galaxy-admin, Author at Galaxy Weblinks

iOS 13 design | What’s changed and what remains?

Posted on September 19, 2019October 11, 2024 by galaxy-admin

Ever wondered why Apple allows only selected employees in its Industrial Design Studio?

Surprisingly, it’s a part of their design concept and not a security concern.

Apple isolates their industrial design team to allow them to indulge in deep work. It lets them make cutting edge design decisions without having to worry about the practical and limiting aspects of its implementation.

Such creative isolation is one of the reasons behind Apple’s incredible products. Products that are amazing to look at and are effortless to interact with.

Apple then unveils these ingenious products in their annual events. This year’s launch events also followed through with new iPhone 11 series donning a double and a triple camera setup, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, a dedicated OS for iPad, multi-core ultra-spec Macs for professionals, and UI upgrades for the new generation of Apple devices.

But it was the design announcements that caught our ‘viewport’.

iOS 13 has been in the developer’s beta since the announcement at WWDC 2019. Here are a few notable UI/UX designs from the beta that made it to the end users.

New Default Modal Presentation style

Screenshot of iOS UI — Image source: Applypixels.com

It’s been almost two years since iOS interface ditched capacitive buttons for swipes and gestures. The new ecosystem relies on card style modal sheets which lets the user dismiss or present recent screens with swipes only. Modal presentation style is now default due to which view controllers appear as a form sheet overlaid one over another and not in full screens.

This card-like appearance allows users to dismiss screens interactively with a downward swipe. And the layered design provides users a sense of context about where they are in the application.

Modals are really convenient but they’re not fit for the apps that has scrolling, pinching, or swiping as their fundamental interaction. Photo editing and reading apps for example.

Revised System-Wide Gestures

Selection gestures in custom text views:

Thanks to the new text editing gestures! There will be no need to shake the entire device to undo a text (only if someone even bothered to do that).

One can simply tap to select, pinch in and pinch out to copy-paste with three-fingers.
One can also undo-redo by swiping left and right with three fingers.

In addition to that, it will allow users to quickly manage their text editing on either of the devices i.e. iPhone or iPad, without using formatting shortcut bars.

Multiple selection gestures in tables and collection:

Apple has introduced a new way of quickly selecting contiguous batch of items in table and collection views. By simply dragging two fingers on a list or collection of items to draw a selection.

It’s important for easy and seamless user experience to add gestures when left with very little space on screen. It will immensely help designers overcome space-based challenges.

However in hindsight, so many gestures may leave users overwhelmed before they get used to it.

Dear Apple, it’d be great if you did something about…

Incoming Phone Call UI
It’s something that iPhone users want Apple to learn from Android. Why a full-screen app jump? It covers the whole screen, pushing back the application you are using. This call UI needs a refresh, and like android can show a banner up in the top that allows users to dismiss the call or let it ring in the background and be done with it.
Swiping App Switcher
Since iPhone X Series’ redesign, users have been reporting the inability of swiping away all the apps in the app switcher in one go. Surprisingly, it’s still there in iOS 13. Apple is not fixing this problem because clearing recent apps in the App Switcher doesn’t improve battery life or device’s performance, as all the apps are in suspended state.However, removing all of the recent apps from the app switcher only has aesthetic value where the user wants to be able to scan the app switcher quickly for their most used apps. But taking away the option to swipe away the mess is a bad design choice. It’s up to the user if they prefer a clean and efficient experience or a cluttered one.

Camera App Settings
There are tons of improvements in iOS13 camera and photos application, but it still doesn’t allow to change video recording resolution within camera app itself. For that, users are supposed to go all the way into Device’s Main Settings > Camera. Whereas the interaction is only worth a button and two taps in the app.

Similarly, there are few other features that are buried in the iPhone Settings that are meant to be in the app in the first place.

Wrapping up

Contrary to popular belief the design is not always about what a user wants. Most of the times it’s about utilization of the new tech-laden devices. It might mean some compromises here and there but at the end of the day it’s for the software stability.

Maybe Apple keeps things the way they were built, because they know better. But Apple, if you’re listening at least change the in-your-face call notifier screen.

5 mistakes to avoid while designing tooltips

Posted on September 13, 2019October 11, 2024 by galaxy-admin

Tooltip is a great UI pattern for user onboarding and feature discovery. But there is a thin line between useful and annoying tooltips. This post will help you draw the line.

Your tooltips are either helping users by telling them about the features that are exclusive to your product or they are interrupting users in between their important tasks to tell them how brilliant your new upload feature is. It’s a mistake to question your user’s intelligence. Tooltip design often fails because of common mistakes like these.

Here is a list of 5 mistakes that you can avoid to boost feature adoption and product tour completion rates with your tooltip design.

1. Where are the hints when you need them the most!

Image of a man acting confused in a shopping mall

One of the most frustrating things about tooltip design is visibility. While designing unique interfaces, placement and size of tooltips are often ignored. A user can’t use something if it’s hidden.

Most common implementation of transient tooltips doesn’t take touchscreens into consideration. Hover triggers have tiny hit points. Anything tiny is bad for accessibility. These actions require fine motor skills to land and hold on the hit point for a while.

2. Must have one upper case, one lower case, special char….poof!

Consider tooltip as friction in user experience, if the users have to go out of their way to perform a difficult action, chances are they’ll skip.

If the interaction in your design requires a lengthy explanation, then tap or hover to reveal action becomes an unnecessary burden.

3. Oh! Here is a tooltip telling me to write in the field it’s obscuring

Some transient tooltips are designed to expand over the input field while some stretch past smaller screens. You can’t read and act simultaneously when the tip is inaccessible or covering the input fields.

Tips are supposed to help the user with the interaction and not obstruct it.

4. Should have told me earlier that tapping this button will terminate my session

Timing is crucial in tooltip design. The tips should be aligned with the user flow. Feature adoption and user’s understanding of your product depends on the relevance of tips and not the frequency of it.

A user will only be interested in reading about a feature when they need to use it. Overwhelming the user with information for the sake of feature discovery will only make them skip the info.

5. What does it have to offer?

Last but not the least, comes your tooltip copy. A boring and irrelevant copy might cost you the user motivation to even encourage an action. Motivation, Ability, and a Trigger are the three crucial elements in BJ Fogg’s Behaviour Model that prompts a user to take an action.

Copy is an indispensable part of a tooltip because it motivates the user to take action. Your tooltip is doomed to fail if your copy isn’t conversational or it doesn’t reflect your value proposition.

In a nutshell

Even the most intuitive UI needs tooltips while onboarding new users or introducing new concepts. The difference between not-so-obvious and obvious is not that obvious. Think about your target users while making these assumptions. Explaining a basic feature to an experienced user might annoy them.

Facebook, Asana, and Slack are some of the best examples of great tooltip design. Their tooltips are a part of the user flow. Facebook has a subtle, conversational, and attractive approach towards tooltips, which informs and encourages action as well.

If you’re seeing significant drops in your user onboarding or feature adoption then give us a shout here, we’ll be happy to help you optimize your tooltip design.

Unboxing popular PWAs | Techniques used and impact

Posted on September 10, 2019October 11, 2024 by galaxy-admin

What is common between Pinterest, Tinder, Uber, Trivago, and Airbnb?

All these companies experienced a surge in their product’s performance, user-engagement, and conversions by going mobile-first with progressive web apps.

Why did they go for PWA you ask? Legacy websites of these popular platforms were doing good for big screens but not so much for the small screens. Considering the ever increasing growth of mobile users and loss of potential market they decided to prompt users towards their native apps.

After seeing people bounce from their native apps too, they decided to go with progressive web apps.

This blog covers progressive techniques that Pinterest and other major companies use to build PWAs.

Pinterest reduced its Javascript bundle size via Route-Based Chunking

Code-splitting reduces time to interactive by loading only the code that’s needed beforehand while the rest of the code loads lazily.

Pinterest broke-up & shaved hundreds of KB off their JavaScript bundles weighing 650kb. Pinterest split it’s multi-megabyte JavaScript bundles into 3 different categories of webpack chunks (Vendor, Entry and Async). They used webpack’s CommonsChunkPlugin (replaced with SplitChunksPlugin in webpack v4) to break out their vendor bundles into their own cacheable chunk and added React Router for code-splitting.

As a result, Pinterest was able to take down the size of their core bundle from 650KB to 150KB.

Uber and Tinder also took a similar approach and….

m.uber comes in at just 50kB and loads in less than 3s.
Tinder took down its core bundle size from 166kb to 101kb and reduced its load time from 11s to 4s.

Faster loading for Tinder and Nikkei via Inline Critical Path CSS

The bigger and more css files you have, the longer the page takes to load. Inlining critical CSS eliminates Render-blocking scripts.

Tinder used Atomic CSS to create highly reusable CSS styles to inline all the critical CSS in the initial paint. Tinder used Google Analytics and CSS stats for each release to keep track of what has changed. It saw change in average load times went from ~6.75s to ~5.75s. Thus, removed critical CSS from their core bundles.

Nikkei, a Japan based media business, inlined all the critical CSS with 0 render blocking stylesheets. This optimization helped Nikkei to reduce its first meaningful paint by more than 1 second.

What else can you do besides code-splitting and inlining CSS?

Asset caching via Service Workers

Service worker is a lightweight net proxy which allows web applications to cache all of its necessary resources to load substantially faster for returning visitors. Essentially, it helps in caching main JavaScript, CSS, and static UI assets.

One way to generate a Service Worker file and a list of assets is via Workbox Webpack plugin. Many web applications take advantage of Workbox Webpack plugin for network resilience and offline asset caching. That further has helped these companies to speed up Time To Interactive on repeat visits and first meaningful paint.

Treebo saw 31% improvement in TTI and loaded in under 4 seconds, whereas Pinterest reduced its TTI from 23s to 5.6s.

You can refer to Google Offline Cookbook for other caching strategies.

The Future

Making speed one of the core metrics is an important step towards delivering a hassle-free and cutting edge experience to your customers. More and more websites are opting for an offline-first web. It’s only practical to adopt the ‘write once and use anywhere’ approach against writing natively for every other platform.

Google and Microsoft are also working towards a future where PWAs are available alongside full-fledged apps in app stores. It’s safe to say that PWA is in fact the future of the interwebs.

Progressive techniques can give your website a much needed performance boost like these apps that you just read about. Thinking about making the move to PWA? Talk to us here.

Kotlin 1.3.50 | More than just a performance upgrade

Posted on September 4, 2019October 11, 2024 by galaxy-admin

Kotlin has emerged as both substitute and supplement to C++ and Java. In 2018, the language had over 96,000 repositories on GitHub and had already reached 1.5M+ users.

More than 50% of professional Android developers now use the language to develop their apps. Google claims that this figure will increase dramatically. Since in future Kotlin will be the first to receive new Jetpack features.

The new Kotlin 1.3.50 release kicks off with various tooling and quality improvements to develop applications much faster. Let’s take a look at the major improvements from this release.

Convert Java-Kotlin with fewer compilation errors

The one-click Java to Kotlin converter tool helps to convert an existing Java project, one file at a time. The converter is not meant to produce 100% error-free code, instead it’s built to reduce compilation errors.

The converted code might show nullability issues that require human intervention. Manual corrections fixes the code for the time being but it doesn’t foolproof the code from runtime errors that show up in the form of nullability mismatch.

The new improved version of Java-to-Kotlin converter (available in preview) tries to infer nullability more correctly based on the Java type usages in the code. And helps in making it easier than ever to convert code with fewer compilation errors. The generated Kotlin code is easier to manipulate too.

Improved Debugging

Bytecode has a lot of technical information and displaying all of that can make the code bulkier and unreadable. Kotlin ‘Variables’ view now highlights only the most relevant variables, which aids in easier debugging.

You can set a breakpoint inside lambda expression or at the end of the function as well.
Improved support for the “Evaluate expression” functionality in the debugger for many non-trivial language features. You can now modify variables via “Evaluate expression”.

New Intentions and Inspections in IntelliJ IDEA

This addition helps in learning how to write idiomatic Kotlin code, improve performance of IDE actions, and fix several known situations that were causing the UI to freeze.

IntelliJ IDEA now highlights deprecated imports from the completion list
You can convert normal properties to lazy properties and vice versa
You can automatically replace the primitive lateinit property with the by Delegates.notNull () syntax

Kotlin/JS now supports Dukat-Gradle integration

Dukat is a converter of TypeScript definition files to Kotlin declarations. By running the build task in Gradle, typesafe wrappers are automatically generated for npm dependencies and can be used from Kotlin.

You can now comfortably use the JavaScript ecosystem libraries in Kotlin in a type-safe manner without the need to manually write wrappers for JS libraries.

Other Kotlin/JS updates

Incremental compilation for Kotlin/JS is now up to 30% faster compared to 1.3.41.
Support for running and building Kotlin/JS Gradle projects using the org.jetbrains.kotlin.js plugin on Windows.
As with other platforms, you can use Gradle tasks to build and run projects and resolve NPM dependencies needed for Gradle configuration.

Kotlin/Native updates

Earlier version names of Kotlin and Kotlin/Native differed from each other. This release uses version 1.3.50 for both Kotlin and Kotlin/Native binaries, reducing the complexity. As the standard library updates to support the kotlin.reflect.typeOf() function for Kotlin/Native types.

Kotlin Native now ships with an exhaustive set of platform libraries on macOS/iOS and embeds actual bitcode in produced frameworks.
Kotlin-platform-native is now replaced with Kotlin-multiplatform

Here’s a link to the change log if you’re curious about the other features that are packaged in the Kotlin 1.3.50.

Let us know how you feel about the multiplatform Gradle plugins and handling nullibility errors manually. And ping us here if you need Kotlin development assistance.

Galaxy Weblinks Ranked Among Best Web Developers on Clutch

Posted on August 14, 2019October 11, 2024 by galaxy-admin

When you think of hotspots for tech, don’t zero in on Silicon Valley just yet. According to Expert Market, Boston is one of the top 10 tech cities in the world, and Galaxy Weblinks is proud to call it home. We’re thrilled that Clutch, a business services resource, has recognized us as a top web developer, with an average client rating of 4.8 stars. We’re committed to offering accountable web development, and we take steps to ensure that each project we take on receives the resources it needs. All of our clients love that we have dedicated project managers for each project. This ensures proper communication and updates that help our clients be on top of things. In one such project, we developed an e-commerce site for Fast & Light LLC, a digital marketing agency. We tailored our deliverables to meet their specific design requirements.

The delivery of the website improved the agency’s internal efficiency by freeing their teammates for other tasks. They were happy to work with our team and found our resources friendly and easy to get along with. We redesigned a website for another highly satisfied customer, a women’s clothing boutique. We worked in Magento to improve inventory details and make links more accessible, along with a more intuitive UX.

We delivered the improved website in just a few weeks, and our customer was happy with its functionality. We also explained our process and worked with their feedback throughout the project cycle. “They were able to put my ideas right into place on the website and then immediately asked me for my feedback. The job got done so quickly and for such a reasonable price that I was extremely surprised.” – Owner, Women’s Clothing Boutique We’re thrilled to receive such praise from our design and development clients. Getting validated reviews from clients just goes to show our credibility. We love that Clutch was able to help us with it. We are a versatile software development company with strong core values. We believe in a world that intersects & interacts with software, we are focusing on building it as human as possible. You can also review our profile on The Manifest, a guide to B2B services. We’ve been ranked among the top 50 developers in India, our second location. Potential customers who would like to visualize a project can also see our work on Visual Objects. Many of the tools and platforms we’ve built are shown there. Interested in our work for startups as well as larger businesses? Contact us

Product tour lessons from Disneyland | What keeps you asking for more?

Posted on August 8, 2019October 11, 2024 by galaxy-admin

The experience of Disneyland is always an awe-inspiring one. No matter how many miles you have walked, you are always up for another Pirates of the Caribbean adventure or Space Mountain ride for the last time before you leave. No wonder Disneyland has become the epitome of mass engagement. Your product tour can also leave a similar impression on user if done the right way. Of course, we are not suggesting to go about building theme parks, that’s not a practical advice. But we can draw lessons from Disney’s ‘Happiest place on earth’ when designing product tours.

Ensure a shortest possible journey to the ‘aha moment’

A picture of Mickey Mouse and — Image Credits: Peter Lee

The ‘magical’ moment when the user realizes your product’s value is often expressed as ‘Wow’ or ‘Aha’ moment. Early realization of the ‘Wow’ factor of your product gets user’s undivided attention. All because you valued their time and have aligned your product tour to their requirements.

Leverage small details for superior user experience

You don’t have to hold on to your trash for long when roaming on Disneyland’s streets. There is a trash can present at every 30 steps. The reason being, visitors tend to discard their trash before that, as observed by Walt Disney. Thoughtful details like these make for a great user experience. Some of the ‘trash can’ examples in product tours are:

Option to pause and resume tutorials
Option to exit a feature preview
Positioning hotspots for minimal distraction
Progress bars to be present

Use multiple channels of engagement

Picture of Fireworks at Disneyland castle

No one gets bored in Disneyland. The reason being that there is something for every visitor. The key is to keep the users engaged. Increase user-engagement by introducing ‘meet and greet’ for new features, options for personalized interactions via in-product messaging, or a short product video. Keep the options open for your users as well. Let them decide how and when they want to know more about your product.

Pitch your tutorial with a story

Statue of Walt Disney with Mickey Mouse in Disneyland

Stories have the element of emotion embedded in them. And emotions are the golden path of connecting with your users. Tell your growth story through a short video, or highlight common problems that your product solves. Usage of visuals will evoke emotion and tug the user to explore more of your product, just like you’re drawn to the emotional element of Disney movies even though the whole premise is CGI.

Maintain a theme and brand image throughout

The areas in Disneyland, all have their own thematic music, characters, and pavement designs. Your product tour should also be consistent with your app and website theme. Consistent theming will help in easy recognition of your product in crowded market. Core values highlighted in your tour will set the precedence for building your brand. We know it can be a daunting task to get users to interact with your products, the way you want them to. Let the product tour highlight the fundamentals of your product and leave the rest for your user to discover on their own. Just as we love to explore Disneyland by our own preference and pace. We actively work on aligning these principles with our client requirements to design unique and high yielding user experiences. Get in touch with us here if you’re looking to design an engaging experience for your product.

What are Google Play’s new mobile app requirements?

Posted on July 29, 2019October 11, 2024 by galaxy-admin

Google Play set out many criteria in their app guidelines that you need to follow. These changes may cause some issues as you try to stay up to date. In this post, we’ll tell you what changes you need to make in order to guarantee that your app is fully compatible with Google’s new requirements.

Google made changes to the behavior of the API to increase security and privacy. The bindService() implicit intents in Android 5.0 aren’t supported currently. There are also new changes in the Runtime permissions. Since every Android app runs in a reduced-access sandbox, so the app has to ask for permission when it wants to use materials or information outside that sandbox. Google Play asks that you state the need in the app manifest and then you have to approve each permission right before the actual runtime.

This permission change is for Android 6.0 and higher. You can still use the Android Support Library to make older versions of Android compatible. Google Play also updated the Android Support Library with the release of Android 9.0 (API level 28); the new version is called AndroidX and is part of Jetpack. The existing support library still exists with the AndroidX library, but it also includes Jetpack’s most recent components.

Google Maven holds onto all versions prior to API 27 and Google Play says that they’ll be packaged as “android.support.” But, all new development will take place on the AndroidX library, so Google Play recommends that you develop new projects here. If you have an existing project, they recommend that you migrate it over.

To further increase secure connections, Google Play has changed the user added CAs to not be trusted by default in the case of Android 7.0. They also require explicit user approval from apps to access the user account in Android 8.0.

For MetaData, Google now has a small MetaData on top of each APK so that each app release is officially verified by Google Play. They don’t allow apps with any deceptive, incorrect, or explicit metadata that isn’t pertinent to what the app is about. This entails every area of the app — the title, description, all images, and icons. They also don’t allow user testimonials in the app’s description any longer. Authentication is important for users to know that an app is legitimate, so they’re spending time to ensure that each app functions as advertised.

Here Are Google Play’s New Requirements for Texts & Images

Google Play store now allows 2–8 screenshots for each supported device, i.e., smartphones, tablets, Android T.V, Android Wear, etc. But, to publish your store listing, you have to upload at least two screenshots for each device type. It needs to either be a JPEG or 24-bit PNG (no alpha) with minimum dimensions of 320px and maximum dimensions of 3840px.

Screenshots aren’t the only images that need to be formatted. Google Play requires one splash screen for an iPhone display and one for an iPad display, both retina and non-retina displays. Whether you’re using a photo or video, dimensions should be 1024px by 500px. If you choose a video, make sure to use an individual video’s YouTube URL, not a YouTube playlist or channel URL. The video shouldn’t be longer than two minutes.

Google Play now requires icon images to fit into the new, standardized icon shape — the square with rounded corners known as a “squircle.” It needs to be hi-res, material icons used through Android M, and adaptive icons for Android O.

For your text:

Titles – Should be between 4 and 30 characters – But, the new limit was moved from 30 to 50 characters

Descriptions – The short description has an 80-character limit – The detailed description has a 4,000-character limit

Keywords – They’re required and the new version has a 500-character limit – Users can also fill in this field while updating the application version

Before Launching, Follow Google Play’s Checklist

Key Takeaways

Google Play changed API behavior
Android 5.0 implicit intents are no longer supported
Android 6.0 and higher has changes in Runtime permissions (app must request permission of a material, then approve permission before runtime)
Develop new projects on AndroidX library
There is now MetaData on top of each APK
There is new length requirements for, Titles (new 50-character limit), Descriptions (80-character limit), and Keywords (500-character limit)
There are new requirements for images
Icon must be the square with rounded edges — aka a “squircle”
Two screenshots per supported device type (smartphones, tablets, etc.)
One splash screen for iPhone and iPad screen displays
For videos, link to an individual video, not a playlist

Good Luck on Your Launch!

Galaxy Weblinks stays up to date on these developments so that our clients don’t have to do time-consuming, detailed research. That’s why our clients love partnering with us for mobile app development — we don’t leave them in the dark nor overload them with lengthy information. We provide overviews, outlines, and how-to guides so that clients can feel confident when updating their app.

Feel free to use our above checklist to keep yourself on track. If you have questions about this process, leave us a comment or contact us. If you have questions about other app topics, then browse our blog!

Turning remote collaboration challenges into opportunities with AR

Posted on July 17, 2019October 11, 2024 by galaxy-admin

Leading the AR revolution, industrial enterprises are experiencing improved ROI through AR-optimized supply chain. Enterprise sector is using AR across other functions such as product design and marketing.

In fact, industrial enterprises are some of the early adopters of this immersive technology.

It has grown leaps and bounds in the last decade. Questions such as “Why AR in my business?” have now changed to “How to capitalize on AR innovations?”

Enterprises are always looking to optimize. AR related devices and solutions are making its way in. Since they ask for no middleman, integrator or consultant. Enterprises are now anticipating a hands-free workflow guidance and remote assistance in the future. More likely, a utilitarian future.

Consequently, AR technologies like Microsoft’s Hololens 2, Google’s Glass Enterprise Edition 2, PTC’s ThingWorx, etc. are supporting a number of breakthrough use cases today. Such AR experiences are redefining remote collaboration as we know it.

We believe, no challenge can outweigh the growth potential that AR offers in the long run. However, we have addressed some real-time challenges that are slowing down current operations in an enterprise. If we overcome them, it provides a huge opportunity for remote collaboration.

Efficient Data Transmission Need for AR Devices:

AR is a difficult tech due to its inability to accommodate multiple users and its latency issues. To participate remotely, video streaming require 33 times more data than a standard video. Here 5G becomes a necessity!

The first wave of 5G revolution is here as Verizon expands it’s 5G footprint in the US this month. It is set to remove many inherent limitations in current AR devices like manufacturing costs, bulky size, and low traffic capacity.

Popular SOC manufacturer Qualcomm is also getting itself a slice of the AR pie by announcing the arrival of 5G-powered AR headsets with eye-tracking tech by 2020.

But, how does 5G help AR?

5G would help AR devices with offloading the complex graphical computations on the cloud, improving real-time responsiveness. This offloading in turn will eliminate the need of heavy hardware that makes the AR gear a nightmare for usability.

Thus, bringing a future of much cheaper and lighter AR headsets and devices.

Use case: ThirdEye Gen, a smart glasses and AR/MR software development company, recently partnered with Verizon to develop 5G smart glasses and deliver low latency apps (enterprise AR software, remote AR assistance and live 3D scanning).

Lack of Higher Level of Automation:

Manual work often relies on information from connected assets to perform their own functions. But to interact with such information, people are required to move back and forth between physical and digital experiences separately through an HMI. Here IoT comes in picture!

It facilitates AR with required real-time insights and data which are relevant to the user’s immediate physical surroundings to enhance their experience.

‘Imagine a worker wearing an ‘AR integrated helmet’ that spots hazards and provides live assistance when repairing equipment.’

As remote users don’t interact directly with the physical objects or sensors and can’t tell if a piece of equipment is under high temperature or high voltage.

In an interview at CXOTalk, Mr.Heppelmann , CEO PTC Inc. commented that IoT and AR can facilitate information to move back and forth in a lubricated way while crossing the physical/digital boundary and connecting digital things to physical spaces.

Companies like DAQRI are leveling up the use of AR and IoT together.

Whereas, an end-to-end IoT solutions provider, DXC has decided to deliver its remote expert solutions on a wide range of AR devices of RealWear, DAQRI, and Microsoft.

Use case: Bell and Howell, a next-gen service organization, used ThinkWorx IIoT platform to transform its remote service and solve its supply chain optimization issues.

Need of Creating Scalable AR Content

Making enterprise specific technical data available for AR systems and replicating workers’ tribal knowledge into a database is a daunting task.

AR work instruction authoring solutions like WorkLink, Vuforia Studio, and Reflekt One are great for enterprise maintenance, operations, and training. These solutions include features like:

Authoring clear and easy-to-follow AR instructions
Reusing existing 3D and handbook content
Accessing real-time IoT and business systems data and more

Use case: Unilever uses Remote AR (a remote assistance support by Scope AR) that allows technicians to collaborate with experts remotely, looking for ways to reduce equipment downtime.

Conclusion

Early adopters are either investing heavily in in-house teams or are outsourcing to subject matter experts to improve their remote capabilities, and experiment with new technology. Some examples include business-focused augmented reality glasses by Google, Mojo’s possible future state of invisible computing and AR contact lenses. That leaves industrial enterprises with a vast scope for multiple micro-improvements and major researches that are yet to happen.

The question still remains, how long will it be feasible to changing approaches when the technology keeps evolving at this rate?

Want to discuss more, feel free to ping us.

The flip side of Wellness apps

Posted on July 9, 2019October 11, 2024 by galaxy-admin

Contrary to popular belief wellness apps are not so wholesome after all.

Apart from the flaw in fundamental definition of wellness, it also brings along security and data privacy issues like other mainstream apps. The question may arise, is this digital equivalent of a wellness Guru really worth it?

There are over 160,000 wellness apps on the App Store. If you’re thinking of adding to that figure then let us break it down for you. Are wellness app really worth it?

Overdiagnose normal feelings

An ensemble of gyroscope, pedometer, and HR monitor cannot tell how a person is feeling. These apps dive in not-so-accurate data curated from the app and the wearables to diagnose users of conditions they might not be having.

This case seems somewhat like Eliza the MIT bot from the 60s. Long before Google or Siri existed, Joseph Weizenbaum introduced the world to Eliza, a therapy bot. The bot was an NLP program which responded to people’s issues with a script prepared by psychologists but people who tested it believed that Eliza understood them.

Provides false sense of achievement

Animation of a hand feeding Sushi with social media branding on it

If you were to refer wellness related studies you’d find that most of the apps are not backed by evidence and other apps are just plain ineffective.

Dietary apps make the user feel as if they are losing weight but in reality, keeping track of the calories is of not much help. A research revealed that out of 2000 health apps, only 3-4 % of the apps gave scientifically proven results.

Sets unrealistic goals for users

people exercising in front of tv screens

In a competitive spirit users often attach their self worth with unrealistic goals defined for them by wellness apps. You should run a mile a day, you should eat less & drink more, you should walk in short strides, you should sleep less, et al.

Are these apps improving your lifestyle or telling you how to live? Is it really healthy to constantly question every little life choice you make?

Wellness apps claim that they have the goals uniquely tailored for each user. Are they really? A person who is fit but has asthma, can’t sprint 500 Meters the first week of training. Failing to do so, they’ll compare their health stats with other people. People with healthy set of lungs.

Encourages self-destructive behaviour

Wellness apps are a dime a dozen and without any clinical approval, they’re just apps with lofty claims to make people’s lives better. To stand out from the crowd, some apps might even go as far to provide therapeutic interventions for the people who need real therapy.

According to American psychiatric association, there are documented cases of apps that recommend bipolar people to drink alcohol when manic.

Wrap up

Like other new and shiny things, the benefits of the wellness apps are balanced by some flaws. Flaws that may encourage bi-polar people to have a couple of lagers as a remedy.

Whether you’re using or building one of these apps, define your own wellness or your user’s wellness before diving in the development of one.

It’s surprisingly easy to get it wrong. Let us know what you think about wellness apps and if you want to talk about getting it right, then drop us a mail here.

The Bare Bones of Skeleton Screens

Posted on July 4, 2019October 11, 2024 by galaxy-admin

Losing customers to Slowpoke of a UI is a nightmare for any UX designer. What if there was a pseudo-catalyst that could make your UI seem like there was no delay. In this post, we’ll tell you about skeleton screens and how it can get rid of your slow-loading nightmares.

So, what are these spooky sounding skeleton screens?

Skeleton screens are the better alternative to progress bars or spinners. It’s a blank page that mimics the layout of an actual web page that it’s trying to load. The primary purpose is to imitate the page as to give the website visitor the feeling that the page is actually loading.

Fast Company stated a study by Google that reported they lose about 8 million searches a day from 4/10 of a second of delayed loading time. This is why a skeleton screen is so important. Mimicking a loaded screen will give your site the needed time to retain the attention of a visitor while the page loads.

Progressive loading is one of the recent developments in Skeleton interfaces. As the name suggests the Individual page elements become visible as they load progressively instead of displaying all at once when the page fully loads.

There’s a challenge though

The only time you’ll have a hard time designing skeleton screens is when you’re deciding the elements your site will have as placeholders. The most effective placeholders are UI elements, as website visitors are usually attracted towards the interactive elements when they’re looking for specific pages.

The benefits of getting it right

Skeleton screens can lower site/app’s bounce rate. When a website visitor sees it, their eyes will gravitate towards the feature they’re most likely to use. Take LinkedIn’s loading page for instance.

If a visitor needs their profile information, they will automatically look left for the loading element or group of elements that resembles a profile info structure. If they want to go through the updates from their network, then their eyes will go towards the center. Same goes for one of the early adopters of skeleton approach, Facebook.

Benefits we talked about at a glance

Lowers your bounce rate
Helps website visitors feel less frustrated with load times
Gives people a prediction of where certain content/images will load
Shows people that progress is being made in the loading process

Why Not the good ol’ spinner or progress bar?

When a visitor’s in a hurry to find information and you see a slower, stagnate loading bar or spinner, what do you think?

Most people think, “How many seconds will I give this site to load before I leave and look for another?” The visitor’s frustration will rise as they stare at this one loading bar and will be more likely to bounce.

Spinners/loading bars give people uncertainty about the load time and uncertainty will lead to them leaving a site. This is why skeleton screens are necessary for better UX.

Bonus tips

Break down your page bit by bit to outline it
Locate your static graphics that won’t change while the site is being used
Create the body of the site, using those static graphics first
Fill in where you know your text populates — it should look like a background, not like it’s appearing from nowhere
Test the skeleton screens as you implement them
Tweak images and imitated text boxes until they more closely represent what your page actually looks like

Even though Skeleton screens are just a cosmetic cure for slower loading applications but it does the job of retaining the visitor’s attention real well.

We hope that you enjoyed this post about skeleton screens. If you’re looking to improve your UX beyond skeleton screens, then this UX Training might be just the right thing for your team.