As the owner of a major ecommerce store, you must try to use your resources to appeal to as many potential customers as possible within a specific amount of time. One of the best ways to achieve this goal would be to have a customized ecommerce business app that can promote your business in the best possible manner. While at one point of time, businesses only focused on establishing a strong market name and for that they invested in having their very own website. However, the needs of an ecommerce business have somewhat changed over the years and currently it is considered a major necessity for any online store business to have a well developed mobile apps.
There are a number of factors for which you should consider having a custom built app for your ecommerce business. Some of them are discussed below in brief.
Apps For Ecommerce Business Can Help To Promote Your Company
Statistics have shown that while using their smartphones, people explore sites in browsers only for about 8% of times. For the rest 92% of cases, they prefer to use mobile apps. Hence unless an enterprise has a well developed app to represent its interests, it is likely to lose out on a major part of its business. Apps not only help to engage new prospective customers but they also help in effectively communicating with the existing customers about the central goals and aims of the business. Moreover, having an app to represent your company actually allows you to promote your brand in the best possible way. However, without the app you are actually losing out on a lot of opportunities to promote your company in a subtle but effective way.
Mobile Apps Can Boost Your Sales
It has been found that mobile apps serve as excellent ways to increase your sales figures within a short span of time. Most ecommerce companies that start using mobile apps for their business observe a sharp rise in their business figures within a short time. In many cases, the rise in sales can go up as high as 20% to 30%. Additionally, customers who shop with the ecommerce store also get back within a period of 30 days to do their next shopping with the ecommerce store. It has been found that about 62% of all online traffic that comes from smartphone usage depends a lot on the response generated from the mobile apps. Due to this reason, it is necessary that companies invest wisely and generously on creating apps for their ecommerce business.
UX or user experience plays a very critical role in making sure that the customers keep on visiting your online portal and using the products and services that your company has to offer. The sphere of digital user experience includes a number of things such as visual appeal, user features and ease of use just to name a few. You should also focus on improving the loading speed of your site as it can play a very important role in determining the success of your site. It has been found that about 40% of users are likely to leave in case the content takes more than three seconds to load. Other factors that deter customers away from using your site include complex user experience problems, limited features as well as complicated checkout process. Negative mobile experience can not only force a customer to leave your site but it can also lead them to buy their goods from a competitor’s site.
Most users prefer to use mobile apps instead of mobile websites since they are more convenient, offer great speed and an easy checkout process. They can also help to personalize the overall experience that they might have while interacting with a mobile app. Since changes and improvements made in the user experience can reduce your bounce rate, ensure optimum customer engagement and increase sales conversions, most companies nowadays choose to invest in creating apps for their online ecommerce businesses.
Ecommerce Is Categorized Into Six Major Types They Are:
eCommerce development and its applications is an unavoidable sector in the present day today life. Given below are the most common eCommerce applications.
Ecommerce Apps Can Convert Simple Customers Into Ardent Fans Of Your Brand
While you need customers to ensure greater financial returns for your company, you need to retain them for the long term if you are to make the most of what they have to offer. In fact, you need to have a proper customer base if you are looking to solidify your position in a highly competitive market for the long haul. With the help of a mobile app that represents your business, you can do just that and focus on increasing the prospects of your company for the long term. You can use your apps to send push notifications to your customers which in turn can propel them to take actions that can benefit your business enterprise.
In the recent times, it has been found that push notifications are highly effective when it comes to boosting customer retention and reducing the chances of cart abandonment rates. They can also provide customers with a potential marketing channel that they can use in a number of different ways. These notifications help to engage the buyers, propel them into buying the products that the ecommerce business has to offer and also retain longstanding interest on the brand for years to come. The ecommerce apps also serve as a great platform for studying customer behavior. The metrics obtained from studying customer behavior through ecommerce apps can help your company to come up with better methods to serve your customers.
Mobile Apps Are Now A Highly Popular Way To Promote A Business
With the widespread usage of mobile apps in the modern times, companies that do not have apps of their own seem negligible or unimportant in the eyes of potential customers. Apps can not only turn customers into loyal fans of a brand but they can also generate positive user experience for a brand and encourage more number of sales. It is in keeping with such factors that mobile apps have become so important for eCommerce businesses.
New UX/UI mobile application design trends come every year. There is a reason behind that. When most of the players begin to follow a specific trend, it becomes inefficient due to oversaturation. So, the designers should keep a check on the trends always to offer new things to their clients while business owners should check them as they work as a source of ideas for their business or brand development.
LIST OF THE TOP TEN UX/UI MOBILE APPLICATION DESIGN TRENDS IN 2021:
Dark Mode
Dark Mode is a top UI/UX design trend. It offers a modern, stylish, and elegant look. Since its launch, Dark Mode has been becoming famous and it’s here to remain forever. This mode lets users switch their background theme to the dark mode or light when they want. To allow this, an app should have an in-built dark theme UI. To make an app future-ready, it should include dark mode features. Some of the key features of dark mode include:
Optimally legible in the dark environment as well.
3D, Immersive Experiences
For years, 3D designs are known to attract people. It is a novel UI/UX design trend both for mobile and web. However, in 2021, the interest in designs in whole 3D scenes and 3D components has gone higher. Earlier 3D elements weren’t widely used as they put a heavy load on machines and weren’t in high demand as well. But with the modern front-end libraries and frameworks, page load time has significantly reduced, making 3D objects larger and more detailed.
Minimalism
This trend stands proudly as another latest UI/UX trend. People come across many advertisements daily. They get constant notifications and see various discount ads. People interact with various interfaces overwhelmed with information. Designers are looking for new methods to simplify the graphic elements and avoid any overload. Hence they limit the total colors and try different compositions and proportions. Presently, highlighting the functionality of an element is important. It is vital to underline the best quality of a product and convey the correct emotions from its use to clients.
Typography
It has been long that mobile designers recognized the significance of typography. Moreover, every year gets new trends related to font size and types, their position, and prominence on a website. In this year, typography will go wild with jumbo fonts that can overlap images, spill out of the screen, and take the center stage. Designers are recommended to use different font types, scattered text, and contrasting colors. His will help build a solid visual hierarchy and make an appeal to prompt visitors.
Content Focused Designs
His list couldn’t have been complete without including the concept of content-focused design. The content-focused design trend doesn’t mean marketing a brand or business with taglines, CTAs, logos, or names. It refers to creating a space where all that is related to UI/UX design trends is covered while offering every piece of information innovatively. When it comes to content-focused designs, the designer and content manager should work together to make a design that includes fascinating form, readable fonts, a highly responsive menu, and more.
Touchless Interactions
Another great UI/UX mobile design trend that started due to the pandemic is how we interact with devices without touching them like air gesture control and Voice User Interface (VUI). Air gesture control tends to be the method that takes different gesture control mechanisms to a whole new level. Air movements will now make things work. The addition of a voice-user interface in a design can help expand its reach.
Simplified UX
Now, you should neither complicate interfaces nor force the users to take additional actions. Minimize the total fields and elements that clients should fill. Simple logging in and signing in has become the newest UX trend.
Augmented Reality Apps
AR is not new when it comes to mobile designs. 2021 has brought new opportunities for creative AR apps since the worldwide revenue of AR-enabled mobile apps is anticipated to double in 2021. AR. Is known to push the mobile UX design boundaries by sustaining use experiences with immersive designs. Since it removes every physical barrier to user engagement, it reinvents the way individuals interact with businesses.
Disabled-People-Friendly Designs
For disabled people, it is pretty challenging to access apps. So, designers can create unique apps for disabled people. Some of them have already created such apps. The latest app trends direct the designers to make and conceive disabled-people friendly designs. Some must-have features that should be included in such apps include:
Touch-sensitive, responsive, and user-friendly designs
Easy accessibility
Gesture interpretation ability
Voice input
Microinteractions
Micro-interactions will take the users a step further by complementing visual perceptions with a tactile feel. You can add motion to icons, buttons, visual cues, menus, splash screens, and other elements to galvanize your app or site and trigger users’ responses faster. Microinteractions will give a boost to user experiences because they improve interactions, offers feedbacks, and keep the users engaged.
The best designers think ahead always, breaking every rule and inserting creativity to good usage to offer enthralling user experiences that turn into better exposure of the brand and a healthier bottom line. So, to do so, you should always keep a tab on the modern trends that amaze and delight your clients.
Conclusion:
Anteelo has 10+ years of experience with mobile and web design. Being a top Web design company in Canada, we know how to use the latest UI and UX trends in 2021 to design efficient and visually attractive digital solutions for any industry. For any queries, Feel free to contact us today.
Taxi booking service is mushrooming everywhere and has emerged as one of the reliable way to commute within or outside the city. When we talk about taxi service, Uber is one of the name that has become synonymous with it. Since it’s inception, Uber is pleasing users across the globe and the only point of contact between passengers and Uber is mobile app. Although there are hundreds of taxi booking mobile apps but what has evolved over a period of time, since the inception of Uber, is technology development on the booking front.
With the current scenario in the market, Uber is boosting more and more entrepreneurs with the idea to repeat its feet and create something similar. However, developing aTaxi mobile app like Uber and going live on app store and play store is just not that easy and two separate application with different functionality:
Passenger app – for those who looks to book taxi
Driver app – Get orders and they ride passenger to their destination
Its features plays vital role; let’s zero down some of the basic ones:
Basic features of passenger app:
Register/login: You can provide varied options to register like social media integration, e-mail etc.
Booking Interface: Here customer needs to add address, select a cab type and set the pickup location
Tracking: Track driver’s location, status updation during or after a ride
Fare calculator: Calculates the estimated cost from source to destination before booking
Payments: Cashless, plain cash , can pay automatically via plastic money and invoice is received to phone or e-mail
Push Notifications: Keeps the user updated on order status, estimated time, taxi arrival, car model, driver’s contact number, car number and much more
Messaging, ratings and reviews, booking history: Messaging driver for the perfect pick up, feedback and ratings given by the customer for the service provided, displays the details of previous booking
Basic features of driver app:
Register/profile/status: Required to provide extra verification details like taxi number, licence during registration, status functionality helping them to adjust the schedule and availability
Booking: Options to accept or reject the incoming order, information of customer location, booking history etc.
Push Notifications: For order alerts, taxi booking data, for order updates and completion of ride
Navigation: Google Maps integration to get optimal direction of customer’s destination
Cost estimation and reports: Provides the estimated cost with discounts and offer the insights of trip status, payroll, history etc.
Furthermore, to streamline process and driver from the central point, a web app is required to manage and review all in-app activity like interactions, ride routes, payments and much more.
How Uber Works?
Passengers let the Uber know that they need a ride; Uber asks you about the location; finds the nearby driver and notifies the duration of driver’s arrival. After completion of ride, cost is automatically charged from your card and then passenger needs to provide feedback about the ride.
So to build such paradigm, what technology stack does Uber rely on?
It relies on some giant foundations like:-
Geo-location: The cab providing service like UBER depends on GPS (Global positioning system) technology to track the current position of the customer. When Uber started its venture, the technology wasn’t that progressive, but today the things have become easier. The geo-location depends on:-
Identifying a device’s location: To identify the location of the customer, Uber app for iOS uses CoreLocation framework which provides classes and protocols to configure and schedule delivery and send location event to the server. This framework also enables the Uber to define geographic region and track the device moments as it crosses the boundary.
The Uber app for Android uses Google’s Location API which can manage underlying location technology meeting all the needs to tailor the app when integrating location-based features.
Providing the right direction: For developing iOS app, MapKit is used to display point-to-point directions on map. It registers the app as routing app then makes direction available to the Map apps and other mapping software.
For developing on Google, Google Maps Android API is used to make routes and directions possible.
Integration with mapping software: Uber implemented Google Maps for both iOS and Android version and to avoid paying Google for access of their solutions, Uber opt for mapping technology companies to solve the logistic issues.
Messaging or Notification: After you order a ride, Uber sends you a couple of notifications like when driver accepts the request, driver is few miles away, cancellation of ride etc. Uber text messages are powered by the Twilio telecommunications provider and you may choose to receive these messages either via SMS or through the push notifications. To implement push notifications in the iOS app, Uber uses Apple Push Notifications Service, and for the Android app Uber uses Google Cloud Messaging (GCM).
Payment Integration: For calculating fare, Uber looks for the factors like base fare, cost/mile and cost/min. Uber promotes a cashless system which means you can pay via plastic card, e-wallets or use a promo code which removes error prone human-to-human cash transfers. Uber chose to partner with Braintree, one of the leaders in the mobile payment market, to accept card payments and also uses PayPal’s Card.io service for credit card scanning on iOS.
The iOS users can make of the Apple Pay for making the payment and the Android users can use the Google Wallet for the same purpose. It is better to collaborate with some online payment company to make the experiences better and faster.
Advantages Of Uber Like App
Reduce the number of drunk drivers
Saves your money for commuting
Provides opportunity to make extra cash for the driver
Makes the way to the customer’s destination really beautiful
Advantages Of Having Mobile App
Having a white label mobile app gives your taxi business a broad visibility and an automatic customer boost.
Reduces the overhead costs generated by managing everything manually and connecting passengers to the drivers in real-time enables the business to grow smartly in autopilot mode.
Leads to the higher profit as the taxi service provider can develop their own app and save on the commission paid to the cab platform.
Well It Depends! There Are Several Factors Affecting The Total Cost
Your budget
Number of features
Design of UI/UX
Backend development
Web development
Security
If you wish to develop a basic taxi service app then it will cost around $15,000 USD to $20,000 USD; Uber like app $20,000 USD to $35,000 USD. It takes 2 to 3 weeks approximately to design the app and 10 to 12 weeks approximately for development process. Lastly, the cost varies according toapp development company you hire to get your job done.
In the mobile app sector, every effort you take to make your application disruptive and innovative ultimately boils down to its design.
There is a lot that rides on the all-encompassing term “mobile app design”. It single-handedly decides whether users would spend any time in the application and if at all your months long efforts would result into a profitable solution that the world would interact with.
For a process that the entire soon to be $311,249 million industry is dependent on, there are a number of things that a design-centric mobile app development company has to consider:
These considerations, in turn, come with a cost. The cost of app design.
While lower than the engineering cost, the mobile app design cost nonetheless hold a good portion in the detailing of the overall mobile app cost.
In this article, we are going to look into the elements that make up for the mobile app design cost in detail.
Table Of Content:
The Importance of App Design in Mobile App Development Process
Phases of App Design Process
How Much Does it Cost to Design a Mobile App?
How to Optimize the Mobile App Design Cost
FAQs About Mobile App Design Cost
The Importance of App Design in Mobile App Development Process
Every design element is devised to solve specific issues. It doesn’t matter whether you are developing an application from scratch or redesigning an app, the end goal of every single process of your designing efforts should remain the same – solving an issue in the most minimal manner as possible.
A well-crafted mobile application UI and UX design usually provides the following benefits:
Simplifies the interaction with the interface
Converts users into consumers
Enables users to reach their objective faster
Streamlines the development part of the application
Phases of App Design Process
Idea Evaluation
This part of the mobile app design process deals with understanding the project to its entirety – what issues does the customers face and how would the app solve those issues for them. One method through which the idea can be evaluated is through the creation of a lean model canvas.
Problem: This part of the model defines the issues which the app solves.
Customer Segments: This is where you enter the details of your prospective users and create a segmentation.
USP: This is where you will have to fill in the details of what your application does best and most uniquely compared to the competitors.
Solutions: Here the probable solutions that the app can offer to the best of problem, customer type, and USP combination are identified.
Channels: this is where you should enlist the platforms where your users will be present
Revenue Streams: The goal of this section is to create a business model that seems to be an answer to your question around how much money you can earn money through an app.
Expense structure: Here, the expenses you will have to incur to develop the application are enlisted.
Key Metrics: These are the KPIs you will measure your app’s success against.
Unfair Advantage: This is the detail of advantages that your app has but not your competitors – a disruptive technology, financial aid, partnership, or something else.
Market Research
Analysis of the market your application is a three tier process – competitive research, market trends analysis, and customer analysis.
We start the market research process by first analyzing the competitors – not to copy them but to find out the opportunities in the market. Doing this gives a benchmark that we have to cross, on the features and design grounds.
Next, we study the market and find out what is in trend and what elements are users interacting with most.
Deliverables: Use case, user stories, and behavioral sciences
Tools: A/B tests, user persona, interviews
Mind map
This part of the mobile app design process takes you back to the lean model canvas components. It takes into account all the different requirements of your application to help you visualize the logical structure or connection between the main parts of the app.
When we create mind maps, we place the goal of the app at the center and create segments of the goal around it. Then, we create requirements/features for all these segments
User Persona
The next step of our mobile app design process is the creation of user persona. This section of the design details who you are designing the app for.
Ideally, the user persona portrait should be made of:
Their demographics
The social stature
Their behavioral model
This part of the mobile app design process have helped our development team numerous times to gather an understanding of who they are developing the app for and what all they would appreciate/ not appreciate.
User Journey Mapping
Once you have identified who your users are, you will have to gather the understanding of how will they use the application. This is where the user journey mapping element of the app design comes into the picture.
This app design deliverable deals with the creation of how users would move inside the app – the features they would interact with, where it would lead them, and the steps they would take if they hit a wall.
Prototype
The next part of the process is app prototype. Here, we structure the ideas into delightful experiences for users who would interact with the application. At this stage, it is ensured that the flow between features and screens should be so natural that users should not even notice.
In order to create an ideal prototype, it is very important that iterations are made until the flow is nailed on the basis of the feedback. The level of iterations is what defines the app prototype cost.
At Anteelo, our teams work on the prototypes collectively. Everyone: Developers, Business Analysts, and Clients work together to create an application which everyone can agree on. This, in turn, helps in identifying issues and confusions that could occur at the development stage.
User Interface design is all about telling a story of how the user would feel as they move from one screen to another.
This is where the look and feel of the app is created – its colours, shapes, typography, elements, etc. Our mobile app developers do not just look into what the users will see when they use the app but also what they would feel. Thus, we concentrate our efforts on not just static design but also animated versions. User interface design primarily encompasses three elements – Logo, App Icons, and Screens. These are the elements which then get added into the numeric value of mobile app design cost.
Deliverables: App logo, app icons, screenshots for the stores, and animations.
How Much Does it Cost to Design a Mobile App?
With the need and stages of mobile app design part covered, let’s talk about the monetary part of mobile app design, a.k.a The App Designing Cost Breakdown.
The cost of app design is majorly dependent on three factors – Complexity of the app, the country wise app design cost, and the platforms on which it would be made live on. Let us dissect every part of what goes into app design cost in detail.
A. Cost of Mobile App Design on the Basis of Platforms
Platforms like Android and iOS differ in how they look and operate. While on one side, Android application has to be matched with different resolutions and formats, the same is not the case with iOS for everything is finalized. This is the reason why Android app design is more expensive than iOS app design cost.
Although the app design cost might not vary greatly between iOS and Android apps, there are some points’ difference.
There was a time when iOS app UI and UX designers used to charge because of the stringent store guidelines, the situation has changed. Google too has come strives ahead to ensure high quality in terms of what goes into the store and thus, they too have started following a stringent approval process.
So the comparison between iOS and Android application design cost has come down to the number of platforms and the device type.
Let us look at it from iOS App Design Cost front first:
iPhone only – The entry models doesn’t require designers to create images specifically for retina display. So, the approximate designing cost falls in the range of $3,000 to $10,000.
iPhone 6 Plus and ahead – Designing apps for iPhone 6 and ahead adds 25% to the cost. These devices come with retina display which call for high resolution files, which in turn, comes with an attached cost.
iPad – iPad app design adds 50% to the cost. They don’t just require high resolution but also product designing solution to meet the speed and size of the iPads.
Now talking of Android app design cost:
The Android devices are constantly changing and changing with them are the rules of designing in the Google Material Design process. The Android app designers constantly have to adapt to new frameworks and design ideologies to keep up with the changes, which comes attached with a cost.
Additionally, since the number of platforms that a designer has to work on is much greater than iOS, the Android app design cost automatically increases.
B. Mobile App Design Cost by App Complexity
Whether we talk about the mobile app design cost or the cost of mobile app development, there are three complexity levels that are considered when the app design cost estimate has to be drawn.
Simple Apps:
These are the applications which are maximum 3 screens long and use next to zero animations and interactive design elements. Apps like Calculators and Alarm fall under this category. These apps usually are not designed to meet the requirement of individual platforms for they look alike on all screens.
Medium Complexity Apps:
These apps are the one which make use of multiple interactive elements and animations along with several screens. They are usually designed individually for Android and iOS platforms and are made to meet the native look and feel of the platform and heavily relies on Human Interface design guidelines and Google Material design principles.
Most of the apps that you use on an everyday basis like WhatsApp and Uber etc are examples of what a medium complexity app looks like.
High Complexity Apps:
These are the applications which are highly dependent on designs to serve their purpose. Here, a lot of animations and transitions are used to help users move from one screen to another and ultimately convert into a regular user.
These apps make use of a huge number of screens and usually work on multiple screens – all demanding a device centric native UI design.
c. Mobile App Design Cost by Country
The work performed keeping the same quality intact might vary greatly between a designer in the USA and a designer in India.
For example, a USA based UI/User Experience designer might charge $200 per hour, while an eastern nation design might charge around $80 – $100 on average per hour.
How to Optimize the Mobile App Design Cost
There are a number of proven strategies we use for our startup clients, who are particular about quality but work with limited budget.
Work around a strategy – a set strategy can be a great way to cut back the app design cost.
Concentrate on the must-have features – we always recommend our clients to work on the must-have feature set of the application to start with instead of designing a full-fledged application which could be kept for the phase two of the project.
Use templates – while not ideal, using templates can be a great way to cut back high app designing cost for very minimal efforts are required from the designers’ end.
Ever since I saw the first part of Iron Man, I’ve been fascinated by the potential of AI technology Tony was able to identify and utilize, all too well with his AI assistant Jarvis.
But hey! We are already halfway there in not reel but real life.
Remember using Siri for the first time in iPhone 4S? It was an otherworldly feeling, was it not? And since then, we all know how far we have come – Alexa, Google Assistant, Cortona and a hundred more.
So, as an inspired designer, if you are as fascinated as I am and want to give the voice-based AI a chance, then you need to hone your skills and knowledge on how to design voice user interfaces.
Luckily, you have stumbled upon the right article. Here is everything you would want and need to know about VUI and what makes them an important part of intuitive app search design.
What is VUI (Voice User Interface)?
Reasons why voice is becoming famous
Difference between Voice and other forms of UI
Steps for designing voice user interface
Design guidelines for voice user interface
Challenges of designing VUI
Future of VUI
What is VUI (Voice User Interface)?
Acronym of Voice user Interface, VUI is the interface that allows users to interact with a system through voice commands. The most popular and top voice user interface examples are Google Assistant, Siri, and Amazon’s Alexa.
The biggest advantage of VUIs is that they facilitate an eyes-free and hands-free way of interacting with a system.
Similar to mobile apps running on any OS and a device, VUI contains three layers that need to work together for efficient voice interactions. Here, each of the three layers uses the layer that is below it while supporting the one above. It is the upper two layers in which the voice interface lies, residing in the cloud and not on the device.
Reasons why voice is becoming famous
Speaking is more natural than typing
It is understood that speaking is easier and effortless than typing in general. So, having an application that runs on voice-command will make things more facilitated for users. It is an additional facility that users can use as per the requirement and are not bound by the ‘just typing’ feature. This is why voice interactions are gaining popularity by the day and all the industries have started to employ voice technology in one way or the other.
Helps technology be prevalent
Technology, nowadays, is just not limited to you commanding it to open your messages or call someone, as Voice assistants do. Voice interactions have opened gates that were long-awaited to be opened. Want to open your garage door, order an appointment, order food delivery, even start your car – all is possible with just your voice. Won’t you enjoy such an ever-present assistant with you?
Moore’s law
Moore’s law, in simple words, says that every two years, the capability of our computer devices to do something increases, which also reduces its cost. According to this law, growth is exponential. Taking this law forward, we can see how voice technology was initially just an experiment but now has become one of the emerging technologies, soon to be globally adopted.
More practical for specially-abled
The reason why industries are adamant about employing voice interactions in their mobile app development is they want to target the demographic which was always pushed to the sidelines. Voice technology is nothing but a boon for visually impaired users who are now able to use their devices and applications properly as compared to the challenges they faced while using visual user interfaces.
Difference between Voice and other forms of UI
Since we have different types of user interfaces available, understanding the different points between them will allow a more in-depth view of the VUI.
Speed
Speed is one prominent point of difference between Voice user interfaces and others like graphical user interfaces. Since humans are inherently visual in nature, they primarily prefer visual user interfaces as they may provide more speedy responses, if designed right in terms of system response time. Whereas, from what we see so far, VUIs can still lag a little behind in speed.
Text vs natural language vs gestures
It’s true that visuals are not the king anymore. Though the visual user interface is the preliminary and primary stage of interfaces, our generation is slowly moving on to better alternatives – Voice-based and gesture-based interfaces.
Voice takes in the natural language and converts it into a command for the voice-based AI to perform it, and as for the gesture-based interface, a great example is Sony Playstation, processing certain gestures and acting accordingly.
There is one more player – experimental-thought-based interface. So far, lie-detectors are the only prominent use case for it.
Privacy
Privacy is a big concern and a point of difference between these interfaces. It is possible to make text-based, gesture-based, and touch-based interfaces private, but it is still a challenge for voice user interface design.
Steps for designing voice user interface
1. Research your audience
In this process of designing VUI, you need to employ user-first design just as you would while designing other digital products. The primary aim here is to gather information and understand the behavior and needs of the users since this information is what makes the foundation of the product requirements.
What you should focus on at this stage is –
Identify the pain points of users and how their experience is. By doing so, you will be able to analyze where the users can benefit.
You must gather information on the user language- how they talk and the phrases they use while talking. This will help you design a system for different utterances.
2. Define
At this stage, you need to define the capabilities and shape the product. This includes –
Creating key scenarios of interaction
These scenarios come before the specific ideas of the app and should be identified in order to be turned into conversational dialogue flow. They are a way to think about why someone would need to use a VUI. So, you need to design the scenarios having high value for your users.
Sometimes, it can be confusing as to which scenarios are important and which can be ignored. For this purpose, you can use a use case matrix to evaluate each one of them.
Make sure these scenarios work with voice
What matters the most here is that the users are able to solve a specific problem more efficiently than they would be able to with the alternatives. The aim of this step is to find the common and specific cases which users will benefit from.
Among many, a few cases are – A. when users are pre-occupied and cannot use the visual user interface, and B. when they want to do something quickly. I.e, commanding the VUI to “Play some music” is much less time consuming than to do it manually.
The three factors- Intent, Utterance, Slot
Let’s understand these two with the above-mentioned example of “Play some music”.
Intent – It basically depicts the broader objective of the voice command. There are two types of intents – A. High utility ( very specific and straightforward command, i.e., ‘turn on the lights in the living room) and B. Low utility (vaguer and hard to decipher). In our case, it is a high utility interaction. Utterance – It deals with the possible ways users can phrase a request. In our case, the alternative to “Play some music” could be anything from “I want to hear some music” to “can you play a song” and so on. All the UI/UX designers of VUI have to take the variations into consideration.
Slots – When the intent is not sufficient, slots come into action. They refer to the additional information needed in order to deliver the best results for the query. They can be optional and required. In our example, the slot is ‘relaxing’ but it is optional since the category of music is not defined by the user. However, if the command was ‘book a taxi on Uber’ the slot would be ‘destination’ hence, required.
3. Create a prototype
The dialogue flow is the answer to the question of “how to create voice interaction between user and technology”. The process begins with creating a dialogue flow for each requirement you are aiming to target with your product.
These are the following points a dialogue flow should cover – Main keywords for the interaction, probable branches where the conversation could head towards, and example dialogues for users and assistants.
A dialogue flow in our case is nothing but a prototype illustrating the back and forth conversations between users and voice assistants. Let’s look at an illustrated dialogue flow below for better understanding.
You can use several prototyping tools at your disposal for VUI. Some of the most popular ones are Amazon Alexa Skill Builder, Sayspring, and Google’s SDK.
Writing dialogues
A compiled set of dialogues is what makes the building blocks of voice user flow. Here are a few tips for creating engaging and conversational dialogue –
Don’t make the process tediously long. Keep the number of steps to a minimum.
You should not teach commands to the users. This is something that is natural. Instead, focus on making your voice assistant conversational.
Try to keep your questions and responses brief. Here are the dos and don’ts.
Don’t –
User: “Tell me a good place to eat Chinese cuisine”System: “I have found five places for you. The first one is “Eat Chinese” is located…, 15 minutes away from you, open from 8:00 AM till 8:00 PM, the second is “Chopsticks” which is located on…, 1 hour away from you,…”
Do –User: “Tell me a good place to eat Chinese cuisine”System: “There are several Chinese restaurants in the area — would you prefer to walk or drive?”
Identify errors
Isn’t it better to identify the probable errors you can make while creating dialogues than to fix the magnified mess later? Here are a few things you should definitely stay away from but always keep them in perspective to avoid error states.
Ambiguity – Words are inherently ambiguous. Meaning, if a person says ‘Good’ it could mean ‘Okay’ or symbolize they are listening. So, make your AI aware of all the commonly occurring ambiguities for optimum performance.
Misspellings/Mispronounce – Unlike on paper, words are spoken differently. One single word could have multiple pronunciations, something which could hamper the conversation flow between the user and the natural language processing system.
Not providing relevant options – Always make sure that the users are getting something valuable and relevant out of the conversation. Irrelevant results for a query are least attractive and even less of a motivating factor for users to use your product again.
Even if the query does not have a positive result, your assistant should always reply and not leave the users hanging. I.e., if a user requests “Book a flight to LA from Dallas for Tuesday”, what should follow is – “I couldn’t find any flights for Tuesday”. And what even better is – “I couldn’t find any flights for Tuesday. Would you like me to check for Wednesday?”.
Portray your brand’s identity
Even in human conversations, the tone of the voice matters a lot since it has an emotional value attached to it. Then, your dialogues are what is going to become the personality of your product and it should always make a positive impression in users’ minds. You need to create not ‘just dialogues’ but the ones satisfying users’ emotional needs.
Use existing content
If you use the data at your disposal (all the conversations your product has with the user), you can greatly personalize their experience. For instance, if a user commands “I want to order noodles”, your system should revert “ Would you like to repeat your last order of Hakka noodles from Chopstick?”
4. Test your product
After everything has reached a near completion stage, it is time to test the seeds of your labor. You need to test the VUI you have designed to make sure it fulfills every benchmark on your checklist. There are two ways that you can use to test your prototype.
With target users
You can create groups of your targeted audience and then implement testing sessions to observe how users are interacting with your product. You can use this occasion for tracking task completion rate and customer satisfaction score (CSAT).
With test simulators
Similar to other simulators used in mobile app development, Google and Amazon also provide tools for testing the designed product. You can test the Alexa Skill and Google Action of the product with respect to the hardware devices and their settings.
5. Refine
After your app has landed in the market, it is time for observation. It’s time to indulge in UX analytics. This stage deals with analyzing how the users are using your product. It can be a lot challenging if you are clueless about what metrics you are supposed to observe. So, here are the most prominent ones.
Sessions per user or messages per session
Languages used
Intents and utterances
User engagement metrics
Behavior flows
Design guidelines for voice user interface
“Words are the source of misunderstandings” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Normally, visual user interfaces also have issues that need to be addressed, but the frustration from a faulty visual interface is nothing compared to that of a VUI. So, if your designed voice assistant fails to function well, it would be ditched like a hot potato.
You know what will help you in stopping that from happening? – VUI design guidelines. So, let’s have a look at them at once.
Don’t wait for users to ask first
Unlike a visual user interface, users might not be able to get familiar with the functionalities right away. They might not even know how to start. In that case, one of the Voice UI best practices is to take the first step. For instance, if yours is a voice-enabled weather mobile app, it could say to the users – “You can ask for today’s weather or a weekly forecast.” Additionally, you should also offer an easy exit option.
Keep the list of action options short
Until and unless you want to overwhelm your user right in the beginning, you need to make sure that you provide only the most appropriate and basic options primarily.
The verbal content has to be as concise and full of meaning as possible while being easy to be understood in one go. As recommended by Amazon for designing Voice user interfaces for mobile apps for Alexa, one must not list more than three options for interaction. Doing this will also ensure an engaging UX design of the VUI.
KISS – Keep it simple and short
This principle is highly useful in designing VUIs. To make your voice app development the best out there, you need to make it easy for your voice assistant to understand commands. Suppose, you are designing a voice interaction to start a shop floor machine, the simplest way would be to attribute these multiple machines with numbers and then give commands like “Start machine 1”, etc.
Let users know they are being heard
Remember how agitated you feel when there is no activity sign on a webpage you just opened. Now, multiply this frustration in the case of VUI.
It is very crucial to keep it in perspective that your user needs to be informed when the device is actively interacting. You must give users queues on when to speak and when the voice assistant is listening. An image above of Google Assistant shows how it represents this function (with dots forming a wave) and with Alexa as shown below (bluish light swirling around the top rim of the device).
Confirm when the task is done
Just like you need confirmation after you have made any transaction, the same thing is needed with a VUI. Else, how would the user know the task has been performed?
For example, once the user gives the command “switch off the kitchen lights”, your assistant must respond with something like “Kitchen lights turned off”. This will eliminate the need for the user to check the task done in person, which is essentially the whole point of having a Voice-based AI.
Challenges of designing VUI
Like everything else, the voice-based interface also suffers from Achilles’ heel. In fact, there is not one but many. So, what are the challenges that VUI designers often come across and more often than not, fail to recognize or resolve?
Privacy and Security
The fact that these voice-based AI assistants are always waiting for queues listening to the sounds of their environment poses a big concern for the users. The paranoia of their privacy being tampered on is not irrational either.
Initially, voice assistants like Alexa stored all the conversations they came across which is a big risk of voice AI in the eyes of users. Something of a nightmare happened to a couple when Alexa was caught sending their secret recordings to a stranger. Now, some assistants automatically delete the stored conversations every 24 hours or so. However, these come at additional cost and UI friction.
Convey what Voice assistants can’t perform
It becomes challenging for voice UI and UX designers to explain to the end-users what the Voice AI cannot do. For example, while using Google Assistant when you say “Make an event named Sales team meeting for Tuesday at 2 o’clock” it creates an event card instantly and asks later “Would you like to save this event?”
But what if you need to change the location or time of the meeting later, what then? It would reply “I’m not sure about what you said, would you like me to save this event?”. To avoid the bad user experience, the AI could simply say “sorry, I am still working on adding locations”.
Difficulty in prototyping and testing
Another challenge faced by the designers is voice UI prototyping and testing. Suppose, you have created a prototype and want to test it. You have given the initial prompt that users can shop groceries with your voice assistant.
The challenge begins here – Users can say a particular thing in different styles, something which is hard to keep track of. It becomes all the more difficult to test the prototype on such queries when it is not yet fully developed with the voice search technology.
Support of language
Since the main tenet of voice technology is language, it becomes crucial for any voice-based AI to be fluent in understanding as well as speaking. Sadly, technology has only developed with respect to a few languages as of yet. Nevertheless, adding other languages and distinct accents to the interface is still a work in progress.
Future of VUI
Like a ritual, we are bound to look at the future prospects of every technology and voice is no different. From what we have gathered from the voice interface use cases such as Alexa, we know that voice technology integration alone cannot fulfill the daily requirements of the users.
The best way for it to become completely adopted is by shaking hands with the visual user interface – just like Google Assistant and Siri. VUI and visual user interface together can balance out each others’ shortcomings providing users with an amazing voice assistant experience. Additionally, this will allow them to do complex tasks with simple voice commands, which is what voice interfaces lack at this point in their development.
And who knows by the time this decade ends, we might all have our Jarvis and would be able to do it all like Tony Stark without a physical display.
Today, there is an app for everything, be it games, shopping, news, logistics, travel and many more things. As smartphones have become extremely affordable, mobile application development industry is booming and perhaps is one of the fastest growing industries. Analysts estimate that app revenues would triple by 2017. However, most of the apps go unnoticed and only a few of the apps are able to make their mark. So what’s the reason behind this? Well, there are a number of theories regarding this, but in this article, we would focus on UX design for mobile apps. Here are a few of the common hurdles that come in the way of success of any app:
1. Compromising UX to maintain consistency with web
Remember, mobile UX is unique and needs special attention and ux review when it comes to design. You just can’t implement your website design in the mobile application. It is true that branding is important, but putting all web UI elements into a mobile experience won’t be a good idea as it will confuse the users and put adverse effect on your mobile app.
2. User bombarded with tutorials
One thing that most of the mobile app developers do is – they provide detailed tutorials that mention each and every thing about the app on the first time itself. While it can’t be denied that user tutorials are important, but the written information should be kept at minimum. Rather, you should focus on the navigation of your app, and if the user of your app need to go through the extensive tutorials in order to acquaint him or herself with the functionality, then I must say that your app is a complete UI failure.
3. Apps that slow down
Speed of the app is one thing that certainly should not be compromised at any cost. Mobile users these days, multitask while using your apps. They want lightening fast speed and if your app does not match up to their expectations and is slow in speed, then they would go ahead with better options. You are suggested to avoid elements such as videos, heavy images that take time to download.
4. Apps that are confusing
App Stores are full of thousands of apps and the apps that are confusing in nature don’t attract much attention. Therefore, we would suggest you to use tried and tested methods and not to experiment unless and until it is extremely important. It is important to rigorously test design elements that are likely to confuse users.
5. Develop user centric apps
You are designing an app for your users and not for yourself. Choose designs keeping in mind your target audience. Try to know the user psyche and create a design based on your market research. Show your users what they want to and what they love to see. Consider feedback as one of the most effective methods in order to bring improvement in your app.
6. Forced sign-up
I would repeat this again, but there are thousands of apps available and one of the things that most of the developers do is they make the user go through a sign-up registration process or ask for other credentials in the beginning itself. Unless and until, you haven’t shown the benefits of your app, any user won’t put his or her credentials and ultimately it would lead to the abandonment of your app. Therefore, it is advisable to have the option of guest users in your app. You can keep sign-up for later stage when users begin to take interest in your app.
7. Industry Standard Guidelines
Both Google and Apple have laid down guidelines for app makers. Those guidelines are enough for any designer to follow and make a decent app. However, in the flow of creativity, designers tend to ignore the industry standards and end up making an app with overuse of hidden menus and unknown gestures. UX designers often compromise and get the basics of app design wrong. Designers need to do rigorous testing in order to avoid huge losses.
Anteelo is one of the most sought after app development companies in India providing top grade product design services across the globe. Anteelo boasts of the best UI and UX designers who create captivating designs and are well versed with latest guidelines of all the leading App stores as well.
“Design is the silent ambassador of your business”.
Not long ago, brands and developers were magnetized to the latest technologies and functionalities. They used to introduce all the latest elements into their app development process to give a one-stop shop experience to their users.
But, they failed most of the time.
It was then they realized that they were missing a core element, i.e, app design. They were overlooking the importance of UI/UX design while building an application. And thus, lowering down their chances to touch the hearts of the audience.
Now, coming back to the present, almost every business and brands is now focusing on creating an intuitive UI design and introducing the right interactive elements. They are also considering the latest mobile app UI trends while planning their app’s look and feel.
However, some of the questions they are still struggling with is – Which JavaScript framework to pick for developing their web app UI? Should they go with Vue.js for UI web development or pick some other?
Considering the importance of tech stack on the success rate of app, I will disclose here some of the factors why going with Vue is an ideal solution.
But first, let’s have a quick recap of what is Vue.js.
Vue.js – A Brief Introduction
Designed by Evan You in 2014, Vue.js is an open-source MVVM (Model-View-Viewmodel) JavaScript framework used to create UIs and single-page applications. Its latest version is Vue.js 2.6 and it is the second most loved framework as per Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2019
The framework offers a complete set of features that makes it easier for business enthusiasts and developers to enter the UI world.
Characteristics of Vue.js
1. Virtual DOM
Vue.js operates using Virtual DOM. Meaning, any changes made while developing won’t be reflected directly on the DOM. Instead, a replica of the DOM is created which is usually present in the form of JS data structures.
This let developers experiment their design and see the changes in the UI design while having a scope of undo everything in a cost-effective manner. Something that makes it winner of Vue.js vs Angular war.
2. Data Binding
This feature of Vue enables developers to easily set values to HTML attributes, modify the style, and more using the binding directing called v-bind.
3. Animation/Transition
Vue.js also provides developers with multiple ways to implement transition to HTML elements when adding/updating something from the DOM. It also provides the option to add third-party animated libraries to the environment and build more interactive user interfaces.
4. Templates
Vue.js framework delivers a HTML-based template that binds DOM with the Vue instance data. It compiles templates into Virtual DOM render functionality, which simplifies the tasks of User Interface development.
5. Computed Properties
Last but not least, Computed properties is also one of the core functionalities of Vue.js. It encourages designers and developers to attend to the changes made to the UI elements and make required calculations. There’s no demand for additional coding anymore.
Now as you know what is Vue.js and what are its main features, let’s look into the brands which have embraced this JavaScript framework into their tech stack. And then move to reasons why you should prefer Vue.js for UI web development.
Popular brands trusting Vue.js for their development needs
Now as you know which companies use Vue.js, let’s move to the reasons that makes developers pick Vue.js for UI Web development.
Reasons Why to Choose Vue.js for Web UI Development
1. Small App Size
The foremost reason to use Vue.js for their application needs is that it is of 18-21Kb of size. However, despite the small size, it offers high speed, something that makes it easier for the framework to lead in the Vue vs Ember battle.
This, as a whole, encourages developers to pick Vue JavaScript framework for both small and large scale app projects.
2. Ease of Learning
Vue.js framework has a simple structure. This makes the learning curve of Vue less steep and thus, makes it easier for anyone to trace and eliminate errors in the coding environment and develop both small and large scale templates quickly. This is the prime reason why is Vue getting momentum in mobile market.
3. Higher Performance
Another pros of Vue.js for development is that it avails higher performance. And the reason behind is that it not works with Virtual DOM, but also pay more attention to the shortcomings. It also comes with the ability to manage high frame rate.
A result of which is that it provides better performance that React, when talking about Vue.js vs React.js.
4. Simple Integration
Since it is based on JavaScript, it can be easily integrated with any existing application where integrating JS is possible. This helps developers create app with Vue.js from scratch as well as introduce Vue.js elements into their existing apps.
5. Flexibility
Another advantage of going with Vue.js for UI web development needs is flexibility.
The framework enables every reputed app development company. to write templates in HTML and JavaScript and run them directly on different browsers.
6. Enhanced Documentation
Last but not least, Vue.js UI framework comes with a well-defined documentation that aids developers to understand the requisite mechanisms and build their own application effortlessly.
Now as you know why choose Vue.js for your UI web development needs, it is likely that you wish to contact the best UI developers.
But, wait.
Before you bring the team on board and step into the UI development with Vue, it is good to be familiar with Vue UI libraries that will bring more profits in the future.
So, taking the same thought into consideration, let’s wrap up this article with a list of prominent Vue UI frameworks and component libraries to consider in 2020 for UI development.
Top 12 Vue.js UI libraries to consider in 2020
1. Vuetify
The foremost UI library that you should look out for your app needs in 2020 is Vuetify.
Vuetify provides developers with 82+ components, server side rendering support, premium themes, and business and enterprise support. Also, it is implemented using the Google Material Design guidelines and offer support to different browsers like Safari 9+ and IE11. This encourages developers to consider Vuetify for their UI app project.
2. Element
Created by Chinese, Element is a Vue.js based UI toolkit for web.
The library, with 350+ contributors, provides developers with a complete selection of customizable components alongside a full style-guide. It is specifically used to build desktop and mobile app with Vue.js. However, it is not responsive in nature.
Also, it offers a version for React and Angular. This makes developers more inclined towards this UI development library for their project.
3. Vue Material
Another VUI-based UI web development components you can rely on in 2020 is Vue Material.
It serves UI/UX designers with different resources like upgraded webpack SPA, single HTML file for easier setup, a universal application with Nuxt.js for SSR, and more. However, it is required that professionals have a basic knowledge of JavaScript, Vue.js, and Vue Router to build engaging UI solutions.
4. Quasar Framework
Quasar is one of the most-mentioned frontend development frameworks for creating responsive sites, electron apps, and hybrid mobile applications.
Some of the features that are behind this popularity are:-
Cache busting,
HTML/CSS/JS minification,
Sourcemapping,
Tree shaking,
Code-splitting and lazy loading,
Linting,
ES6 transpiling, and
Out-of-the-box accessibility.
5. Buefy
Buefy is also one of the finest development tools to consider for your app project.
It is basically a lightweight UI library based on Bulma, a CSS framework. The library holds various similarities with SASS and even avails a large number of ready-made components. This makes it easier for developers to start their beginner-level project. However, it is not a right fit for a large-scale project, provided the elements are limited.
6. Bootstrap Vue
Blending together the power of Vue and Bootstrap – a popular CSS library, Bootstrap Vue has also become one of the UX/UI developers’ favorite tools.
The UI library provides a vast range of Vue.js UI components that are compatible with the WAI-ARIA guidelines for web accessibility. This makes it perfect to build a responsive and mobile-friend project easily and quickly.
Additionally, it has a robust community support and a comprehensive documentation that makes it safe for anyone to step into the UI development.
7. iView
iView is a high-end UI library that caters the needs of designers with ample of UI components and widgets, offline documentation, command line interface (CLI) tool called iView-CLI, and more.
If you are planning to step into the UI web development arena using this library, this starter kit will help.
8. Muse – UI
Muse-UI is a Vue 2.0 based Material Design library that will gain momentum in 2020 too.
It is easy to install and use, and serve designers with around 40 Vue.js UI components and themes that offers higher customization possibility.
9. Vuikit
Vuikit is another responsive library preferred by developers for Vue UI web development.
This library is created as a ‘monorepo’ governed by Yarn workspaces. It keeps icons and themes published as distinct packages, and delivers a clean and consistent design.
10. Mint UI
Mint UI is a light-weight mobile UI library comprising of JS and CSS elements to introduce in your app development plan.
It is a chinese project, but comes with a well-translated broad documentation. This makes it easier for UI developers to employ it in their mobile application development plan.
Here’s a demo that will give you a better understanding of how to implement it into your app.
11. VuePress
Another Vue.js UI web development library that you can opt in 2020 is VuePress.
It is primarily a minimalistic, Vue-backed static site generator, but can also be considered for introducing dynamic Vue components in normal pages and posts.
Here, each created page has pre-rendered and static HTML components after which Vue combines all the static content to form a single-page application.
12. Ant Design Vue
Last but not least, Ant Design Vue is yet another UI library that you can watch out for while planning your next app project.
The library is a good choice for development when you wish to build an enterprise-class UI design, share Ant Design of React design resources, and introduce a set of high-quality Vue components. But, one has to first ensure that Node.js 9 or above are already installed on your device.
The not- yet- open Fair State Brewing Cooperative is Minnesota’s first cooperative brewery. Their motto? “We love to brew good beer. We love the good people who love our beer.” Their website reflects this message. Scrolling through the clean design, you learn all about the new company and their commitment not only to stellar beer, but also to their community of beer lovers in the co-op. It’s an honest, simple site.
HOTELSTYLE
There’s not a lot to this website for the obscure Italian clothing store, HotelStyle, but we like the presentation of the full screen video that opens the site. The video features the kind of man your mother would not want you to talk to (when you studied abroad in Florence) modeling the company’s clothing. The angles are great.
YEP!
Yep! is an app that “creates instant meetings with fun people.” You choose an activity- a walk, a meal, a tennis match- and the app finds you a friend. In a couple short scrolls on their creative website, you not only understand Yep!’s mission but you become excited about it, too. Yep! is based in San Francisco, but we were impressed with the ability to view the website in Russian. Can’t wait to try it out.
NEOTOKIO!
The designers over at Italian design agency, Neotokio!, are currently on vacation and instead of directing you to their regular website, Neotokio! has designed a lovely scrolling popsicle that announces that they’re out of the office. Their website is not only super interactive, it’s exciting and brilliantly designed. Scrolling uncovers a site full of great content.
MEDIABOOM
MediaBOOM is a digital design agency in Guilford, CT. Their website features an impressive portfolio while animated full screen video plays in the background. Definitely check out the tour of “MediaBOOM: Interactive Capital of the World!” in 3D. Don’t skip the intro.
TCM’S SUMMER UNDER THE STARS
This website is interactive, beautiful, and educational. The movie lovers over at Turner Classic Movies has produced an awesome website for their “Summer Under the Stars.” All summer, TCM has devoted an entire day to one classic movie star. On TV, the day is filled with back to back movies featuring the actor. Online, the website provides information about the star and allows you to reflect, via social media, on why that star was legendary. It’s all part of the network’s new marketing scheme. Today’s star? The American actress Jeanne Crain. Our favorite website this week!
Tablet and smartphone use is growing rapidly. This means that there is a huge paradigm shift in web design, and for digital agencies focused on keeping up-to-date with web design and development practices, there is a need to adapt to the growth in mobile website traffic. Mobile websites need to look, and function, just as efficiently as desktop websites.
Prior to the birth of modern responsive web design techniques, designers needed to create several different versions of a website and code each specifically for different web browser sizes. For example, creating a separate file of code that applies to Nexus tablet browser sizes, a separate file of code that applies to iPhone browser sizes, a separate file of code that applies to iMac Desktop browser sizes, and so on.
Additionally, since there are several different browsers — Google Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, etc.– it is necessary to design according to the levels of code support each browser offers. This requires the designer to create several design prototypes, developers to code all of those different designs, and the client to pay that much more per version. With the number of devices and browsers that currently exist, you can see how time-consuming and costly this ended up being. This is where responsive web design comes into play.
RESPONDING TO YOUR VISUAL NEEDS
Responsive web design (RWD) allows designers and developers to carry out multiple design styles with just one set of code. When coding a website, a developer creates one set of code that applies across different window sizes and browsers. In order to create this type of coding scheme, the developer has to make sure, among other thing, that all images and media are flexible, the columns or tables are movable, and elements can be hidden. The developer is able to achieve this by using dynamic sizing, specific CSS styles, and media queries.
When viewing the website on your desktop or PC, you can make the browser window bigger and smaller to see how the content changes in size and layout depending on the dimensions of the window. Also, if you view either site on your smartphone or tablet, the content will display differently as well. For a better understanding of RWD in action, a great working example to refer to is The Next Web’s site.
On the desktop version of The Next Web’s site, as shown in the image above, the content is spread out based on the amount of space it has to use. The screen size for this is 1280 x 1024, which is the average screen size of a laptop.
When viewing the site on a tablet, which has an average screen dimension of 1024 x 768, the content shifts according to the amount of space it has. The content still looks great, is very user friendly, and the shifted design eliminates the margins of blank space that you could see on bigger screens.
Thanks to responsive web design, when viewing this site on mobile, which has an average screen dimension of 320 x 480, all of the content can still be displayed in an orderly fashion. While the content is mostly all the same, it’s optimized to look aesthetically pleasing, no matter what you’re using to view it.
As each day goes by, technology evolves to make our lives more efficient and easier. As web developers, designers, or even strategists, we need to make it a point to keep track of all of the major changes that are happening with technology, and adapt to them to provide the user with the best possible web experience.
Responsive web design is one of the latest, and most important, design changes that is buzzing through the developing world and making cross-platform browsing seamless and beautiful.
The backend is the part of a web application that is unrevealed to the user. Unlike front-end, back-end development operations are not very easy and usually turn out to be complicated and manifold; this part is in alignment with the server. Backend operations are a lot different that are controlled by different programming languages like C, C++, Perl, and Ruby. It is a broad field that’s further subcategorized into several levels.
A backend developer usually doesn’t work alone; backend developers usually work in teams of 2 or more people. A team of backend developers contains different specialists that are responsible for their specific discipline. Some are responsible for database management, some work with caching schemes and scripting while some focus on website architecture. Behind every successful website and application, the combined effort of the whole team plays its role. A backend developer’s code bridges the communication between database and browser.
To describe the working of a backend developer in a nutshell, we can say that such a developer mainly focuses on the following:
The essential requirement for becoming a backend developer is to have a keen knowledge of at least one server-side programming language.
What is the role of a backend developer?
To understand the skills required to become a backend developer, one needs to analyze what are their responsibilities. Only then we can relate their skills to their roles and responsibilities. The key responsibilities of backend developers are:
They work with front-end developers and provide server-side algorithms of user-facing web application elements. Backend developers code in server-side language to create logic so that web applications function correctly.
Other than coding and creating functional web applications, backend developers also optimize them for increasing response time and efficiency.
They analyze the goals and requirements, handle bugs and errors, and come up with solutions.
They also interact with the database for storing data and ensure that every user has access to what they search.
They also manage APIs that are executed across the devices.
They are also involved in building the architecture of the system.
Backend Developer Skills
To have efficient backend developer skills, one needs to have complete command on the subject. A good developer is aware of every new trend and invention in his domain. He urges to learn and align with all advancements coming his way.
Technology progresses every day. Many innovations are being made, and adapting to modern techniques is imperative to sustaining the game. Luckily in the development domain, a new trend might be complicated in learning, but it is focused on reducing the coding effort. Every new language aims to have minimal syntax, and it is suitable for a developer to invest some time to learn it.
The necessary technical skills required to become a backend developer are:
In-depth knowledge of at least one backend programming language and framework.
Knowledge of front-end technologies, such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, so that he can communicate with the front-end team.
He should be capable of managing a hosting environment along with the database administration.
He should be capable of scaling applications to handle the load changes.
He should have enough knowledge of accessibility and security compliance.
It’s good for him to have an experience of version control, such as GIT.
A backend developer is not expected to have command on every programming language. That is not possible for a human to have expertise in each of them. But they are expected to be experts in their opted language.
More Backend Developer Skills to add on the resume
1. Web Development Languages: Back-end developers work simultaneously with front-end developers, setting server rationale to outside components of the web application. So as to execute this rationale, the backend engineer utilizes server-side scripting language. The best programming languages that you must know while talking about backend developer skills are:
Ruby: Ruby is a 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. 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.
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. 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.
PHP: PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is an open-source back-end scripting language used by developers to build web apps and sites. 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.
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.
2. Comprehensive Knowledge of Databases: Become familiar at stacking and recovering data from databases. Though front end developers can associate with databases and interface with them too, server-side development is right now the standard method to control advantaged and extraordinary access to that information, including storage and recovery. Start with great social style databases, and move towards chart databases as your knowledge permits.
3. Connecting to Application Programme Interface (API): Internet browsers aren’t the only entity to interact with web applications. Regularly, an organization will offer a mobile app for iOS or Android alongside its principal site. There are additionally program based applications that principally utilize JavaScript, not server-side rendered HTML (through structures like React, Vue, or Angular). To recover information for the display, these applications require an Application Programmer Interface, or API to associate with.
HTML might be helpful for designing substance in internet browsers, however, there are greatly improved configurations for information that will be utilized by different projects. The two most mainstream positions for API information are JSON, which represents JavaScript Object Notation, and XML, which represents eXtensible Markup Language.
4. Server Handling: Your site needs a database to deal with all the client and product data. A database stores site content in a structure that makes it simple to recover, arrange, alter, and store information. It runs on a remote PC called a server. There is a wide range of databases that are generally utilized, for example, MySQL, Oracle, Postgres SQL, and SQL Server. For server management you can choose any one of these and acquire an expertise on it: Docker, Kubernetes, Nginx, Node.js, New Relic etc.
5. Knowledge of Popular Frameworks: You must have knowledge of the frameworks identified with your preferred language. For example, on the off chance that you go with Java, you would be required to know Spring, Hibernate, and so on. These are well known Java-based frameworks. Additionally, on the off chance that you go for Python, you would be required to know Flask, Django or some other Python-based framework.
Estimated income of a Backend Developer
According to research, and taking the previous year’s figures into consideration, backend developer trends to earn up to $120,798 per year. This figure could vary based on expertise, experience, skills, and is also dependent on the company, country, and other factors. Also, it is worthwhile to note that there’s a vast difference between the pay-scales of backend developers and front-end developers. Front-end developers aren’t paid as much as backend developers. The reason is that front-end work is mostly done with the help of automated tools, while backend development requires much technical expertise.
What is the future of Backend Development?
As of the current market trends, there are no worthy alternatives to backend developers and backend development. So naturally, the future is very bright for such developers. In this digital age, every business is required to have an online presence, and for that, they require high-quality backend development for their websites. Although many clients are not aware of the difference between backend and front-end still, the market cannot survive without backend developers. Despite technology replacing everything with automation, backend developers have a safe future as they are required for the process of developing automated tools.
Summary
The role of backend developers is critical to web development. They are responsible for all the key roles and ensure the deployment of quality products. That is why more and more aspiring web developers are today opting for this career. Such people should have a passion for coding and possess all the required knowledge and skills to become an efficient developer. It is also necessary to have other additional skills, mentioned above, to make your mark in the market.
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