Ever since organizations have shifted their business to remote operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of data breaches. In the first half itself, cases of data breaches have been reported in 81 global companies from 81 countries!Besides, a security research firm recently revealed the impact on the data breach landscape due to COVID-19 where 80% of data breaches have occurred either because of stolen credentials or brute-force attacks!
Currently, cybercriminals are exploiting the situation of the pandemic to launch highly sophisticated cyberattacks on every industry possible. In the first six months of 2020, various Fortune 500 companies became the target of massive data breaches where hackers sold account credentials, sensitive data, confidential and financial information of these organizations’ cybercriminal forums.
Till now, nearly 16 billion records have been exposed this year. Moreover, according to researchers, 8.4 billion records have been exposed in the Q1 of 2020 alone! This number is a 273% increase in comparison with the first half of 2019 during which 4.1 billion records were exposed! (Source: Security Boulevard)
Let us take you through the biggest cyberattacks of 2020 till now.
Top 5 Data Breaches in 2020 So Far:
Twitter Hack
Twitter took the whole internet by storm when it was hit by one of the most brazen online attacks in history! The social media platform suffered a breach where the hackers verified Twitter accounts of high-profile US personalities like Barack Obama, Elon Musk, Joseph R. Biden Jr., Bill Gates, and many more.
Out of 130 targeted accounts, hackers were able to reset 45 user accounts’ passwords. Hackers posted fake tweets from these accounts, offering to send $2000 for $1000 sent to an unknown Bitcoin address. Reportedly, the Twitter breach well-coordinated scam made attackers swindle $121,000 in Bitcoin through nearly 300 transactions.
According to Twitter Support, “the attack on July 15, 2020, targeted a small number of employees through a phone spear-phishing attack. This attack relied on a significant and concerted attempt to mislead certain employees and exploit human vulnerabilities to gain access to our internal systems.”
Marriott Data Breach
On March 31st, 2020, the hotel chain Marriott disclosed a security breach that impacted the data of more than 5.2 million hotel guests who used their company’s loyalty application.
Hackers obtained login credentials of two accounts of Marriott employees who had access to customer information regarding the loyalty scheme of the hotel chain. They used the information to siphon off the data approximately a month before the breach was discovered.
The data accessed in the breach involved personal details such as names, birthdates, and telephone numbers, travel information, and loyalty program information.
According to the Marriot, hackers might have obtained the credentials of their employees either by credential stuffing or phishing. Previously, the hotel giant announced a data breach in late 2018 in which up to 500 million guests were impacted!
MGM Data Dump
Last year in 2019, MGM Resorts suffered a massive data breach. The news of the breach incident started to circulate in February 2020 when hackers leaked the personal details of 10.6 million hotel guests for free download. But in the later findings, the number increased by 14 times (nearly 142 million) than the number recorded in February 2020.
The personal information published on the hacking forum included the name, home address, phone numbers, email address, and DOB of guests. The leaked files of guests included Justin Bieber, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and many major government agency officials.
However, a spokesperson from MGM Resorts confirmed that impacted guests were notified about the data breach. In addition, it said, “We are confident that no financial, payment card or password data was involved in this matter.”
Zoom Credentials Up for Sale!
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, various organizations across the globe adopted work from home policy. In view of the situation, the Zoom video conferencing app became the most used application for virtual meeting and got popular among cybercriminals too.
Within a short span of time, the application became vulnerable to various security threats and eventually became a victim of the data breach. In the first week of April 2020, the news of “500,000 stolen Zoom passwords available for sale in dark web crime forums” shook the application users.
It was reported that more than half a million Zoom account login credentials were up for sale and some of the accounts’ credentials were given away for free. In fact, some of the login credentials were sold for less than a US cent each!
Along with account login credentials, victims’ personal meeting URLs and HostKeys were available too. The leaked accounts’ details belonged to financial institutions, banks, colleges, and various organizations.
Magellan Health (Ransomware Attack and Data Breach)
One of the Fortune 500 companies, Magellan Health was struck by a ransomware attack and data breach in April 2020. The healthcare giant confirmed by stating that about 365,000 patients were affected by the sophisticated cyberattack.
According to the investigation, the attack was launched with a fully planned process where hackers first installed malware to steal employee login credentials. Then they leveraged a phishing scheme to gain access to systems of Magellan after sending out a phishing email and impersonating their client before deploying a ransomware attack.
The data thieves were able to steal login credentials of employees, personal information, employee ID numbers, sensitive patient details such as W-2 information, Social Security numbers, or Taxpayer ID numbers.
Is Your Organization Secured From Data Thieves?
The global shift to a remote working culture has leveraged cybercriminals to launch highly sophisticated cyberattacks. Moreover, ransomware, phishing, DDoS, BEC attacks, etc. are amongst the most common types of data breaches that we have witnessed this year, till now.
Clearly, the first half of 2020 was quite challenging for organizations in terms of cybersecurity along with the adoption of new normal changes. Besides, we are still unsure of what cybercriminals have in store for the next six months of 2020.
Although, by learning lessons from the recent data breaches, we can secure our organizations from emerging cyber threats. Here are some of the “must follow” security measures for your organization to stay secured in these unsecured times:
Educate your employees with security awareness training to help them recognize and combat emerging cyber threats.
Everyone is a storyteller at heart. Some of us develop an outlet to express our thoughts. Some of us don’t. It’s doesn’t matter if we express it or not but some stories just find their way out in the world. Every incident is a story. Every experience is a narrative. And we drive these conversations, effortlessly. Don’t we?
The incredible thing about stories is that they are not just confined to spoken or written words. They are independent of a requirement of a medium. The only components needed for a good story are- a storyteller and someone to hear that story.
I, for instance, chose to be a storyteller through motion graphics as my medium. I found the idea of breathing life into static experiences exhilarating. Everything in motion is a story in itself. The wind that blows leaves, the sound and movement that a pendulum clock makes, the chaos that rains cause in Delhi, all become my muse from time to time.
My job as a motion graphics designer is all about telling a story with pictures, sound, and videos to create an experience that is meaningful and impactful. But, like everything else in the world, it’s not an easy job. It requires a lot of thought much before I lay my hands on the tools and get into the process part.
I usually spend a lot of time in structuring a fluent storytelling flow, fretting over how to make it appear natural, and most importantly trying to not over-complicate the message. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But the good thing is I know when it works. Every time I follow a structured approach, the result comes out to be spot on. I am happy to share it with all of you, feel free to add yours to it-
Conceptualization
I can’t stress enough this very basic step. Take my words, you are forbidden to skip it. This is THE MOST important step in creating motion graphics. No matter if you are creating a 30-second clip or a 30-minute piece, you can not afford to mess with the structure. Thanks to the internet, the attention span of our users is in seconds. You only have a little time to make an impact.
As a rule of thumb, I start by fleshing out a clearly structured story. I ask myself three questions-
Who am I making this for?
What action I want users to do with this?
What emotion I want them to feel?
Once you have the answers to these questions, it will be relatively easy for you to make progress.
Storyboarding
After conceptualization, I move to create a high-level story (or, storyboarding as I call it )
On a paper, I draw stick figures to identify the core structure of the story- how they are entering/exiting/interacting, what are the transitions needed, what are the text/audio requirements, and things like that. The storyboard helps me stitch together every frame and it helps me visualize the entire story.
As I am the only motion designer on my team, I show my storyboard to my fellow designers and take their feedback. It’s always good to take other people’s inputs before you get started on the final script. I totally recommend that.
Design
Voila! Finally. This is indeed the most exciting part. Here you get to give wings to your ideas and see them come to life, piece by piece. The design part is mostly technical. You might want to use your own style here, but I always stick to our brand guidelines. So the ball is entirely in your court.
Just remember that design is not just about adding popular animation styles or fading in/fading out various scenes. It’s about stitching a cohesive story together so that it flows in the blink of an eye. The timing, the voiceover, everything has to be in perfect sync with motion.
Usability testing is like black-box testing of an application to ascertain if the product built is convenient to use and easy to learn.
These are methods of testing and observing the behavior of the users to find out what works and what doesn’t work. Users are given specific tasks to complete and when they are at work, observers watch their body language, facial expressions, emotions and encourage them to “think aloud” i.e. speak up whatever comes to their mind while using the product. By doing this exercise we can get qualitative and quantitative data and figure out usability issues with a product.
So, why usability testing is important?
Doing usability testing the right way, at right time with the right set of people reduces the risk of building the wrong product; thereby saving time, money, and other precious resources. In other words, if done at an early stage when the product is at the paper prototyping stage, it finds the problems when they are easy and cheap to fix. And when done on a product that has attained maturity it helps to understand the user’s success rate and time spent to complete a task. There are hundreds and thousands of cases when usability testing proved to be a good exercise in terms of ROI.
For example, a slight tweak in design suggested by usability testing for Mac’s UI, the company got 90% fewer support calls.
Need more clarity about why usability testing is a good idea? Here you go-
#1. To check if the product meets user’s expectations
#2. Matches business decisions to real-world use
#3. Removes flaws in the product
#4. Allows you to see how successful users are with their tasks
#5. Useful for getting user reactions and feedback about the product
What are the types of data that we can get as a result of our analysis?
Two types of data results received are — quantitative and qualitative. Usability testing is largely a qualitative research technique and is not driven by statistics like surveys where lots of people participate. Usability testing is done using a small set of people, usually five to seven.
Qualitative methods are very useful to test the stress response of the users like their body language, movement of hands, expressions on the face, and squinting eyes especially doing a test on a mobile device.
The metrics we get after usability testing can be quantitative as well. For example, time spent on doing a task, success and failure rates, and also the efforts, like how many clicks a user needs in order to complete a task.
Is there a need to record all the metrics obtained from usability testing?
Yes, keeping a record of the metrics is very important. Why? Because usability testing is not just for designers to understand how to make better designs but it is also an important tool to influence the rest of the stakeholders like clients, their sales/support team, project managers, developers, other designers, etc.
Every stakeholder involved may have a different point of view for a design decision. Being subjective by nature, design decision often leads to long debates among stakeholders. Most often design decisions are influenced by a person who holds the highest position among fellow stakeholders or has superior oratory skills.
In short, metrics help us in iterating and validating design concepts. It gives objectivity to design debates and it helps in taking fact-based design decisions.
At what phase of the design process usability testing is recommended?
When it comes to usability testing there are two terms often referred to by big names of the UX industry (like Jacob Nielsen) and these terms are Summative Test and Formative Test.
These tests are done at different stages of the design process. They are as explained below: Formative tests are low-fidelity tests (to gain quick insights)-
#1. During the very initial development phase using paper prototypes
#2. It can be done anywhere and a formal lab is not required
#3. It can be done just between a moderator and a participant
The results from a formative test may include-
#a. Users’ comments in the form of “Thinking Aloud” narrative i.e. their emotions, confusion sources and their reasons for actions.
Summative tests are high fidelity tests (to capture metrics)-
#1. These are carried out at the end of the development stage
#2. At this stage usability of a product is validated
#3. This gives an answer to the question “How usable the product is?”
#4. This gives a comparison against competitor products
#5. Conducted in usability labs or remotely using many tools available where users can do the test using their computers or mobile phones
The results from summative tests may include-
#a. User’s success rate to achieve a goal
#b. The time spent on completing a task
How many users are required to conduct the testing?
“Elaborate usability tests are a waste of resources. The best results come from testing no more than 5 users and running as many small tests you can afford”
Jacob Nielsen
“It is widely assumed that 5 participants suffice for usability testing. In this study, 60 users were tested and random sets of 5 or more were sampled from the whole, to demonstrate the risks of using only 5 participants and the benefits of using more. Some of the randomly selected sets of 5 participants found 99% of the problems; other sets found only 55%. With 10 users, the lowest percentage of problems revealed by any one set was increased to 80%, and with 20 users, to 95%.”
Laura Faulkner
Who among them is right?
It depends on what type of test we are doing and where we are doing it. For example, if we are doing low-fidelity formative testing we can do away with a small sample size. But if we are doing summative testing we need a bigger sample size. In the type of testing where we are comparing our site to a competitor’s website by using an online tool that is cheap and fast, we can use a large sample size. But we should keep in mind that these online tools like UserTesting or Loop11, don’t capture metrics. It’s us who has to be aware of how all the participants did it.
So how to prepare a test plan?
That is certainly a good question. You have an inquisitive mind, I must say. But don’t you think that will be too much to digest in one bite?
Still, if you are really into it, give these things a thought-
-Decide what areas to concentrate on
-Determine potential usability issues
-Determine what tasks you want to test
Cybercriminals do not need rocket science to entice targeted users with email scams. Even old baits like lucky draws are enough to lure targeted users into clicking on malicious links or giving away their details. This is how phishing attacks work.For those who are new to this term, a phishing attack is the most infamous form of cyberattack. It is deployed using fear tactics or social engineering strategies. Cybercriminals usually target email accounts of victims to infiltrate their personal information for malicious purposes.
These cybercriminals disguise themselves as legitimate sources to dupe email recipients. They use enticing email subject lines or message content to trick recipients into responding by either clicking a malicious link or opening attachments. Or just simply provide their sensitive information to these cyber threat actors.
The most common types of phishing emails are Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks, spear phishing, whaling, pharming, etc. To prevent falling victim to such phishing attacks, it is important to implement cybersecurity solutions.
Cybersecurity Practices to Mitigate Email Phishing Attacks
Employee Education
The first and the foremost step to stay secure against email phishing attacks is user awareness. Employees play a major role in the cybersecurity chain of an organization. Also, they are the most vulnerable link in cybersecurity and hold access to confidential information of your organization.
Therefore, turn your employees into the strongest link by educating and training them with security awareness training. Use the best in class security awareness training tools that offer phishing simulation to give your employees a real-life cyber attack experience. This would not only help them in recognizing email-based attacks but would also help in analyzing their vulnerability level.
The Dos and Don’ts
Beware of unsolicited or suspicious emails landing in your inbox. Often unexpected emails grab the attention of users by creating a sense of urgency to respond. It is better to pay attention to such emails and take precautionary measures while opening them.
For instance, if you receive an unexpected email from a known sender address, ask them personally via a different mode of communication regarding the received email. Do not click on links or attachments before verification.
Report Phishing Emails
Phishing emails mainly contain grammatical errors and spelling mistakes that can be hard to detect. They either come from odd sender addresses or manipulated legitimate email addresses. Even some phishing emails can claim to be from your bank or government organization, asking for your financial details.
It is essential to have a phishing incident response tool to learn whether the suspicious-looking email received is authentic or not. You can also get to know about the subtle manipulations done in the email by cyber threat actors by reporting on the tool.
Email Encryption
Make sure to keep your email content secured by encrypting sensitive information. Cyber threat actors are upgrading their techniques to launch phishing attacks with evolution in technology.
There are various hacking strategies that can let these cyber threat actors sniff your email content for sensitive information or message alteration. To avoid any information leak, it is better to encrypt the confidential information in the email content.
Email Domain Security
Did you know that outbound emails can be manipulated by adding malicious attachments during the email delivery process? In fact, cybercriminals can spoof your email address to send malware-laden emails on your behalf to your clients or business associates.
Therefore, it is highly crucial to ensure that all your emails are being delivered securely and your email reputation is maintained. To do so, secure your email domains with vital email authentication protocols. Implementation of DMARC record, DKIM record, and SPF record in the DNS safeguards your email domain against email spoofing and BEC attacks.
Multi-factor Authentication
Enable multi-factor authentication to protect your account against unauthorized access. If someone else gets hold of your passwords, this authentication standard notifies you of unauthorized login or suspicious activities happening from a device other than yours.
It sends a security code to your email account, phone, or other authenticator apps whenever your email account is accessed from unknown devices.
Stay Up-to-date
Phishing attacks are deployed using social engineering tactics. Cybercrooks and cybercriminals trick users into revealing their confidential information through various manipulative ways.
These malicious practices involve scareware, baiting, pretexting and much more. Keep yourself updated with what cybercriminals are up to and about their new social engineering attacks.
With these preventive cybersecurity measures, you can stay secure from phishing attacks. Experience a cyber-resilient working environment in your organization by implementing and putting into practice these cybersecurity solutions.
With technology making revolutionary advancements, the rate of cybercrime has subsequently increased in the last decade. With hackers coming up with new ways and means to trick company employees, to find a digital route into the company assets, basic knowledge on spoofing is not enough anymore.Base-level education on email spoofing includes impersonation of an organization or executive by cyber attackers to get employees to disclose their confidential information like corporate ID or password. This information thus provided enables hackers to gain easy access into the company’s databases and accounts, draining their finances, and leaking valuable data.
As per a survey conducted by Forbes magazine on email spoofing statistics, cybercriminals send out around 1.3 Billion spoofing emails every single day. Cybersecurity analysts conducted detailed studies worldwide to disclose chilling statistics on email spoofing:
22% of all data breaches in 2019 were due to email spoofing.
88% of all organizations from 2019-2020 experienced phishing attacks due to spoofed email domains.
96% of all phishing attacks are carried out via email spoofing.
56% of all hackers rely more on stolen corporate credentials from employees tricked via spoofed email domains, than malware attacks.
Hackers are moderating methods to trick users, which goes beyond just impersonating the company’s executive email domain. Sometimes, employees may even receive an email from their own email address as cybercriminals try imitating the victim itself.
This has increased the chances of falling prey to phishing attacks, dispersing confidential information, and hampering security at your workplace.
How does Email Spoofing Take Place?
Hackers and cyber attackers take a corporate email ID and create a forged email address using that ID, to give the impression that the email has been sent the exact same email domain. Cybercriminals generally make use of weak links and vulnerabilities such as poor email domain authentication protocols in the company to forge emails.
Statistics disclose that around 40% of all leading organizations lack proper email domain authentication. Email domains generally operate via SMTP, which is the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, a communication protocol that enables the transfer of mail via digital platforms.
However, SMTP is not programmed with an automated email authentication mechanism. Cybercriminals exploit this vulnerability in order to create spoofed emails by making minor changes in the IP addresses that are very difficult to track by inexperienced people.
Scanning the operating system for viruses and malware and changing the password for your email address is a temporary solution and not an effective preventive measure.
Therefore, it becomes imperative to implement certain programs and mechanisms to ensure a well-rounded protocol for email domain authentication and nullify the chances of falling prey to a phishing attack.
Solutions for Protection Against Email Spoofing
SPF ( Sender Policy Framework)
SPF or sender policy framework is a coherent system for email authentication. SPF functions by confirming and checking the sender addresses before the email is redirected into the receiver’s inbox.
This way the authenticity of the email is confirmed by checking whether the domain that the email is being delivered from has a valid IP address.
How does it work?
The IP address is matched with the DNS records of all the email domains that the organization uses for transferring mails to their respective employees.
The DNS record contains a detailed list of all the valid IP addresses for a specific email domain used by the company for the exchange of official information and communication. While the SPF record enlists all the functional email domains used by the same. If the sent email fails to match the data present in the SPF record, it is automatically classified as a forged or spoofed email.
DKIM (Domain Key Identified Mail)
Domain Key Identified Mail is a unique authentication mechanism used to check email authenticity and reduce the chances of receiving spoofed emails. DKIM functions by using a cryptographic or signature-based tool to implement efficient email domain authorization.
This, in turn, ensures that during the entire route taken by the email, from the sender to the receiver, the features of the particular email have remained unaltered. It helps the recipient confirm whether the email has been sent from the valid source or has it been impersonating the mentioned source to conduct a phishing attack. This guarantees that the data is authentic, and it comes from an authorized source.
How does it work?
DKIM has access to the DNS TXT records of the email domains of the company. When an email enters the system it is assigned a unique identification key by this mechanism, which is verified against the public key in the DNS TXT records, after which a DKIM signature is included in the email header.
The records are updated from time to time on the basis of new senders, and an unlimited amount of data can be stored. When this email enters the receiver’s server, instantly, the DKIM signature is drawn out from the email header.
The header of the mail now contains the domain name as well as a selector that incorporates the signature ( public key) of that particular email in the DNS TXT record. The public key will then be used to validate whether the data in the email has remained unaltered, and hence check for authentication.
DMARC (Domain Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance)
One of the most advanced methods implemented for email authentication is DMARC, which allows the receiver to know whether the received email is verified against the SPF and DKIM records. DMARC is a 21st-century tool which enables employees at organizations to detect spoofed emails going from their domain, independently.
DMARC is a comprehensive email authentication protocol, which keeps email domains secured by a step by step procedure for running a thorough scan on every aspect of the sender ID before the email lands in the receiver’s inbox.
How does it work?
After the email leaves the sender’s server, the SPF is verified via detailed checks run on the DNS records to match the sender’s email domain against all valid sources that the company can legally send emails via.
Furthermore, the assigned DKIM signature is also verified against the DNS records. Finally, the fate of the email depends upon the DMARC policy which can be set to “none”, “quarantine” and “ reject”.
In case of a none policy, the spoofed email lands in the inbox of the employee, in case of a quarantine policy the same is lodged into the spam box. If the DMARC policy is set to “reject”, the spoofed email is redirected into the trash bin.
A spoofed email is much more dangerous and harder to detect than a phished email since the email address in the former looks identical to the original email address. It is not possible for an employee to understand whether the received email is authentic or forged.
Therefore to gain protection from email spoofing and tackle phishing attacks, a well-rounded email authentication tool should be a part of your organization’s workplace security policy, to prevent emails from forged addresses from entering into your employees’ inboxes.
With the ever-evolving computer technologies, numerous things that once appeared to be outlandish turned into reality, for instance, online payments, internet shopping, and cryptographic forms of money. Secure online exchanges with no extra charges extraordinarily impact all the money related industry, and all this has been realised by virtue of Blockchain technology. Today, trendsetters in different fields understand the advantages of the innovation behind Blockchain. From the health industry to the stock market, numerous sectors are searching for approaches to coordinate Blockchain into their business.
Blockchain, with its decentralised and trustless nature, can prompt new chances and assist organisations through more prominent straightforwardness, upgraded security, and simpler detectability. In a Blockchain network, various modules/blocks contain information about business proceedings, exchanges, and agreements inside the framework in cryptographic structure. For instance, blocks may provide insights concerning a budgetary exchange, medicinal records, or in any event, even ballot results. All blocks are arranged in a chain and are interconnected, so as to make another block, the data of old blocks ought to be successively understood first.
In the event that you are working in the market, at that point, you should know the upsides of Blockchain innovation, i.e., its advantages. It will assist you with finding out about the up and coming changes if your business is as of now getting Blockchain or plan to actualise Blockchain later on. Let’s take a dive and explore the benefits of Blockchain:
1.“Trustless” System
In most conventional payment frameworks, exchanges are reliant on the two entities along with a mediator -, for example, a bank, Credit/Debit card provider, or payment gateway provider. Utilising Blockchain removes this compulsion on the grounds that the circulated system of nodes perform the exchanges through a procedure known as mining. Consequently, Blockchain is often alluded to as a ‘trustless’ framework. Thus, a Blockchain framework nullifies the danger of depending on a solitary association and decreases the general expenses and charges by removing mediators and outsiders.
2. Amplified Efficiency
Because of its decentralised nature, Blockchain evacuates the requirement for agents in numerous procedures for fields like payment gateways and properties. In contrast with customary budgetary services, Blockchain encourages quicker transactions by permitting P2P cross-border transactions with cryptocurrency. Real Estate Management procedures are made increasingly proficient with a merged arrangement of possession records, and keen agreements that would mechanize tenant-landlord agreements.
3. Dispersed Storage
As Blockchain technology stacks the information in various platforms on a dispersed network of nodes, the framework and the information are exceptionally impervious to errors and malware. Every single system node can copy and store a replica of the database, and consequently, there is no single probability of data loss: failure of a single node does not influence the accessibility or security of the system. Conversely, numerous traditional databases depend on one or a few servers and are highly defenceless against tech-failures and cyber-attacks.
4. Efficient Traceability
With the Blockchain record, each time trade of products is recorded on a Blockchain, a review trail is available to follow where the merchandise originated from. This not just assists in improve security and forestall misrepresentation in exchange-related organisations, yet it can likewise help confirm the genuineness of the exchanged resources. In markets such as drugs and pharmaceuticals, it tends to be utilized to follow the inventory network from maker to distributer, or in the handicrafts industry, to give an indisputable proof of possession.
5. Highly Stable
Affirmed blocked are highly improbable to be turned around, implying that once information has been enrolled into the Blockchain, it is extremely hard to expel or transform it. This makes Blockchain an extraordinary innovation for storing money related records or whatever information where a review trail is required on the grounds that each change is recorded and tracked. For instance, a business could utilise Blockchain innovation to avert fraud from its workers. In this situation, the Blockchain could give a protected and stable record of every single money related exchange that happens inside the organisation. This would make it a lot harder for a for anyone to make fraud in the records
6. Immense Transparency
The most prominent advantage of Blockchain is that it makes the transaction records immensely transparent. As Blockchain can be classified as a distributed ledger, every individual included in the network has access of the same record contrasting to individual copies. That common variant must be refreshed through accord, which implies everybody must concur on it. To change a solitary exchange record would require the modification of every single subsequent record and the plot of the whole system. Therefore, information on a Blockchain is progressively exact, steady and straightforward than when it is pushed through paper-substantial procedures. It is likewise accessible to all members who have permission for the same
7.Reduced Costs
For most organizations, cost-cutting is a crucial need. With Blockchain, you don’t require the same number of third-parties or go-betweens to safeguard processes because it doesn’t make a difference whether you believe on your exchanging accomplice or not. Rather, you simply need to confide in the information on the Blockchain. You likewise won’t need to audit such a great amount of documentation to finish an exchange since everybody will have permissioned access to a solitary, changeless variant.
8.Robust Security
Blockchain is unquestionably more secure than other record-keeping frameworks in light of the fact that each new exchange is encoded and connected to the past exchange. Blockchain, as the name proposes, is shaped by a system of computers meeting up to affirm a ‘block’ which is then added to a record or ledger, which frames a ‘chain’. Blockchain is shaped by a muddled string of scientific numbers and is cannot be changed once framed. This changeless and morally sound nature of Blockchain makes it safe from distorted data and hacks. It’s decentralised nature likewise gives it a one of a kind nature of being ‘trustless’ – implying that gatherings needn’t bother with trust to execute securely.
CONCLUSION
Blockchain innovation exhibits some remarkable focal points, and it is unquestionably digging in for the long haul. Blockchain is a progressive innovation with a tremendous effect on each industry out there. Our emphasis was uniquely on the primary divisions so you can relate and comprehend its points of interest. Permitting advanced data to be distributed, but not be duplicated, the Blockchain innovation made the establishment of a novel Internet. The system was initially created for digital money — Bitcoin — however, the specialised network is at present searching for other potential utilisation of this innovation. We, despite everything, have a long way to go for standard reception, yet numerous ventures are finding a good pace with the Blockchain frameworks. The following few years will probably observe organisations and governments exploring different avenues regarding new applications to discover where Blockchain innovation can be the most beneficial. We trust that at this point, you have comprehended the significance of the Blockchain.
Picking the right technology stack can be overwhelming for any founder of the company, especially for someone who does not have a tech background. One can have a hard time finding the right set of tools and frameworks used in software development that can ensure the best performance of the product. Every application has different needs, hence the initial choice is important to ensure that the final product will deliver the best user experience. This article will help anyone with a non-coding background understand how to choose the best tech stack for a startup.
What is the tech stack?
A tech stack is a combination of tools and frameworks used in software development. Simply put, it’s a set of programming languages, frameworks, and tools used in developing web and mobile applications.
The two primary pieces of a technology stack are front-end and back-end software frameworks.;
The front-end runs on the user’s client, which in the case of the web application is a web browser, while the back-end runs on the server that delivers data or web pages to the client. While back-end interacts with the database and creates web pages, front-end provides interactive web pages using JavaScript.
The Front-end
Front-end development incorporates everything a user sees on-screen, a website or a mobile app. There are three vital frontend tech stack components available:
Google’s AngularJS and Facebook’s React.js are the most popular web front-end stacks used by developers.
AngularJS
Google’s AngularJS is an open-source MVC framework majorly used for the development of single-page applications. It is a developing structure that gives better approaches to creating web applications by changing the static HTML to dynamic HTML. Striking attributes like dynamic binding, POJO model, MVC Architecture, and dependency injection wipe out the requirement for code that was initially crucial. AngularJS is growing exponentially with the recent advancements in its latest versions.
There are several reasons to use AngularJS, some of them being:
Can effortlessly create Rich Internet Applications
Open-source
Cross-browser
Enables developers to make front end apps utilizing JavaScript in a clean MVC approach.
Unit-testable code
Reusability of code
Facilitates data-binding in HTML
Dependency Injection (DI)
ReactJS
Facebook’s ReactJS is an efficient, flexible, and declarative JavaScript library for building user interfaces. It is a component-based, open-source front-end library responsible for only the view layer of an application. It uses a declarative paradigm and aims at being efficient and flexible. React designs simple views for each state in your application, and will update the right component when the data changes. Additionally, the declarative view makes the code more predictable and more comfortable to debug. ReactJS is a warehouse of features, and there’s no way you cannot like it. Its benefits include:
Simple: ReactJS is simple to learn and build a web or mobile application. React uses a syntax called JSX, which allows developers to mix HTML with JavaScript but this is not a requirement. The developer can write in plain JavaScript also.
Reusability: In React, extensive code reusability is supported. By building components, most of the code repetition can be eliminated.
Mobile Apps: React Native allows the developer to create cross-platform native apps. React native can be easily picked by React developer, and with the use of proper data management tools (like redux), a lot of React website code can be used in Apps.
Testability: ReactJS applications are very easy to test.
The Back-end
The backend, which is likewise called server-side, stays undetectable and not open to clients. It gives a spine to the application. The most widely recognized parts of the backend are programming languages, for example, Ruby and Python; libraries and systems, for example, Ruby on Rails and Django; and a JavaScript runtime env, for example, Node.js. Choosing the right backend technology can be a daunting task, yet it can be simplified by considering the following factors:
1. Size and complexity of the project
Simple applications on tight deadlines, particularly MVPs, require a distinct methodology in comparison to big projects with heaps of capacities. In any case, in the event that you figure you may need to upscale, later on, pick an adaptable stack that permits you to develop.
2. The kind of project
Data-intensive applications, booking frameworks, person to person communication applications, streaming applications, CMS, IoT, FinTech applications, and straightforward MVPs will probably require diverse stacks.
3. The expense
Remember that a few technologies are open-source and free for business use, which is just one point on the endless rundown of the favourable pointers that open-source gives to both the developers and stakeholders. Others are authorized and paid. Likewise, developers’ rates vary according to the technology they specialize in. The stacks that are considered as a speciality can be expensive. Also, remember that the release doesn’t mark the end of work on the application – you have to look after, update, and conceivably upscale it.
The Top Back-End Technologies Available:
It remains a staggeringly hard task to express the contrasts between programming languages since all programming languages have their military of backers who will decline any analysis about their language of decision. Thereby it is vital not just to comprehend the contrasts between programming languages but to know what a wrong decision while choosing a backend technology has on a project. Below listed are the top-performing backend languages which will help you stay within the circle of success.
PHP
PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is an open-source back-end scripting language used by developers to build web apps and sites. It is a cross-platform scripting language that can be utilized to create apps that seamlessly run on all the Operating Systems. It is one of the fastest programming languages and facilitates the creation of websites that load quickly. PHP also has a huge assortment of utilitarian modules and a couple of the modules accessible in PHP incorporate Graphics and PDF, among others. One of the greatest advantages of PHP is that it is very easy to learn and use because of its simple syntax. Anyone who is familiar with C language can easily grasp PHP without any difficulty.
Python
Curated by Guido van Rossum and rolled-out in 1991, Python is an interpreted, cutting-edge, general-purpose programming language. It reduces the need of coding to a very significant level and has high utility because of the presence of third-party modules. Not just that, but the high extensibility of python enables you to write a few pieces of code in other languages like C++ and C#. The ease of use and extensive libraries offer back-end developers more productivity as compared to other programming languages. Not just for building basic applications like desktop apps, Oss, Business Apps, and web frameworks, but Python is also the best fit for AI and ML-based web development.
Ruby
Ruby is the programming language that is utilized accompanied by Rails. Ruby is to Rails as PHP is to Zend, or as Python is to Django. The sheer class and finesse of the language are what attract the back-end developers towards this language and make it a must-have in your tech stack. The most exceptional feature of Ruby is that it prioritizes conventions rather than configuration, which helps the back-end developers as they don’t have to waste their precious development time in configuring the files to start the development process. It comes pre-configured, which saves a lot of time and speeds up the development process.
Java
Java is an object-oriented, platform-independent, general-purpose programming language that is designed to have negligible implementation reliance. As a result of Java’s power, convenience, cross-stage capacities, and security highlights, it has become the most preferred language among developers. y. Java Virtual Machine has a remarkable identifier that distinguishes the bytecode and confirms it before running it. It has the component of the Stack designation framework. It follows LIFO (Last in First Out) which causes the information to be put away and recovered effectively. Java is one of the programming languages that support Multithreading which is the capacity for a program to play out multiple errands at the same time inside a program.
C# / Visual Basic
C# is a platform-independent, Java Based programming language whose syntax is similar to C++. It is an object-oriented language and does not support multiple inheritances, just like Java. It takes great advantage of the design of the .Net. Microsoft has built a pair of flexible business back-end solutions called Asp.Net and Core that are written in C# or Visual Basic.
JavaScript
Node.js is a back-end solution written in JavaScript that has been trending for several years. Being written in JavaScript gives it an edge over others because with this developers can work in the same language for both the front-end and back-end of a project. Moreover, it has also been proven efficient at scaling up applications to handle large user bases.
Factors to consider while choosing the right tech stack
Availability of resources
The accessibility of human resources who can work on your project is one of the most characterizing variables that will impact your organization’s tech stack. Assure if your developers will be able to work efficiently with the tech stack that you have chosen. Assume you select a tech stack that isn’t based on a common programming language. In such a case the process of finding a developer who can work on the language can be a daunting task in itself.
Budget
Budget is undoubtedly a deciding factor for your tech stack. If you choose a technology which does not have abundant specialists in the market, you might have to pay them extra. Moreover, choosing a paid technology over open-source technology can also be a concern while working on your project. Therefore, draft your budget and plan your tech stack accordingly.
Phase
The requirements of the tech stack for your business might change as your business scales up or a new issue arises. Therefore it is vital to comprehend what phase you are at and choose the stack accordingly. If you are a start-up, you would be looking at technology that is open-source and easy to utilize along with easy accessibility of human resources. On the other hand, if you are an established business, you might require enterprise-grade technology which can handle more complex issues.
Requirements
While framing a tech stack for your company, it is crucial to comprehend the needs of your project. You must understand what does your audience expect from you and what are their major requirements. If your project requires complex numerical analysis, you might want to go for Python, however, if you are more concerned with the aesthetics of your project and it does not have to do much, you must work with some other technology.
Robustness
New technologies come every day and the old ones perish. Therefore it is very important to choose a technology for your tech stack that is time tested and has a big community that can help you in case you get stuck.
Safety
Ensure that the application is created remembering the prescribed procedures of security. It is vital to run security tests on both customer and server to kill the regular security dangers. Toward the end, settle on a decision that works best for your business. You can pick the innovation to go with, in light of your business objectives, necessities and the assets you can bear.
What are the benefits of choosing the right stack?
The technology utilized in your task can highly affect how it functions and how it will act later on. For instance, some server frameworks are made for high-read activities, however, are less proficient with regards to high-write traffic. That is something essential to know whether you’re changing your application from local file storage to cloud file storage. Your tech stack can likewise impact the versatility of your item. Certain stacks will better serve various activities. Since such a large number of various mixes are feasible for your tech stack, it’s troublesome (if not difficult) to sum up. Be that as it may, getting acquainted with the qualities and shortcomings of your tech stack before you begin assembling your item will assist you with taking advantage of the qualities and moderate the shortcomings.
Once you have settled on the right tech stack, it will ease the whole documentation process and all the future bugs and errors will be easier to rectify for the same reason.
Choosing the right tech stack and working on it for a long time will establish your team’s expertise on it which will amplify your brand image
Settling on the right tech stack has an added benefit that you can work with the same team for multiple projects.
Having the right tech stack minimises errors and increases efficiency.
What are the drawbacks of choosing the wrong stack?
If you end up settling for a wrong tech stack, it can be a huge mistake for your company as well as for your clients:
Choosing a wrong tech stack may lead to incompatible and unnecessary dependencies.
It can result in Dry-schema and Dry-validation misunderstandings
Problems with ROM.rb and Sequel (Database) might occur.
A wrong tech stack might hinder your testing process.
You might face difficulty in hiring the right professionals if the technology chosen by you is not widely used. Your tech stack may become unsustainable or unscalable.
Hence, it is very important that you find a company that knows what they are doing, and Anteelois one such company.;
The services we specialise in:
1. Frontend Development
We provide services for “client-side programming,” i.e., frontend development. We believe in creating user-friendly experiences for all our clients. Our list of tools cover Angular, React, Vue, Jquery, SASS, Bootstrap, HTML 5 and CSS 3. Our team ensures that your customer’s experience is delightful and easy to use.
2. Backend Growth
We prioritize web backend & development services and the services we deliver are comprehensive. The backend tools that we use to make your website proficient and interactive are Laravel, NodeJS, PHP, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, AWS, Redis, Firebase and Elasticsearch. Our key quality is our attention to each detail that our clients provide.
The Various Services Anteelo Provides:
1. App Development Services
In this age of digitalization, every business needs to make an online dent. And for you to achieve that we ensure that our team of professional app developers build a mobile app that suits your business needs and demands. For a successful business app it is important that you develop your mobile application for all crucial platforms like iOS and Android and our team can help you with that
2. Web Development Services
We firmly believe that a great website has the potential to convert visitors into customers. A good website can do wonders for your business. Therefore, we help companies create websites and web applications that help them take their business online. We understand that each of our clients has a different business goal so we customize our services accordingly to meet all the expectations.;
3. DevOps Services
At Anteelo our team of AWS experts can manage anything from a new to existing cloud infrastructure for you. We will provide you with the right architecture, organized management and regular optimization and improvements on services. Moreover, with our use of high-quality tools and the latest technology, we promise to deliver the best overall experience to you and your users.
CONCLUSION
At the end of the day, it is up to you to make a choice that works best for your startup. You should choose the best technology stack after thoroughly analyzing your requirements, business goals, and resources. What suits someone might not always suit you and vice versa. The choice of a technology stack is very personal and varies from organization to organization. Having a clear view of your requirements would ease the entire process of choosing the right tech stack for your company. Discuss your goals and requirements with your team and choose a tech stack that compliments your company and its business procedures.
Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets (Sass) is the world’s most potent and stable CSS extension language. It is a preprocessor scripting language influenced by YAML, CSS, and Haml. Sass is compatible with all CSS versions and extends its use through mechanisms like nesting, variables, mixins, selector inheritance.
Sass is a CSS pre-processor that aides in lessening reiteration with CSS and thereby spares time. It is viewed as progressively steady and ground-breaking when contrasted with CSS. It portrays the style of a record unmistakably and fundamentally. It helps in completing work in a quicker and better way. With every one of its highlights, it is, for the most part, preferred over CSS. It permits factors to be characterized which can start with a $ symbol. The variable task should be possible by utilising a colon. It likewise underpins intelligent settling which CSS doesn’t. SASS empowers the client to have settled code which can be embedded inside one another.
Designed by Hampton Catlin, SASS is a style sheet language it stands for Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets. It is a pre-processor scripting language that can be interpreted or accumulated into Cascading style sheets. It is a progressively steady and incredible variant of CSS which basically portrays the style of any record. SASS is a simple augmentation to CSS. It incorporates new highlights like factors, settled guidelines, mixins, inline imports, worked in capacities which help in the control of shading and different qualities. All these are totally great with CSS.
How does it work?
To get the code, you should utilize SASS pre-processor. It helps in making an interpretation of the SASS code to CSS. This procedure is known as transpiring (unfolding). It is like arranging and compiling yet, here, as opposed to changing over the human, relatable code to machine code, the interpretation is done starting with one comprehensible language then onto the next. The transpiring from SASS to CSS is simple. All factors which are characterized in SASS are supplanted by values in CSS. This makes it simple to make and keep up various CSS records for your application.
Both the sass CLI tool and the scout application work by viewing your SCSS style sheets for changes as you take a shot at them, at that point naturally aggregating them into standard CSS when you save them. The catalogue where your Sass records live is known as the “input folder”. Your handled CSS records are saved to the output folder. These organizers can be settled/nested inside each other; truth be told, an ordinary example is for the input folder (which for the most part is called “SCSS,” however you can name it whatever you like) to live within your site’s customary stylesheets folder.
Organizations that desire to go a step beyond traditional CSS based web development look up to Sass to build feature-rich, customizable, and scalable web apps. If you need to introduce a higher level of advancement in your web app development methodology, Sass is the way to go.
Are you looking for a little help? Anteelo is here!
Anteelo is the best Web Development Company in India, specializing in Sass development. Centred in Gurgaon, we have a rich client-base extending all across the globe, and we’re home to an incredibly talented team of Sass developers. Over the years, our experts have delivered a broad range of Sass web development services to various clients across different verticals and helped them realize their business goals.
Key benefits of joining hands with Anteelo
Professional and experienced Sass developers
Customer-centric Sass development
The strict upholding of industry-wide best practices
Commitment to timelines
Primary Sass Web Development Services we offer
Sass Web Development
Sass powered websites are highly scalable and secure. Going a step beyond normal Sass web development, Anteelo assists you in building out-of-the-box web apps that are goal-oriented. Our full spectrum of services includes understanding business objectives, client undertakings, as well as data configuration.
Sass Application Development
We are a hub of ideas, and our talented teams are well-versed with Sass. They are adept in understanding client requirements and curating applications according to them. If you’ve been looking for end-to-end app development using the latest Sass technology, Anteelo is the technology partner of choice.
Sass Version Upgrade
If you wish to upgrade your existing Sass application to the latest version, we can offer hassle-free solutions. Migrations can be painful and challenging if you don’t have the right tech-team to support you. With us having your back, you can let go of all worries. We are well-versed with Sass version upgrades and migrations, and we can help you accomplish the task in a risk-free manner.
Sass Consulting
Excited about Sass but have no idea how to begin on the path? Contact us to get expert consultation. We have a keen ear to listen to client needs and understand diverse requirements. We can help you chart the right course of action for your next planned Sass project.
DevOps is the fusion of social thinking approach, practices, and apparatuses that builds an association’s capacity to deliver products and service at high pace: developing and adapting products at a quicker speed than businesses utilising customary software development and infrastructure management procedures. This speed empowers companies to give their customers comprehensive services and stay ahead of their contemporaries. DevOps is the posterity of agile software development – conceived from the need to stay inline with augmented programming speed, and throughput agile strategies have accomplished. Development in agile culture and approaches over the past few years revealed the requirement for a more universal approach for the end-to-end software delivery lifecycle.
Who is a DevOps Engineer?
DevOps Engineer is a professional who comprehends the Software Development Lifecycle and has the inside and out knowledge of different automation technologies for creating advanced pipelines (like CI/CD). DevOps Engineers works with designers and the IT team to manage the code discharges. They are either designer who gets inspired by deployment and network operations or system admins who have an interest in scripting and coding and move into the development side where they can planning of testing and deployment.
In DevOps, there is a need to have a continuous and gradual change in the code so that testing and deployment are conceivable. It probably won’t be persistently feasible for DevOps Engineers to do the coding from the start again and again; in that case, they need to know about it. There is a need for DevOps Engineers to associate different components of coding alongside libraries and programming advancement packs and incorporate different parts of SQL data management or various messaging tools for running programming release and deployments with OS and the production foundation. This article walks you through the skills required to be a DevOps Engineer:
1. Knowledge of Prominent Automation Tools
DevOps is continually evolving. To guarantee that your DevOps abilities are up to the mark, you should keep yourself updated with the best DevOps tools. These DevOps tools facilitate faster bug fixes and improved operational support, along with increased team flexibility and agility. They result in happier and more engaged teams and promote cross-skilling, self-improvement and collaborative working. The top DevOps tools are:
a) Bamboo: Bamboo has numerous pre-assembled functionalities that will assist you to automate your delivery pipeline, from builds to deployment. you needn’t bother with that numerous modules with Bamboo, as it does numerous things out-of-the-box with fewer yet more efficient modules.
b) Docker: Docker has been one of the most significant DevOps apparatuses out there. Docker has made containerisation mainstream in the tech world, mostly because it makes disseminated development conceivable and computerises the deployment of your applications. It separates applications into discrete holders, so they become convenient and increasingly secure.
c) Git: Git is one of the most renowned DevOps tools and is extensively used across the DevOps industry. It’s a distributed source code management tool that is highly appreciated by remote team members, freelancers, and open-source contributors. Git enables you to track the progress of your development work.
d) Jenkins: It is a reliable and most trusted automation tool for a great number of DevOps teams across the globe. It’s an open-source CI/CD server that enables the engineers’ to mechanise various phases of the delivery pipeline. Its vast plugin ecosystem has made it a very renowned and popular tool. As of now, it offers more than 1,000 plugins and still counting, and so it integrates with majority DevOps tools.
e) Raygun: Spotting bugs and finding execution issues is a fundamental need of the DevOps procedure. Raygun is an application execution observing tool that can assist you with discovering bugs and find execution issues through continuous checking.
f) Gradle: Gradle is a developer fabricated tool that is utilized by tech-biggies like Google to assemble applications and is displayed in a manner that is extensible in most elementary ways. For instance, Gradle can be utilized for native development with C/C++ and can likewise be extended to cover other programming languages and platforms.
g) Ansible: Ansible is an open-source application development, config management, and programming provisioning tool that can run on UNIX-based frameworks just as Windows-based frameworks. This DevOps tool designs a framework for software development and furthermore automatic deployment and delivery.
h) Kubernetes: While the Docker permits you to run applications in compartments, Kubernetes goes above and beyond by permitting engineers to run holders in a group in a protected way. With Kubernetes, designers can consequently oversee, screen, scale, and convey cloud-native applications. Kubernetes works as an amazing orchestrator that oversees communication among units and directs them as a group.
Puppet:
A puppet is a renowned tool utilized for configuration management. It is an open-source stage that has a decisive language depicting its framework arrangement. It can run on an assortment of frameworks, including Unix-based frameworks, IBM centralized server, macOS Servers, Cisco switches, and Microsoft Windows. It is basically used to pull strings on various application servers without a moment’s delay.
Elk Stack
Elk Stack is a mix of three open-source ventures – Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana that is helpful to gather bits of knowledge into your log information. With its downloads exceeding millions, Elk Stack is one of the most well-known management platforms. It is a superb DevOps tool for associations that need centralized logging framework. It accompanies a ground-breaking and flexible innovation stack that can streamline the outstanding burden of tasks and furthermore offer you business insights for no extra cost.
2.Programming Skills and a basic understanding of Scripting Languages
A DevOps Engineer need not be a coding expert but must have the fundamental knowledge of coding and scripting. These languages are mostly utilized in designing the automation processes and to achieve continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD). Top DevOps Programming Languages are:
C: In this internet era, the majority of the code is written in C, and different languages reuse a significant number of its modules to facilitate the programming experience. Learning C is substantial so as to have the elementary knowledge of coding and to work on KVM and QEMU ventures.
JavaScript: The entire world wide web is the offspring of JavaScript. Many of the most well-known systems and libraries are written in JavaScript, from Angular to React and Node. Back end execution isn’t the only thing that this language brings to the table: the monstrous network of engineers implies that there’s consistently help accessible on GitHub or Stack Overflow. JavaScript is a sure thing for engineers.
Python: It has been utilized to fabricate cloud infrastructure tasks and assists web applications through systems like Django. Python is an agreeable all-purpose with a wide scope of utility. Python additionally upholds great programming rehearses through its elaborate prerequisites, which guarantees that code composed by one individual will be understandable to another- – a significant element in a DevOps world, where visibility should be constant.
Ruby: Ruby advantages from an enormous assortment of community-produced modules that anybody can incorporate into applications to add usefulness without composing new code themselves. It empowers an entirely adaptable way to deal with programming and doesn’t anticipate that designers should adopt a specific strategy to compose code.
Information on different automation tools isn’t sufficient as you should also know where to utilize these. These automation tools ought to be utilized so as to encourage Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery. Continuous integration and Continuous Delivery are the procedures where your development squad includes constant code changes that are pushed in the principle branch while guaranteeing that it doesn’t affect any progressions made by designers working parallelly.
4.Software Security
DevSecOps (Security DevOps) has emerged as one of the tech buzzwords in the previous year for a reason being that DevOps helps in creating and deploying programs way more quickly, it likewise makes a lot of vulnerabilities, since security groups can’t stay aware of the quicker cycle. Basically, not just excellent code but bugs and malware can also be sent a lot quicker at this point. Presenting DevOps without having culminated security forms in the IT-association is a catastrophe waiting to happen. Accordingly, DevOps ought to have the fundamental programming security aptitudes to have the option to bring security into the SDLC directly off the bat.
5. Efficient Testing Skills
DevOps is gigantically affected by how well testing is done in a tech-based company. You can’t robotize the DevOps pipeline if effective constant testing, the procedure of executing automatic tests, isn’t set up. Continuous testing ensures that each computerized trial gets executed the way it should, or there is a huge risk of pushing faulty code straight away to clients, which isn’t acceptable.
6.Soft Skills
In addition to the fact that DevOps requires solid abilities like coding and robotization, yet it additionally requires such delicate aptitudes as adaptability, self-inspiration, and sympathy. A DevOps engineer is somebody who constructs associations and mitigates bottlenecks, which is achieved by conversing with individuals. Correspondence and cooperation are the abilities that can represent the moment of truth for a DevOps Engineer in any association. They ought to see how the association runs, who the individuals who oversee it are, and what the association’s way of life is to abstain from making conflict focuses and limitations.
Role of a DevOps Engineer
DevOps professionals come from a multitude of IT backgrounds and begin the role in different places in their careers. Generally, the role of a DevOps engineer is not as easy as it appears. It requires looking into seamless integration among the teams, successfully and continuously deploying the code. The DevOps approach to software development requires recurring, incremental changes, and DevOps Engineers seldom code from scratch. However, they must understand the fundamentals of software development languages and be thorough with the development tools utilized to make a new code or update the existing one.
A DevOps Engineer works alongside the development team to handle the coding and scripting expected to associate the components of the code, for example, SDKs or libraries and coordinate different parts, for example, informing tools or SQL DBMS that is required to run the product discharge with OSs and generation framework. They ought to be able to deal with the IT framework as per the sustained software code devoted to multi-tenant or hybrid cloud environments. There’s a need to have a provision for required assets and for obtaining the suitable organisation model, approving the launch and checking execution. DevOps Engineers could either be the network engineers who have moved into the coding area or the designers who have moved into operations. In any case, it is a cross-function job that is seeing an immense hike in the manner software is developed and deployed in object-critical applications.
Conclusion:
DevOps isn’t very hard to understand. It just requires a person to have a ton of hard and soft skills. DevOps specialists ought to have the option to do a great deal on the tech side of things — from utilizing explicit DevOps devices and overseeing framework in the cloud to composing secure code and checking mechanization tests. They ought to be people who are passionate about what they do and who are prepared to convey the gigantic measures of significant worth. They ought to be interested and proactive, compassionate and self-assured, solid and reliable. They ought to have the option to place clients’ needs over their teams’ needs and make a move when required. The DevOps job isn’t simple, yet it is absolutely justified, despite all the trouble to turn into a DevOps. To take things off the ground, check what number of the DevOps aptitudes highlighted in this article you have. On the off chance that you come up short on some of them, be proactive and start adapting at the present time!
Mobile phones have contributed immensely to the progression of technological advancements. They’re no longer simple communication devices; they’re serving a pivotal role in business, entertainment, communication, and routine tasks of daily life. All this is possible because of mobile application. In the current era, we can easily find an app for every purpose – business, medical assistance, booking a ticket, paying online, games, education, cooking, shopping, or anything. You name it, and they have it. These apps help users from managing daily tasks to planning significant events; they also help promote business and ease communication between sellers and consumers.
The real problem
The real problem here is that users often don’t know what exactly they want. They are not aware of the concept of good application design, except the ones having slight knowledge of designing. One would never hear users praising the excellent design of an application; however, a poorly designed or poorly performing app would stick out like a sore thumb. So for a designer and a developer, the goal is to come up with an “unnoticeable design.”
On that note, let’s take a look at some of the most common mobile app design mistakes. That designers make, which causes an app to become negatively noticed by users.
Top mobile app design mistakes
1. A Poor First Impression
The first look and appeal of an app are critical to attracting a potential user. A user makes a perception about the features and working of an application with his first experience of using it. If something seems confusing or dull, the user might not even give it a second try. Thus, the App Development Company must create an engaging first impression with a user-friendly UI.
Displaying relevant information on the first screen is very important. All the necessary icons like login, logout, the home page, help section, contact information, or any other important features should have their icons on the very first screen. Whatever the app is related to, its key functionalities should be reachable without any complexity.
Other than that, one prime factor that contributes to an excellent first impression is an app’s loading time. If it takes too much time to open the app or load any key feature, users get bored and lose interest. Thirdly, the colour scheme of an app should also align with its purpose. For example, an app used for professional purposes should not have a funky colour scheme, and entertainment-related apps should not be dull or boring. Colours should be bright and solid, or the users might get bored and have a terrible first experience.
2. Poor Information Architecture (IA)
Most designers don’t spend enough time to design a proper information infrastructure for their app. That means the app should have easy access to information; this involves analyzing the most used or required features by users and making them visible in front. This concept is called “Prioritizing based on popularity.”
If you are developing an app with an already existing idea, it would be easier for you to identify the user’s priority by doing a little research. But if you are developing an app for a new business idea, you might not be aware of what users like most. So a designer should be capable of identifying this through his wisdom and experience, or they can release a prototype of the app and collect feedback from users. After that, they can implement the changes in their next release or update.
3. Lack of Design Consistency
Having a consistent design is a significant factor in designing an app’s UI. That means the font type should be the same within the whole app, the layout should be subtle, all icons should be placed correctly, and changing screens should change the visuals. Also, the text should be readable throughout the application.
Maintaining consistency throughout the app is the real trick for a designer. If needed, a little bit of inconsistency can be entertained if appropriately done; for example, highlighting some text or image, placing a great animation or advertisement. But these changes should align with the context of the app. Having a consistent design prevents users from getting confused and help in enhancing their experience.
4. Ambiguous CTA Positioning
“Call To Action” buttons are placed on websites and apps to help and prompt users to take the next step. The positioning of CTAs on webpages not only affects lead capture for businesses but also directly impacts the user experience. To take full advantage of these buttons, designers must ensure that they correctly place them on the screen, and all their aspects are clearly defined. The action of these buttons is mostly mentioned through text placed strategically on them. Care should be taken to make the CTA text as clear and understandable for the user as possible.
5. Too Many Features
Having too many features within a single app is also not a suggested practice. It could make your app slow and congested, and it affects the overall performance of your app. It causes:
Complexity
A slow loading UI
Both of these issues could cause you the loss of potential users instantly. So it is best to have fewer features and serve them correctly. If having too many features is the requirement of your business, you can primarily offer a version with basic and primary functionality to gain the trust of users, and later, you can include new features in future updates.
6. Absence of Default Values
Default values can save noteworthy client exertion in dull assignments, for example, filling in a similar form multiple times. Recognizing key values for form fields can build profitability and decrease annoyance. Your analytics can assist you with the comprehension if there is a most frequently picked choice for a particular field.
Specifically, dropdown menus profit by a relevant default. Numerous applications give “Choose One” as the default decision, compelling each client to communicate with the dropdown and select a value. On the contrary, if you preselect one value (the most used one), probably a few clients won’t need to associate with that dropdown at all.
7. Excessive use of Modals
Numerous applications utilize modal windows to execute communications with information — altering a current thing, including another item, erasing, or in any event, perusing extra insights regarding an item. Modals show up over the current page and the background content is normally darkened (under the presumption that diminishing will decrease interruptions and assist clients with concentrating on the current task). Sadly, this design lessens the options for clients by concealing data that they may wish to allude to while filling the form. (Note that, regardless of whether the concealed window doesn’t contain data required for the editing, clients frequently endeavour to use the work they’ve done beforehand, by copying and pasting past sources of info.)
8. Irrelevant Information
Long series of letters and digits, for example, consequently produced IDs in a database are as often used to exceptionally distinguish an item in an application. These strings are totally insignificant to clients, yet they are frequently shown as the primary section of a table, compelling individuals to check past that first segment to discover the data that they care about. While these good for nothing lists are significant towards the backend, they aren’t supposed to be shown to the users. Particularly in high–data density screens, give some comprehensible data as the primary stay point and push the IDs to a less visible position.
Why do users uninstall mobile apps?
According to statistics, more than 91 billion apps were downloaded from Android and iOS app stores in 2017. It counts 13 apps per person on the entire planet. These stats have only increased since then, and users are getting dependent on these automated solutions. But it does not end here; research also shows that on average, users delete and app within 90 days of its download. Most apps are not opened more than two or three times within 30 days of downloading and are deleted without serving their purpose. The reason behind this is not the user. Users don’t download apps with the intention of not using them. Other factors frustrate them, and they get rid of apps. These factors mostly include poor performance and intricate app design. When an app doesn’t meet the user’s expectations, they switch to another one. And that’s because all that matters is comfort and ease for them.
That is why, while developing an application, it is essential to pay ample attention to its UI design. The goal should be to keep it as simple as possible, the colours should be soft and pleasant to the eyes, and the performance should be up to the mark. That would make an app popular among its users.
CONCLUSION
Despite the fact that the field of mobile application designing has progressed significantly from its initial arrangement, 2020 is expected to see an extraordinary increase in the number of both great and terrible applications. Indeed, even the apps which make it in 2020, there’s no assurance they will cut in 2021. It’s all about steady change. Designers need to continue updating their knowledge about user patterns and the user-psychology that drives these practices. The most important thing to be taken care of while designing an app is to think from a user’s perspective. Don’t choose or reject a colour, font, or design because you like or dislike it. Instead, research and go for what is trending. You can experiment by adding new things to your app to avoid mobile app design mistakes, but changing the whole designing rules is not recommended. It confuses users as they might have got along with the traditional practices, and your experiment could prove to be a big disaster. What works for others will undoubtedly work for you too.
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