Category: Services

CraftCMS Pros and Cons — A Quick Guide

Posted on by galaxy-admin

What is CMS (Content Management System)?

  • A content management application used for creating, editing, and publishing content.
  • Allow multiple users to contribute, schedule, or manage content.
  • Having a browser-based interface accessible anywhere to any number of users.
  • Drag-and-drop editors allow users to enter text and media without expertise in HTML, CSS or other programming languages.
  • Easy content creation and formatting. Content storage in one place.
  • Permissions for managing content are based on roles: authors, editors, and admins.
  • Publishing and organizing content live.
  • It reduces your reliance on front-end developers to make changes to the website.

“What is Craft CMS?”

There are many Content Management Systems. You’ve possibly heard about a few of the popular ones like — WordPress, Drupal, Craft, Shopify, and Joomla.

Craft CMS was introduced in 2011. It is a relatively new CMS but is increasingly becoming popular as an alternative to WordPress. It has excellent features, including, simple editing, flexibility, and live previews.

As an agency, we prefer to create unique solutions that are reflective of every individual client. We believe a lot is going for Craft. It enables us to achieve more even on tighter timeframes and budgets.

An overview

  • Written in PHP on the Yii 1.x platform.
  • Versatile, user-friendly, lightweight CMS with a clear graphical interface.
  • Simple control panel for content production and administration.
  • Craft CMS uses Twig, a strong, open-source PHP template engine, for the template.
  • Twig’s syntax is derived from Jinja and Django templates.
  • Has all the key backend functionality (SEO, page ranking) and commercial features (1st party localization, easy rebranding, etc.).
  • Page revisions, live view modifications, live page updates, and plugin administration are all maintained.
  • You can expand and enhance Craft CMS functionality and features using backend technologies like PHP and JS.

Should you go for Craft CMS or place your bets on a more popular CMS like WordPress, which is used by 60% of CMS users? Many variables need to be considered when answering this question, and it can’t simply be boiled down to one side or the other.

Advantages and disadvantages of CraftCMS

Speed

CraftCMS is faster than WordPress. It is much snappier than WordPress.

On the downside, there are some WordPress themes (like WooThemes) that don’t translate very well into Craft.

In that case, speed gets compromised. Fortunately, there are now some excellent solutions for translating these themes.

Complexity

One of Craft’s advantages is its highly customizable nature: If you can work a little bit with code or hire someone who can (like us) then there are plenty of ways in which Craft could make your life easier as opposed to more difficult.

Craft can get complex at times for those who have no idea about it. In that case, you may need a developer or two to help along the way.

Flexibility

Craft’s greatest strength is its flexibility. Because it is open-source, it has been adopted by a large community of developers who continually update and improve upon it.

This means that, no matter what your niche or business requirements are, you can be sure there will be a solid solution for you to use.

It also helps that Craft is so easy to customize with an interface that feels tailor-made for those with minimal technical knowledge.

On the downside — if you choose to add features beyond what Craft offers natively, customization costs can appear depending on how complex your project needs become.

Ease of use

One of Craft’s most appealing features is how easy it is to set up. Once installed, it takes minimal effort to modify templates and create new pages.

So if you want a CMS that doesn’t require any programming knowledge to get started, Craft is your best bet.

This ease of use also makes Craft very accessible for beginners — especially when it comes to getting a website up quickly.

Released under an MIT license, CraftCMS can be used for both personal and commercial projects. It’s been getting a lot of attention lately from developers because it makes developing custom modules simple.

We’ve seen developers convert to Craft almost instantaneously after discovering how easy it is to get started building sites with it. When it gets easy for us, we try to make it even easier for our clients by all possible means.

Get our Web Platform experts onboard to help you set up your CMS website in no time.

5 Steps for Effective Performance Testing: A Practical Guide

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Applications are becoming increasingly complex and with a reduced development cycle. This necessitates the adoption of new, agile development and testing methodologies. Application performance as a component of the overall user experience is now among the most important aspect of application quality. 

Sequential projects with static qualification/implementation/test phases that postpone performance testing until the end of the project may face performance risks. By today’s application quality standards, this is no longer acceptable.

This article will give you practical advice on how to conduct efficient performance testing in this new and more demanding environment.

Stage 1- Software analysis and requirements preparation

Before beginning performance testing, it is critical to ensure that the software configuration has been properly adjusted. When the system is deployed, functional testing should be performed to ensure that the main functions used for performance checks work properly.

The examination of a system’s features, operation mode, and peculiarities are part of its analysis. To achieve the following goals, detailed analysis is required:

  • Simulate the best user behavior patterns and load profiles
  • Determine the amount of test data required
  • Identify system bottlenecks
  • Define the software monitoring methods

The primary focus should be on defining the success criteria for the tests that are usually included in the SLA (service-level agreement). The criteria that the system technically corresponds to are called the requirements. The requirements defined during the first stage will be compared to the received results to evaluate the behavior of the product and system units and determine the bottlenecks. There are so many crucial performance testing metrics that are used as success criteria.

System analysis encompasses all information about the software, testing objectives, planned test runs, test stand configuration, performance testing tools, user behavior scenarios, load profile, testing monitoring, load model, application requirements, and the method of delivering results.

Stage 2- Design Testing Strategy

The testing strategy is developed based on detailed system analysis as described above. Below are the steps to develop an ideal testing strategy:

2.1. Choosing optimal performance testing tool

These tools can be used to conduct performance testing:

ToolAdvantagesDisadvantages
The test results are well-structured and stored in an MS SQL database.
There is no limit to the number of virtual users covered by the license.		Declarative tests have limited functionality for scripts logic.
Declarative tests are the only type of testing available for SharePoint.
Provides a distributed architecture (VuGen, Controller, Load Generator, Analysis).
There are tools available for working with various protocols.
Allows you to generate reports and create report templates.
It is possible to keep detailed action logs for each virtual user.		The number of virtual users is limited.
The number of updates is relatively low.
It is possible to run tests with complex logic and dynamic parameter correlation. Web application testing is possible (including API and web services, database connections).
Allows you to simulate the behavior of multiple users in multiple parallel threads while applying a heavy load to the web application.		Encounters issues in the reproduction of AJAX traffic.
There’re limited reporting functions.
Requires many resources of RAM and CPU for test launching.

2.2. Design of a load profile and a load model

As part of the performance testing process, statistics on application usage are gathered. The data gathered is required for the creation of the load profile – a user behavior model.

Different load models can be used in the same test. For example, one new virtual user could be added every five minutes, or all users could be added all at once. The query rate, test duration, 

and the number of users are the most important aspects of the load model.

2.3. Configuration of the test stands

The results of performance testing can be influenced by a variety of factors such as test stand configuration, network load, database content, and many others.

As a result, to obtain the most reliable results, performance testing should be carried out in a separate environment with features and configurations that are similar to the parameters of the real software.

Test stand elementsFeature

Application
ArchitectureDatabase (structure, data)Software required for the system operation

Network
Network mappingBandwidth performanceCommunication protocol

Software
Operational system (version and service packs)Application server (version and patches)DBMS (version and type)
HardwareCPU (number of cores, type, clock speed)Random-access memory (space, type)Hard disk (type, speed)

Stage 3- Load generator configuration and monitoring

Performance testing tools should be installed on a load generator to produce high-quality results. It is a virtual or physical machine that is near the application server(s).

If a heavy load is to be generated, one machine’s resources may be insufficient. Distributed performance testing is carried out in this case.

Software monitoring can be carried out with the assistance of tools for controlling system hardware resources consumption.

The following are the most popular hardware monitoring tools:

  • New Relic: The performance tracking service offers analytics for every component of the environment. The tool is a powerful tool for viewing and analyzing massive amounts of data and obtaining information about real-time actions.
  • Grafana: This monitoring data visualization tool can analyze data from Graphite, InfluxDB, and OpenTSDB time-series databases.
  • Zabbix: The software employs a “server-agent” model. The server collects all of the data and allows you to view the monitoring history as well as set up metrics and rules.
  • JProfiler combines CPU, memory, and thread profiling, making it simple to determine what should be optimized, eliminated, or modified. This tool can be used for both local and remote services.
  • Xdebug is a powerful tool used to analyze PHP code and identify bottlenecks and slow elements.
  • XHprof decomposes the application into function calls (methods) and generates resource consumption statistics for them. The metrics include the amount of allocated memory, the number of function calls, the execution time, and many others.
  • PostgreSQL is an object-relational database management system that is free to use. The pgBadger profiler can be used to achieve performance testing objectives.
  • MS SQL Server Profiler is a tool for tracking, reconstruction, and debugging of the MS SQL Server. It enables the creation and processing of queries.

Stage 4- Test Data Generation and Test Scripts Development

Let’s look at four different types of test data generation:

Code

Scripts written in various programming languages (Java, Python) enable the creation of users, passwords, and other values required for proper data usage.

SQL statements

SQL queries can also be used to populate a database. This method is only available if the database is accessible from the server. The approach can be implemented as follows: first, a completed DB in MS Access with fields identical to the server-side database is created; second, a dump file containing requests to add information to the DB is created.

API requests

API requests can be used to populate the database with items for sale or user information. One or two phone calls will suffice.

Interface

For filling the database via the system interface, a script that mimics the steps of the user registration process can be developed. The script adds new users to the database. A snapshot of the file system can be created in order to use the newly created users for test execution.

Stage 5: Preliminary Launch and Test Execution

Preliminary tests aid in determining the best load model for the system. They also show how the application resources are used and whether the power of the load generator(s) is sufficient for running full-scale tests.

The tests should be run with various load models. As a result, the testing load is determined based on software monitoring and analysis. For test execution, there are many types of checks, like stress testing, lead testing, stability testing, volume testing, etc. Read more in detail.

Performance testing is an ongoing process.

Performance testing needs to be carried out on a regular basis. Hopefully, your website or application will continue to grow, necessitating changes to accommodate a larger user base.

Contact us to find out how performance testing experts can improve the quality of yo

5 Important UX Principles to Follow for a Great Website Design

Posted on by galaxy-admin

When people hear the word “design,” they are frequently led to believe that the person in that role is solely responsible for producing something visually appealing. While aesthetics are important, UX design is beyond that. 

Crafting delightful digital experiences needs an understanding of how people perceive and interact as they progress through their digital journey. This is to ensure that the website design is not only visually appealing but also effective and simple to use.

Fortunately, UX pioneers have already done much of the hard work for us. They have developed a set of principles and laws that can serve as the foundation for creating winning website design experiences.

  1. Keep Users’ Choices to a Minimum (Hick’s law)

A common design misconception is that having more product options leads to a better user experience. Fortunately, plenty of research has debunked that myth, leading to Hick’s Law, which states that: 

The time it takes to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of options.

With less visual information, the text will be more noticeable and will heighten the impact on the user. Image by Mixd.

If users end up in the decision-making dilemma of what next. They become frustrated and might leave that website or app altogether.

Elemento CTA with less complexity in options to choose from.

How to use Hick’s law?

  • Eliminate complexity: To reduce cognitive load and highlight recommended options, break complex tasks down into smaller steps for the user (for example, by using progressive disclosure to onboard new users or reducing the steps for a payment process).
  • Sort your options: Take a look at how most websites are navigated. If they provide access to every link on the site, they have failed to apply Hick’s law and may easily overwhelm the user. Instead, only the most important options should be presented, which can be defined using the card-sorting method.

When it comes to time spent on a website, most have a sweet spot. If there isn’t enough time, the user will most likely leave without purchasing or registering. If they spend too much time on information, they may become distracted and fail to make a purchase or register. With just enough time, the vast majority of users who intend to make a purchase and register will do so.

Once a site is live, you can begin to determine the sweet spot and use Hick’s Law to either increase or decrease the average amount of time spent on the site.

2. Use Familiar Scenarios and Logic (Jakob’s Law)

So often as designers, we want to reinvent the wheel, to come up with a solution that no one else has thought of. But, as Jakob Nielsen (the creator of Jakob’s Law) put it, the truth is:

Users spend the majority of their time on other websites and would prefer that your site function in the same way as the websites they are already familiar with.

This rule applies to all of the products we use, not just websites. With this in mind, designers must resist the urge to create something unique, as doing so may end up doing more harm than good to the user experience. Designers should instead concentrate on leveraging existing mental models to which users are already accustomed. This reduces the cognitive load placed on users and allows them to concentrate on completing tasks rather than learning a new mental model or process.

Dropbox’s login page applies Jakob’s law by designing a login page similar to those of other websites.

How to use Jakob’s law:

  • There’s no need to reinvent the wheel; instead, concentrate on creating patterns that users are already familiar with.
  • Failure to meet user expectations can increase their cognitive load by requiring them to learn something new. To improve learnability, adhere to established conventions.

3. Make Your Interface Visually Appealing (Law of Aesthetics)

People have an underlying belief that things that look good will work better.

In 1995, Hitachi Design Center researchers investigated this effect for the first time. They discovered a strong link between aesthetic appeal and ease of use.

They concluded that the aesthetics of a product have a strong influence on users. It implies that users perceive attractive products to be more useful. In other words, the more positive the reaction to visual design, the more forgiving they are of minor usability issues.

Finally, people do judge a book by its cover.

It’s a well-known fact that aesthetics is one of the core reasons why Apple has an edge over its competitors.

How to Use Aesthetic Usability Effect:

  • Design with keeping the interaction model of people in mind.
  • Concentrate on the user funnel’s high-friction, high-value points (top landing pages, bottom of the funnel stages such as checkout flow).
  • With continuous user feedback, you can improve your aesthetics.
  • When using the aesthetic-usability effect, don’t change the usability, which means the product’s core function should remain unchanged.

4. The One That Looks Different From the Rest (Von Restorff Effect)

Also known as the ‘isolation effect’, this law anticipates that when multiple similar objects are present, people will likely remember the one that differs from the rest.

The law is mostly found in use on product pricing pages, where most of the pricing packages are the same except for a few variations in the text.

Companies take advantage of this by highlighting their preferred pricing in a different color, shape, and size to draw attention to that item.

ClickUp uses the Von Restorff principle in their pricing plan, by highlighting their preferred plan’s name and price.

A darker shade in the pricing box isolates the selected plan, making it the user’s focal point.

How to use the Von Restorff effect:

  • Make important information or key actions stand out visually.
  • To make the product listings stand out, use words like “special offer” and “new.”
  • Look for opportunities to learn how to create positive experiences in the interface.
  • Maintain a healthy balance. Users can easily become distracted by noise if you create too many different colors and shapes.

5. Zeigarnik Effect

Remember when an episode of your favorite show ended on a cliffhanger, leaving you hanging?

You’re not going to rest, and you’re going to move on to the next episode.

Don’t you think this happens a lot in our everyday lives?

Zeigarnik effect

This means that people recall interrupted or unfinished tasks more vividly than completed tasks.

This concept can be applied to UX, where we could talk about new features and offer them for an X amount, and then tell the user that if he wants to proceed, he must do Y action, such as register, buy, etc.

Grammarly example

Linkedin’s profile completion page also makes use of the zeigarnik effect.

Users are more likely to provide missing information when they see a message like “add skills to showcase your strength.”

Take a look at how Instagram uses this to this effect with its infinite scroll.

Even when you’re certain there’s nothing else to see in your feed, Instagram plays its card – ‘infinite scroll’ – to entice you to keep using the app.

It is predicated on the need for/possibility of seeing a new story.

How to use the Zeigarnik Effect?

  • Gamify user interactions and include progress trackers to encourage users to finish the task.
  • Take advantage of the user’s mental state after they’ve completed a task. Now is an excellent time to concentrate on a user’s new objectives!
  • Divide content into bite-sized chunks of useful information.
  • Don’t tell everyone everything you have right away.
  • Digital writing tools show you how many problems you have with your writing and how you can solve them by upgrading to premium.

To summarize

It’s critical to understand that your eyes and ears frequently fail to convey what you can perceive. The designers must consider perception and imagination and attempt to link them using UX laws.

So, how did you feel after learning about all of the laws and their advantages?

Please contact us and let us know if you require UX experts to improve the performance of your website.

UX Writing and UX Design: How to do it right?

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Understanding the relationship between UX Writing and UX Design

User experience drives the interaction of the users with your products. UX writing and UX design both play a pivotal role in establishing the branding, design, usability, and function that make up the entire experience. UX designers contribute to visual design, programming, psychology, and interaction design. On the other hand, UX writers create user-friendly microcopy that helps guide users through a digital product, such as a website or mobile app. 

Product managers often lose the opportunity to interact with UX writers and UX designers to find options that could drastically improve functionality, usability, and accessibility, regardless of their chosen strategy. In this blog, we have listed various ways in which you can bring UX Copy and UX Design together to create impeccable experiences.

Break Down Silos

A product manager is responsible for breaking down the barriers that prevent UX copywriters and designers from working together. Numerous aspects go into generating a pleasant user experience. Here are the tips that we recommend- 

  • Write microcopy that improves the usability
  • User research demonstrates how the target audience reacts to various messages and designs.
  • User-friendly designs and language that guides users through the sales funnel.

UX designs and copy are interdependent. When your content and designs work together to establish a distinct brand identity, you obtain greater results. 

Bring UX writing into your design process

Of course, putting product managers in charge of bringing teams together without providing them with collaboration tools isn’t fair. Expectations alone will not be enough to break through silos. Real tools and methods that produce outcomes are required.

Brainstorm with your teams

Brainstorming meetings should not be held behind closed doors where team members are unable to provide ideas. While you may not want the cacophony of 25 individuals sharing ideas at once, you do want the variety of ideas that come from gathering representatives from all departments. If you have engaged with freelancers, be sure to invite a few of them to your event. They may have valuable insight regarding how other businesses deal with similar issues.

If you invite members from each team, you’ll need inputs from Copywriters, designers, and developers. Encouraging individuals to work together during brainstorming sessions can go a long way. If you have staff working remotely, make sure you use video conferencing and collaboration software that make it easy for them to contribute.

You can boost the effectiveness of your brainstorming session with these tips – 

  • Communicate your goals in advance so that everyone comes prepared.
  • Keeping the time limit short (30-60 minutes).
  • Encourage everyone to explore their ideas without fear.
  • Making it possible for participants to submit ideas anonymously will help ensure that shy people contribute.
  • Understand that some brainstorming sessions do not produce good results and that you may need to regroup later.

Encourage teams to understand each other’s work

Your design team members need to understand that excellent UX writing necessitates a thorough understanding of behavioral and cognitive psychology. It’s not just about adhering to grammatical rules and using fancy words. Good writers frequently have to break the rules they know to reach their target audiences. It’s a skill that needs to be honed with practice and conscious thought.

Similarly, the writers need to understand the importance of designers in increasing conversion rates. Their images, fonts, white spaces, and other design elements have a significant impact on how people respond to CTAs. Writers and designers both should follow best practices and adhere to accessibility rules. 

Conclusion

Designers know what keeps a user on a page or an app, and writers know how to evoke an emotional response with a powerful copy. Their creative minds work together to create a cohesive product. Working together is the only way to understand the symbiotic nature of the relationship between these two teams that, when put together can create flawless products.

In the Galaxy UX Studio, we foster an environment of collaboration where UX Designers and UX Writers understand each other’s needs and navigate complex challenges quite easily as a unit. If you’re looking for a team like that, we can help you. Contact us 

How to Ensure Your SaaS Application’s Performance as Designed

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Internet users expect web content and apps to load within seconds. They want a fast and seamless digital experience on all their devices. The need for speed and seamless performance is a given now (for both users and business owners).

Consumers abandon slow-loading websites, without completing the desired action. High performance is important and a reliable user experience is important for SaaS businesses. There are SaaS products for customer support, communication, payment, project management, automation, and for every process that is or can go digital. 

SaaS will continue to grow as organizations of all sizes rely on it to deliver apps and IT services. With SaaS services becoming popular, demand for high availability and performance also grows. 

Meeting rising consumer demand is great for business. But it can be a logistical nightmare for SaaS providers. Growing load on the SaaS infrastructure increases latency and performance issues.

Before the release, SaaS applications must go through thorough performance testing. 

SaaS testing ensures that the product functions as designed and serves the end needs. Adequate testing enhances performance, leading to higher customer satisfaction. This in turn means more revenue through user adoption and subscription fees.

Applications built as SaaS are subject to rigorous testing to ensure that the application is performing as per expectations. 

Here are the tips that will help you in the SaaS development process and SaaS testing.

Tip 1. Skilled team

SaaS applications live on a remote server and are delivered over the internet. Existing in a digital space, SaaS applications rely on three aspects: storage, networking, and computing capacity. Testing SaaS products means you have to ensure coexistence between these three technologies.

Tip 2. Performance Testing (Onboarding/Staging vs Production)

There are many ways to deliver and run performance tests with varying levels of quality. One approach is not necessarily better than another. It all depends on your business needs and what you are trying to achieve with testing. In general, there are two different approaches:

  1. Running performance tests against staging or development environments.
  2. Running performance tests against production or live environments.

Tip 3. Adhering to the prerequisites for Performance Tests 

  • Before testing begins, system requirements must be validated. 
  • It is not possible to automate everything. 
  • In agile environments, it can be difficult to develop a test plan that matches development sprints and iterations. 
  • Risk management is an essential prerequisite for any significant development project in both an agile and non-agile environment.  

Tip 4. Sprint Planning

Communicate risk priorities with the QA and development teams during sprint planning. That will help keep them focused on real risks instead of wasting time on hypothetical ones. You will have better software, with faster delivery. A key part of effective SaaS performance testing is understanding these fundamentals. 

All said and done, there are still challenges SaaS businesses need to overcome. Four key elements affect the SaaS digital experience:

1: Global SaaS User Growth

SaaS has seen extensive end-users growth on a global scale. And, this is one of the reasons for heightening performance challenges. You may wonder how? Application performance deteriorates when the app is far from the data center.

End-users far from the original data center means variables like networks, IPS, and browsers come into the picture, causing poor performance. Location of your data center matters. 

2: Infrastructure Add-Ons

Expanding into new geographies, SaaS providers add more infrastructure and divide existing systems to reduce the load. With added infrastructure build-outs, complexities increases. This is bad for both infrastructure health and end-user application performance.

3: The Internet is Capricious 

Complete SaaS outages are rare; but not completely off the table. SaaS outage can have a disastrous effect on the end-user. Recently we have seen a major SaaS outage with the Amazon S3 (AWS) in February 2021. 100% availability is unrealistic even when your web services depend on Amazon’s cloud.

4: From APM to DEM

SaaS providers must shift from traditional application performance management (APM) to digital experience management (DEM). In DEM, the end-user experience is the ultimate metric. It identifies how all underlying services, systems, and components influence the end-user experience.

You should put a process and the right tooling in place for SaaS applications monitoring.

The list of variables impacting the performance is long and ever-increasing. SaaS providers need insights into advanced analytics to understand data and identify problems.

Right deduction of data resolves issues that are both within infrastructure, like a data center needing more capacity, and outside it, like a slow internet service provider (ISP).

***

Businesses are depending on SaaS applications more than ever. As users shift more towards the cloud, SaaS providers will continue to see growing demand for their services. The demand for a higher level of performance and productivity will also increase. SaaS providers cannot disappoint with poor performance.

As a SaaS provider, you should deal with the rise in expectations for availability and performance through new approaches. Like evolving from APM to DEM. This is just one example. There are many ways to go about insuring SaaS performance.

If you need immediate assistance or have questions about how Saas Testing may affect your organization or client, we would love to talk with you. Galaxy weblinks intend to help software companies transform their businesses into SaaS successes.

How a Top-Rated Team’s UX Design Skills Define Them

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Are you on the lookout for a skilled UX design team? We don’t need to devolve into the importance of User Experience. However, finding the right team is a massive undertaking. Despite the multi-star reviews, testimonials, and exceptional sales pitches, finding the right design team for specific business needs remains tricky. Well, we are here to make this task easy for you.

UX design skills aren’t just an important part of being a top-rated team; they’re what defines one. Prototyping, wireframing, user flows, mockups and usability testing are the tools of the trade for UX designers. These skills are high in demand among the teams with the highest ratings on Upwork and other business development sites. 

UX skills that you need in your team

We will explain what we believe are the most important skills that your UX team should have expertise in. This would help you partner with the best offshore UX development team. 

Applied Skills of UX Designers

  • User Research

From conception to development, user research is crucial for every step of product design. It is the ability to plan, conduct, and analyze findings from a variety of research methods — user interviews, usability tests, and surveys. These findings will drive informed decisions when and if new challenges arise. The goal of user research is to learn who will use the product, what they want from it, and how they like to interact with technology. This may look like extra effort, but it is not. The more the team knows about users and problems you’re trying to solve, the better off you’ll be later when you try to create an experience that suits them.

  • Prototyping

Prototypes show how real people will interact with your product. Tools like InVision can build basic clickable prototypes that allow you to test and tweak your ideas before moving forward. It’s never too early or too late. If you want a successful project, involve designers and get prototyping as early as possible.

  • Wireframing

Making sense of your site begins with wireframing.

Wireframing is an important UX skill. It helps you map out a website or app’s structure and layout before investing effort, time, and money. It helps refine your idea by visualizing it. You can make changes along the way if needed. Many web designers still find value in wireframing to conceptualize their ideas. Page layouts, wireframes, or mockups, or whatever you choose to call them. These tools enable you to focus on getting your details right from day one. A wireframe is a blueprint of an interface. It shows how something works, as opposed to how it looks. 

  • Mockups

Mockups can be used during usability testing. Testing is an important part of UX design, as it provides data on how users interact with sites and apps. For instance, you can test your homepage with users and then see if users navigate to other parts of your site or try to fill out forms. 

A good mockup can remove any confusion before investing time and money into making a fully functional website/app. Mockups do not take a lot of time and effort. 

  • Usability Testing

The best UX designers constantly test their products. There are several methods for UX design, including card sorting, competitive analysis, focus groups/interviews, information architecture (IA) mapping, surveys, contextual inquiry, and more. Testing helps us identify how your product will be loved by its users. UX is critical when designing interfaces because a UI doesn’t mean anything if people can’t figure out how to use it. 

We believe design thinking starts with empathy. We understand users’ motivations and goals so that we are in a better position to design products that fit them like a glove.

  • Visual Design/Visual Communication

Great design is more than pretty visuals. It’s important to know how to set visual expectations and guide your product along in its life cycle. Visual design is just as much of an art as any other part of UX design. We should know what looks good but also why it looks good. When every pixel counts, every little detail matters; you need to be able to weigh in on everything from wireframes through to the final design.

UX designers need competence in visual language. Proficiency in visual communication would mean understanding concepts like:

  • Layout
  • Color
  • Typography
  • Icons
  • Images
  • Design theory

The UX designer skill goes beyond applied skills. Successful UX professionals also need soft skills or aptitudes applied to multiple work settings. This includes curiosity, empathy, communication, and collaboration. 

Great UX design comes from great teams. But creating a great team takes a lot of effort. Let us introduce the Galaxy UX Studio where we offer amazing design capabilities and exceptional UX skills.

Glassmorphism – How to Leverage This New UI Trend in Your Website

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Another year, another UI design trend making waves – Glassmorphism  

Each trend or practice brings different perks and challenges alike. While we all like to be adopt different and newest design trends, we also need to ensure that our design is future-proof and will not go out of style after a few months. 

Glassmorphism is the latest UI design trend everyone trying to emulate. We prefer to be at the forefront of new UX trends and here are our learnings after experimenting with this eye-catching and vibrant design trend – Glassmorphism.

Glassmorphism
Image by Galaxy Weblinks

Glassmorphism is largely about highlighting light or dark objects by placing them on vividly colored backgrounds. The design has elements of transparency, frostiness, or glossiness. Glassmorphing is that “airy” interface where you see objects floating within space. Eye-catching and colorful, this trend favors multi-layered approaches. Resembling milky glass surfaces, the interface is grabbing a lot of attention.

Designers have been playing with this style of the interface in a major way. Glasmorphism is there in a larger number of published website designs. For instance, Apple used this effect on the latest update of macOS Big Sur. Microsoft also used this new interface on the app surfaces of Windows Vista and named it “The Acrylic”

The likes of Apple and Microsoft are using this interface. This trend is being followed by all those who want to make a lasting impression on their visitors. It is safe to say that Glassmorphism is here to stay. It is a promising design that has a lot to offer.

Glassmorphism in Apple Big Sur
Image by Galaxy Weblinks

All brands regardless of the nature of the work can incorporate this sort of interface. It is an all-weather solution.

User experience lays the foundation for happy, satisfied customers. Here is how UX makes a lasting impact – 

A product’s ability to woo the audience rests on how strong, seamless, and speedy the interface is. As a conscious effort, the designers strive to create simple and minimalist designs and avoid using unnecessary information or low-resolution photos. The intriguing and minimal design keeps visitors engaged for longer. Glassmorphism UI complements modern design needs and user behavior. 

Here is what constitutes Glassmorphism Aesthetics 

Glassmorphism components
Image by Galaxy Weblinks

Here are some insightful tips on how we make this design work for our client’s website, for your website:

  • Not applying the blurring and transparent effect in areas that require active interactions.
  • Not using this design aesthetics in buttons, toggles, navigation menu, and similar elements.
  • Use transparency and blurring for boosting the overall look and feel, not only for decoration.
  • Applying fitting contrast with the cards in the interfaces for ease of accessibility.
  • Right spacing between the cards. Grouping together all the objects related to one another.
  • Choosing the right contrast and intuitive grouping of cards in the design layout
Glassmorphism
Image by Galaxy Weblinks

Glassmorphism usage is based on the designer’s discretion and they must use it judiciously. It is beautiful and minimalistic but falls short in the accessibility standards. Our design experts are exploring new trends and creative ways of making web products. At the same time, we try to overcome the shortcomings if there are any. Therefore, we are ensuring a higher level of accessibility in our web designs where we are leveraging Glassmorphism. 

Design is subjective, not bound by any rules. Websites are user-friendly and beautiful when the designers push their boundaries and experiment with the design trends. Glassmorphism is the latest trend and like the other trends, this will be replaced by something new soon. However, it does make a statement and if you wish to leverage this trend, we can help you while ensuring that the design is sustainable, future-proof, and accessible.  

Get in touch with our design team here and have a one on one about Glassmorphism. Contact us here!

Why Is the Discovery Phase Important Before Ecommerce Website Development?

Posted on by galaxy-admin

Setting up an Ecommerce shop online isn’t easy and comes with its own set of complications. The insane level of competition aside, your problems begin even before you’ve begun to build your website. There are numerous Ecommerce website platforms, a lot of plugins for various features and functionalities, and several design elements to consider tailored to your business needs for driving internet traffic and high conversions. There are a lot of moving parts to analyze, design, plan, and setup. These have to be done while making sure that your visitors have a good user experience 

It is important to conceptualize before spending a lot of time and money towards Ecommerce website development costs. Your website should address several factors such as understanding your user requirements, conducting competitive research, identifying the key functionalities/features of your product that you want to address, and designing according to your company’s brand. Without an understanding of these, you are bound to make frequent changes in your scope resulting in the development project exceeding the budget, missing its deadline and failing to meet the end objective. 

So it’s very important to carry out a Discovery phase before starting any development work to better understand the overall objectives and to eliminate the risks in order to make the website successful. In this article we will explain the meaning of a Discovery phase along with its importance. 

What is the Discovery Phase?

Discovery phase is a crucial stage in the Ecommerce website development project life cycle that involves collecting and analyzing information about the project including its targeted market, intended users and their needs/preferences, competitor analysis, carrying out design UX/UI, identifying the correct technology stack, and selecting the features/functionalities for your Ecommerce website ahead of the development work. 

The key objective of the Discovery phase is to get an in-depth understanding of the goals, scope, and limitation of the project. It helps get a reasonable and accurate estimate of the costs and the time it would take to execute the project. 

A Discovery phase could take one week to 2 months for completion, and is dependent on the project scope and its complexity. In addition to the time, the cost during the phase would also depend upon the hourly rate of the company carrying out the Discovery phase. Typically, Discovery phase could be up to 10% of the total project costs. 

What are the key benefits of a Discovery Phase?

The Discovery phase helps – 

  • Reduce risks as the phase focuses on getting a clear understanding of your goals and requirements. This helps the development team create reasonable and accurate estimates of time and budget. The overall cost savings from carrying out a Discovery phase can make-or-break a project’s success. 
  • Formulate a roadmap as the Discovery phase helps build a full timeline of the project with interim goals, deliverables and milestones. 
  • Build confidence in your development partner as the Discovery phase would highlight the approach that your development partner will take during execution of the project. A poor Discovery phase would help you re-evaluate your partner options before spending the entire budget with a wrong partner.

What are the key deliverables from the Discovery Phase?

Given the focus of the Discovery phase is to define the overall project, the key deliverables/outcomes from this phase are – 

  • User Personas and User Flows: These are outcomes from the business and user base understanding process that is carried out to understand the business/user better. 

    – User Personas represent your ideal customers and cover aspects such as demographics, behaviors, needs, pain points, etc. 
    – User Flows are flowcharts or diagrams that display the complete path a user takes when using a product. The flowchart starts with the user’s entry point on the product, like a registration/login, and ends with the final action or outcome, like purchasing a product. User Flows allow creations of a better user experience and helps focus development efforts keeping the same in mind.
  • Competitor analysis: This includes researching competitors and identifying competitor’s key uniqueness and limitations. Analysis of competitor’s designs and features/functionalities helps evaluate existing solutions and help you determine the niche of your future product.
  • Tech stack requirements specification: This deliverable fully describes the project, its features, suggested technology stack (custom development, Shopify, Magento, etc.), and architecture overview. This allows for course correction, if needed, before the start of the development spend.
  • UX/UI design: The visual representation of the software flow including wireframes, screens, etc. allows further clarity on the overall product. This also helps developers have a clear understanding of what is required to be coded and developed. 
  • Development plan and estimates: The end objective of the Discovery phase is to get an accurate estimate of the development timeline and budget.

Conclusion 

A Discovery phase is an important part of the Ecommerce website development. Without a clear understanding, a lot of time and money is spent into a project that has frequent scope revisions, cost overruns, time delays, and a website completely different from your original vision / objective. 

Running a successful Shopify Ecommerce website in today’s highly competitive online environment requires a good development partner who understands your business requirements and provides a helping hand in realizing your company’s vision, achieving your growth plans and having a great user experience. If you’ve any doubts related to Ecommerce platforms and if you need assistance developing one, then feel free to talk to us here.

Why Is Accessible Design Important to Maximize Your App Reach?

Posted on by galaxy-admin

You’ve created the next big mobile app… excellent work! The next step is to ensure that you get maximum users for your world-class application. Ensuring accessibility compliance in your mobile application is a way to ensure that you reach a substantial number of American audiences who suffer from disabilities. 

Inclusivity is not only the right thing to do but also offers lots of business benefits. Accessibility-enabled native apps will help you drive engagement, give you a loyal customer base and provide a personalized experience to your users. Governmental institutions are beginning to implement laws and regulations that require equal access for all users.

Here’s what you should know to make sure your app is inclusively designed.

1. New customer acquisition

More than 80% of people with disabilities have decided not to trust a service provider due to barriers, wherein poor web accessibility is the most common. Users with disabilities are willing to spend more money with companies that provide them with a well-thought-out user experience, although they are frequently ignored by most brands. This particular market has enormous purchasing power.

Accessibility enhancements will not turn away current customers but will attract new customers and increase conversions. By recognizing users with disabilities, you are letting them know that their rights are important and that their business is valued.

2. Enhanced reputation

Companies that welcome people with disabilities only benefit from it. Efforts to make a website or app completely accessible improve a company’s reputation and foster an image of social responsibility and concern for all users.

Silicon Valley giants do not shy away from bringing innovation to the game when it comes to adding accessibility features. They have invested millions in cutting-edge technology and ground-breaking new features. For example, this year, Facebook started using artificial intelligence to provide automatic alternative text to its blind users via object recognition technology. This feature now allows them to fully enjoy the 2 billion photos shared on Facebook each day.

3. Legal Compliance

The number of lawsuits filed in the United States alleging that websites, apps, and digital videos were inaccessible to people with disabilities increased by 64% year on year in the first half of 2021. 

For example, a visually-impaired person, Guillermo Robles sued Domino’s Pizza in 2019 for violations of ADA Title III. Similar lawsuits were against Nike and Beyonce’s company. According to the complaint, despite using screen-reading software, he was unable to order food from Domino’s website or app. Robles won the lawsuit and established a strong precedent for businesses. The threat of litigation is real!

Conclusion

Developing a mobile application with accessibility in mind will ensure a fabulous user experience for your mobile application. Accessibility compliance comes with numerous financial, moral, and legal advantages. Both the Android and iOS platforms provide a variety of tools for incorporating accessibility solutions into your app. There are virtually no valid reasons to disregard the concept of accessibility.

Achieving quality output well within your budget and timeline can be difficult for you. We can help you find the best approach based on your testing situation to reach your goal. Contact our experts today.

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.