Now that you are designing your web application or want to get one designed, you want it to make an impression.  An impression in this case means capturing a user’s imagination with the application’s user friendly interface and high degree of functionality.

Such designs are sure to grab eyeballs. So let’s get right to it.

1. No Fancy GUI
   
   Some people try all sorts of tricks to ensure that their application design is unique and something that has not been tried before. This is where they go wrong. Take the example of GUI controls. Many website developers have used non standard GUI controls in a bid to be different, but fallen flat on their faces. The fact is, elements such as scroll bars, radio buttons, checkboxes etc are an integral part of the application design vocabulary. Any change that affects the working of these elements is sure to backfire.
    
2. Coding Hygiene
   
   Great web application design is all about maintaining the consistency of your coding. If your indentation, spacing and capitalization are not in order, say good bye to creating any impression with your web application. You don’t want your code to get tangled into a complex web that cannot be straightened out. Your end user bears the brunt of this problem. So, it’s important that you use the kind of codes that reduce confusion and ensures the optimal functionality of your web application.
    
3. Clarity of Purpose
   
   If you want your web application to captivate the user, be clear as to its purpose. If it’s a business application, make sure that it has a well defined purpose. For e.g. if it’s a web application that helps a business deliver shipment orders, then make sure that the web application satisfies this requirement in its entirety. The design should ensure convenience with respect to navigation and speed in terms of processing. If it tries to offer multiple functions, it might not do the job it’s supposed to do. This logic stands true for all kinds of web application designs, across all the categories.
    
4. Easy to Understand
   
   Don’t dump the web application design on your users. Irrespective of the fact, whether it’s a complex or simple enough web application, the design must be easy to understand. It must not overwhelm the user. So, it’s of paramount importance that you should incorporate certain instructions about using the particular web application and understanding its design elements.
    
5. Concentrate on Usability
   
   Last but not the least; you must focus on making the design as usable as you can. Ensure that the shelf life of the web application design stands the test. It shouldn’t become redundant in a short span of time. A great web application is one that adapts to the changing needs of the client. It must leave a window open for modification; and it must be usable at all times.

These tips and many others like it are good as long as they are used in the best possible manner. At the end of the day, if you want your web application design to grab eyeballs, you must focus on two important aspects – Functionality and Convenience. Everything else comes second.

Web applications are an integral component of any and every website, especially, a business website. These web enabled applications streamline a business process and even go onto improves business performance. The best web applications are known for attracting a huge amount of traffic, which is always good news for a website. But, there are times when even the best of applications don’t perform along expected lines. They fall short of what the users expect from them, which can ultimately lead to them being replaced or reengineered.

The problem, in part, lies in development. Enhanced performance is only achieved by making sure that the web application has all the technical attributes to make it perform faster and better.

Here are 5 tips that can help improve the performance of web applications.

1. Caching – A widely used technique
   
   Talk to any developer about improving performance of application and he will direct you to ‘caching’. The premise of this technique is very simple. Caching enables the retention of data or pages for all HTTP requests. This helps the application reuse this data, without having to recreate it or regenerate it.
    
2. Compression of HTTP requests
   
   As the name suggests, the idea behind HTTP compression is to compress HTTP requests and responses from the web server. The main aim of compression is to reduce the pressure on the web server. It’s estimated that the reduction can be as much as 50%. The implementation of HTTP compression can go a long way in increasing performance of the web application.
    
3. Avoid embedding JavaScript
   
   One of the reasons why a web application doesn’t perform optimally is because the JavaScript is embedded in the page, which goes on to increase page size. What happens is that, whenever users visit your website page, they will also have to download the JavaScript. A much better solution is embedding the JavaScript in the JS file. Such files are cached by the user’s web browser.
   
   This has a two-fold benefit – A decreased page size leading to faster load time, which in turn improves web application performance.
    
4. Balance the Load
   
   A case can be made for balancing the request load on two or more servers. If you find that your web server is unable to handle the requests that are pouring in, it will be a good idea to use a load balancer. With the use of a load balancer a request can be redirected to other servers, which will finally serve back to the user.
    
5. Cookie size reduction
   
   Cookies store information about users, which are used to authenticate or personalize their use of the particular application. Keeping the cookie size to a minimum helps optimize the performance of web applications. Also, make sure that your cookies have an expiry date. They should expire as soon as they become redundant for a particular application.

Issues relating to performance enhancement can only be handled by an expert developer. If you think your web application is not performing as well as it should be, you need to get in touch with web application development companies having proven expertise in improving web application performance.

Such companies ensure an improvement in the performance of an existing application or they can design a whole new web application that takes into the consideration the very pointers mentioned above.

You must have heard of web based software applications and how businesses are using it for improving their performance. At the same time, you might have also wondered what all the uproar was all about.

Well, here’s your answer.

• They are custom intensive
  
  Web application development can be customized to suit your requirements to the T. Developers, especially expert developers can work their magic with such applications and offer unique solutions for your particular requirement. This takes away the limitations of assembly line solutions and ensures you can optimize their use.

• Immensely scalable
  
  Your business will evolve. A particular business process might remain the same, but as your business progresses; its scope will become bigger. The scalable nature of web based software applications means; you can modify them to meet the growing demands of your business. And all this, without any bother at all.
   
• Reliability personified
  
  Your business needs applications that are as reliable as your products and services, if not more. The stability of web applications is also one of their salient features. Your application won’t give up on you, just when you wanted it most. More importantly, such applications have been known to outperform traditional non web based applications in terms of stability and reliability.

• High performance platform
  
  Web based software application development offer you a platform that fuels the performance of your business. By streamlining your business performance and making it more customer-oriented, you are better positioned to take important decisions. Also, the decision taking is much faster, as you can have better control over your business processes and its management.

At the end of the day, it is important that you make an informed decision regarding the use of web based applications. There is no doubt that they are good for you, but the question is how do you optimize their use?

This can only be done if you can prioritize your goals and objectives and get an application developed that is perfectly in line with those objectives.

Now, that you have your website up and running on the World Wide Web, you might think that your job is done. But, your job is only half done. The next step is in making sure that your website integrates web applications that are going to improve your business performance.

What web applications do, is that they help you use the immense potential of the internet to give your online presence a push in the right direction. This makes web application development good news for your business. Web application development and not just any development, but customized web application development is going to help your business.

Convergence of business processes

Most web applications try and improve the existing business processes. Business growth is all about managing your business processes well. If you can optimize their functioning, you will reap rich dividends. A web application will help you bring together all your business processes under one common umbrella. This will help you be in charge of your processes and also helps you manage them well.

Facilitate business promotion

The key to a successful online presence is efficient business promotion. Custom web applications development solutions help facilitate the efficient promotion of your online identity. With the right kind of web applications, you will be able to reach your customers better and can also keep in touch with the changing needs and demands of your customers, as well as, prospective customers.

Cost Effective and Convenient Management

Whether it’s man-management, customer relationship management or for that matter content management or anything else; customized web applications development ensures that you get a solution that is convenient and cost effective to boot.  This helps you take strategic decisions quickly without wasting time.

All in all web application development is a good idea because it offers your business the much needed competitive edge. You can not only compete but also surge ahead of your competition by making effective use of web application development.

Enterprise portal or a Corporate portal can be called a vehicle of collaboration. As information gets extensive and diverse systems are used to bring together this information from various resources, it’s getting tougher for businesses to collate this valuable information. The development of enterprise portals has made large businesses heave a sigh of relief. The field of enterprise portal development is still in its nascent stage, but already businesses are realizing the immense potential of enterprise portals in terms of improving their business process and powering their business growth.

Efficiency of Collaboration

For a business, an enterprise portal brings together its various applications, information and services on one common platform. This improves the interactivity of the people of the organization and also helps build effective customer relationships. If you are facing trouble with collaboration due to the uncontrolled assimilation of information, maybe it’s time you looked at getting yourself an enterprise portal.

Makes them more Competitive

Yes, that’s the key isn’t it? Enterprise portals offer businesses a tangible competitive advantage. The availability of well-managed information on one common platform makes a business flexible and it can adapt to changing situations quickly and more effectively. This also helps immeasurably when it’s the time to make decisions. Decision taking is faster and more in line with the objectives of the business.

Improved ROI

It’s all about the bottom line. The fact that an enterprise portal facilitates effective decision making and also streamlines business processes means there is going to be an improvement in the bottom line and a higher ROI.