Category: Web Application

What Is Functional Testing and Why Is It Important?

Posted on by galaxy-admin

In this blog, we will answer every question you have regarding Functional Testing. What are its types, why is it important, when should you opt for Functional Testing, and the role of automation in functional testing? 

What is Functional Testing?

When software is tested against functional requirements or specifications to discover any bugs or defects, it is by definition Functional Testing. It is in contrast to System Testing which validates a program against the published user or system requirement. Functional testing verifies a program by checking it against the design document.

Types Of Functional Testing

The following are the types of Functional testing:

  • Smoke Testing
  • Integration Testing
  • Regression Testing
  • User Acceptance Testing
  • Smoke Testing

It is the initial phase of testing and hence ensures the stability of a build. Smoke testing also determines if the build is in a testing condition or not.

  • Integration Testing

As the name suggests, integration testing ensures if the software modules or component integrations as a whole are working as expected. 

  • Regression Testing

If during the testing, any modifications are made to the software, Regression tests are conducted. It ensures that the new additions to the software are not causing any issues and in the future will cause the software to break. 

  • User Acceptance Testing (UAT)

This is a real-world test where the people testing the software are the ones who intended to use that software. This test ensures that the system performs as per the given requirements. 

If the software quality takes the top spot on your list, then Functional Testing is imperative and unavoidable. However, to ensure proper unbiased testing, you need to find experienced software testers to help you deliver uncompromised quality.

Importance of Functional Testing

Functional testing meets the client’s requirements while fulfilling the functional requirements of the software. The testers assigned take into account different aspects of how a system functions in the context of the system as a whole, knowing where to look for weaknesses and to ensure the system functions logically from a user perspective. This test is guided by human intuition and training, which makes it predominantly a manual process. 

6 Steps to Conduct Functional Testing

Functional Testing is a linear process that includes:

  • Identify the expected functions and test parameters
  • Determine expected outcomes based on the functionality
  • Executing test cases based on client requirements and typical system functions
  • Compare the actual data with expected outcomes
  • Determine if the software works as expected
  • Rectify issues if any or declare tests as a success

When Should You Opt for Functional Testing?

Functional testing works best in tandem with Test Automation, Exploratory Testing, and Performance Testing, which is a part of a broader Testing Strategy. This comprehensive testing strategy ensures that every aspect and part of the system works as intended on the front-end, back-end, and through various unexpected conditions as well. 

Unlike other automated forms of testing, Functional Testing doesn’t require coding expertise but it can be conducted on par with industry standards via tools like Selenium, which is also used for automation testing.

Role of Test Automation in Functional Testing

End-to-end comprehensive functional tests can be a daunting task, Test automation makes it easier. Here are a few important aspects to consider for adopting test automation in Functional Testing:

Get the right expertise onboard: 

You need to get the right set of people onboard to be successful when you’re trying to adopt Test Automation for Functional Testing. Right from the stakeholders who will drive strategy to align and meet organizational goals to testing experts, to product experts.

Choosing the right tools: 

The right strategy can ensure your project’s success and this will be facilitated also need a great tool to help you in the process and achieve your testing goals more efficiently. 

You can base your selection on these parameters: 

  • Ease of use – It should be easy to create test scripts, test data, and reusable components
  • Automation Speed – The tool should enable rapid test script development
  • Technology Support – The tool should support all the technologies/practices you work with including database, web-based UI and services, mobile or thick client apps, file handling, etc. 
  • DevOps Support – The tool must support and manage continuous integration tools and infrastructure
  • Reusability and Maintainability –  It must support easy traceability and modularity of changes ensuring high maintainability of the test suite
  • Collaboration – The tool must be equipped with real-time collaboration capabilities to make distributed working more efficient
  • Powerful Reporting –  The tool must have robust reporting for every execution cycle, suite, and across multiple builds.

Functional testing on a larger scale becomes complex and test automation helps us reduce that complexity. All we need to do is implement the right testing solutions. Continuous upskilling of the testers is also important to adopt and adapt the latest technologies. 

Functional testing not only helps you deliver software that is flawless but also right on the money when matched against the business objectives. You just need the right team and a set of tools that fits like missing puzzle pieces in your existing team. 

Need help with your testing requirements? Reach out to us here.

5 Reasons Why Developers Think Headless CMS Is the Best

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Headless CMS has gained popularity among developers, marketers, QA engineers, and even designers. And there is enough buzz in its favor, especially amongst developers, which shows that it is a promising technology. There are other CMS systems in place that seem to be doing well, but headless CMS is a definitive upgrade from them.

Headless CMS is giving developers more freedom to focus on core user experiences without worrying about how content is being showcased across platforms. They can juggle with frameworks and tools of their choice with no specific vendor lock-in. 

Read on to find out more about why Headless CMS is all in the rage.  

1. Faster to market

Headless CMS allows developers and content creators to work in parallel, thanks to its decoupled mechanism. There is minimum back and forth between teams regarding content placements across different touchpoints. Developers can deliver the content via APIs call to devices and touchpoints. This way teams can concentrate on the overall user experience rather than cross verifying “if the content is placed correctly”, “is it in line with the platform content consumption format” etc. 

2. Easy updates and maintenance

Maintenance is always an ongoing process and the easier it is, the more regular it will be. Developers do not dread updating and maintenance but it is tiring and tedious. There will always be new features, some glitches, small errors that will affect your user experience. Headless CMS ensures that no major red flags occur when making changes to content because there is a separation of frontend and backend.

3. Flexible tech stack for developers

A great thing about headless CMS is that your team of developers is not bound to a set choice of integrations and plugins that come with traditional CMS. While there is no harm in it, sticking to a single choice limits your options and you can not switch to better alternatives that might be there in the industry. 

Headless CMS removes this barrier, any third-party tool can be integrated via APIs, thus giving a maximum selection pool. You can easily switch between tools as well, making it easy to stay on top of new technology. This gives developers immense flexibility, making headless CMS a great choice for them.      

4. Better code reusability 

When you have Headless CMS implemented, the modular approach gives developers the freedom to reuse code from other projects and even from older ones. There will be no need to keep changing your backend to accommodate the new changes that are done from time to time.

5. Focus more on personalized user experiences

Data is what drives personalized experiences. And Headless CMS’s API approach lets you collect data from various platforms and use them simultaneously. You can shape the API call’s responses as per requirements and deliver tailor-made user experiences. Additionally, there are some indirect routes opened for IoT devices as well. 

Wrapping Up

The pointers mentioned above are the reason more and more developers are willing to shift to Headless CMS from traditional CMS and decoupled CMS. IKEA, Burger King, and many other big names have invested in headless CMS architectures, so what’s stopping you from experimenting a bit?

If you feel that there is more to know about headless CMS, drop us your contact information here, and we will be happy to assist you with any questions and migration.

Security in Public Cloud – How to Choose the Right Service Provider

Posted on by galaxy-admin

While considering a public cloud service, you need to keep several important considerations in mind. One of the most important among those is cyber security. The features and capabilities your public cloud service provider employs to keep their networks and services safe and ultimately your data safe.

There are three big players in the game; Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Microsoft Azure. All three take their security very seriously because one breach can cause a loss of millions of dollars in penalties, revenue, and reputation.

Here’s what they are offering in terms of cyber security to keep your data safe:

Network and Infrastructure Security

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

  • Network firewalls that allow customers to create private networks and control access to instances or apps
  • Companies also get access to control encryption in transit across AWS services.
  • Connectivity options to enable private or dedicated connections
  • DDoS mitigation
  • Automatic encryption of all traffic between AWS secured facilities

Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

  • Has purpose-built hardware for security. Titan, a custom security chip used to establish a hardware root in GCP servers and peripheral devices.
  • Google also makes its network hardware for improving security. 
  • Multiple layers of physical and logical protection
  • A global network infrastructure that is designed to withstand attacks such as DDoS.
  • There are additional network security capabilities like cloud load balancing and Cloud Armor that can be deployed on the customer level.
  • Several security measures are put in place to secure data in transit. Google encrypts and authenticates data in transit at multiple network layers.

Fun fact: In 2017, the infrastructure absorbed a 2.5 Tbps DDoS, the highest-bandwidth attack reported to date.

Microsoft Azure

  • Microsoft has geographically dispersed data centers that comply with industry standards for security and reliability.
  • Experienced Microsoft operations staff manage, monitor, and administer the Azure data centers.
  • Operations personnel are profiled through a series of background verification checks. And based on those checks Microsoft limits access to applications, systems, and network infrastructure. 
  • Azure Virtual Network resources are protected by cloud-based network security called Azure Firewall. It is a firewall-as-a-service that comes with built-in high availability and unrestricted scalability. It can decrypt outbound traffic, perform security checks and then re-encrypt the traffic.

Identity and Access Control

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

  • AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) lets you define individual user accounts with permissions across AWS resources.
  • AWS Multi-Factor Authentication for privileged accounts including software-based and hardware-based authenticators. 
  • You can use partner identity systems like Microsoft Active Directory to grant employees and applications federated access to AWS Management Console and service APIs.
  • AWS single sign-on enables organizations to manage user access and permissions to all of their accounts in AWS.
  • Amazon also offers a directory service which lets organizations integrate and federate with corporate directories to reduce administrative overheads and improve end-user experience. 

Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

  • Google Cloud Identity Access Management(IAM) lets administrators authorize people to take action on specific resources, with full control and visibility to manage GCP resources centrally. 
  • Cloud’s IAM provides a unified view into security policy across the entire organization to ease compliance processes for bigger organizations.
  • Google Cloud comes with Cloud Identity, an Identity-as-a-Service(IDaaS) that centrally manages users and groups.
  • Exclusive in its arsenal Google also provides Titan Security Keys that provide cryptographic proof that users are interacting with legitimate services. 
  • There’s also a resource manager, Cloud Resource Manager that provides resource containers like organizations, folders, and projects which let you organize your GCP resources group-wise and hierarchically.

Microsoft Azure

  • For SSO or Single Sign-On, multi-factor authentication, and conditional access to Azure services, corporate networks, on-premise resources, and SaaS applications, Microsoft has Azure Active Directory(AD). 
  • Azure AD comes with secure adaptive access which simplifies access, streamlines control with unified identity management, and ensures compliance with simplified identity governance.

Fun Fact: Microsoft says that with these features, it can help protect users from 99.9% of cyber security attacks.

Data Protection and Encryption

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

  1. Apart from data-in-transit, Amazon also provides a scalable encryption feature for data at rest with its data-at-rest encryption.
  2. Amazon also has flexible key management options including AWS Key Management Service, AWS CloudHSM for hardware-based cryptographic key storage, and encrypted message queues for sensitive data.

Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

  • Google utilizes Confidential Computing to secure data as it is being used. One of the firsts in the line of products that will benefit from Confidential Computing is Confidential VMs. 
  • Google also offers flexible Key management with its Cloud External Key Manager (Cloud EKM).

Microsoft Azure

  • For the key management, Microsoft has Azure Key Vault which helps keep cryptographic keys safe.  
  • Azure Key Vault streamlines the key management process and also gives control of keys to organizations.
  • Security admins can grant and revoke permission to keys as needed.
  • Organizations can use Microsoft information protection and Microsoft Information Governance within Microsoft 365 to protect and govern data.

The security features and capabilities mentioned above for the respective Cloud Service Providers are a testament to the importance of Cyber security in a public cloud. As an organization, all these cloud security features are at your disposal but you need experts to manage your cloud and implement these security features to be able to secure yourself from attacks like DDoS and data breaches. 
Our Cloud experts at Galaxy are here to help you implement and secure Public Clouds in Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure. Contact us for a free consultation.

The Top 7 Benefits of Building a Website on Umbraco CMS

Posted on by galaxy-admin

A content management system (CMS) is an essential component of your online experience. As the digital landscape expands to include additional channels and touchpoints, a CMS must provide flexibility, robust content production tools, and efficient workflows to fuel customer journey content.

There is an increasing number of solutions available, and this is where Umbraco CMS comes into the picture. Umbraco is an advanced Content Management System (CMS) and has more features and capabilities vis-a-vis its contemporaries. 

What is Umbraco?

Umbraco provides cloud hosting for Ecommerce platforms for customers who do not want to spend time building up and monitoring personal websites. Umbraco is a well-known, robust, extensible, and adaptable content management system. As a result, it is capable of handling anything from simple web pages to sophisticated apps.

The following are some of the advantages of utilizing Umbraco for your content management systems:

1. Complete Customization

Umbraco can meet all of your bespoke branding and design demands. It is open-sourced, therefore the source code of Umbraco is available for modification by your web development team. You are free to develop the content and functionality experience your website requires.

Even if you do not have a team of web developers or designers, Umbraco provides a plethora of themes and skins from which to choose. You can select a template that meets your requirements and go right into the editing.

2. Numerous options for hosting and tools

As a developer, you can select your preferred tool. If you use VSCode, you can use IntelliSense in your Umbraco projects. Visual Studio and Rider are additional popular options that can be fully utilized with Umbraco 9.

When it comes to hosting alternatives, you can use the SaaS platform Umbraco Cloud. It was designed as the ideal location for Umbraco websites and is now more versatile than ever. However, if you require a different sort of hosting, Umbraco 9 and.NET 5 provide a wider selection of options like shared hosting, dedicated hosting, on-premise hosting, etc.

3. Headless CMS

As the newest trend in content management systems, headless CMS allows you to create a highly scalable and modular content distribution system. Umbraco can function as both a monolith and a headless CMS, allowing you to manage multiple websites and platforms with the same simplicity as one – adding or removing any type of data you desire. A headless CMS, on the other hand, does not display pages on its own. Instead, it serves data via a REST API, allowing users to consume, render, and use it to meet even the most bizarre requirements. 

How does Headless CMS help in building future-proof websites, and why are they so popular among developers? Learn here.

4. Future-proof software 

Umbraco is easier to learn and maintain, as well as more flexible and developer-friendly. Working with Umbraco 9 as a developer is a sheer delight. You’ll find enhancements to all of the classic APIs and services, as well as new .NET 5 goodies like MSDI (Microsoft Dependency Injection), Hosted Services, Razor TagHelpers, and.NET CLI.

5. Preferred by Enterprises 

Umbraco is built on Microsoft’s .NET Framework, therefore it’s not surprising that Microsoft utilizes it to administer their websites. Umbraco is used by a variety of large corporations, including Sony, Avon, Warner Brothers, Peugeot, and Vogue, to mention a few. These businesses have made a deliberate decision to use this CMS.

The client base is growing with time, and Umbraco CMS is getting increasingly popular. According to the official Umbraco website, the platform has had over 731,000 active installs since its original release. It may not be as popular as WordPress, but Umbraco is carving its niche as more adaptable, secure, and scalable.

6. Built on Microsoft.NET Framework

Umbraco is an open-source content management system built on the Microsoft ASP.NET foundation. It allows you to create everything from small brochures to massive applications using its fully-featured environment and a host of additional tools. Umbraco is a popular platform for expert programmers that is created with ASP.net. Umbraco is presently used by over 100,000 websites.

Umbraco is a well-documented object-oriented architecture that gives users a high level of comfort when designing and customizing web pages. Umbraco is entirely compatible with Microsoft technologies and can make use of various ready-to-use libraries, allowing it to implement any business requirement in a realistic timescale.

7. It is simple to integrate with various platforms

A modern CMS must be compatible with a wide range of software. Umbraco is adaptable enough to integrate with a wide range of applications and platforms, including:

  • Web analytics and statistics tools — for gathering information about online traffic and website visits (ex. Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics).
  • CRM platforms are used to manage customer relationships (ex. Salesforce, SugarCRM, Microsoft Dynamics).
  • ERP systems are used to manage internal activities including accounting, invoicing, and payroll (ex. SAP Business One, Oracle E-Business Suite).
  • Payment gateways – used to build secure payment sites and execute transactions (ex. PayPal, PayU).

What project can Umbraco be used for? 

Umbraco CMS may be used to create practically any form of internet application, from simple personal websites to complex company portals or e-commerce stores.

Umbraco is a solid option for:

  • Employees and partners can access an enterprise portal that also functions as an intranet.
  • A corporate website containing information on the company’s portfolio and goods.
  • An online store that sells sporting equipment, clothing, books, and other items.
  • Large websites will have a large number of content pages (articles, news, etc.) and files.
  • A web platform for the local community.
  • A personal website, such as a blog.
  • A data-driven CMS that exposes content to a variety of apps and devices.
  • Any web application with a large number of integrations.

Umbraco is ideal for marketing firms wanting to work with small businesses or organizations in need of a scalable platform to handle their content. Users may directly control their website, which improves the entire client experience and makes it easy to stay up to date on any changes.

Key Takeaway

When it comes to web development and content management, having a reliable CMS that allows you to build whatever you want pays dividends. Most prominent website development companies strongly suggest you consider Umbraco whether you’re building a new website or switching to a new CMS. Assume you want to create a website with a large content database, marketing, and promotion tools, e-commerce, user-generated material, corporate and governmental content, and those with a high volume of transactions and events, such as gaming sites. Umbraco is a good and suggested solution in this circumstance.

Contact us, if you are interested in more details on how we approach website development with Umbraco CMS.

About Galaxy Weblinks:
We are your offshore CMS development partner! We offer expert capabilities in developing feature-rich solutions using the latest CMS technology trends. We have hands-on experience in building popular CMS-based websites using our frontend and backend expertise for different business needs. We offer assistance from building custom CMS websites to website migration and maintenance processes.

5 Best Practices to Make the Most Out of Manual Software Testing

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Manual Testing aids in the detection of both hidden and evident software flaws. Despite the growing usage of automated testing, manual testing remains an important part of the software development process.

Although the testing technique necessitates a large amount of time and work, it is necessary for the testing of freshly generated software. It ensures that all of the software’s basic functions are working properly and lays the groundwork for automated testing. Let’s dive into the best practices of manual testing for a successful foundation in software testing.

1. Adopt Tests Written for Maximum Coverage

For various scenarios, QA teams employ several forms of testing. However, if 100 percent coverage isn’t feasible, the primary goal should be to ensure that the tests are created to cover as much as possible.

To ensure that the product’s requirements can be tested, test cases should be written to include them as well. To get 100% coverage, we must use a variety of manual testing methods. However, the same forms of software testing can be used in automated software testing.

  • Black Box Testing:- Black box testing is a testing technique in which QA testers must perform manual testing without being able to see the internal code structure. Black box testing specializes in determining whether or not a software meets the specifications and requirements specified by the user. As a result, the testers will solely focus on the application’s inputs and outputs without evaluating its internal structure.
  • Exploratory testing:- In this method, the QA testers do not develop test cases in advance. Instead, they develop test cases after conceptualizing all conceivable test scenarios before the test execution. This process aids in the creation of out-of-the-box test cases as well as the rapid execution of software testing.
  • White Box Testing:- White box testing is used to check the flow input and output rather than the application’s functional requirements. It seeks to improve the design and usability of the app while simultaneously boosting its security.

You may also like: Comparing and Evaluating the Best QA Automation Tools of 2021 

2. Make use of test-oriented development practices

Waiting until the QA stage to test software in development is both self-defeating and woefully inadequate.

Instead, implementing test-oriented development approaches like Test-Driven Development (TDD), pair programming, and unit testing, testing should be ingrained from the start of the development process. This allows bugs to be detected and eradicated much earlier in the process of manual testing.

For example,

  • Create a low-cost manual test that automates the organize and act stages but not the assertion
  • Only write the code required to make it pass
  • Refactor

This approach would not slow down your project as long as the number of tests does not rise indefinitely and the manual check can be performed swiftly. You’ll have to deal with regression in other ways, but at least you’ve defined a set of manual test cases.

You may also like: Test-Driven Development (TDD): How to choose the Right Team To Drive TDD 

3. Assess the code’s quality

There is a link between the quality of a software product and the quality of its source code. However, if it cannot be measured, it cannot be judged efficiently.

As a result, ensuring that QA objectives are measurable is the greatest strategy to increase QA quality. This quantifiability, in turn, allows for the tracking, assessment, and documentation of quality control measures for the product under test.

However, there is no standard method for measuring code quality; instead, common-sense recommendations and rules of thumb must be followed.

4. Think out of the box

How can a competent manual tester who frequently runs repetitive tests become more creative? There are a few pieces of advice that may be valuable to any tester:

  • Determine what the software under test is not supposed to accomplish.
  • The ‘what if’ issue should become the primary focus of software research. For example – If you are testing an Apple Watch, what happens if the iPhone with which it is paired runs out of battery?
  • Tray out all possible scenarios without hesitation.
  • If feasible, remove the system (or device) under test from your working environment and try in a real-world environment.

5. Streamline security

Manual security testers usually use a hand-selected combination of security testing software and technologies that are most suited to assessing their application. Customized scripts and automatic scanning technologies are two examples.

Advanced manual security testing approaches involve specific test cases such as validating user controls, analyzing encryption capabilities, and conducting extensive analysis to discover nested weaknesses within an application. Here are some of the most effective and efficient ways:

  • Check Server Access Controls
  • Do Static Analysis (Static Code Analysis)
  • Dynamic Analysis (Penetration Testing)
  • Monitor Access Control Management

….

When Your Project Needs Manual Testing

1. When You Need to Run Agile Tests

Software testers in an agile setting must work with regular feedback and handle changing needs in the user interface, product flow, and, in extreme circumstances, core functionalities.

At the same time, these unpredictable changes might have an impact on regression testing scripts in agile contexts.

2. When Implementing Automated Testing

Automated software testing is a viable approach for software testers to streamline testing operations and eliminate redundant tasks. It cannot, however, completely substitute human intelligence throughout testing operations.

Automated testing can only simulate human intelligence and boost the application’s total test coverage. As a result, human testers are still required to improve overall test coverage and develop new scripts for resolving complicated testing anomalies.

3. Throughout User Experience Testing

The reason for employing human testing for user experience is that automated testing methodologies for user experience are difficult to encode.

Although smoke tests can be used to evaluate usability, manual testing is far more convenient in this regard. Furthermore, only human testers can test for localization features and double-check design and language components.

Conclusion

Manual software testing has a lower starting cost and takes less time. It allows us to efficiently evaluate user interface requirements and execute exceedingly complicated test cases. Finally, to achieve the greatest software testing outcomes, we must employ both automated and manual testing methodologies.

We not only have a varied selection of Test Automation libraries, but we also offer skilled manual testing services in software testing. You may also rely on us for other essential software testing services like Performance Testing, Usability Testing, Integration Testing, Security Testing, and much more. Contact us.

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.

How Headless CMS Helps Build Future-Proof Websites

Posted on by galaxy-admin

The headless CMS space has earned a huge hype in recent years, leading to the excitement around a content management model. A Headless CMS is a back-end-only content management system (CMS) built as a content repository that allows you to create, manage, store, and publish content over APIs.

The simple answer to “What is headless cms?” is the absence of a frontend.

Before getting into how headless CMS works, let’s first recap the ‘traditional’ CMS.

A traditional CMS is responsible for both serving the content to end-users and the backend management of that content. With a traditional CMS like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and so on, the users edit and create their content through tools like an HTML editor or a WYSIWYG editor, and save it to the back-end database. Then, CMS shows the content according to the front-end delivery layer built into the CMS.

Let’s have a look at WordPress and its features-

  • To read and write content, a database is there.
  • To let editors manage the content, an admin interface is there.
  • Integration of reading and writing.
  • Front-end that combines the data to HTML from the database.

To convert this into a headless CMS, we simply remove the fourth feature from the stack. That means, the content repository ‘body’ is separated or decoupled from the e3presentation layer ‘head’. Thus, we get an application that allows reading (API: combined Integrations) and content management (Admin UI). 

Future-proof your digital assets

Adopting an API-first platform helps businesses to develop and deploy engaging content experiences for their audiences no matter the device. In addition, codes are more often reusable. Thus, the content remains future-proof irrespective of the devices that come next in the market.

Using APIs instead of plugins

In the traditional CMS model, you would build your website on top of your installed CMS. Where you will get to leverage third-party plugins or built-in modules to gain particular functionalities in your application. Need a password-protected section on your website? Or a newsletter? Or a simple shopping cart? There’s a plugin for that!

With that, you get logged in to your CMS and its plugin ecosystem. Plus, you will have to completely rewrite your application when you would want to move to another CMS.

Whereas, in a Headless CMS, you build your application as a standalone project and only use CMS as an API that provides you with content. Need to move to another CMS? You can now just switch to another API and migrate your content!

Is Headless CMS a good fit for your requirements? 

A Headless CMS will best fit for a web application in various use cases:

  • Ecommerce websites
  • Native Mobile Apps (iOS, Android, Windows)
  • Websites created with static site generators (Gatsby, Jekyll, Middleman, etc.)
  • Websites, Web apps that use JavaScript frameworks 
  • E-Learning Apps
  • Application with basic CRUD operations

…And it is not just limited to websites!

Since headless CMS can deliver your content through an API, the content can be used on an Android app, iOS app, as well as other platforms and technologies. It is, therefore, a lucrative option for mobile and web development.

Advantages of a headless CMS

1. Front-end agnostic

Being focused only on backend APIs to manage meta-data and data entries, a headless CMS is front-end framework agnostic. In other words, front-end developers are free to use their favorite frameworks and tools, and publish content on any device or channel via API calls.  

2. Reuse across multiple channels

The key to selecting a content model is to organize and structure the content in a way that allows for easy reuse. Headless CMS provides the ability to create content that can be used on any device and channel. You create it once and then you can use it across multiple websites, in your mobile app, AR/VR apps, in-store displays, digital assistant, chatbot, email marketing, etc.

Which headless CMS should you choose in 2022?

The next step after learning about the basics would be to choose the best headless cms. So here is a handy list of headless CMSs to keep an eye on:

  1. GraphCMS
  2. ButterCMS
  3. Contentful
  4. CloudCMS
  5. Contentstack
  6. dotCMS
  7. Mura
  8. Cockpit CMS
  9. Core DNA
  10. Craft CMS

Conclusion

Why headless CMS and why now?

There has been hype surrounding headless content management for the past few years. And the most probable reason is the increase in multi-channel publishing complexity. 

Headless CMS on Google Trends

Even though the most traditional CMSs are already allowing publishing to a handful of channels, in the era of IoT, it will not suffice. Large brands want the power to publish their content anywhere, apart from just desktop, tablet, and mobile – because new channels and devices (such as smart home assistants, VR headsets, and smartwatches) are popping up faster than you can say Content-as-a-Service.

Contact us, if you are interested in more details on how we approach website development with popular CMSs.

About Galaxy Weblinks:

We are your offshore CMS development partner! We offer expert capabilities in developing feature-rich solutions using the latest CMS technology trends. We have hands-on experience in building popular CMS-based websites using our frontend and backend expertise for different business needs. We offer assistance from building custom CMS websites to website migration and maintenance processes.

Everything You Need to Know for Better UX Survey Results

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Business decisions nowadays are guided by “what user wants?” and hence rely heavily on data. UX Surveys are the best way to get that data. With UX Surveys you can gather insights, guide strategy, prove or disprove hypotheses, and back unique and fresh ideas. 

However, the data that is gathered from these surveys is not always accurate. In this blog, we’re going to address some biases, the UX surveys processes, and some UX survey best practices.

Content and Design

Survey branding, prototypes, assumptions, and biases are some factors to consider that impact a UX Survey. You need objectivity in your surveys and that is established by the content, design, and development itself. 

Identifying any biases in survey design is relatively simple. You can go through questions and eliminate logos, branding, and lofty assumptions that aren’t of any value. Even when you remove all the fluff from your survey design, surveys based on instant data will always pose a challenge of going stale as you process the research and present the results as data goes redundant pretty quickly. Political and COVID surveys are apt examples of this. 

Data Collection

Participant selection is crucial for the quality of the survey. When selecting participants, you need to take into account several biases like sampling, demand characteristic, extreme responding, and non-responsive. The right audience ensures good quality and is time-efficient, giving you better results to back original ideas. Getting the right people is more important than quantity. 

Create criteria for qualifying participants and stick to them. It could be to disqualify anyone who completes the survey way before the estimated time or the respondent who selects the same option for more than 60% of the questions.

Data Analysis

The quality of data won’t matter if the interpretations are baseless. Remember you’re not the participant. Look at the data in terms of what it shows and not the reasoning behind it. Just look at the numbers the very first time you take a look at the dataset, avoid reading too much into it at once. Focus on one thing at a time.

Research accuracy

We have addressed survey accuracy at participant, content, design, and analysis level. We now need to determine how the results look while calculating errors concerning population values.

Research accuracy = True population plus/minus any errors. 

To put it differently, survey accuracy is defined with its closeness to the truth with repeated measurement. The more repeat surveys we do for similar audiences, the closer we get to this perceived “True population”. However, repeated surveys are difficult and impractical so we consider confidence intervals. The most common measurement of sampling error in surveys is a 95% confidence interval. This implies that if you repeat the survey, the accuracy of answers will be 95% every time.

Using the confidence intervals, precision and the number of sampling errors can be calculated. This will ultimately give you an idea of closeness to true population value. Even after all this, we can’t completely say that the results are accurate and the biases eliminated. Then again the aim is to identify biases and minimize them instead of assuming that objective surveys consist of no biases at all.

A different look at the Data

Before you go on to convert your data into insights, here are a few things that you should consider:

  • Revisit the objectives of the survey before your draw any insights
  • Identify segments and respective respondents
  • Exclude bias and anomalies before analysis

To sum up we have covered three stages for data analysis and getting better results out of your surveys.

  1. Cleaning the data – Filtering participants and responses
  2. Analyzing the data – Number based analysis
  3. Getting the insights – Revisiting objectives to compare the findings

These stages are different and require a different level of commitment, concentration, and engage different parts of the brain. So it’s advised that every single one of these stages is addressed separately and one at a time. It’s crucial for the quality of results you’re seeking and the impact it will have on user experience.

About Galaxy Weblinks


We specialize in delivering end-to-end software design & development services. Our UI/UX designers are creative problem-solvers with a decade of experience in all facets of digital and interactive design. We create compelling and human-focused experiences delivered through clean, and minimalist UI. Get in touch with us here.

5 Reasons Why Angular Is the Best for Enterprise Application Development

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Google’s Angular is an open-source, dynamic, and feature-rich framework. Several enterprises use Angular to build powerful, stable, and large-scale applications. In an interview, Stephen Fluin, Developer Relations Lead at Google, discussed how many Fortune 500 companies have benefited from their Angular enterprise applications.

Google, for example, uses hundreds of Angular applications for internal processes. These enterprise-scale Angular apps are tremendously empowering both their employees and their partners. In this article, you will know about the top Angular framework features that indicate that Angular is the best for enterprise application development.

1. Cohesive Component-Based Architecture

One of the primary reasons why Angular is the future of enterprise-scale applications is its component-based architecture. An Angular web app’s skeleton is made up of components. All Angular apps benefit from a clean API provided by these well-encapsulated components.

Maintainability: Angular’s components are loosely coupled. These components can be easily replaced with desired implementations whenever the app requires the addition of a new feature or changes to an existing feature. As a result, Angular simplifies the upkeep of your enterprise app.

Reusability: Once you’ve created a component with specific functionality, you simply reuse it in all parts that use that functionality. When it comes to developing enterprise applications, the Angular framework’s reusability is the most desired feature. In large applications, Angular’s component-based architecture saves time and ensures consistency.

Contact us to team up with enterprise applications development experts. We can help you build Angular-based modern and faster applications.

2. Use of Typescript

Developers and business owners alike can rest easy, thanks to Angular’s use of the TypeScript programming language, which places a greater emphasis on security. This makes it easier to detect and eliminate errors early in the code writing or maintenance process. It also enables easy debugging of Typescript code directly in the browser or editor. Navigate with ease as well, thanks in part to improved refactoring and autocompletion features.

3. Angular Universal for Enhanced Performance

Angular Universal is an Angular framework service that allows applications to be rendered on a server rather than a client browser. This server-side rendering in Angular can benefit your enterprise application in a variety of ways- 

  • Increases the traffic to your web app
  • Facilitates high search engine ranking. 
  • Reduces the load time 
  • Improves mobile performance 

Angular Universal provides an overall seamless experience to all users of your enterprise application.

4. An Ideal Solution For Businesses

Angular is the first choice for video streaming apps, travel apps, social apps, e-commerce and m-commerce apps, review apps, and weather apps. The framework has powerful features that can be leveraged by enterprises, startups, as well as, small and medium businesses. 

  • Cross-platform – Progressive web apps, native mobile apps, and desktop apps are all examples of cross-platform applications.
  • Performance and speed – code generation, serving app views on servers, and code splitting
  • Productivity – Angular CLI, editor, and IDEs, as well as powerful template syntax.
  • Full development – Save time with unit tests, animation timelines, and ARIA-enabled applications.

Using Angular has a significant benefit for businesses of all sizes.

5.  CLI to simplify the whole development process

One of the main reasons for Angular’s popularity is its effective command-line interface (CLI). The simple, quick commands of Angular CLI help to simplify the entire development process by automating critical processes such as app initialization and configuration. You can add features to your Angular enterprise application in minutes with the help of Angular CLI. It also allows you to run end-to-end testing on individual components as well as the entire software with just a few simple commands.

Conclusion

Because of the Angular framework’s slick tooling and efficient architecture, large companies have chosen it for building apps for internal processes as well as for external users. Angular has a robust ecosystem and strong Google support, making it a dependable framework with no breaking changes. Angular is an excellent framework for developing enterprise web applications, particularly front-end development, because of its stability. Angular is without a doubt the web application framework of the future.

Want to leverage Angular for your enterprise application? Get in touch with us for a free consultation.

About Galaxy Weblinks

We specialize in delivering end-to-end application design & development services and have hands-on experience with Angular, React, Vue, and other top development frameworks. Our back-end and front-end engineers also help in improving security, reliability, and features to make sure your business application is scalable and secure.

User Experience Mapping Methods – A Study Guide for All

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Let’s start with – What is User Experience Mapping?

UX maps help you visualize how the end-user will experience your digital product, be it an app or website. A UX map is a tool for UX designers to understand customer motivations, hesitations, needs, and concerns.

Most businesses bank on the data gathering to know about their users. They have KPI trackers in place. That said, data alone miserably fails to communicate the user experiences and expectations. A storytelling tool like a user experience map is the best bet here. 

UX mapping uses visuals and storytelling to illustrate the user-brand relationship. The story is told from the customer’s perspective. It helps brands understand and address the pain points and needs of the target audience.

User journey maps show businesses how customers engage at various sales process touchpoints. This also gives the chance to determine the points of friction and rectify them. UX mapping narrows the gap between the customer needs and the product. 

To put things in perspective, let’s take a company as an example. The company is launching a website. They want the website to be easy to use and appealing to their users. What are their options? How should they get going? Knowing the users and how they are going to interact with the brand is the key here. And, creating a UX map will help with the same. UX user maps are a point of start. This includes a range of mapping processes. 

UX mapping provides insight into:

  • How is the interface being used?
  • Is the UX  appealing to the end-users? 
  • What are the results being derived? 
  • How is the user behavior being addressed?   
  • How to deliver information to the user? 

Therefore, a UX map is critical to designing a digital product. An effective UX map has the following functions/impacts:

  • Improve the information delivery to customers and users
  • Making the user experience pleasant and intuitive
  • Effective connection with users and customers
  • Building a bigger user base
  • Develop a better ROI
  • Enhancing the brand reputation and market visibility

Reasons to use UX mapping

User experience mapping aims to improve customer experience quality. 84% of companies have claimed that enhancing customer experiences boosted their revenue. There are straightforward reasons to utilize the UX mapping technique  –

  • One gets a bird’s eye view of the entire journey of customers
  • Specific hurdles faced by customers can be identified and resolved
  • Knowing where additional developments are required and simplifying customer journey paths
  • Customer retention rate increases 
  • Higher and faster customer conversion rates 
  • Minimizing negative user experiences
  • The revelation of the gaps between departments and channels
  • Better brand reputation, greater market visibility, and a smooth and enjoyable customer journey

Let’s Know Each UX Mapping Method – yes there are several UX mapping methods 

1. User Journey Mapping

The user journey map is useful when a customer has a specific need that the company product or service is addressing. A UX journey map is a detailed representation of how a customer will search for information on the app or website. 

A UX map focuses on the customer’s aim and makes it effective and easy for the product to meet the user’s goal. Moreover, the UX journey map considers the thoughts and feelings of the user. It utilizes a linear process and maps out how a single customer interacts with an application or website. The user journey map is broken down into four “swim lanes:”

  • Phases
  • Actions
  • Thoughts
  • Emotions and Mindset

The customer is at the center of the design process in each of the lanes. Each one is meant to address the overall experience. Service- and product-centered businesses will find UX journey maps useful. A journey map will help identify customer needs by breaking down bottlenecks during the interaction.

2. Empathy Mapping

A user empathy map is the deepest dive into the mindset of the user and helps build a thorough understanding of their thought process. There are four stages to this – 

  • Thinks
  • Says
  • Feels
  • Does

What are they thinking? Saying? Feeling? And doing? 

This map is not linear or sequential like the journey map. It is considered to be a useful mapping technique to understand users better and build rapport and empathy with customers. The empathy map attempts to externalize their internal experience. The whole experience is tied to the externalized experience of the user from the above four perspectives: thinks, says, feels, and does.

3. Experience Mapping

For designing a product, it is useful to build an overview of general human behavior. This comes in handy in a scenario where there is no defined target audience. 

The experience map visualizes an end-to-end journey from a generic user’s perspective. In the experience mapping, the user is not from a specific target audience. They are not interested in a specific service or company product either. 

The experience map is also divided into four key areas:

  • Phases
  • Actions
  • Thoughts
  • Feelings and Mindset

The experience map is among the most useful technique to build a picture of general user behavior.

4. Service Blueprinting

At times, one kind of UX map isn’t enough. Two UX maps can be combined to visualize the multiple interactions. For example, the user journey map is effective in visualizing the point of the user, but it does not provide insight on happenings on the business side. In such situations the service blueprint map is handy.

A customer journey mapping focuses on the user whereas a service blueprint map is all about the company. Companies offering multiple services and products need a way to visualize the way their departments and employees interact with customers. 

Like other mapping processes, the service blueprint is also divided into four key areas, referred to as “swim lanes:”

  • Customer Actions
  • Backstage Actions
  • Frontstage Actions
  • Support processes

This mapping technique is useful for large companies in identifying areas of weaknesses. It offers useful insights to improve both processes and interfaces. Benefits both users and employees.

Closing Thoughts

UX mapping assists businesses, individuals, and organizations in improving their relationships on the digital landscape by providing customers with a fantastic user experience. User experience maps help

A Comprehensive 9-Step Guide to Manual Testing

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Manual testing is a time-consuming, but thorough process. The primary objective of manual testing is to test the product against defined requirements or user stories to identify problem areas. After identifying the bugs, the application is then reviewed and handed over to the development team where they resolve the problem areas. This leads to the development of a flawless product.

Manual testing helps us understand the entire problem and explore other angles of tests with flexibility. While Test Automation helps save precious time, it comes with its own limitations. Test Automation can never ever substitute manual testing in its entirety. 

A step-by-step approach to Manual Testing

Software Testing generally falls into two categories – Manual and Automated. While the process may differ, the steps in both these testing methodologies overlap. 

Here are the most common Manual testing steps – 

Step 1. Requirement Gathering

As the name suggests, this stage is all about understanding what the client’s requirements are and curating them.  Requirement gathering is done through 

  • Reviewing available documentation
  • A thorough study of existing systems and their integrations
  • Interactions with stakeholders to understand business goals

The gathered information then guides the testing strategy and the implementation plan. In this stage, the live demos from developers help greatly. Development and QA share a symbiotic relationship, in a way that directly impacts the quality of the tests and ultimately the product. 

Step 2 – Sharing and Discussion

After gathering the data, you can consolidate and prioritize the information inside into usable components for creating test cases and scenarios. While making test cases, you will also have to consider several factors like types of testing, scope, and time needed for the tests. At this point, the QA team needs to understand the software inside out. This will facilitate knowledge sharing and discussions about the current state with the stakeholders.

In software testing, mind maps are becoming increasingly popular. They provide a visual picture of the software testing project with all the cases and detailed workings. This makes life easier, especially for the team leaders as they can use it to share test planning and accountability with the team.

Step – 3 Test Environment and Resources Setup

Manual testing largely focuses on the end-user experience. Testing in a dedicated environment standardizes the product’s performance under lab conditions. A basic framework of the test environment is prepared based on the requirements. Manual testing tools, hardware, resources, and assets are also procured and set up. 

Step 4 – Creating Test Scenarios and Test Cases

A quick analysis of requirements and user stories will clear up any doubts about what and how to test. Like other aspects of development, documentation is crucial including writing the test cases. Review the specification documents in detail, gather knowledge about the scope of testing, and create high-level test scenarios, once the documents have been shared with the team.  Along with the what and how of the test, the cases also provide expected outputs.

Step 5 – Test Execution and Defect Reporting

In the execution stage, the test cases are performed by one or more people, who follow the instructions detailed in the test cases. Their focus is to achieve the said objective while being vigilant about any mismatch between expected and actual cases. Things that do not fit in the definition of normal in requirements are flagged as bugs in the report, to be conveyed to the developers. Then the Test case status for the concerned action is marked as failed.

Step 6 – Defect Retesting and Closure

The job of a tester is not just to identify and report bugs. They also need to ensure that the reported problems are addressed. The testers are accountable for the defects and verifying the fixes, and ultimately updating the status of the defect in the concerned test case.

Step 7 – Feedback and Recommendation

The software is put through a final round of tests so that everyone involved can learn about the quality of the product. The manual testing process is said to be completed when the test report is delivered to all the stakeholders. The test results go through a feedback and recommendations process. This is the final point where the team can point out any areas of improvement if any.

A testing report should have:

  • Testing status of the product tested
  • Testing metrics
  • Areas tested
  • Areas out of scope
  • Non-testable items

Step 8 – Product Release, Test Cases, and Repository Maintenance

When your product functions as per the expectations, it is handed over to a release manager and scheduled for release. Even though the product has technically passed the QA, it may just come back to the testers in the case where something fails after reaching the marketplace or any updates have been made to the product following review.

Step 9 – Updating Test Cases

As a best practice, update and maintain the test cases on file and keep good version control so that no obsolete test cases are run or cause any previous bug to resurface.

Conclusion

Unlike automation testing, manual testing is easier to adopt but the quality and output depend heavily on the thought process of the testers and best practices employed. This blog highlights the manual testing process and how testers should approach it for the best possible quality of the product.

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.