A website is a product of close collaboration between the design and development team. A disconnect between the two gives rise to issues that are detrimental to the design and development of a website. It’s important for them to be on the same page, otherwise the overall efficiency and functionality of website can be compromised.

This is why effective communication between the two is of paramount importance and it can be facilitated if certain aspects both technical and otherwise are kept in mind.

Sharing Exhaustive Documentation

It’s funny that people, who should be acutely aware about the importance of an adequate level of documentation, ignore it. Designers believe that advanced custom software development technologies make the preparation of exhaustive documentation almost redundant, while developers think sophisticated design platforms lessen the need for a developers input during the process of design. For both designers and developers, it’s important to sit together, do in-depth brainstorming on the project and identify the levels of documentation required for the particular project. This leads to less confusion during the project development stage.

The importance of UI

This is an extension of our earlier point. If there is one ‘documentation’ that is a better bet than most others, it’s the User Interface. A well-defined, clearly designed UI offers developers a definite idea about data placement and its formatting.  It also helps define the functional flow of the website, which in turn ensures an error free coding structure. The idea behind offering developers a clear UI is that they will know the shape of the website, software or application and determine what needs to be done, to ensure that this shape is brought to fruition.

Avoid a Wavering Mind

Taking a decision and standing by it is the key to facilitating reliable collaboration between designers and developers. Take for example the case of a designer who has fixed the height of navigation and informs the developer of the same. The developer takes a note. But certain changes in design mean you need to change this height. This is something that should be avoided at all costs. The problem lies in the fact that as compared to development, design is more subjective. This is why when it comes to making designing decisions, it’s important to have conviction. If you keep changing your decisions, it just creates problems during website development as developers will need to keep making changes to their own decisions.

Implementation of only those Features that Matter

Effective collaboration is a result of choosing only those features that are important for the user. Developers hate working on features that nobody really would like to use, and the blame for this lies solely on the shoulders of designers. It’s important that designers are completely focused on the needs and requirements of users and not offer some extra features that are just going to increase the development time. More importantly, if it’s a complex feature, as a designer, you will need to discuss the same with the development team to get an idea about its feasibility, technical complexities and the time required for development.

Staying Involved

Both designers and developers need to be available for a discussion, whenever needed. There are plenty of issues that crop up during the development stage and more often than not developers are hard pressed to match data with the design mockups. So, there will be plenty of back and forth happening and reliable and open communications lines area must between the design and development teams. Also, both need to be involved with the website development right up to project completion. This is very important because as a designer you might spend endless hours, tirelessly crafting a fantastic UI, but what if the developer doesn’t realize your concept fully? Your countless hours are wasted. So, it’s of paramount importance that your involvement with the project, whether as a designer or a developer, never diminishes.

Keeping in mind these aspects will definitely ensure successful collaboration between developers and designers.

When developers write a mobile application, security is paramount in their minds. A misstep in enforcing aspects such as SSL, not giving due importance to threats from virus, worms, Trojans, malware and unauthorized software, application isolation etc. has the potential to compromise the data on the app and the device as a whole.

So, any mobile application development company worth its salt will give prime importance to the security of their apps.  Here are some ways mobile app developers underwrite app security. Before going ahead, it’s important to clarify that each mobile OS whether it’s the iOS, Android, Symbian, Windows Phone 7 or BlackBerry, have their platform specific security specifications, but there are certain security considerations applicable to all of them.

Secure Programming

The foundation of most mobile applications rests on programming languages such as C, C++, C# or Java. The benefit offered by these languages that have been in use for such a very long time is that developers have gained a lot of experience on them; they can thus implement secure programming practices for developing a secure code. Professional mobile app developers, who know the value of code security, never do rush jobs when it comes to writing their code. They perform the necessary security checks and balances by adhering to the most stringent security frameworks and coding guidelines.

Proper Storage of Sensitive Information

Some developers make the mistake of storing sensitive information in text format on the mobile devices. Whether its iPhone or android application development or developing application for any other OS, developers can ensure all sensitive information in an unclear text format, taking the help of the various platform specific encryption resources available for this purpose. Developers use, native encryption resources which means they don’t have to take the help of third party software that might compromise security at a later date.

Evaluating and Analyzing the Security Strengths of Mobile Browsers

Applications that use a mobile browser are the most susceptible to security threats. To ensure app security on mobile browsers, developers focus on understanding the various security aspects of different mobile browsers, their strengths and limitations. It’s important to understand that the security implications and considerations of the desktop browsers are not applicable to mobile browsers.

Differentiating the threats from the non-threats

There are certain threats that matter to a mobile application, while there are others that don’t. What this means is that there are certain threats that are acceptable and there are other that aren’t. Professionally sound and astute developers initiate a threat identification process to identify which is which. The idea behind identifying the potential risks to the applications help developers write a more secure code; this also helps at the time of conducting a comprehensive series of tests for ensuring the functional efficiency of the mobile app.

These are just some of the many ways in which developers ensure secure mobile application development.

An online venture has its work cut out in terms of establishing its own distinctive online presence. The competition is tough and its only chance of success is reaching a wider target audience. If you are launching an online venture, it’s your branding efforts that will determine the success or failure of your business.

The most decisive component of your branding strategy is your online presence in the form of a website. But, gone are the days when this presence could only be limited to the web; your online presence now needs to go mobile. Also, this presence should be such that it can be accessed through a variety of devices such as desktop, laptops, mobile phones and tablets. Limiting its accessibility will have a negative impact on your branding efforts.

Mobile Users are a Rapidly Emerging Target Audience

If there is one development that is getting noticed by online marketers, it is that people are getting increasingly tech-savvy. This is reflected in the ever growing number of mobile users and the fact that a large percentage of these mobile users are smartphone users, who are accessing the web from their handheld devices. In doing so, they are no longer dependent on a desktop/laptop for accessing a particular website. Now, a large part of these users will comprise your target audience and you can’t afford to ignore this audience as it is a potentially lucrative source of revenue.

The mobile website as an important branding tool

In order to target your audience of mobile phone users, you need a mobile compatible website. This is the kind of website that can be accessed from the mobile phone of your target users. The importance of mobile website as a branding tool can be estimated from the fact that more and more mobile users are becoming ‘mobile only internet users’. This means they are accessing the internet only from their mobile phones. A large percentage of these users are likelier to buy from retailers that have a mobile website. So, having a mobile website makes tremendous business sense!

Although not as popular as smartphones, tablets such as the iPad are slowly but surely making their presence felt.  The ensuing years will see increased website viewership on the mobile operating systems that a tablet runs on. So, your online presence also needs to be tablet compatible. It helps you establish a presence in the minds of an emerging audience.

Something else that is capturing the imagination of mobile users is the mobile app. The various mobile OS specific apps stores are full of innovative and highly engaging apps that are eagerly being downloaded by users. A well-designed and engaging mobile app is an efficient way of capturing the attention of a mobile user; and integrating the mobile app with a ‘splash page’ is an innovative way of marketing your online venture.

In order to optimize the marketability of your mobile website, it’s important to identify the smartphones and tablets used by your target audience and design a website and/or mobile app that work perfectly on your user’s mobile devices.

A concerted marketing strategy

Be it a desktop website, a mobile and tablet compatible website or a mobile app, they must offer the same message. Yes, the limitations or freedoms offered by certain devices/operating systems will determine the way this message is expressed, but the gist should remain the same. 

Here are a few pointers that need to be taken into consideration to ensure successful use of your presence on the web and mobile.

• There should be no distractions on your Desktop/laptop website, mobile and tablet compatible website, and mobile app. Distractions dilute the message of your website and lead to unnecessary confusion. So, they need to be avoided at all costs.
   
• You need to ensure that you use the same logo & design theme across all websites and even your splash page. It ensures a commonality between all your online presences and helps you make a much stronger and concerted marketing effort.
   
• Your information should remain the same across all platforms, but its presentation can change keeping in mind the space constraints of certain devices. When it comes to a mobile website and mobile app, the information should be to-the-point and mention only the important points.
   
• It’s also important to provide links to your mobile website and app on your main website.
   
• If someone tries to access Desktop/Laptop compatible website from the mobile browser then this user should automatically be redirected to your mobile compatible website. This fact is relevant to the tablet as well.

The process of establishing a successful presence doesn’t end with just building a series of compatible websites or mobile apps. It also includes marketing the website and/or app in the best possible manner. So, even mobile marketing plays an important role in ensuring your online venture reaching a wider audience. Taken together the combination of an online presence on desktop/laptop, mobile/tablet, mobile app and penetrating mobile website marketing solutions, ensures a formidable internet presence that reaches and makes an impression on a wide target audience.

Shopping cart abandonment is like a nightmare that has come true, for ecommerce websites. It’s a phenomenon that affects most shopping carts or websites that are poorly designed. But, the fact that user’s have abandoned the shopping cart, means they were interested in buying your products and services and participated in the shopping cycle, but left it midway for certain reasons.

It’s estimated that online retailers face almost 50% abandonment rate.  Just imagine the loss of revenue! But to be fair, you can’t ensure that nobody using the checkout process will find faults with it. There is a chance that a section of users will exit the check out process before completing it. But, it’s important that designers and developers leave no stone unturned to implement the kind of shopping cart that is appreciated by a majority of the users. For this to happen, you will first need to identify the different factors that play a role in shopping cart abandonment.

1. A complex buying process

Customers love to spend some time mulling their decision to buy a particular product or service, but once the decision is taken, they don’t want to spend ages trying to buy the product. They want the process of shopping to be over quickly and successfully. But, if this does not happen, and the buying process puts them off because of its complexity, they will not complete it and abandon it midway. This complexity could be a result of faulty design, complex navigation, long check out process, and lack of help features amongst various other reasons.

2. Technical Problems in the Shopping Cart

Say you are in the midst of a check out process and it hangs up on you. It just stops; that’s it. As a customer, you are bound to get irritated, angry and in most cases, will just end the process there and then. Usually this problem occurs if a particular ecommerce shopping cart is incompatible with a particular browser. There is also a chance that the design is taking a toll on the seamless functioning of the shopping cart. If there is a lack of design optimization, it has a marked effect on the shopping cart functionality.

3. Inability to Access Important Information

If your shopping cart users are unable to get important information like shipping charges or can’t access the info about your customer services policies, there is a good chance that they are going to abandon the cart. You need to be able to give your prospective customers all information that encourages an informed buying decision. It’s only if customers think that they are making a well-thought out decision that they will actually go ahead and buy a product or service. Their inability to access such information is an important contributing factor towards shopping cart abandonment.

These are not the only reasons why online shoppers will see a particular shopping cart in a negative light. A bad shopping cart is a result of numerous errors, which result in a confusing, long drawn out and generally unsatisfactory shopping process.

User experience in terms of a website, web application or a mobile application is all about usability. As a user, you need to feel comfortable when you use a certain application. The experience of using this application must be meaningful and engaging.

When developers build an application, irrespective of the development platform or OS, they need to cater to a user’s perception of the application’s efficiency, convenience and utility. As far as the user experience is concerned, it’s all about giving the right direction to the user’s feelings and thoughts about the system in question. The difficulty in ensuring an effective user experience lies in the fact that it’s subjective and changes from one user to another and it’s also circumstantial; it keeps changing over time and is dynamic.

But there are certain factors that definitely play a crucial role in ensuring a satisfactory user experience.

Let’s take a look at two of them.

Simplicity, but within the limits of logic

If you want to travel from Point A to Point B, do you take the longer route or the shorter route? It’s a given that, a person is always looking for a simpler solution. But, this is where, developers miss a trick. Simplicity is not only about reducing the clicks in an application. There is absolutely no doubt that design optimization plays a crucial role in offering an effective user experience, but the focus should always be on reducing the mental effort rather than the physical effort of using a system. In an attempt to make the application as simple as possible, some developers are guilty of making it harder to use. By reducing the number of steps to perform a given activity, they make users think more and do less.

In order to ensure the ideal psychological and physical response from the users, the system needs to be kept simple, but not overtly so. It’s important that a user does not struggle with a certain concept, just because you want to keep the design simple. It’s important that the simplicity is propped up by logic. Failure to do so, will only give rise to complexity.

One-Size-Doesn’t-fit All

An oft-repeated phrase, boring to quote and difficult to implement! But, to ensure satisfying user experience, you will need to ensure that the design is acceptable to the majority of people who are using the application/system.  The situation is definitely a little tricky, but like everything else, there is always a way out.

You need to aim to make the design as productive as possible. It’s simply not necessary that you offer a design that meets the expectations of a large section of users. If you can achieve this, pat yourself on the back, but if you can’t find a way out, it’s important that you make things easier for users. A case in point being options – numerous options thrown at the user can lead to confusion. But, by using a design that leads up to users choosing the option that you have presented to them, is a much simpler way of going about things.

The factors mentioned above might sound as if web developers are trying to dumb down the system. But, even if it looks that way, it’s still improving the user experience a long way, and it’s only this that is going to ensure a successful app. Nothing else! So, don’t shy away from dumbing the app system down.