Software outsourcing was seen a decade ago as an appealing alternative for companies that wished to reduce general operating costs when the organization’s aim was not mainly concentrated on the IT sector.

Today, as demand for IT resources continues to rise exponentially, the only appropriate course of action can be the development of offshore software. There are many benefits of offshoring, read to find out more:

The outsourcing method has been further categorized into two methods; outsourcing and offshoring at home. As the name indicates, domestic outsourcing is where a business seeks outsourcing from another business or the same country’s freelancers.

While this type of outsourcing has its charms, individuals are more willing to opt for outsourcing their jobs to foreign firms or freelance experts.

As per the statistics, it is proven that the market size of outsourcing industry across the globe has reached to $85.6 billion in the year 2017 which will increase in the upcoming years. Almost, 59% of the businesses outsource in order to reduce the cost.  

An offshore software development center is called the center where you can outsource your software.

Have a look at some of the proven advantages the offshore development centers offer those:

The primary advantages that your software development can achieve by outsourcing can be broken down into the following:

1) Cost reduction in salaries and infrastructure

As stated above, this may be the primary issue to consider when choosing to contract a service rather than constructing and operating with your own.

In relation to the apparently reduced costs of equipment and facilities, your budget can be affected by salaries.

Even with the same level of qualified professionals, when looking at nations known for their software development centers, there may be essential variations in general wages paid abroad.

2) Recruitments become more comfortable when you delegate and expand your search across the world

The increasing global demand makes recruitment and staffing increasingly hard; this is another one of the best benefits of offshoring.

Outsourcing eliminates this issue almost entirely while supplying you with the most excellent experts worldwide, depending of course on your selection of offshore software development.

3) You get quality as well as innovation

The primary issues of outsourcing businesses are innovation and quality. You can get extremely skilled experts to the greatest norms in software development, depending on your demands. 

If you need to construct your own team with the same quality standard, either contract very costly resources (which may not be accessible at all) or invest in training that could take years for young practitioners to become as productive as a senior professional with several years of experience.

4) Time Zone differences do exist when you work with overseas

This is either a benefit or a problem depending on how you look at it. It is always desirable to overlap some of the working hours between local and remote, so that issues can be solved quickly. Furthermore, a team several hours ahead or behind your local times is also one of the best benefits of offshoring.

If your teams have a decent time gap (i.e., 4-6 hours) that enables for some overlap but also has some working hours outside of your local time, you can address problems that arose at the end of your business day and work on them outside your business hours.

If you only work with on-site resources, you need to work overnight to introduce improvements without interrupting essential facilities used during business hours.

Having your own IT department, working with an offshore software development team in a separate time zone facilitates the execution of a 24-hour development cycle that enables you to catch up more rapidly with the demands and modifications that are significantly impacted by real-time behavior (typical for internet solutions that are used globally).

If you only have a local team, the midnight execution would require your team to work additional hours. But if you have an offshore team that works 4-6 hours ahead or behind your hour, then your changes may be implemented during your normal working times by this offshore team.

5) One can focus fully on his/her own business

If your company is not IT one, when treated as a distinct region, having to cope with your own IT department imposes tremendous operating costs. Most of the moment, you find a cost-benefit trade-off when you execute a feature in your business.

If your IT department is not skilled enough in software methods or lacks the additional resources you need, these limitations will restrict your decisions to determine how to implement a fresh feature. 

You are likely to end up with an insufficient option in this situation that could be addressed by your own IT department.

6) The Responsibilities get shared

Most non-IT companies typically underestimate software development risk management. When selecting to outsource a component, the parties agree on what to do and share the impact and risk management among them.

The offshore company can better handle and mitigate the risks produced by development as it is a element of its vitally important business.

7) The need for new infrastructure is eliminated

One of your significant advantages is that you don’t need to build and handle a development team whenever you hire the offshore development company.

The implementation of the projects can get underway faster if your infrastructure and setting up of your development center is not necessary. The first and foremost thing is to start the project.

8) Auto-Scale the IT team

While the word mainly relates to hardware infrastructure scale-up, it is also a significant factor in offshore growth. Your company may not always need the same funds.

There may be a stage in your products and services where you have to work with a larger group of experts, and then you can reach a maturity level that makes continuing the same level of skilled experts pointless.

You may choose to reduce the team at this stage or change roles and positions to a more operational level. This degree of IT resource management could be tremendously complicated when dealing with employing staff directly, rather than delegating all this to your offshore development center.

9) The cost-saving infrastructure

The primary benefit of offshoring the development centers is its cost-effectiveness. Work offshoring will reduce direct and indirect costs, such as recruitment, oversight, compensation, infrastructure, etc.

10) Work quality is innovative and the best

The best thing about the offshore development firm is innovation and quality work. You can get extremely skilled experts following the greatest norms in software development according to your business needs and specifications.

11) Concentrate on your key business 

If your business is not completely IT, the management of your own IT department needs large operating costs when it becomes a separate area. Leaving this complex IT tasks to an outsourcing development center will eliminate important issues and free up time to spend on more particular tasks for your primary business.

12) 24/7 Services

Continuous day and night work is feasible, and the job can be accomplished effectively using the difference in the time zone. The work is done concurrently with the assistance of offshore development operations, and the work is finished earlier with a high rate of productivity. 

In a nutshell                                               

While most of the benefits of offshoring the software development center would affect cost reduction by delving deeper into the advantages, one will understand it’s not just a matter of budget. The experience and specialization you can have when considering outsourcing software, enabling you to concentrate on the primary objectives of your company, are important considerations to believe, even with equal or higher expenses.

So, what are you waiting for, to know more about us, visit us today GoodWorkLabs

For software architects, microservices are the wave of the future. Sounds convincing? To learn more about the advantages of microservices architecture, check out the top 10 reasons.

Also, make sure that you know about all the barriers in terms of technical complexity, stack, and more moving to the microservices architecture.

Java is a language that has been around for some time, and people wonder if it is useful in a microservices setting. This article explains the advantages of microservices architecture and why Java still has a lot of significance in contemporary apps such as microservices.

The Need for writing the microservice applications in Java

For excellent reasons, Java is a common linguistic option. The language is strong, with years of experience working with critical apps for missions and evolving with the emergence of fresh planning models. The near-omnipresent use of Java in company apps has developed an extensive pool of Java-based software developers. Even when fresh apps are created, it is useful to use current abilities.

The intensive learning curves are provided by microservices with the addition of a language to the mix which may increase the danger. It presents yet more unidentified information about the creation, deployment, and administration of a manufacturing microservice implementation.

To revolutionize your organization, it’s always positive to keep an eye on the upcoming technologies, frameworks, languages. If in your monolithic framework you are still cemented in your cube messing around with code, then you probably live in the past, where you have a small application and some employees to handle it.

JavaScript is usually used for the application front end (particularly for web-based applications). Java for battle-tested data management is also common in the background. While there is still a lot of space for spectral variations, Java is great for writing micro-services.

Nowadays, things have been changing. You have to go a step forward and walk with the revolutionary technologies where microservices are among the leaders. Are you looking for the best reasons to invest time in learning microservices with a view to becoming an architect and developing applications using them?

This article will help you in learning various advantages of microservices architecture and various reasons so as to why learn microservices.

• Various Tools can be used flexibly as and when required

The architecture of microservices encourages the use of the most suitable technology for the service’s specific needs. Each service is free to use its own language, framework or auxiliary services. The services still communicate easily with the other services in the application even with the use of such diverse frameworks.

• High-Quality code is provided

The entire framework is modularized into discrete components following the microservices architecture. This helps the application development team concentrate on one specific job at a time. In turn, this simplifies the overall process of coding and testing.

• Various Applications can be easily Built and Maintained

The team of developers divides into the following activities as and when the products built by developers become stable and are available for customers.

• Implementing various new features
• Bug fixing
• Modifications in the existing features

If the product is based on a monolithic framework, each change to the codebase must pass through all stages of construction, maintenance, and deployment. Microservices are a savior in these situations!

• The Technology Stack

The technology stack is difficult enough to decide for a monolithic application, but for every microservice, this decision must now be taken. What seems theoretically attractive can become difficult in practice if your services are too heterogeneous. Standardization is becoming a problem and cowboy behavior is possible. It’s also more difficult when every team has a totally different stack for people to move between teams.

It is always recommended to have a balanced approach where the application has a preferred technology stack. If any team wishes to override this default stack, it should justify the fact that it is better suited for microservice with advantages and disadvantages. Your stack of technologies should include the language of programming, test, and logging, cloud providers, facilities, storage, monitoring, etc.

• Improvements in the Scalability

The main aspect of microservices is scalability. Since each service is a separate part, a single function or service can be expanded without the application being scale-up in full. Business services for increased availability and performance on multiple servers can be used without affecting the efficiency of other services.

• Faster Market Time

Due to the fact queuing up of microservices, you don’t need to rewrite all the codebase for a feature to be included or modified. Only a specific service will be changed. You can quickly market your application and services by the development of applications in smaller increments that can be independently tested and deployed.

• The Complex Operations

The complexity of operations is much increased by microservices as operations must be revised from a fundamental point of view. The following aspects must be considered:

Infrastructure

The definition of microservice infrastructure requirements and subsequently the provision and maintenance of infra for each microservice creates a level of complexity which most monolithic Ops engineers are not used to. Furthermore, as these services are expanded and reduced, the infrastructure must be automatically provided and reduced, thus requiring a very advanced level of automation.

Load balancing and scaling

It is likely you will need a much more complex, scaling strategy than with monolithic, ever-scale(x-axis) applications. If you need to scale all the services or just a subset when there’s a high demand, you’ll need to figure out with Microservices. The y-axis scaling is essential for the operations team, as the microservices approach and z-Axis scaling are consistent to obtain x and y.

Service detection

Dynamically, due to scaling and upgrades, the set of service instances of a world with microservices. Services also have dynamic network locations, so you need a way to discover new services. For this, it is always recommended to go for a registry service such as Consul because it works very well.

Monitoring

This must be configured and maintained on every microservice to make the operations team engineers more complex. In addition, the surveillance solution must manage situations for increasing and downloading a subset of facilities.

• Delivery is Continuous

In contrast to monolithic apps where devoted teams operate for each individual function like database manipulation, server logic retention, microservices utilizes the continuous delivery model to manage the entire application lifecycle.

The developers, the test teams and the operations team work together on the construction, testing and debugging of a single service.

• Risk Reducer

Every service in the microservices framework is a distinct entity, which enables localization, increased confidence in quality, and end-to-end regression scenarios. Even if one service or application element is down, the entire application will not decrease. Rather, the designers only need to rebuild that specific service or element. This decreases the danger of your company application being completely dropped!!

• Delivery is Continuous

In contrast to monolithic applications in which dedicated teams are working on discreet functions such as UI, database, server logic and technology, microservices employ cross-functional teams to operate on a continuous delivery model for the entire life cycle of an application. Testing and deployment become simple and instantaneous when developers, activities and test teams operate on one service concurrently. Code is constantly being created, tested and implemented through this strategy of incremental development, and instead of reinventing the wheel; you can use code from current libraries.

Conclusion

As you can see, Java is greatly suited for microservices because of many reasons along with the advantages of microservices architecture. For more information and some good practice tips, check out our official website of Goodwork Labs  and learn more about us.

So, what you are waiting for, contact us today.

Which is one is better, Vue.js or React.js? This debate is going on for a long time. We chose this topic to provide more clarity and finish this debate once and for all.

The array of frameworks and language pops up every day and it is quite difficult to decide which ones are worth paying attention to. As we all know that javascript programming has become a very renowned and well-known scripting language with first-class functions. We being a software development company, cannot neglect the most popular frameworks of this period that is Vue.js and React.js. 

Vue.js and React.js are front end javascript frameworks that are highly efficient and facilitate the job of the developer to build web applications by providing vulnerable and pragmatic features. Let us discuss what precisely Vue.js and React.js frameworks are all about.

1.1 What is Vue.js?

Value.js has become predominantly used javascript frameworks worldwide. It enables you to create single-page web applications. Its core library focuses on the view layer and it is one of the fastest-growing frameworks that support updating models and views via 2-way data binding. 

Vue.js was introduced in 2014, which extensively started being download since 2017 by the users. It took the market by storm. 

Statistically, total number of websites using Vue are 5,23,510 that includes hosting data, contact details, and location information. Coming over to the number of live websites which are currently 2,47,494 and an additional domains that redirects to site in this list are 3,84,888. The number of websites that were using vue as their framework were 2,76,016 and 978 websites are using vue completely in India.

You can check the whole websites list using Vue.

1.2 What is React.js?

React.js is an open-source javascript framework that is used for building user-interfaces. You can effortlessly build single-page applications through React.js. Moreover, it can also be used for making applications on the client-side along with working on the server-side. It is one of the biggest positives of React.js that it could be used to develop cross-platform applications. 

React.js simplifies the coding and it also enables the developer to reuse the code for rapid development. It creates a particular data structure in order to make changes and update the browser by utilizing the concept of Virtual DOM. 

One can create attractive and reusable UI components through its library. It is very convenient for the components which represent frequently changing data. You can easily break user interfaces into components to build reusable user interfaces instead of using HTML or templates. Many renowned such as Whatsapp, Yahoo, Netflix, Facebook, Instagram, Airbnb, Microsoft uses React.js framework. Moreover, React.js is backed by professional developers from Facebook who are always looking to rectify and improve it. 

React.js was introduced in 2013 and started gaining recognition among the users from 2016. 

Getting over to the numbers 13,75,412 websites are using react including contact details, location information, and hosting data. Total number of live websites are 2,58,620 at present and 6,48,536 are additional domains that redirect the sites to this list. The number of sites that were using this technology previously were 11,16,792 and the websites which are using react currently in india are 1534. 

You can check the entire websites list using react.

 Pros and Cons of Vue.js

2.1 Pros of Vue.js

Listed below are some of the advantages of Vue.js-

• Small Size- The file size of Vue.js comprises of only 18KB to 20KB. It also allows the users to split the run time and the template-to-virtual-DOM compiler
• Smoother integration- Whether it is a complex web interface or a single-page application, it provides simple and enhanced integration of smaller parts. It allows the component logic and structure to contain in one file
• Flexibility- It provides a simple and efficient structure, reusable templates and hassle-free migration. It also provides an opportunity for the other developers to switch on to Vue while they were working on some other java framework
• Detailed Documentation- Vue.js is known for its comprehensive documentation. It is one of the areas where Vue.js excels over React.js
• Ease of use- This framework is designed to embrace standard HTML-based templates or large scale templates. You can easily find errors in the blocks and helps in revamping the existing application

2.2 Cons of Vue.js

When it comes to the number of users for Vue.js and React.js, Vue.js has considerably a very small market as compared to the React.js framework, leading to closed community development. However, it is becoming prevalent at a fast pace but the major concern at the time of usage is having issues in terms of large scale app development.

Pros and Cons of React.js

3.1 Pros of React.js

Here are some reasons why you should opt for React.js framework-

• Easier to learn- As compared to other front-end frameworks, this programming language is easy to learn, especially for the new developers. You just need to have a basic knowledge of CSS and HTML. 
• Responsive and Flexible- Along with its simple functioning and programming, it offers utmost responsiveness and flexibility
• Favours SEO- Before the launch of React.js, there was a conception that javascript frameworks are not compatible with SEO. But, the React.js framework broke this myth as it can work on the server-side and the virtual DOM that is rendered on the browser as a regular web page. 
• Simple Framework with rich Javascript Library- It has a well-defined framework with a component-based approach. It works by making use of syntax which is called as JSX, which makes it browser friendly with the files in HTML, XML, and XHTML format
• Web and Mobile platform-  It provides a platform that can be used to develop native rendered apps compatible with Android and iOS
• Data flow in one direction- The one direction refers to ‘download’. The main advantage of it is that the smaller data does not affect the larger data which could effortlessly make changes swiftly. The state of the object is modified and updated
• The code Reusability- While working on the project, React.js provides an opportunity for the developers to reuse the code components of various levels 

3.2 Cons of React.js

Due to its complex setup process, functions, properties, and structure, one requires profound knowledge in order to build an application. Along with this, it has poor documentation.

Comparison between Vue.js and React.js on different grounds

If you are a professional and an advance user, React.js has a mature and massive development community. Due to its grown-up user base, it is compatible with many mobile apps and large scale applications. 

Whereas, if you are a beginner and want to use a lightweight and faster UI library for crafting a single page application, Vue.js could be a better option for you. It is also for the developers, who are predominantly working on HTML format.

You could see an excellent development environment in Vue.js and React.js as both the tools provide you a flexible and comfortable development environment. They also provide you a superior starting point that gets you started with coding. 

To aid the process and for better understanding of which framework you should opt for, we will discuss some of the major differences between Vue.js and React.js–

1) Data binding-

Vue.js

The data flows in both the direction as Vue.js synchronizes the complete model with the DOM.

React.js

React.js, offers one-way data binding as the data flows in one direction

2) Community and resources-

Vue.js

Fewer libraries are available to extend the functionality of Javascript framework as it has a smaller community

React.js

It has accrued a grand community which is constantly expanding. Due to this reason, veterans around the world are guiding the developers who need some help. There are ample of resources and libraries available this leading framework. 

3) Reliance on Third-Party Technologies-

Vue.js

It is a framework on its own. It offers bountiful opportunities that can help further to extend the functionality by using third party technologies. 

React.js

There are limited opportunities available to the developer if he is working independently. Developers need to rely on third-party technologies and libraries in order to extend the functionality of React.js

4) Templates-

Vue.js

It uses declarative templates that are written in HTML format.

React.js

It entirely relies on the component model and does not use any template.

Here is a quick comparison between Vue.js and React.js:

Summing It Up

Vue.js and React.js are leading Javascript frameworks in the era. Learning of either of them will be a boon to your marketability as a JS developer. And having a command on both of the tools is even better. Now if you are looking to find out which one you should choose, it is very difficult to conclude as both of them are strong contestants. 

In your primary aim is to build a simple application with easy integration and best documentation, Vue.js would be an ideal choice. Whereas, if you are looking to build a larger application with ease of development, React.js is one you should opt for.  

In case of any questions or commitments, we are one of the finest React.js service providers in India for the development of the mobile app and software product. You can reach us out at https://goodworklabs.com/ for any assistance required. For any feedback or suggestions, you can comment in the drop-down section.

From the most primitive writing forms to the latest data centers, humans have loved gathering information. As technology progressed through the years, data overflow has become the new normal. This massive amount of data requires very sophisticated data storage systems.

As to why Big Data has had what we can call a comedy of sorts, we have taken a different approach and divided the history of Big Data into acts. We have done this in the form of a story, to help you connect and remember what you read for a long time.

Despite its existence for a long time, Big Data has been a topic of puzzlement for a lot of people. The biggest issue is the lack of people qualified enough to handle Big Data and utilize their practices.

Stay assured that this article will help you get into the deeper realms of Big Data and its world.

The History of Big Data

ACT 1- GOOGLE DOES NOT LIKE DATABASES AT ALL

All kinds of analytics got done with the help of databases. Every imaginable type of data was present in databases. As a pattern, any of the data good enough for a database used to find itself in a flat file.

Google used to have a dislike for databases. They would have tried storing their data through databases, but it did not work. It would have been successful, but the company to make that happen definitely will have asked for too high a price. As a result, Google used files.

Google is a huge company, so they built an extensive, distributed file system. It was never surprising as it was Google, after all.

The company faced an issue, as there was a need for a query about the large files. The engineers and developers came together and devised a simple solution for a complex problem. This solution made the developers at Google geniuses in their own right. What is surprising is that they spread the news and told about it to everyone, while they made huge money with the devised solution.

The reason why they told everybody is still unclear. To increase the knowledge of people, or let others think as they did so that more people got good jobs. These are a couple of plausible reasons.

Or they knew that MapReduce was not supposed to work in the long run of time and wanted to send their competition in the wrong direction. A good enough third reason?

ACT 2- NEW PROCEEDINGS

Whatever may have been the reason, the world got a shock, and when the world faces something entirely new, the level of interest breaks all known barriers to knowing about it a bit more.

This is when some people huddled together and implemented Google’s strategy in open source. Yahoo, the then competitor to Google, helped these people out by funding them to a considerable extent. This was the birth of Hadoop.

Now, the issue was that every company was not Google, and so, the presence of such a massive amount of data was not there. Many companies did not even have sufficient data to fill a MySQL database. Still, everybody liked MapReduce.

People thought about a lot of data and created Big Data. They thought about how a lot of data from the world can be collected, store it in an understandable format and bring about a change in the world.

This was when people also understood that scientists were handling Big Data for a long time, but referring to it as scientific computing. The world now had Big Data in literal terms.

ACT 3- A LOVE-HATE RELATION WITH SQL

It was apparent that Google was not very fond of databases, and some pointed out the reason to be SQL. But of course, making SQL work with big files was a little tricky. Now, this was what people love to call ‘a window of opportunity.’

Predictably, investors went into a frenzy and poured their money into Hadoop.

ACT 4- THE LEGACY CONTINUES

Soon after money got invested into Hadoop, Spark came to the fore, beating Hadoop by a large margin on performance. This was the time where Hadoop lost the race finally. The investor money was all put into Spark itself.

It is tough to understand where Hadoop ends and Spark begins. While both are MapReduce technologies, Spark came up to be the future. Because of Spark, the Machine Learning technology got a huge boost, and soon, the advent of data science takes shape.

Now Spark displayed inefficiencies while working with deep learning. Google and other companies did create new techniques, but it did not matter too much as most of the data was small.

ACT 5- BIG DATA FINALLY BECOMES “THE THING”

This is the time when Big Data/AI/analytics got it all. A huge market, customers, use cases, and even investors. But there still is a difficulty. The difficulty to find out people for building such systems.

Moreover, the difficulty increases more when the architects to think it out and make systems workable are needed. Nobody is thinking about the usability yet, and problems like bias have started to creep up in operations.

Big companies with their rebranding as Big Data companies are not showing the growth expected. The chunk looks to be going in favor of the Blockchain.

ACT 6- THE JOURNEY STILL CONTINUES

There is AI, singularity, and even the robots are taking a dominant stand in our lives. Machines do threaten our presence at doing our jobs. Bots too are making their presence felt, but most of them break down pretty quickly.

However, there is still hope for Big Data. The work is being done for it already. Programmers are getting trained.

The number of people asking for analytics is increasing with each passing day. With more end to end stories and getting the usability right, Big Data can still work very successfully.

Like our content? Share the joy with your friends!

Have a project in mind? Don’t hesitate to reach us at contact@goodworklabs.com

With a boom in the use of smartphones among customers, application development has been growing at a rapid pace. Different devices, carriers, and software have created their own identity in the everyday lives of people around the globe. Almost anything gets done with the help of a smartphone.

In terms of global market share, Android tops the list with around 76% of market share. The next in line is Apple’s iOS and Windows, respectively. Being a mobile developer, it gets confusing at times to figure out the best platform to run your app, other than its native platform.

Learning a new language, the API’s, and other related stuff is not only tedious but can keep you stuck on your platform. Xamarin can help you there. You can build cross-platform mobile applications to facilitate similar functions like platform native apps.

Know Xamarin:

Xamarin is the name of a software company founded in the year 2011. Acquired in 2016 by Microsoft, Xamarin provides tools to developers to help them create cross-platform mobile applications. All these applications have their natural features intact while sharing a standard code set at the same time.

Xamarin tools are readily available, and they get downloaded with Visual Studio. You can directly develop apps for Android, iOS, and Windows apps from the Visual Studio itself.

A significant part of the standard code gets written in C#, eliminating the need to learn any other language like Objective-C, Swift, or Java as well. Using Xamarin instead of the usual learning procedure will prove helpful to you in learning app development on multiple platforms.

How Does Xamarin Work?

On a very elementary level, Xamarin converts the total iOS or Android SDK to C# to facilitate coding in a more familiar language for the developers. With one style to code for both platforms, you do not need to remember too much of syntax as well.

This makes it easy to access any Android or iOS API through Xamarin tools.

The Benefits of Xamarin:-

There are several reasons Xamarin is used by a lot of companies, with brands like Trello, Slack, and GitHub a few of the ones.

We bring you some of these profound benefits Xamarin has over other technologies-

A SINGLE TECH STACK FOR CODING ON ALL PLATFORMS:-

Xamarin takes the help of C# integrated with a.Net framework for creating apps for a mobile platform. Through this, you get to reuse about 96 percent of source code leading to a speedy engineering cycle. Xamarin also does not need to switch among the development environments.

All of the Xamarin apps can be entirely built in Visual Studio, a replacement for the Xamarin Studio. The tools to facilitate cross-platform development come without any added cost.

PERFORMANCE ALMOST AS GOOD AS NATIVE:-

With the traditional hybrid solutions based on web technologies, a cross-platform app can never get the classification as native. With Xamarin, however, a cross-platform app can still get classified as a native app. The performance metrics can be easily compared with those of Java for Android and even Objective- C, or Swift to create a native app for iOS. 

The performance of Xamarin is also improved continuously to meet the standards of native application development. Visual Studio provides a total option to build, test, and track the performance of an app.

NATIVE USER EXPERIENCE:-

With Xamarin, you can create a superb experience with the help of platform-specific UI elements. A lot of simple apps for iOS, Android, and Windows get designed with the help of Xamarin. 

The use of Xamarin with the Forms tool brings about a significant increase in the pace of application development. With such a speedy process of development, it becomes a fantastic option for business-oriented projects.

However, you might always have the chance to see a slightly depleted performance, due to the presence of an extra abstraction layer. For a customized user interface and increased performance, you can use Xamarin for iOS and Android separately to get the best out of it.

TOTAL HARDWARE SUPPORT:-

Xamarin provides your solution with native-level app functions. The tool eliminates every hardware compatibility issue through plugins and particular API’s. This allows Xamarin to work with conventional device functionality across all platforms.

With access to platform specific API’s, Xamarin provides the function of linking native libraries. It gives a better degree of customization and a native-level functionality with just a little added cost.

OPEN SOURCED WITH A STRONG CORPORATE SUPPORT:-

When Microsoft acquired Xamarin in the year 2016, the licensing policies underwent quite a lot of significant changes. Xamarin SDK, with runtime, command line tools, and libraries have all become open sourced and available as per MIT license through Visual Studio.

The cost of license tends to be a significant barrier, and by eliminating this, Microsoft opened up the doors to further development of this platform.

EASE IN MAINTENANCE:-

Because of its cross-platform ability, Xamarin makes maintenance and providing updates easier. Developers can deploy the changes or updates to the source file itself. These updates then automatically get applied to both the iOS and Android applications.

It is important to note that this only works for the applications running on Xamarin. In short, with Xamarin, you save a lot of time and money spent on keeping your apps up to date.

Conclusion

As we mentioned before, these are just a few of the benefits of Xamarin for mobile app development. A lot more is in the store that makes Xamarin the undisputed leader in cross-platform development. The feature-rich layout and subsequent benefits make Xamarin an almost perfect option for cross-platform development.

Apart from the many benefits, Xamarin has also become a community of more than 700,000 developers. This number is only increasing as collaboration and enhancement of software becomes more comfortable than ever with Xamarin as the app development tool.

Contact us and we will get back to you shortly.

Keeping the business at a constant level of growth is a priority for everyone today. With quickly evolving trends in technology, DevOps is the perfect response to ensure that growth.

DevOps makes growth hacking for your business considerably by delivering the features your customers expect, quickly in the market. DevOps came into existence after a long history of software development, and this is why it is a very well-thought approach.

With software, an integral part of every tech company today,  DevOps has a high value among companies.

DevOps has been a crucial factor for the success of well-known companies like Netflix, Google, and Amazon. Amazon has been able to successfully automate their releases, speeding up its software development lifecycle in the process.

Everybody is looking for ways to faster releases and high-quality services. If you too, fall under the same category, then for increased customer satisfaction, applying DevOps principles in the right way is an important key.

The primary motive of DevOps is pretty straight-forward: Deliver better quality software updates regularly, with a high degree of reliability. In a concise perspective, DevOps is a mental model shift for the entire company to provide higher organizational flexibility.

This transformation to DevOps can be a smooth process, through the hacks we have in store for you.

7 Hacks/Tips for DevOps Transformation:-

GETTING PREPARED FOR A CHANGE AND ACCEPTING A CLOUD-NATIVE APPROACH

Accepting and going with the change is the only way to keep your business growing. As a business owner, you may get apprehensive of this change, but not changing as per the technology trends is the worst thing you can ever do to lose amidst the competition.

DevOps aims to solve one of the most significant problems of the IT industry, by acting as a bridge between the Dev and Ops people. It is an urgent need, looking to get addressed as soon as possible.

The change cannot be an abrupt one. Consistent and small progressive changes can only achieve it. The management of a company should ensure that they convey the advantages and benefits of DevOps to everyone before actually going ahead with the change.

This change will initially be through the IT managers and architects of individual teams in the company.

The term cloud-native, too, is not just a trendy word. On the contrary, it is a complete methodology, taking advantage of a lot of modern techniques; it combines Agile methodology, DevOps and Continuous Delivery. The technologies and architecture of Microservices, Containers, Cloud and Serverless.

A cloud-native strategy is responsible for increased speed, performance, power and margins for business enterprises.

TAKING NOTE OF FAILURES AND LEARNING QUICKLY FROM THEM

Because DevOps is related to accomplishing tasks quickly and learning fast, the chances of failure initially are quite vast. This may look a bit rough at the start, but with the right approach and a correct set of guidelines, the problematic situations get handled with a lot of ease.

What is more important here is the acceptance of failure, because any scenario otherwise will lead to people blaming each other. Teams should understand that DevOps is there to eliminate the confusion between groups, but to reach that stage, the initial chaos will have to get managed tactfully.

LEARN TO BE CONTINUOUS EVERYWHERE AT ALL POINTS OF TIME

The meaning of being continuous everywhere is to be able to apply the practices of continuous testing, continuous integration, continuous deployment, and continuous improvement.

These things slowly build up the value in the learning curve of a company and help in making processes more lean and accurate.

With the end goal being a continuous presence everywhere, a well-developed software will become liquid wherein the products and services will tightly get connected to the appropriate points in the software.

It will lead to a constant stream of updates into the devices and systems, with the software automatically updating the operations without any human involvement.

PUT A KEEN FOCUS ON AUTOMATION

A significant part of DevOps deals with automation, and there too, zero-touch automation if possible. DevOps leads and IT managers should be involved to select the tools and DevOps processes, having the motive of achieving DevOps at scale.

Once the right set of tools are available, it is the perfect time to define the policies and steps for each tool. Tools like Kubernetes, Terraform, Slack, Chef, and the likes help you build up your automation capabilities. Automating the repetitive tasks of developers provide them with extra time to focus on the other things necessary for the business.

HAVE A FEEDBACK LOOP IN PLACE TO COMMUNICATE BETTER

The lack of coordination between Dev and Ops can be taken care of with the help of a feedback loop. A feedback loop is capable enough to identify the bottlenecks and remove them. A feedback loop assists teams in rectifying their errors, while keeping a keen eye on patterns disrupting continuous software delivery.

A stable feedback loop will help teams to outperform by removing the bottlenecks causing the problem, leading to a growth in the overall productivity.

There are several simple processes to validate a feedback loop in software development- code reviews, Daily Scrum, unit tests, etc.

Ideally, a feedback loop should be as short as possible. This makes it easier to implement your process quickly.

CARVING OUT TRUST BETWEEN THE TEAMS

Trust is the first requirement for any business aspiring to succeed with DevOps. The performance of a business depends on a large extent to the team collaboration and trust among teams present in the company.

Because DevOps practices flow from downwards to the upper level of management, trust is of high importance because it will help the team collaborate and work more collectively. Developing confidence has always been a primary aim of DevOps.

Due to DevOps, the Dev and Ops team act as a support to each other rather than blaming each other. The team bottlenecks will considerably reduce with DevOps. This is why trust is essential.

HAVE PATIENCE

There is one critical issue generally present when people think that DevOps will give overnight results. The reality is otherwise. Because, patience is essential where DevOps is involved.

It takes from a few months to some years before the culture and fully gets embedded into an organization. It is never easy for an old company using all the legacy practices to adapt and execute DevOps practices.

Conclusion

Automation with DevOps can provide critical competitive advantages to the businesses. With the immense necessity in any software-driven company, rightly using DevOps will need the right mental approach. Adding to it, a growth mindset to understand procedures for easy automation will also make the coming years exciting for DevOps.

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One of the best phrases from the world of design is

‘if a picture is worth 1000 words, then a functional prototype is worth a 1000 meetings.’

From pure experimentation to see your vision turn into a tangible project, prototypes help a lot in the phases of testing and building. The best thing they do is the fact that also take care to preserve the overall design uniformity too.

Designers are under an obligation to design things according to the description of their clients, but not all understand the requirements clearly. Several meetings, emails and phone discussions then follow. All of these are done to arrive at a final design.

This hassle, though, can be avoided to a large extent by the use of correct prototyping tools.

Prototyping tools help the designers and clients to collaborate in a better way and not have any creative differences. The clients get a visual idea about what will get created. The teams too, build a better understanding and explore options becoming visible, only after building and testing.

The most crucial advantage of prototyping tools is the risk involved, because the sooner we get a failure, the faster we can learn. Failing in the initial stages gives us a soft landing. You have the opportunity to work and improve on those errors.

How are Prototyping Tools Used?

We know very well that user experience is a critical metric for the branding of any company. Companies, therefore, use different prototyping tools to show different versions of a product to clients as per their requirements. It allows the UI/UX designers to put a ‘Proof of Concept’, an essential factor for a stable commercial relationship between the customer and the client.

How to Choose the Right Prototyping Tool?

Choosing the right prototyping tool is the key to describe your thoughts and collaborate in a better way with your clients. However, getting the right prototyping tool is not easy. This is because there are too many tools available online; enough to confuse you to pick the best one.

Every tool is different from the other because each one either lacks a particular feature or has an added one to stand separate from the others.

To choose the right kind of prototyping tool for design, a few factors need to be evaluated to check if the tool addresses our requirements or not-

A LEARNING CURVE

It is essential to analyze how easy the tool is to adopt. In other words, a learning curve where it is determined how long it takes for a designer to understand the tool.

SHARING ABILITIES

Because collaboration is crucial in design, the perfect tool will be the one to provide a collaboration feature for multiple people and stay in sync with each other.

USAGE

This is another point to know when choosing a prototyping tool, about how well it merges with your design process and other tools you use regularly.

COSTS

There are several prototyping tools, and many of them have niche features. A lot of these tools fail to meet our budgetary needs, though. Hence, it is better to choose the tool according to costs and not just by the features on offer.

The 11 Top Prototyping Tools for UI/UX-

INVISION

Invision is the most popular prototyping tool available today. With its project management page, it is effortless to organize the design components into a status workflow.

Invision has simplified every single aspect of the workflow and collaboration between design and development. Better, faster and more collaborative design in real-time is what Invision does best.

ADOBE EXPERIENCE DESIGN

Adobe XD allows you to draw, reuse and remix vectors and create artwork and build wireframes, interactive prototypes, and screen layouts in the same app.

With Adobe, designers can be more productive as they can import files from their Adobe tools without any trouble at all. Clients too, can make comments on your shared prototypes and look at the designs in real-time.

ORIGAMI STUDIO

Facebook initially created this tool for helping teams build and design products. Origami enables you to show your designs in a presentation on full screen on various devices.

You can also export prototype components by a single click, and engineers can copy-and-paste in the project. The tool is more suited to freelancers just starting, due to lack of collaboration features.

SKETCH

WebSketch has a lot of similarities with Photoshop, allowing the user to edit pictures. The fully vector-based workflow makes it easy to create beautiful and high-quality artwork from scratch.

With Sketch, the reusable elements like lines and bubbles can be automatically copied and pasted.

AXURE

Axure is a tool providing some very powerful prototyping without any coding. It also makes the process of sharing a prototype for the team or client very easy.

Axure will also publish all your diagrams and prototypes to Axure Share on the cloud. With a single link, others can view your project in their browser.

WEBFLOW

The most significant benefit of Webflow is that the tool provides a very high degree of functionality without the need of writing a single line of code. The tool heavily focuses on web animations, interactions and very responsive web design.

You can either host a prototype with Webflow or even export the code in HTML, CSS or JavaScript.

FRAMER

Framer has the premise that with the right code, it is possible to prototype anything, resulting in beautiful designs. It provides an effortless workflow, further eased by version control, device previewing and easy sharing.

Framer also makes it possible to import graphics directly from Sketch, Figma or even Photoshop.

ATOMIC

Atomic is a web-based prototyping tool and requires Google Chrome. The tool provides you with the flexibility to tune your interaction. There is easy access on offer for all developers with a simple shared prototyping system.

The best feature is the history option, allowing you to rewind to previous designs and create new versions from any point.

PRINCIPLE

Principle has been built for OS X and has an iOS app to watch live prototypes. The app appears a lot like Sketch and other aspects like alignment, art-board creation and real-time previews.

Principle also permits designers to work offline at increased speeds so that you do not have any problem with a slow connection.

JUST IN MIND

A significant advantage of Just in Mind is that it can be downloaded on your system for offline work as well.

The tool comes packed with tutorials and guided videos for everyone, who is a beginner or even an expert. You also have access to use items from UI libraries and then download several other add-ons.

BALSAMIQ MOCKUPS

Balsamiq Mockups replicates the speed and convenience to create mockups on paper but at a digital medium. Designers get to choose from more than 500 pre-made icons or components.

If you are not a professional designer but looking for a tool allowing you to create static and straightforward wireframes, Balsamiq is ideal for use.

Still not sure, how to get on with it? Let us assist you, Contact us.

UX design is the backbone of a website. The whole UX design process is responsible for creating your site the way you always visualized it, and how a customer will see your website on accessing it.

UX design is a procedure of enhancing the user experience, or user satisfaction by increasing the overall efficiency, and usability of a website. When we talk about conversion rate, it is directly related to the UX design of the website. This highlights the importance of a great UX designer for any business.

What is very important to note that a great UX design involves several factors than just an intuitive user flow and an appealing layout. A good UX will entirely change the way a user browses a website. It is bound to bring more traffic and increase conversions.

An improvement in the User Experience will convert your website visitors to business leads, buyers, and even brand loyalists.

Ways to Improve the UX of Your Website:-

It is not very difficult to look after ways to boost the aggregate experience of your website.

These four ways serve the purpose for you just as effectively:-

1- Have an Easily Visible Call to Action Button

Call to action (CTA) buttons have a significant role in guiding the users for conversion. The most commonly used CTA’s are: to sign up for updates, start a trial, download the app, schedule an appointment, and a lot more.

Furthermore, having a clear and appealing CTA button always provides excellent experience on a website. This Call to Action attribute deserves a space on every website page. There is no denying that sites with clear CTA buttons bring more conversions with them.

To add to it, if your website has several folds, your CTA button should be above the fold for easy visibility to the users.

You can keep a few more things in mind for CTA buttons-

• The color of a CTA button has a lot of importance. The use of specific colors can provide a lot more visibility to the button. Try to use contrasting colors for CTA’s when compared with the color scheme of the complete web page.
• The text on a CTA should be action-oriented. Passive verbs are strictly not advisable. This text needs to be subtle but active enough to make the user take the desired action.
• The word count, while writing the CTA text, should not exceed more than five words.

Having a visible Call to Action button is very imperative to provide users with a great experience.

2- Control your 404 Errors

When a user looks for something on the web, they expect to land on the exact web page they were looking for in the first place. If they fall on a page error, like 404 in most cases, it will take them no time to switch over to another website for a faster experience.

It becomes very apparent that 404 errors have the potential to take active users away from your web page. What is also evident is that these errors can never be completely taken care of.

This is why a question arises- How to accurately take care of this problem?

• The first way is to find out those pages where the search results show 404 errors and fix them as quickly as possible.
• Instead of allowing your website to display a standard ‘404 error: page is unavailable’ message, you can get some customization done for the error messages to make things a little friendly for the visitors.
• You can take the help of some relevant, pleasing, and entertaining images for the error page to reduce the anger and frustration of a user considerably.
• Convey to the users that you are the provider of a very smooth and comfortable browsing experience. For doing that, personalize the error text to add a personal touch to it.

It is crucial to know that you cannot eliminate these error texts, but taking enough care not to irritate the visitors will always be an added advantage for your UX.

3- Make Use of Authentic Images

Images have the potential to enhance the appeal of any web page instantly and make the content more authentic and believable. The kind of images you use can easily make the entire call of the page is good or bad.

To be sure about the images you use, the first advice is to keep away from stock pictures. Using them is always cheap and very easy, but they tend to be more harmful than beneficial in the long run.

These stock images do look professional, but it is never difficult for the users to understand that they are stock images, and such behavior will make them lose their interest.

Original and authentic images always attract more visitors because they bring a realistic touch with them and ensure connectivity with the users. The stock images, of course, become repetitive and bore the visitors.

If you use stock images for your web page, it sends a wrong message that you were lethargic in investing your efforts to design your website. Stock images will not allow your site to look unique, as users will most certainly have come across the pictures before.

You should make it a point to use only original images, irrespective of how basic or simple they look. The key here is to stay away from stock photos at all costs.

4- Ensure a Quicker Page Loading Time

If your web page is guilty to load slowly, it is enough reason for users to eventually abandon your site and go to a website having a quicker response time.

So, if your landing page is slow, there is a high probability that visitors will not even go through your website entirely. Also, you should also take care that just improving the loading speed is not going to be enough. Optimizing your website for mobile users is also very important.

Conclusion

Providing a lot of relevant information is not what User Experience is about. It is about how interactively, and how engaging are your efforts to ensure that information.

You might have a great product to show, but if you fail to catch the attention of the user, it will never be enough.

If you wish to have a website with all the trending practices for a great User Experience, we can help you. Get in touch with us!

#Wanderlust is trending on social media channels. There is no denying that curated travel experiences have been at the heart of the travel industry.

People, these days, participate actively to enhance their travel experiences. As the travel industry is picking numbers, the demand for personalization is growing.

This sudden rise in customization demands has necessitated the use of forward-technologies to cover the gap. As it appears, Artificial Intelligence enhances travel experience to fulfill the gap of demand and supply.

The emergence of Artificial intelligence to enhance Travel!

Technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning assist travel enthusiasts to a great extent. They help people get a faster, safer, and more personalized travel experience.

As we speak, Artificial Intelligence is already making a significant impact on the travel and tourism industry. The role of Artificial Intelligence in the functions of traditional human cognition has made life easier.

For giant business houses with frequent travel requirements, AI proves to be beneficial in many ways-

• Saving time and money.
• Provide memorable travel experiences.
• It ensures that business travelers reach their desired destinations without trouble.

In the midst of advancement, it is very well accounted that the expectations of travelers have changed over time. Factors like price, comfort, and services on offer are more crucial than anything else. These expectations can be met successfully by using machine learning.

Artificial Intelligence is a term synonymous today with Internet businesses, e-visa processing, citizen services, travel hubs, and contact centers. The technology has entirely changed the general operational activities in a brief time.

Moreover, speech recognition, language translation, and visual perception are impacts felt in all businesses these days. When AI was not renowned as it is today, experienced industrialists around the world expected disruption by the use of AI.

This particular fear of disruption has not been too important, though. Major industry players are aware of the use of machine learning to provide quick services to clients.

What exactly does AI do for travel

When it comes to tourism, there are several activities where Artificial Intelligence enhances travels and tourism experience.

Visa:-

Operational windows of contact centers play a crucial role to address visa related queries without too much trouble. AI creates a smooth link between business and visa applicants.

From selecting a preferred language or evaluating the wait time, AI chatbots take in little details to optimize contact centers. Furthermore, getting a customer’s automatic identification or any other piece of relevant data becomes a great experience through a simple AI algorithm.

Data Security:-

With new trends coming up in technology, the importance of data security and privacy has increased immensely. To get a global visa, many outsourced companies need to follow the guidelines of data security and embassy protocol.

Keeping cyber threats into consideration, Visa providers have become more watchful. They now pay more attention to security audits, data encryption, and make use of fool-proof password control systems.

Security here is the first priority and should complement the pace of innovation in the tourism sector.

How AI Is Redefining Travel Today

“Relevance” is a keyword and an important winning factor with AI in the travel sector.

It boils down to the point whether AI has enough potential to bring about a significant change in the ways travel experiences are delivered to customers.

There are a few key areas where the use of Artificial Intelligence can have a lot of impacts to give a better experience for the customers-

1. DIGITAL INTERACTIONS AND VOICE-BASED ASSISTANTS

In today’s time, a traveler has access to every imaginable piece of information on a single website. Through these websites, travelers plan their destinations and compare different options. Budgets, bookings, and their cancellations come after that.

All of the above activities involve a reading of different descriptions, terms, and instructions before people arrive at a decision. A great alternative is to provide other apps with the role of reducing the interaction.

Bots using Natural Language Processing (NLP) perform the task of nailing more personal interaction for AI through context. The bot finds it easier to understand the meaning of a customer’s query and sort it.

Together, NLP and AI add a lot of weight to every travel-related activity. The immense scalability of these bots is also a fantastic facet to their attributes. AI assistance will go a long way to reduce the inconvenience faced by frequent travelers.

2. FACIAL RECOGNITION WITH ADDED IMPACT THROUGH BLOCKCHAIN

Travel requires constant monitoring of related documents by different sets of people. There are complex on-boarding and off-boarding processes involved. Facial recognition is a positive way to bring an end to these tiring paper-driven procedures.

Facial recognition will allow travelers to quickly move through airports, customs, immigration, and board flights without having their documents validated.

When combined with blockchain, customers find it easier to visit restaurants and duty-free stores. They can entertain themselves after just a face scan. Blockchain technology ensures that reliable data is always available to complete transactions.

3. MACHINE LEARNING, A NEW PERSUADER

Airports and airlines have begun to replicate shopping malls and huge retail outlets. Everything from blankets, seats, and hotel rooms are sold there. Machine learning has emerged as a new trend to assist with the sales procedure.

By the use of big data and machine learning, airlines can develop recommendation engines. The role of these engines is to personalize the offers around products from their catalogs.

AI and machine learning make personalization easy. This is because travelers expect travel companies to understand their preferences and offer better deals.  Machine learning also uses external data to help travelers to make quick decisions.

The applications mentioned above of Artificial Intelligence, or AI, have one thing in common; they lead to time reduction and also improve the accuracy of outcomes generated.

In an industry where time is of the essence, and data is fluctuating, AI provides many capabilities to ensure things work out correctly.

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