieve your business goals. 

  • Enhances customer satisfaction improves returns

The UX approach focuses on enhancing customer experience by testing out various solutions rather than assuming what the customers might like. In the highly competitive online environment, a good UX helps your marketing efforts as a great user experience delights your customers, creates a loyal satisfied customer base, and helps reach out to millions of users online quickly by referrals/recommendations. This reduces your customer acquisition and retention efforts and hence increases the return on investment for your business. 

  • Builds your brand

A good UX design helps create loyal and satisfied customers, which helps your business differentiate from competitors and enhance your company’s brand image. 

  • Saves time and money

UX design during the initial stages of product development supports creating prototypes followed by testing to check their effectiveness. If a product is built without a good UX and after spending huge amounts of time and money, the customers will not stick to the product. So a revamp after launch would be very expensive and brand-damaging in many cases. Additionally, a well-designed product will likely not require frequent updates and therefore any money saved would help you towards marketing and growing the business. 

Conclusion

Knowing your product and its users is essential for striking a balance between a usable product that users desire and a product that meets stakeholders’ business goals. Galaxy Weblinks can help you provide an enhanced user experience for your product offering. Talk to us here for a free consultation.

How to select the right WordPress developer?

Posted on by galaxy-admin

WordPress is the most popular CMS (Content Management System) that powers over 40% of the websites globally. More than 500 websites are built using WordPress daily! 

The reason is that it offers versatility, thereby allowing users (even non-developers) to create feature-rich ecommerce websites, forums, and corporate websites. WordPress websites are highly customizable, can be easily optimized for mobile, and are SEO friendly. WordPress is open-source; is completely free, redistributable, and offers unlimited validity.

However, creating a good WordPress site requires a lot of skill. You need to be well-versed with programming languages (JavaScript, PHP), HTML/CSS, databases, SEO, responsive design, etc. This makes selecting the right WordPress developer or a company crucial in achieving your end objective. 

In this article, we have highlighted a few important considerations that will help you make the right choice. We have also compiled five important questions later in this article to help you in making the right decision. 

1. Objective alignment

Once you have identified the overall goal as well the key features and functionalities of your website, finding the right WordPress developer is the next step towards achieving your goal. The developer should be aligned with your needs and should have the relevant skillset. Based on your end objective, be it a new website or a redesign, you should hire your developer. 

For a website consisting of a traditional site structure (such as a home page, about page, contact page, blog, et all), the right developer would be someone with good front-end design experience. However, if your website needs a lot of features and functionalities, a developer with more back-end technical expertise would be the right candidate. There are various marketplaces where you can find WordPress freelancers for simple websites. However, for developing a website with a lot of features and functionalities, going with a bigger company is more suited given their access to multiple resources with diverse experience. 

2. Technical skills 

A good WordPress developer should be able to understand your site’s needs and design a website that stands out. The developer should have advanced website development skills such as design understanding, page customization, plugins, site speed optimization, etc. Given that over half of the website traffic globally is via mobile devices, the developer should design a website that is compatible and responsive with all mobile devices. 

A good way to evaluate expertise is to ask about their WordPress portfolio and check out some of the websites they have developed. A few evaluation criteria could be design, compatibility across different devices, ease of navigation, etc.

3. Pricing

Pricing remains one of the important considerations in the selection process. Once you have evaluated a few developers/companies on their project understanding as well as their capabilities, understand the # of hours and project plans each is proposing. Then compare their total costs and timelines in selecting the right choice. 

Five questions to help you decide the right WordPress development partner

Based on the above considerations, here are five important questions for which you need clarity to select the right WordPress developer/company. 

  1. What expertise do they have in WordPress? Can they provide some work examples?

(Tip: Ask about a few sample projects completed. Have a Zoom/Skype call with the WordPress developer to know his experience/communication skills.) 

  1. What will be their approach towards building the website? 

(Tip: Ask them about their approach around using existing/custom themes, mobile responsiveness, SEO, security, work best practices, etc.)

  1. In the case of outsourcing, have they worked with clients from your location?

(Tip: Ask them about a few clients that they worked with as per your timezone so that you become comfortable with issues such as time difference, cultural and linguistic barriers.)

  1. How much will the website development cost?

(Tip: Ask them about their pricing including the number of hours they estimate for the work. Note that website development costs vary depending on factors such as the complexity of the features/functionalities, themes, integrations, etc.)

  1. Will there be continued support after the website is developed?

(Tip: Ask them about their support and maintenance after the website is developed. These may include plugin updates, feature enhancements, etc.)

Conclusion

We know how important it is for you to get things right as your business is in question. If you’ve any doubts related to website development and if you need assistance developing one then feel free to talk to us here.

About Galaxy Weblinks 

Galaxy Weblinks is your one-stop solution for WordPress solutions. We offer a complete range of IT services including WordPress development and WordPress optimization. Contact us now for complete WordPress solutions.

Cloud Strategy for Companies in a Post-Pandemic World

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Being an early adopter of new technology can often come at a higher cost than it is worth. As a result, businesses all over the world are slow to embrace digital innovation. Many of us were caught off guard by the pandemic, which forced hundreds of millions of workers to seek shelter and essentially move all operations and most daily life online. Not all businesses had the technological tools they needed to deal with these new challenges.

Pre-Covid-19, for example, most businesses had only just begun their cloud-migration journeys. According to Accenture research from 2019, 90 percent of enterprises have “adopted cloud technology in some form.” On average, these businesses only had 20-40% of their workloads in the cloud.

Even the preliminary steps were significant. Technavio, a market research firm, predicted a 7.1% increase in the cloud migration services market before the pandemic hit ($7.1 billion in 2024). This would imply a compound annual growth rate of 24%.

These figures, however, are expected to skyrocket following the pandemic. According to a study conducted after Covid-19’s impact, 87 percent of “global IT decision-makers” believed Covid-19 would cause organizations to accelerate their cloud migration. Businesses must transform numerous processes and functions within their organization by implementing an integrated cloud strategy and embarking on a transformation journey. A “cloud-first strategy” is formed by combining all of these factors.

Why cloud will continue to explode post-COVID

According to another study conducted by a cloud-native logging and security analytics company, up to 81 percent of organizations reported that COVID-19 had accelerated their cloud timelines. Companies plan to move more than 75% of their apps/workloads to the cloud, up by 200 percent. Eighty-six percent of companies consider cloud options when developing new applications, and more than 40 percent choose the cloud as their first choice.

The reasons are well known by this point. Using public clouds eliminates many of the pandemic risks associated with maintaining your own data center, hardware, network, and software. During quarantine, many companies that were not in the cloud encountered issues.

Public cloud providers remove these problems by making everything virtual. During the pandemic, public cloud service providers demonstrated their dependability as well as their ability to scale up quickly. In light of COVID-19-related problems with on-premises systems and a move to remote work, many businesses moved their processing to the cloud.

Three ways you can get more out of your cloud investments

1. Start Me Up (Once More) – BCP in the Cloud

It may appear overwhelming, but to achieve digital transformation, you must initiate a complete cultural shift. Business Continuity Plan or BCP is one area that must be approached with a fresh perspective.

A cloud-first business that operates with an inflexible BCP created at the beginning of the fiscal year – and then forgotten – is the polar opposite of lean and agile. To aid in the mindset shift, you could even retire the term BCP entirely!

With cloud platforms correctly used, plans for fast failover to backup data centres and data backups on tape are not required in any case. Instead, the objective is to identify the best strategies for providing employees with secure access to everything they need while moving from the office to the train to the home to a coffee shop without missing a beat.

While user business continuity is critical, organizations must also ensure data continuity. AWS and other public cloud providers have this down pat, offering data replication across multiple zones and regions.

2. Shine a Light on Cost-Optimization

It may seem obvious but only invest in cloud projects that will help your company achieve its goals. One of the motivators for many organizations to invest in the cloud is to save money. However, this rarely begins smoothly.

Many businesses experience “bill shock” after migrating to the cloud because they failed to put in place safeguards to prevent enthusiastic overuse of AWS accounts and instances. We’ve also seen large organizations turn off everything in AWS, stifling innovation.

The emphasis here should be on establishing a robust set of controls that do not prevent the use of cloud services but rather set boundaries. You can set up alerts and controls when certain quotas are met, such as when a developer spends £500 on AWS time on an experiment.

3. Engage the Boardroom Beasts

Today, technology is a boardroom issue. However, board members who are cloud illiterate can hinder a company’s ability to succeed. The most effective way to overcome this is to ensure that all board members understand, are involved in, and agree with the cloud journey.

As organizations shifted rapidly to remote working, a significant shift to cloud-based platforms and solutions occurred. Many C-suite executives were also compelled to accelerate their cloud migration plans during this time period. 27.5 percent of IT leaders polled in a recent Cloudreach- sponsored IDC study of 200 IT leaders agreed that large-scale cloud migrations were “essential for business survival” in the future.

Conclusion

The first step in a cloud-first strategy is to identify an optimal cloud strategy and execution plan, which is followed by a secure and cost-effective migration and modernization to the cloud. Using the right expertise and cloud data models, it unlocks existing intelligence and insights, and then reimagines business functions to emerge as a stronger innovation enterprise.

All of these elements must be present for businesses to transition from non-agile and capital-intensive infrastructures to cloud-based innovation platforms that are industry-specific.

About Galaxy Weblinks

We specialize in delivering end-to-end software development & testing services. We also offer effective solutions for Cloud support & maintenance to help our global clients with cloud storage, public, private & hybrid application development, among other things. Contact us to speak with our cloud experts.

iOS 15 is Here – Here is What You Should Know

Posted on by galaxy-admin

From September 20th onwards, iPhone users has been able to update to iOS 15. Apple first unveiled iOS 15 in June 2021 at its Worldwide Developers Conference. Since June, the iOS community is elated about the new features offered in the latest iOS 15. Now is the time for iOS 15 to get into the limelight.

In this article, Galaxy Weblinks shows you what the new OS is capable of, how to use it, and everything related.  

A Rundown on Apple iOS 15

The new Focus mode is the biggest change coming with iOS 15. It accompanies the “Do Not Disturb” feature and does not replace it. Users can configure various modes. Like choosing apps and people to get notifications from. They can change focus depending on what they are doing or where they are. For instance, creating a work mode, a sleep mode, a workout mode, and so on.

The new weather app, updated maps, an improved version of FaceTime, and more. These are some of the many new features launched. Safari also gets a brand-new appearance. Responding to the feedback, Apple has improved its new take on Safari.

With the Live Text feature of iOS 15, users can scan photos for text. And, highlight, copy and paste text in photos. This can also turn into a great accessibility feature as well. These features are handled on-device directly.

iOS 15 is available as a free download for iPhone 6s and the following models. All models of iPhone SE and the most recent iPod touch model can also upgrade to iOS 15. 

New iOS 15 Features At A Glance

  • Redesigned notifications experience.
  • With ‘Focus’ reduce distractions.
  • Spatial Audio and SharePlay in FaceTime calls.
  • Live Text using on-device intelligence.
  • Redesigned Safari (new browsing experience).
  • Advanced privacy features.
  • ID cards in the Wallet app.
  • Restyled Weather and Notes app.

Opinion!

Apple’s ecosystem continues to excel and impress 

The new iPhone 13 and the new operating system i.e. iOS 15 bridge the gaps with Android. It also continues to pull ahead of the competition. Visually, there are no drastic changes. Apple has integrated major innovations in a manner that one can’t even notice at first glance. At instances, users will think it’s always been like this. It’s good news as users will find it easy to jump from iOS 14 to iOS 15.

Innovations in FaceTime and iMessage seem to bridge the gap with its competitors. Google Meet, WhatsApp, or Telegram. In this regard, Apple certainly has some serious catching up to do. It is nice to see the necessary efforts coming from the giant tech company. Live Text, Notes, etc. features can become indispensable tools daily. Extracting text from images feature can be used regularly. AI processing happens on the smartphone itself. Information isn’t sent to Apple’s servers. It is a real plus point not only for data security and privacy but also about performance. 

Functions like Private Relay will put a stop to the data collection frenzy on the Web. It is about time other companies follow this suit and stay clear of collecting personal data.

Offering iOS 15 to all iPhones from the iPhone 6s onward shows how much Apple cares about sustainability. That said, older models lack the requisite hardware to take advantage of all the new features. 

Apple will gain even more ground on its competition with iOS 15 in conjunction with macOS and iPadOS.

Apple carefully orchestrates integration between operating systems and devices. It offers simplicity that is hard to find in other OS or platforms. Apple’s consistency in implementing privacy is a lesson for other companies.

How To Install iOS 15?

Updating your iPhone with the latest OS is pretty straightforward. Go to the Settings App. Click on General > Software Update. Then follow the instructions present on the screen.

Conclusion

iOS is the most advanced mobile operating system globally. iOS 15 is the latest update that allows building apps that connect people in new ways. Developing feature-rich iOS 15 powered mobile apps requires expertise and experience. Galaxy Weblinks is the best mobile app development company with expert iOS developers. We can build your mobile app as per your requirements.

About Galaxy Weblinks

We specialize in delivering end-to-end app design & development services and have hands-on experience with mobile app and site design in agile development environments. Our designers, engineers, and developers help improve security, reliability and features to make sure your business application and IT structure scale and remain secure.

Scaling in WooCommerce – Challenges and Solutions

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Scaling an Ecommerce website can be a challenging undertaking. You have to factor in a lot of situations like logged-in user accounts, order information, add-to-carts, coupons, pricing variables, etc. These situations need to be dealt with besides common scaling issues such as well-written code, custom database tables, and server infrastructure. 

It is important to approach this with great care because delays or breaks can have a direct financial impact. According to Kissmetrics a single-second page delay can potentially cost $2.5 million in lost sales over a year, for a website that brings in $100,000 of business every day. This proves that it’s crucial to have a highly functional and efficient Ecommerce website. 

WooCommerce is typically installed over WordPress CMS and the sites running WooCommerce are often customized to fit specific business needs. These customizations can range from something as basic as integrations with external services to custom SQL interfaces that don’t use WooCommerce or WordPress classes. As the number of these customizations increase, so does their difficulty to scale. A majority of customizations are one-off and not made to scale under load. This makes it difficult to approach scaling as a one-size-fits-all solution.

However, this doesn’t imply that scaling is impossible. Some methods work despite a website’s complexity and customizations.

Figure Out The Problem Areas

You can’t fix things you can’t see. So the first plan of action is to find out the problem areas, especially related to sales and incoming revenue. 

  • Begin with a site audit and gather information about code, the server, services, and integrations. 
  • Identify the problem areas with the help of this data you can identify the problem areas. For example, issues such as slow query logs in server information may show up. 

Run Query Monitor

We suggest you use Query Monitor to identify things that are running slowly on different pages. Notice where the slow-down is occurring. For example, is it happening when you’re adding a product to the cart or when you’re applying a coupon? A quick study of the system process and interactions in checkout can help reveal things that need fixing.

Perform Load Testing

The next step is to perform load testing. Design test cases around different sales activities with a load testing service to analyze the website’s performance when there’s a sudden spike in traffic and activity. Ensure that you’re doing these kinds of tests in staging and not in a live environment. Also perform load tests when you introduce new functionality, integrations, or other changes in your system. You’d want to be double sure as there are new variables in the system. 

Keep Databases Separate

WordPress has a single database table for all post types while it stores all post meta content in another table. This can work for small-volume websites but might pose a major problem for larger ecommerce websites. And since all the content is in only two database tables, it causes a performance bottleneck when the volume increases. In that case, user orders might fail or users might find it difficult to add or remove items from the cart. All this will eventually cause your revenue to take a hit. 

Consider creating custom database tables based on the bottlenecks you encounter. That way you will be able to store different content in their separate tables. When the post types have separate homes, you can optimize SQL queries for faster load times.

Upgrade Older Code

As WooCommerce has evolved, some older functions and processes have become completely obsolete and hence been replaced with better code. With updated core WooCommerce code Legacy custom websites might not perform as their modern counterparts. 

Identify outdated functionality and replace it with newer code from WooCommerce Core or custom code based on the latest practices and standards. To replace the legacy code you must know what it does first. This is where detailed code documentation comes in handy. The better the documentation, the easier it becomes to upgrade.

Find An Alternative To Default WordPress Search

The default search in WordPress is built on a set of queries to the database. This is bad news for complex site searches, filters, or custom content pages. Look for custom search solutions like Elastisearch or Algolia. These alternatives will perform better in complex higher-volume sites than WordPress’ default. 

Final Thoughts

A smooth and flawless user experience is key to customer retention in an Ecommerce business. Scaling the website to match rising traffic is a good problem to have. It can be easily facilitated by strategy, thought, and customization.

You can outsource this important task to an experienced WooCommerce development agency to reinforce your Ecommerce website from the inside out.

About Galaxy Weblinks 

Galaxy Weblinks is your one-stop solution for WooCommerce solutions. We offer a complete range of IT services including WooCommerce development and WooCommerce optimization. Contact us now for complete WooCommerce solutions.

Mobile Application Development – How to Choose The Right Development Partner

Posted on by galaxy-admin

So you’ve got a great mobile app idea and you’ve done your research to understand the competitive landscape. Now you are looking to transform your app idea into reality. However, you are now faced with a crucial question of “How to select the right Mobile app development company”.

With such an abundance of choice, choosing the right mobile app development company is difficult and confusing with several factors to consider such as experience, size, geography, costing, et al. 

We know how important it is for you to get things right as your business is in question. Here are a few important considerations that will help you make the right choice. We have also compiled seven important questions later in this article to help you in decision-making. 

Organizational alignment

A good app development company should act as an extension of your organization and be aligned with your business objectives. Not only should they guide you through the process of mobile app development, but they should also provide inputs based on their experience with similar apps and their understanding of what works and what doesn’t on the app store.

The mobile app development team involves several designers, programmers, and testers. Thus, organizational alignment becomes increasingly important while working with several individual freelancers across these roles. Freelancers can deliver flawlessly in the short run, but mobile app development is not a one-time activity and needs to evolve based on user feedback and requirements. As a result, a mobile app development company is more suited as a reliable partner in the long run given their access to multiple resources with diverse experience, dedicated focus, and aligned business priorities. 

Expertise 

Mobile app development is specific and requires skilled developers with the knowledge of required programming languages, software development kits (SDKs), and the ability to take advantage of unique features of various mobile devices (i.e., iOS or Android). The right company should be able to understand your project and overall objective. 

A good way to evaluate expertise is to ask about their project portfolio across different platforms and check out some of the apps they have developed. A few evaluation criteria could be the app’s interface, its ease of use, and reviews on the app store. A good development company will understand each platform’s guidelines and will ensure that they work within the right parameters to deliver the best for your business objectives. 

Pricing

Pricing is one of the crucial factors in the selection process. However, cheapest isn’t the best option while selecting a mobile app development vendor, so always look at the bigger picture in the long run. Never pick a company purely based on their rate. Rather look at the approach they came to the overall pricing. 

The best way is to review a few proposals with a detailed breakdown of work, and then compare the project plans and time estimates. Understand the # of hours and resources each company is proposing, and then compare their total costs. Making payments in line with delivery milestones ensures that you and the development company are aligned towards delivering the project on time and within budget. 

Best Practices

A gap in understanding of the requirements can cause the complete failure of your project. Hence, the app development company must follow best industry practices across communications, execution, documentation, budgeting, quality assurance, security, etc. Project management methods can vary greatly between companies and for a successful engagement with an app development company, it is crucial that they follow a process that is organized, consistent, and supports quality control. For offshore partners, good communication is a must to understand requirements correctly and efficiently coordinate for smooth and timely execution. 

7 questions to help you decide the right Mobile App development company

Based on the above considerations, here are seven important questions for which you need clarity to select the right mobile app developer. 

  • Who are the key management personnel behind the company and how long have they been in business?

(Tip: Ask about the top management and their vision. Also, ask them how they differentiate themselves vs competition.)

  • Do they have expertise across mobile app development – design UX/UI, SDKs, platforms, testing, security, et all? 

(Tip: Ask about a few sample projects completed. Have a call with a few technical leads to understand their backgrounds. Also, discuss the challenges faced during the execution of these projects.)

  • Can they provide some references from their earlier clients as they can provide valuable inputs about the team, technical expertise as well as project handling capabilities?

(Tip: Check clutch.co or Have a Zoom/Skype call with the references.)

  • In the case of outsourcing, have they worked with clients from your location?

(Tip: Ask them about a few clients that they worked with who were in the same timezone as you. It will help you understand issues such as time differences, cultural and linguistic barriers.)

  • What industry best practices do they follow?

(Tip: Ask them about their best practices around the app development process, documentation, security, quality assurance, communications, execution, etc.)

  • Do they provide code ownership of the app?

(Tip: Ask them about their policies around copyright. You must have ownership of the code.)

  • Will there be continued support after the app is released?

(Tip: Ask them about their support and maintenance offerings after the app is live.)

Conclusion

A careful selection of the mobile app development company can transform your app idea into reality. We know how important it is for you to get things right as your business is in question. If you’ve any doubts related to mobile app development and if you need assistance developing one then feel free to talk to us here.

Performance Testing: An Overview of its Importance, Metrics, and Examples

Posted on by galaxy-admin

The performance of your software is important for its success. Project managers, developers, and marketers measure the performance using testing tools to know how an app is performing when live.

Performance testing has its own set of challenges. For instance, changes in application behavior in scaled-down environments. However, we must first understand why performance testing is necessary in the first place.

To name a few things, we’ll talk about:

  • Why performance testing is needed
  • Types of performance testing
  • What does performance testing measure
  • Performance testing success measure
  • Performance testing process
  • Performance testing example

Why is performance testing needed?

Following are some of the reasons:

1. Mobile app errors are now much higher than ever. Mobile applications face network issues, especially when the server is overloaded. It becomes even more difficult if the applications are running on unreliable mobile networks. Some of the issues that apps face in such a situation are as follows:

  • Problems downloading images or images that are broken.
  • Massive gaps in the content feed.
  • Errors in booking or checkout.
  • Timeouts are used frequently.
  • Freezing and stalling.
  • Uploads that failed.

2. Poor application experience means frustrated customers, which leads to lost revenues. Research shows that over 47 percent of the respondents would exit the application when faced with a broken image, and switch to a different platform.

3. Application speed changes as per region. It is critical to ensure that users of the application all over the world can use it easily and without experiencing any network issues.

4. Moreover, a system may run smoothly with only 1,000 concurrent users, but it might behave randomly if the user base increases to 10,000. Performing performance tests on a system determines whether or not it is stable, scalable, and fast enough to handle high demand.

While there are different tools to test the above criteria, there are different processes that determine if the system works per the established reference point. It is also important to plan how performance tests should be performed.

Types of Performance Testing

Spike testing

A technique known as spike testing examines how quickly the software responds to sudden, large increases in the amount of load generated by the system.

Load testing

An application’s ability to handle anticipated user loads is tested during a load test. The goal is to identify performance bottlenecks before a software application goes live.

Scalability testing

Testing for scalability – Determines the application’s ability to “scale up” in response to an increase in user load. It aids in the planning of software capacity expansions.

Stress testing

Stress testing entails putting an application through its paces under extreme workloads to see how it reacts to spikes in traffic or processing demands. The objective is to identify applications that are just about to be submitted.

Endurance testing

Ensures your software can handle the expected load for a long period of time through endurance testing.

Volume testing

Data is populated into a database during volume testing, so the overall behaviour of the software system is monitored. The goal is to see how well a software application performs with varying database sizes.

What does performance testing measure?

Response times and possible errors are among the things that performance testing looks at. In this way, you’ll be able to confidently identify performance bottlenecks, bugs and mistakes – and choose a way to optimize your application for the problem (s). Tests of performance have shown that speed, response time, load time, and scalability are the most common problems. 

Excessive Load Times

To start an application, you’ll need a certain amount of load time. Delays should be kept to a minimum to provide the best possible user experience.

Poor Response Times

Latency is what elapses between a user entering information into an application and the response to its action. Long response times significantly reduce the interest of users within the application.

Limited Scalability

Limited scalability is a problem with an application’s ability to scale up or scale down as needed to accommodate more or fewer users. While the appliance works well with a small number of users, it starts to struggle as the number of users grows.

Bottlenecks

Bottlenecks are performance-degrading impediments in a software system. They’re usually the result of faulty hardware or bad code.

Performance Testing Success Metrics

The critical metrics in your tests must be clearly defined before you begin testing. These parameters generally include:

  • Hits per second – the number of hits on an online server during each second of a load test.
  • Hit ratios – cached data instead of expensive I/O operations handles the number of SQL statements. If you’re serious about solving the bottleneck problem, you should start here.
  • Amount of connection pooling – the number of user requests met by pooled connections. The more requests met by connections within the pool, the higher the performance is going to be.
  • Maximum active sessions – the utmost number of sessions that may move directly.
  • Disk queue length – When a sample interval occurs, the average number of ‘read and write’ requests that go into the disc queue during that time are recorded.
  • Network output queue length – Length of the network output queue in packets (instead of bytes). Anything less than two indicates the presence of a delay or bottlenecking, which must be addressed immediately.
  • Network bytes total per second – Bytes sent and received on the network interface, including framing characters, are measured in network bytes per second.
  • Response time – the amount of time it takes for a user to enter a letter of invitation and receive the first character of the response.
  • Throughput – The rate at which a computer or network receives requests per second is known as throughput.

Performance Testing Process

Performance testing methodology varies widely, but the goal remains the same regardless of the methodology used. With the help of this, you can demonstrate that your software system meets certain performance criteria. It’s used to see how well two software systems compare to one another. It can also help you find performance bottlenecks in your software system.

Here is the performance testing procedure. 

  • Recognize your testing environment – Understand your physical test environment, production environment, and testing tools. Before you begin testing, learn about the hardware, software, and network configurations that will be used. It will assist testers in creating more efficient tests. It will also aid in identifying potential issues that testers may face during the performance testing. 
  • Determine the performance acceptance criteria – This includes the throughput targets and constraints, response times and resource allocation. In addition to these objectives and limitations, defining project success criteria is also necessary. Testing should be empowered to set performance criteria and goals because project specifications may not always include a diverse set of performance benchmarks. Sometimes there may be none at all. Whenever possible, find a comparable application and use that to set performance goals.
  • Plan and design performance tests –Determine how end-user usage differs and identify key scenarios to test for them. A wide range of end users must be simulated, performance test data planned and metrics outlined.
  • Setting up the test environment – Before starting the test, make sure your testing environment is ready. Organize tools and other resources as well.
  • Implement test design – Create performance tests in accordance with your test plan.
  • Run the tests – Put the code into action and monitor the results.
  • Analyze, fine-tune, and retest – Compile, analyze, and disseminate the results of the tests. Then make any necessary adjustments and retest to see if the system’s performance has improved or deteriorated.

Example Performance Test Cases

  • When 1000 users access the website at the same time, the response time is no longer than 4 seconds.
  • When network connectivity is slow, ensure that the response time of the Application Under Load is within an acceptable range.
  • Examine the maximum number of users that the application can support before crashing.
  • Analyze the database execution time when 500 records are read and written simultaneously.
  • Make sure to keep an eye on CPU and memory usage, especially when the system is under heavy load.
  • Test the application’s response time under various load conditions, including light, normal, moderate, and heavy.

During the execution of the performance test, vague terms such as acceptable range, heavy load, and so on are replaced by concrete numbers. These numbers are determined by performance engineers based on business requirements and the technical landscape of the application.

Conclusion

Software engineers must conduct performance testing on all new products before releasing them to the market. There is no risk of a product failure, so customer satisfaction is guaranteed. Gaining a competitive advantage usually outweighs the costs of conducting performance testing.

About Galaxy Weblinks

We specialize in delivering end-to-end software design & development services and have hands-on experience with automation testing in agile development environments. Our engineers, QA analysts, and developers help improve security, reliability, and features to make sure your business application and IT structure scale and remain secure.

A Guide To Choose The Best Software Development Partner

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Having a good product idea for building a custom application or software is the first step towards achieving your organization’s desired business goals. However, the path to success will be determined by the skill and experience of your software company that develops the application. 

You will have several software development companies to select from. You can decide based on cost, size, experience, location, and several other parameters. Hence, choosing the right company is difficult and confusing. 

How to identify the best-suited software development vendor is an important question. Here are a few important considerations that will help you make the right choice. We have also compiled ten important questions later in this article to help you make the right decision. 

1. Alignment

The software development vendor is an extension of your organization, not only for your current needs but also for future requirements. They need to act like a long-term partner and be aligned with your objectives. Your vendor should understand your business requirements, help focus on priorities, advise from a technical perspective, and execute work efficiently. Selection of the vendor should be done keeping in mind both organizational alignment and project alignment. Additionally, alignment is the most crucial factor to consider while going forward with a software development company or with freelancers. 

2. Expertise 

While the software development company specializing in a certain domain and technology is crucial, it should also have expertise across the wider technology spectrum – front-end, UI/UX design, back-end, server, security, et al. For complex and bigger projects, having a team with diverse understanding and experience across technologies allows the vendor to understand the functional requirements holistically and to come up with cost-effective solutions. 

For offshore partners, leveraging the knowledge of your vendor is more cost-effective than developing all technology expertise in-house. This is because developing all technology expertise in-house is expensive, as it would involve hiring several employees with specialized technology expertise, training them, and making sure that they are utilized efficiently for the long term even after the project is completed.  

3. Best Practices

A gap in understanding of the requirements can cause the complete failure of your project. Hence, the software development company must follow best industry practices across communications, execution, documentation, budgeting, quality assurance, security, etc. Project management methods can vary greatly between companies and for a successful engagement with a software development company, it is crucial that they follow a process that is organized, consistent, and supports quality control. For offshore partners, good communication is a must to understand requirements correctly and efficiently coordinate for smooth and timely execution. 

4. Pricing

Cheapest isn’t the best option while selecting a software development vendor, so always look at the bigger picture. Typically, the hourly rates are very standard based on regions – 

  • Asia/Eastern Europe: $15-$30
  • South America: $30-$45
  • North America: $80+

We recommend that you do not choose a vendor purely based on their rate. Rather look at the approach they came to the pricing. The best way is to review a few proposals and compare the project plans and time estimates for each phase. Understand the # of hours, resources each vendor is proposing, and then compare their total costs.

Additionally, most vendors provide support/maintenance services, and their pricing can vary. Look at the monthly support hours each vendor is proposing and at what cost. Usually, it’s a good idea to pick a lower-cost vendor for support for smaller enhancements.

10 questions to help you decide the right vendor

Based on the above considerations, here are ten important questions for which you need clarity to select the right software development company. 

  • Who are the key management personnel behind the software company and how long have they been in business?

(Tip: Ask about the top management and their vision. Also, ask them how they differentiate themselves vs competition.)

  • Do they have expertise across the technology spectrum – front-end, back-end, server, security, etc? 

(Tip: Ask about the projects completed across the spectrum. Also, have a Zoom/Skype with a few tech leads to understand their backgrounds.)

  • Do they have experience with similar projects?

(Tip: Ask about a few sample project overviews including the broad scope of work. Also, discuss the challenges faced during the execution of these projects.)

  • Can they provide some references from their earlier clients as they can provide valuable inputs about the team, technical expertise as well as project handling capabilities?

(Tip: Check clutch.co or Have a Zoom/Skype call with the references.)

  • In the case of outsourcing, have they worked with clients from your location?

(Tip: Ask them about a few clients that they worked within your timezone so that you become comfortable with issues such as time difference, cultural and linguistic barriers.)

  • What communications processes do they follow to efficiently coordinate with you for smooth and timely execution?

(Tip: Ask about their external and internal communications processes for project tracking, feedback, and coordination.)

  • What industry best practices do they follow?

(Tip: Ask them about their best practices around documentation, security, quality assurance, budgeting, communications, execution, etc.)

  • What kind of security measures will be used during communication and development, including the safeguarding of the data and intellectual property?

(Tip: Ask them about their NDA and Confidentiality policies. Also, try to understand how the multiple team members coordinate across a single project.)

  • Do they provide software ownership to you, so that the same application cannot be used by any other organizations?

(Tip: Ask them about their policies around copyright and whether code ownership is mentioned in their contracts.)

  • Will there be continued support after the project is complete?

(Tip: Ask them about their support and maintenance offerings post project completion.)

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A careful selection of the software development company is crucial for realizing your company’s vision and we know how important it is for you to get things right as your business is in question. If you’ve any doubts related to software development and if you need assistance developing one then feel free to talk to us here.

About Galaxy Weblinks

We specialize in delivering end-to-end software design & development services and have hands-on experience with software development tools. We have expertise in developing custom software and system applications for multiple business requirements, be it IoT, enterprise application, or a customized machine learning platform. Contact us for your project discussion today.

Selecting The Right Ecommerce Platform – The Key Factors

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Setting up a shop online? Yes it is easier than setting one up made of bricks and mortar but comes with its own set of complications. 

Ecommerce isn’t easy. The insane level of competition aside, your problems begin even before you’ve begun to build your website. The first important decision that you need to make is selecting the best Ecommerce platform to build your website. The options are numerous and they all seem to offer some distinctive features that make this choice so difficult. 

We have listed a few key considerations to help you select the right Ecommerce platform.

How secure is the platform?

One of the first things that you should consider in your Ecommerce platform is the language it is based on. The platforms based on object-oriented programming language come with embedded security protocols and are, therefore, considered safer. Magento and Shopify pay extra attention to reduce the vulnerabilities of websites with two factor authentication. 

The platforms which do not have multi factor authentication to protect sensitive information, security plugins can provide that extra layer of safety.

A platform is safe when –

  • An Ecommerce platform should conduct security audits for sustaining websites.
  • It should safeguard sensitive data from breaches and attacks.
  • To prevent any monetary frauds, an Ecommerce platform should be PCI and SSL certified.

Is it SEO friendly?

39% of Ecommerce traffic comes from direct searches. This makes it a good reason for you to take SEO considerations into account.

Popularity of a website depends on various factors with content playing a significant role in attracting the audience towards the site. To understand things better, ask questions like, does the Ecommerce platform allow you to write meta-information about the product or is there Google site map support? These questions are important as they have a direct impact on SEO rankings of the site.

Onveos is a perfect choice if you are considering SEO as a selection factor because it provides independent fields for SEO elements. Other than this you can also go for Magento, WooCommerce, and OpenCart as they play a significant role in inbound marketing initiatives.

Responsiveness 

A responsive web design is a must have for a great user-experience from a desktop to tablets and mobiles of various sizes and orientations.

Having a separate mobile and desktop site requires having different marketing campaigns, product information & banners, catalogues, etc. Platforms like Magento and WooCommerce have various responsive themes and templates to make websites vertically stacked.

Shopify even lets you edit HTML and CSS directly. You can change the colors, size, and positioning of any element on the page within the platform.

Does the platform provide multi-channel support?

Always prefer a platform that lets you sell products or services across different channels like Instagram, FB Messenger, Amazon, and others. It increases the revenue percentage on the whole. The best multi-channel Ecommerce platforms are Shopify, BigCommerce, PrestaShop, Magento, and WooCommerce. 

As soon as you choose a platform, your next step should be towards understanding the audience. It will help you analyse what your end users are looking for and how they buy things online.

Adding more channels will increase the task of managing and tracking inventory systems. Centralised management of the data creates diversified selling options in online marketplaces. Multi-channel selling increases the revenue of Ecommerce sites.

What are the key plugins and integrations?

Even though an Ecommerce platform has all the things to run an online business, it still needs integrations and plugins to add crucial functionalities like Payment gateways, Tax calculators, Inventory management, etc.

You’ll find a popular bunch of essential plugins and integrations that are common to all the platforms. But your platform of choice should be the one that has an active community and supports plugins and integrations relevant to your business.

How important is the pricing of the platform?

Price of an Ecommerce platform depends on multiple factors like design, setup configuration, custom development, maintenance, and so on.

The per month cost of Shopify platform starts from $9 and goes till $299 whereas Volusion starts from $15 and goes upto $299. Shopify is a perfect choice if you are looking for multiple features and add ons in your app. You can select Volusion for a more selling-focused experience.

BigCommerce has the highest starting price of $29.5 followed by 3dcart at $29. BigCommerce is one of the best platforms for SEO considerations. 3dCart is a feature rich platform that builds and manages online stores real well.

Conclusion

Before you zero in on any platform, match your website’s specific needs with the platform’s features and estimated cost. Ecommerce platforms can also utilize AI, VR, Chatbots, and Blockchain to help your online business stay relevant.We know how important it is for you to get things right as your business is in question. If you’ve any doubts related to Ecommerce platforms and if you need assistance developing one then feel free talk to us here.

User Experience Design – Benefits Offshoring Can Bring To Your Business

Posted on by galaxy-admin

UI/UX is the backbone of any online business product. It is the first thing that helps you build a connection between your users and your brand. A good design enhances usability, accessibility, and users’ delight while interacting with your website or app.  

Technology is taking over all the aspects of our lives and this leads to an increase in the demands from consumers. Interfaces must be able to compete with the increasing expectations. Even before writing the code and starting the build of your application, laying out a detailed UI/UX strategy is a must.

Even if you haven’t needed a UX designer in the past, there’s a good chance you will in the future. Many businesses outsource UI/UX services, and if you are looking for the same, we have listed down why offshore UX is a good business decision for your current or future UX designer needs.

Local talent can be hard to find

Effective UX design requires a lot of specialization in a lot of different areas. Hiring talent for all the different areas of UX design would not only be very expensive, it can be hard to find local talent that is also available for full-time work given the high demand for UX designers. This is especially true if you want to hire top talent, which will command a higher price and be harder to keep on staff without some other company coming along with a better offer.

Thankfully, a remote team of designers can provide you with the same skills as having an in-house team of designers. For both, you want someone who is a self-starter and will get the work done on time and as per specifications with minimal oversight on your part. As the top UX designers realize, they can make more work for themselves and take on multiple jobs at multiple firms throughout the year, it becomes easier to find a qualified person for the job without having to commit to a full year’s salary and associated perks.

The economics of developing nations

In the countries where the cost of living is low, the highest-paid professions may receive a little more than you would pay a UX designer. This means that UX designers in those nations can price themselves very competitively compared to western nations and still live a very comfortable life relative to their peers.

Of course, you’ll have to put some effort into finding the right candidate when you look outside English-speaking countries. Residents of most countries learn English as a second language, but you want to make sure that they speak it well enough that no language barriers exist. With offshoring, you’ll save money and provide someone with a better income than they could get in their economy alone.

Technology breaks down boundaries

Because it is such a visual art, there was a time in the past when doing UX work remotely would have been extremely difficult. This may be why there is still a reluctance on the part of many to embrace outsourced UX designers.

We now have technology that allows us to video conference and share our screens easily. There are cloud-based solutions, such as Miro, Figma and Invision, that allow for collaboration on even the most advanced projects so you’ll be able to give feedback to designers in a professional manner and ensure that nothing gets lost in the translation.

Combine that with the fact that all but the poorest of countries have access to high-speed internet, it is now possible to engage in real-time feedback even for visual projects like UI and UX. The boundaries that once stood in the way of taking UX design off-premise have now been torn down by technological advances.

Keeping up with trends 

The world of UI/UX is changing rapidly with new trends emerging constantly. Outsourced companies have a pool of resources with varied experience that interact frequently with multiple companies globally. This allows the team to adapt to emerging trends and come up with new and innovative ideas/solutions. Keeping up with these trends is time-consuming, laborious, and demanding. If UX design isn’t the bread and butter of your business, it makes business and economic sense to outsource UX/UX aspects.

Offshoring is flexible

If you’re a large business, you already have a design department with competent directors and senior designers. In that case, it will be the additional workers that take the vision of the senior members and help implement it that would make prime candidates for offshore workers.

For small businesses, it is impossible to hire a full-time staff to do your design work. Offshoring makes finding someone for a one-off job even more affordable.

Better cost control

Working with an agency allows you to control costs in a way that hiring someone in-house does not. After signing a statement of work (SOW), agencies are required to follow the scope of work outlined in the contract.

This specific type of agreement gives you more control over when work begins and ends, as well as how much money you commit to the project.

Faster go-to-market

Agency design teams must meet tight deadlines and adhere to strict, time-tested procedures. Whereas an in-house hire may take some time to settle in and understand the company, and project requirements, a good agency would begin delivering prototypes within two to three weeks.

Agencies simply do the work faster. For example, our UX team at Galaxy has been able to completely redesign relatively complex SaaS applications in less than three months, whereas an in-house team would typically take at least twice as long. Agencies can move your project more quickly to the point where your investment begins to pay off.

Conclusion

UX design has become a requirement in today’s competitive landscape. Knowing your product and its users is essential for striking a balance between a usable product that users desire and a product that meets stakeholders’ business goals. Offshoring is a viable option that many agency owners are leveraging while they channelize their energies in building their business. Galaxy’s approach to UI/UX outsourcing, strategy, research, and design is a homogenized effort that focuses on merging the desired outcomes for end-users and your company. There is no universal solution that fits all, and we understand that every project is different. This is why we match your needs with the right team of performant designers and engineers. Our team works with you towards a common goal of deploying robust and scalable UI/UX solutions that yield great business results. If you’ve any doubts related to UX/UI and if you need assistance, then feel free to talk to us here.