July 25, 2020 by Walter Steward

The Next Frontier of Digital Transformation in Healthcare

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare is a reality. However, the industry is facing a lot of challenges and the dismal state of the industry globally has been more apparent of late. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates a shortage of 4.3 million doctors, nurses, and other health professionals worldwide, which doesn’t augur well for the welfare of patients. Reports as recent as April 2019 show that the US is expected to face a shortage of 46,900 to 121,900 physicians by 2032. The UK, on the other hand, is forecasted to experience a deficit of 190,000 clinical posts by 2027, which is roughly twice the size of the British Army. India isn’t immune to the existential crisis either. As per estimates, the country is running short of 600,000 doctors and 2 million nurses.

Healthcare

All these figures forewarn of a world that may be mourning on the quality of care in the future. While one might think that the existing doctors and nurses can fill some gaps, their overworked condition at all levels is clear. A 2018 study has revealed that burned out physicians are more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression, making them predisposed to committing errors and negligence. The revolution in medicine is further expected to increase the workload for medical practitioners and make them dangerously stressed out.

In the wake of today’s crippling physician shortage, several reforms have been set in motion worldwide to handle the situation. This includes easing the physician licensing process, making it easier for international medical graduates to practice, and building reforms that propose improved and affordable access to medical care for all. While these initiatives are praiseworthy, one shouldn’t neglect the role of emerging technologies in bringing the healthcare industry back on rails. Conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare is geared up to redefine the industry’s core bottom lines. Accenture predicts that the US healthcare industry can save $150 billion a year by 2026 if it adopts AI applications. Given so, how global savings would look like is something we leave to the imagination.

Pivoting to the Clinic of Tomorrow with Conversational AI

Conversational AI has begun to make a rallying case for the stress-ridden healthcare industry. It offers an interactive, intuitive, and patient-centric approach to remediate the sector, which is currently battling a chronic undersupply of health professionals and low-quality care. Apparently, the experience offered by traditional voice recognition systems is static and disconnected. However, with healthcare conversational AI solutions, ‘empathy’ is the operative word. The customer asks questions, healthcare conversational chatbots comprehend it, and direct them to the right answer—all while leveraging their ability to emulate human thought and compassion. Below are the key areas where conversational AI is believed to bring much-needed stability for the healthcare sector.

Transforming Patient Experience
Today’s healthcare sector has a skewed doctor-patient ratio. Exhausted doctors have to squeeze maximum number of people in their schedules, which undercut the quality of experience. Conversational AI, on the other hand, can significantly raise the bar of service quality by automating the routine processes. The technology can help healthcare providers diagnose symptoms on the go, identify patients requiring attention from the less urgent ones, and schedule appointments accordingly. In addition to this, they can collect basic information at the time of patient check-ins, eliminating the chances of human errors.

By leveraging cognitive behavioral therapy, conversational AI can play a vital role in scaling down the number of unnecessary doctor visits and helping patients save a lot of time and money. AI applications for healthcare can help patients feed the details of their conditions and in return, get an accurate analysis of what they are suffering from—all without any frustration or delay.

Conversational AI can remind patients of the medications they need to take and ensure that they follow the doctor’s instructions. It can also double up as a healthcare assistant to answer queries related to drugs and diet. They can also provide personalized answers based on the patients’ medical history to further facilitate the end-user experience.
Revolutionizing Care and Reducing Physicians’ Burden
Conversational AI in healthcare works wonders when working with patients in remote locations. When the patient’s health is critical, personalized assessment is urgently needed. In such a case, conversational AI can help. Conversational AI has introduced the concept of Telemedicine chatbots, which can be used by healthcare providers to diagnose, treat patients, and provide clinical services remotely. These chatbots can effectively convey the instructions and procedures to follow by patient’s relatives until help arrives.

NLP-enabled healthcare chatbots can help doctors to retrieve critical information quickly without having to meddle with complex CRM tools. It helps increase the doctors’ effectiveness in administering the medications. Another important aspect of AI chatbots is that they can save every patient’s medical history in the database. This information can help doctors prescribe the right treatment at the right time and foresee problems before they occur.

Some people are allergic to certain types of drugs, which when administered lead to far serious repercussions than the disease itself. But that won’t happen now. The conversational AI chatbots can follow up and track how the patients feel after they are discharged from the hospitals. They can eliminate the need for physical checkups after patients have fully recovered, thus freeing doctors’ time for more patients.

Of all the things, conversational AI can assist the healthcare industry in reducing human-induced errors as it affects the trust people have on the industry.

Things to Remember When Getting Started with Conversational AI Implementation

Implementing conversational AI is no walkover. Make no mistake; it’s a paradoxical technology. While it promises breakthrough benefits, its wrongful implementation can strike many sour notes. So to avoid the sticking wicket, it’s important that leaders must carefully consider the following aspects:

Integration: Conversational AI is tied to backend systems for funneling dialogues and capturing the contextual information that might help. Given so, enterprises must define an articulated integration model that streamlines data access and powers the contextual capabilities of a virtual assistant.
Change Management: This emphasizes increased transparency by communicating to customers that might be interacting with a virtual assistant. Further, it involves helping employees adapt swiftly to technological change and encouraging their engagement during the transition phase.
Security: Security takes precedence over any other matter. When it’s about implementing conversational AI, enterprises must stop and check whether or not they are complying with various data regulations across the world.

Prepare for Conversational AI

Amid the deepening crisis in the healthcare sector, conversational AI has emerged as a new avenue for change. From delivering timely care to easing the workload for medical professionals, the technology has been teasing out a number of possibilities to transform the essence of the industry. But, every rose has its thorn. The road to conversational AI has its own obstacles as most of the healthcare providers refuse to let go of legacy systems and resist to adapt. Lack of accountability and job loss are one of the most pressing AI drawbacks already. But, having said that, we fail to imagine a future where conversational AI will not disrupt healthcare in the coming years. The technology is on its way to raise an army of intelligent bots and assistants that will greatly enhance the delivery of advanced care. So, change isn’t a matter of if, but a matter of when.

July 23, 2020 by Walter Steward

Cup and Handle Pattern: Technical Analysis

Technical Analysis can be used by both traders and investors for entering into any trade. It provides a means to have a stronger conviction about the trade. Candlesticks are the most common form of Technical analysis tool used by the traders globally.

Cup

We have several types of candlestick patterns that are used by traders in their day to day trading. One such form of candlestick pattern that gives traders with a high level of conviction is the “CUP AND HANDLE FORMATION”. In this article, we are going to cover what is a Cup and Handle Pattern and how to use them for your trades.

What is a Cup and Handle Pattern?

A cup and handle pattern is a formation that resembles the cup. The main body of the formation is like a “U shape” and further, we have a small body or a downward drift, which resembles a handle attached to the cup. This pattern is generally a bullish pattern as it follows a series of bearish sessions.

From the perspective of the long term, this formation pattern may take from a few weeks to a year. And for a short term view, we have haven this formation in a minute, hourly, etc., time frame.

How is Cup and Handle Formed?

The market trend is generally bearish at the start of formation. We see new lows being formed, followed by a period of consolidation/stabilization, and then we have a move up, similar to initial move down. Therefore, the chart formation is like a cup. Afterward, the price then moves sideways or comes down within a channel, forming the handle for the cup.

The handle can have the shape of “Reverse C” or “A Triangle” or “A sideways zone”. Ideally, for a valid Cup and Handle formation, the handle should not have a depth of more than 50% of the size of the cup. Let us understand the formation with the help of a few examples.

Cup and handle formation on DMart

In Figure 1, we see a formation of Cup and Handle and the formation, which took nearly four months to complete. The first phase is a part where the market sees bearish momentum. Then, in the 2^nd phase, we see consolidation at the bottom of the cup.

Next, in the third phase, we see buying momentum coming back and market-moving back up to the high of the first phase. And in the final phase, we see a formation of the handle.

Cup and handle formation on TATA Motors

In Figure 2, the pattern formation is very similar to the pattern formation on the D’MART chart. There are four phases of fall, consolidation, rise, and the handle formation. The trade for TATA Motors after the formation gave a very decent return of nearly 90%.

When to Enter the Trade using Cup and Handle Pattern?

Before entering the trade, one has to wait for the formation of the handle. During the formation of the handle, the market is often in a sideways trading mode. But when then market breaks the top of the sideways channel, the Cup and handle formation is complete and the market is expected to rise from there.

There is no guarantee of the trade making money after the completion of the formation. The market could again come back in the sideways zone and the pattern might fail. And that is why, we should always have a stop loss for the trade, entered by using this pattern.

How to set a Stop Loss for the Trade?

Stop-loss while trading is a point beyond which the trader does not want to lose money. It is a point to exit the existing trade. So, while trading using this formation, the stop loss for the trade is the low of the handle.

What is the Exit Point for the trade?

As a rule, the height of the cup should be the profit target for the trade, from the point of breakout.

Say, for example, the price at the bottom of the candle is Rs. 100 and the height of the candle is 10 units. Therefore, Rs. 110 is the breakout point for the trade. The target for this trade should be Rs.120 (Breakout price = 110 + the depth of cup = 10). The other way to keep a target for the trade would be using Fibonacci Projections.

The stabilization period at the bottom of the cup is very important for this formation, as it forms a base for the cup. The stronger the base, the better the quality of the trade. The volume at the formation of the pattern also plays a very important role in the authenticity of the trade. If formed on low volume, the pattern might not be as reliable as the one formed with higher volumes.

Conclusion

The Cup and handle formation takes some time to spot and trade upon. Constant practice is the best way to spot this pattern. But once if we get a hang of the pattern, it provides trades with very good risk-reward.

One should ideally enter the trade at the confirmation of the pattern as it provides trades with better conviction. And always have a stop loss for every trade which we enter in the market. Happy trading and Money making.

July 17, 2020 by Walter Steward

Web vs. Native: Which App is Best for Your Strategy?

There has been a significant change in consumer focus from what’s on the Web, to the apps on our mobile devices. Businesses are already aware of the need to adapt to mobile. One of the first decisions to make on the app development journey is whether to simply build a web app or to invest in developing a native mobile app. This is where the web app vs. native app debate begins.

Web

There are many ways to deliver content through a mobile device. Depending on your business objectives and overall goals, this decision could make or break the success of your mobile strategy; there several factors to consider. Here is a brief snapshot of the advantages and disadvantages of web apps, native apps and hybrid apps, and how to pick the right one for your business.

Web Apps

Web apps are accessible through a mobile devices web browser. These types of apps are basically a web page, or series of web pages, that are designed to work on a mobile screen. Being device agnostic, this “write-once-run-anywhere” approach to app development produces apps that can be opened with any modern mobile browser and thus work on multiple devices.

Pros

Web apps look and feel very much like native mobile apps. An important advantage of the “write-once-run-anywhere” development process is that distribution and support are much easier. Web apps are:

Easier to develop,
Easier to maintain and support – quick to fix bugs,
Relatively inexpensive,
One app built for all platforms – as long as it can run on a browser, and
Don’t take up storage on a users device.

Cons

Even though a web app can be straightforward and quick to build, they are often oversimplified and don’t have access to all native features on a mobile device. Other disadvantages include:

They need a browser to run,
Users have to type in the URL of the app instead of the app sitting on the home screen – this can result in a poor user experience,
Performance is often slower,
They cannot leverage the full extent of native device functionality e.g. camera, calendar, geolocation,
There are limitations with offline storage and security, and
Web apps are generally less interactive and intuitive compared to native apps.

Native Apps

When you think of mobile apps, you are probably thinking of a native app. Native apps are specific to a given mobile platform (e.g. iOS or Android) and use the development tools and language that the respective platform supports. As a result, these types of apps are downloaded directly onto the device itself, usually via an app marketplace. Native mobile apps are usually designed for a very specific and narrow strategic purpose.

Pros

Native apps generally look and perform the best. Developing native mobile apps often results in quality, speed and the opportunity to leverage mobile features and functionality. Optimising the user experience is a key advantage of native apps, as they are developed specifically for the device’s platform. Native apps are:

Faster and more responsive because they are built to run on a specific platform,
Often designed much lighter and as such have the best performance,
Distributed in app stores and therefore are readily available where users are searching,
More interactive, intuitive and run much smoother in terms of user input and output,
Able to access and leverage the full native feature and functionality set of their given platform,
Functional offline – once a native app has been downloaded onto a device an internet connection is not required,
Better for user experience – the flow is more natural as there are specific UI standards for each platform, and
A native app sits on a mobile devices home screen – providing a consistent brand presence.

Cons

Native apps are more expensive to develop. Even though they offer higher performance and better user experience, they also take more resources, skills and time to develop. Other disadvantages include:

They have to go through different approval processes for each operating system the app is developed for,
They involve difficult developer languages – you either need experienced native app developers in your team or to hire a development agency,
There are longer development and testing cycles, and
They need to be designed and developed separately for each platform – unless you implement a cross-platform app development approach

Hybrid Apps

Hybrid apps make it possible to embed web apps inside a native ‘shell’, allowing it to work across platforms but behave like native apps. More specifically, this native app container allows web apps to access and leverage native platform features and device hardware. Just like native, hybrid apps are installed on the mobile device. In a nutshell, hybrid apps are considered to combine the best, and worst, elements of native and web apps.

Pros

Hybrid apps have potential, as there is a benefit in not having to build and maintain apps for separate native platforms. Other advantages include:

They are built on web technology, and therefore, are much easier and faster to develop compared to native apps,
This means they are also generally cheaper to develop – providing that custom functionality is kept to a minimum,
They can also access a device’s native features,
Like web apps, you can develop once for all platforms, and
Unlike web, browser access is not required giving them a more native feel.

Cons

With hybrid apps, you have to contend with issues that stem from both native and hybrid systems. Not only this, the user experience is often impacted with a hybrid app as, similarly to web apps, you cannot customise the app based on the device platform. Hybrid apps also:

Generally have a slower performance compared to native apps – the app loads in WebView,
Unsurprisingly, are more expensive than standard web apps,
Remain less interactive than native apps, and
Cannot be customised to the same extent as native apps – the more customisation required, the more expensive the hybrid app, the more development should steer towards native.

The Best Approach…

The debate around which type of app is best is still relevant today as the lines between the three approaches become increasingly blurred. There are many factors that play a part in your mobile strategy, such as your team’s development skills, required device functionality, offline capability etc., all of which must be taken into account. Therefore, the decision to build either a native, web or hybrid mobile app should be based on your business objectives. Before jumping into app development, consider the following factors:

How fast you need to develop the app,
The quality of the user experience you want your app to have,
The complexity of the features you need for your app to work, and
Your budget and resources (developer skills etc).

Generally, it is best to stick to a native approach and not sacrifice on the design elements that are unique to each platform. As such, most companies with sufficient resources will invest in native mobile app development. However, if you want the best of native and the cost-effective benefits of cross-platform functionality then consider leveraging a hybrid development approach. On the other hand, if you want to get something to market fast and cheap and aren’t too concerned about the overall user experience, then a web app may be the way to go.

July 14, 2020 by Walter Steward

Online Event Planning App Development

An online event management software facilitates easy supervision of end-to-end event planning & execution efficiently. It includes registration to e-ticketing, sponsorship to live activity feed, attendee tracking, and more. The transform your events into experiences that allow the target audience to interact with your customers and ensure maximum conversion digitally.

Online Event

Events and conferences have not been spared by the recent coronavirus outbreak, like several other industries.

And, given the current situation, it is evident that hosting physical events is unlikely for the next few quarters. Also, even in the longer term, the aspect of “digital everything” seems to be the way forward.

However, enterprises and event organizers are certain about the fact that virtual event platforms will help them with broader access to connect with; target audience, sponsors to advertise, and event planners to drive revenue, all without any geographical constraints. With the right tools and a meticulously devised plan, they can execute every tactic effectively.

How An Event Planning App Keeps You Plugged In With The Rest Of The World

As we navigate the uncertainty ahead of us, it’s time to turn to alternative ways to learn, adapt, and collaborate to drive success for your business ultimately. An event management software does precisely that. It empowers you to manage the entire event from start to finish through an automated process.

As a solution partner to event organizers, our comprehensive online event app helps streamlines the entire event-planning lifecycle.

It comprises of:

Swift registration & check-in process
Quick content moderation features according to attendee type
Tools for gamification, live polls, and more to engage the audience
Advanced event & ROI analytics with recommendations for better sponsor reach

With the recent shift in business operations due to the pandemic, the rules are re-written, where organizers can transform their physical events to go digital and drive leads effectively using virtual event apps.

We help in effectively managing outstanding virtual events, such as:

Live concerts,
Multi-session conferences,
Educational/Networking events

July 8, 2020 by Walter Steward

web design and UX trends to boost conversions

With the new year just around the boost corner, web designers and UX experts are looking toward 2017. Every year brings new web design trends. But while it’s nice to see what’s happening design-wise, are any of these trends actually useful? It turns out that some things we can expect to see in 2017 have some serious potential to increase conversions on almost any website.

That’s the topic of this infographic from the team at The Deep End, revealing 10 trends for 2017 that will ensure success.

Trend 1: Age-responsive design

Why it converts: It figures that different age groups will have a distinct response to images and other aesthetics. With rich metadata, you can nail conversions by doing a better job of reaching your target audience by adjusting content to different age groups.

Trend 2: Skeleton screens

Why they convert: Skeleton screens are useful because they enhance the perception of speed as a site is loading. Web visitors are more likely to convert when they feel like they got the information they were seeking more quickly.

Trend 3: Engagement bots

Why they convert: One of the advantages of chatbots is that they’re on the job 24/7. No matter when your customer might make it to your site, your trusty little bot is ready to engage. Whether you’re making a direct sale or trying to develop leads, a bot can provide answers to questions and consumer confidence leads to conversions.

Trend 4: Shopping cart marketing

Why it converts: An average of 10 to 30% of e-commerce revenue comes from upsells and cross-sales, so it makes sense to make offers during checkout to get customers to make an add-on purchase.

Trend 5: Animated CTA buttons

Why they convert: The CTA button should be the hero of any web page. By using simple animation, you can call attention to it quite effectively. But resist the urge to go overboard — a subtle movement every few seconds has been shown to get attention without being annoying.

Trend 6: Cinemagraph hero images

Why they convert: Part video, part photo, cinemagraphs are eye-catching and still unusual enough to catch people’s attention. And getting a prospect’s attention is the first step to conversion. Team up a cinemagraph with a powerful CTA and grow your conversions!

Trend 7: Persuader videos

Why they convert: Forget explaining—that ship has sailed. Instead, use real people in videos that make a sincere effort to persuade by demonstrating the use of your product along with a testimonial. That’s just one of many ways you can use video to overcome objections and get prospects to click your CTA button.

Trend 8: Value based exit overlays

Why they convert: Admit it—when you’re getting ready to leave a site, and something pops up, it can be annoying. Unless you’re really interested, you probably won’t fill out a form and leave your email address. But what if it’s an unexpected bonus? A discount, free shipping, or other gifts will get your attention, especially when it’s not bugging you to sign up for future marketing. Such offers get attention and increase conversions.

Trend 9: Death of the homepage

Why it converts: Of course you need a homepage. But you’ll make far more conversions if you direct your marketing efforts to several landing pages, each carefully crafted to reach a specific audience with an offer they can’t resist. This approach is almost magic!

Trend 10: Scrolling trumps navigation

Why it converts: Forget everything you thought you knew about placing important elements “above the fold.” Instead, put everything your prospect will need to make a decision on one page and entice visitors to continue scrolling as you direct them towards conversion.

July 6, 2020 by Walter Steward

Why Should you Redesign your Website?

Your website redesign might be performing well and may have been doing a good job for the last however many years. The question should not be ‘Is the website doing okay?’ but rather ‘Could it be better?’ Let me ask you a question, Have you ever landed on a website belonging to another company and just been blown away by what you’ve seen?

Some websites are just so well designed that you can’t help but be impressed and want to take some time to look around and explore the site. When well designed, these sites will offer perfect synergy between their design and the message that the company is trying to communicate – making you more likely to be interested in making a purchase or at least visiting the site again.

Why should you redesign/revamp your website?

Many of your prospective leads the first impression will be based on the look and feel of your website. We’ve compiled some compelling reasons as to why you must consider a website redesign.

1. Changing face of the internet

The thing to remember here is that the internet is constantly changing and new designs sensibilities are forever emerging that change the standards that we expect when we’re browsing websites.

In just the last few years, for instance, responsive website development has become an absolute must as more and more web users are now browsing using mobile devices.

Flash has essentially died its death and instead we now have HTML5. The resolution of the high-end monitor has gone from sub HD to 2K or even 4K, while fashions have also changed.

2. You still care

Redesigning your website tells your existing audience that you still care about your website and that you are still at the top of your game. It makes them stand up and take notice of you and it can even be advantageous from a marketing perspective – a redesign for a big website can actually be newsworthy meaning you might just get some media coverage.

3. Rebranding your business

A redesign can also be a good way to communicate a change of direction for your business. If you are re-branding yourself, if you are refocusing on other aspects of your business or if you’re trying to shake negative associations – then redesigning your site is often a great way to give yourself a fresh start and to hit that ‘reset’ button.

Of course, you might also choose website revamp services, because you want to make some changes. Perhaps you need to add a few pages to your site and this won’t really work with your existing layout and set-up. Or maybe you’ve seen a cool feature on another site that you want for yourself.

4. Letting go of the old

Some companies and individuals can find themselves feeling sentimental when it comes to getting rid of their old site. Perhaps they think it’s a ‘waste’ of their previous work, or maybe they have just grown attached to the design they have.

While this is understandable, it’s a mistake to let that influence your decision making. Your old site design has done its job over the last few years and if you hang on to it then it will actually hurt you more than it will benefit you.

5. Include a better content strategy

70% of people would prefer to learn about a company through an article rather than an advertisement. Having excellent content improves everything from SEO to customer retention.

That said, if you’re planning to make some changes to your content strategy, a website redesign may be wise. That way, all the different types of content you plan to post from eBooks to blogs to case studies will be easily findable.

6. Your competitors have adapted to change

It is not wise to revamp your website every time your competitors change theirs. But if those changes help them to improve their search engine ranking and end up pushing you down the search results, then it’s time to make changes.

And, if you think that you can achieve your goals quickly on your competitor’s website rather than yours, it’s time for a change.

7. How often should you redesign or refresh your website?

According to Orbit Media Studios, The average website lifespan is 2 years 7 months. Actually, it was 2.66 years which is 2 years, 6 months and 27 days, but close enough.

Regardless of your industry, the shelf life of your website is relatively short. Look at how fast technology moves, five years ago, no one visited websites on mobile devices. Now almost half of your website traffic comes from smartphones. Not only mobile, from responsiveness to parallax, dozens of technologies and trends are in practice.

8. Signs your website needs a redesign

So, irrespective of the age of your website, here are some questions you must ask yourself.

Is your website mobile friendly? Is it responsive? (if not, you need to
immediately get in touch with a website redesigning company
Does it look better than your competitors?
Are visitors complementing your website?
Does my website look modern?
Are you experiencing growth with your current website?

If your answer to the above questions is ‘no’, then you’re in desperate need of a new website. All of the above questions will give you an indication that your website is broken at some level and needs to be fixed.

9. How much does a website redesign cost?

The cost of a website redesign depends on two major things,

What are you looking to achieve through a website redesign?
What is the worth of your website?

Similar to a car, the more you expect from your website, the more your likely to spend. Therefore, it is difficult to define the cost of an average website redesign cost. We have tried to break down what it approximately costs.

10. How long does it take to redesign a website?

It depends.

Every website is unique and every redesign depends entirely on what you aim to get out of the final product. Do you want a redesign a simple template-based website or an e-commerce website with loads of customization? Your answer to questions like these will give you a rough idea on how long it’ll take to redesign websites.

Here is a rough amount of time that will take to redesign a website.

A simple website redesign will take 5 working days
A custom website redesign will take 15 working days
Advanced multi-functional website redesign will take 30 working days

This is just an approximate time frame, you’re requirement will play a major role in the time it takes to complete the redesign project.

How can ColorWhistle help with website redesign projects?

The whole point of this article was to educate you that updating a website just for the sake of updating will never work.

A lot of work has to be done during a website redesign, to get a better idea take a look at our website redesign checklist. Keep in mind that your job is not over once you redesign your website. You must also maintain your website properly to get the expected results for a longer period of time.

Our highly experienced team at ColorWhistle has the expertise to redesign websites in order to make it worthy of your work and vision. Be it custom website designs, plugins, or digital marketing services.

July 2, 2020 by Walter Steward

How To Determine Your Software Development Cost?

The software development companies have many leading roles like Business Analyst, Solution Architect and Project Managers. These roles have the responsibility to develop software project estimates and also explain the logic behind the estimates. They also need to factor in a number of variables on which the estimate depends. If some factors remain unpredictable and unaccounted for them they can result in the escalation of the time horizon as well as the overall project cost.

Software

No matter what software development methodology you use – waterfall, Agile or a hybrid one – providing accurate project estimate is a challenge for the technology team and the leader and they need to deal with it carefully. An inaccurate forecast and estimate can create problems for the software development company. Everyone wants to know beforehand when the project will be done and how much it will cost. Hence so many vendors want to know how to determine software cost so that they can better serve their clients.

BELOW ARE SOME OF THE KEY THINGS THAT MAKE UP A SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT COST

Total efforts that are spent by human resources to complete the project.
Tangible resources required for completing project related tasks.
Purchase and maintenance of equipment.
Purchase of required software and their maintenance.
Rent of the office, payment of various bills.
Overall risks related to the project.

Now let’s discuss in detail about the various factors that must be included while calculating the final cost of a software project.

FACTORS AFFECTING SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT COST

Hence when looking for how much to charge for software development, you can take a look at the below key factors which affect the total software development cost

Size Of The Project

This factor can be easily accessed to calculate the cost of the project. More the number of screens or user interfaces you have, the more work will be performed before the release and the more the client have to pay for developing the application. If the number of screens in the app are about 10-20 then the app is considered to be small, if the number of screens are about 25-40 then the app is considered to be medium-sized while if the number of screens in the app are more than 40 then the app is a bigger one.

To understand the screen, you can think of what the user will see after launching the app, Clicking or tapping on any of the elements and more. Remember a screen view with the potential profile and a screen where the user is editing their details are two different screens.

Cost wise – a small app may cost about $10,000 – $15,000, a medium app may be about $15,000-25,0000 and big apps may start from $25,000 and can go even upto $100,000 and more.

Budget Of The Project

When you are looking at the ways to identify software development cost, understand that complexity of the project also affects the cost of the project. For example, type and extent of coding and testing, designing requirements, and whether there is any need to integrate the application with third party apps or systems.

If the app has many forms and involves processing of big blocks of data with lots of details, then it would require more time to develop such an app.

If it needs special designing with custom fonts, images and icons then it will need a separate designer to deal with all of these and we can assume that there will be several iterations and re-design attempts before coming to the final version.

If the app needs to be integrated with third-party apps or system and suppose you need to add payment gateways, then it will become a challenging task to build such an app.

Complexity also comprises data migration needs as you may need to write a simple script to transfer data from one system to another and it may involve lots of details.

Budget Of The Project

Most of the projects have a limited budget. Hence the project cost cannot exceed that in any case. If client wants to add a number of features in the project which cost much more than first they need to set the priorities or increase the budget.

You as a developer can make sure that the workflow is going with high productivity and that you are using the right choice of technology and solutions. But you have to know about the budget before the start of the new project.

You should also know if the project doesn’t finish on time or if it needs additional resources then whether the client is ready to pay additional payment or not.

Involve Business Stakeholders In The Software Estimation Process

When you are looking for how to calculate software project cost then there are many ways to estimate the cost and timeline of a software project but the research and past experience say that if the project can be broken into smaller chunks of work, and each chunk is estimated, then the estimates tend to be more accurate and near to reality.

So many organizations have used this approach on hundreds of projects and found it to be working in most of the cases. Here are some more insights on how to go for accurate software estimation.

Involve Business Stakeholders In The Software Estimation Process

It is always better to involve the business stakeholders in the software estimation process early on when you want to measure the software cost as it helps to define more accurately what is important in the software development lifecycle. This ultimately helps both the business leaders and the technology team to reach at a common, shared and mutually agreed development process of the software and it will help to hold everyone involved equally accountable to the initial software cost estimate.

Understand Why Do So Many Software Estimate Projects Fail?

When you will try to understand why do so many of the software estimate projects fail then you will find that this happens mainly due to poor project requirements and weak business leaders who do not clearly understand what they want out of the project. The technology alone is mostly not the cause of project failure. Great technology and developers will fail without good requirements and great leadership. Hence beware of the business leaders who cannot explain the end goals of developing the business software during the estimating sessions with the project team.

Clearly developers can’t write the quality code if the requirements are not clear or well defined. Whenever the developers have some questions or they face some roadblocks then the business leader or the owner need to make quick decision and help in finding the answers to the questions. Otherwise, the project timeline and budget will go into jeopardy.

Break The Requirements To Increase The Accuracy In Software Estimation

When you go deeper into the software development cost estimation techniques then you will find that how much useful is the top-down approach. You just start by breaking the requirements down into smaller tasks so that each requirement can be built in a short time period by a single developer or a team of developers. If you find any requirements which cannot be broken down in smaller parts, then it cannot be well understood and well developed and therefore cannot be accurately estimated.

Understand Why To Create A Right Team

You have to create a right team with many other members than just developers as there is a need of good supporting members who understand very well all of the requirements of the project and are accountable for them. The project will be able to be valuable for the business only if the users will be able to use it effectively. Therefore, the project team must have good business analysts (BA) who can write good requirements to drive efficient and effective development. Other than developers and BA there is also an important role for designers. Designers play a key role in providing the amazing user experience through the software which is not only pleasant but also leads to meaningful user flow.

Understand The Importance Of Software Product Owner

Everyone related to the development of the project must understand that the software product owner is the most important person of the project. A well informed and intelligent product owner can focus on the project and make the important decisions. The product owner provides the requirements, clears the differences between the business and technology and prioritizes the work and allow/enable team to deliver business value as quickly as possible.

July 1, 2020 by Walter Steward

That Make Remote Work Successful For Your Next Project?

Over the decades, Remote with the changing technologies, working patterns of the businesses have also been changed. Today, if you are trying to deploy a mission-driven approach with useful technology and expecting the production from your in-house team, then you might be mistaken here. Remote

Today, remote work can be a perfect opportunity for employers and employees to create an accurate balance between your personal life goals and professional objectives. However, now the question is, how to build the right strategy to make the remote work successful?

According to Statistics, two-thirds of companies in the US have remote workers and providing the perfect talent to the business seeking to meet their professional goals at affordable prices without compromising the quality of work.

Peter Druker Says, “Do what you do best, outsource the rest”.

The case study submitted by Global State of Remote Work, reveals that 24% of employees are likely to feel happy and productive in their roles with remote work.

What exactly makes remote workers or offshore app development companies so curious about remote working, especially young professionals?

Well, remote working has its charm and benefits over the current working environment. While there are fewer distractions in remote working, workers are extremely focused and create a working environment that suits their needs better. For startups, it’s a great way to keep operating costs low with remote working.

LET’S HAVE A GLANCE OVER STATISTICS AND DATA RELATED TO REMOTE WORKING:

Almost 56% of companies around the world require employees to do work remotely, and in fact, 16% of companies are fully-remote work companies.
According to studies, 52% of employees around the world work remotely at least once per week, and 68% work remotely at least once per month.
As per the survey report, 62% of employees work remotely often, and 38% work on-site.

Hey, hold on! Things will not be as simple as it seems to you… Remote working has its unique challenges that you need to understand before getting started with the remote working. Instead, quickly Outsourcing software companies in India, it is worthwhile to understand a few basic things about remote working.

In this post, we’ll address some of the important concerns that make remote working successful… But before jumping to these strategies, I would like to put some focus on three basic questions “Why millions of employees are turning to remote workers? Why businesses are more interested in hiring remote workers to accomplish their business ambitions? What are you trying to achieve from remote work?

LET’S GET STARTED WITH THE KEY STRATEGIES THAT HELP YOU GET THE REMOTE WORK RIGHTLY:

1. COMMUNICATION IS EVERYTHING

According to experts, effective communication is the way to build an influential culture and bring everyone on the same page. A healthy communication creates a feeling of a secure connection between team members and allows them to stay on task. Besides, if you want to visit in a remote environment, you need to focus on communication but don’t over communicate.

To eliminate the risk of miscommunication, you can use communication tools like Slack, Zoom, Google Hangouts and Skype as most remote companies are heavily relying on these communication channels. Also, pay close attention to notifications and try to respond as soon as possible.

2. SPECIFY YOUR AVAILABILITY

If you are thinking that hiring iPhone app developer from an offshore company will help you get the 24*7 assistance, then you might be mistaken here.

The fact that employees working at remote sites are not readily available when the team needs them. It is good enough to allow for flexibility even while establishing clear virtual working hours for remote employees so your in-house workers know when they can get connected with their team via chat or over the telephone.

Being clear about your availability can help you build trust and consistency across the team of Mobile App Development Company. Your bright and real commitments give them all the confidence to businesses and let them know when their team can rely upon remote workers.

3. CHOOSE AN APPROPRIATE WORKSPACE AND TECHNOLOGY

While working as an offsite software development company, keep in mind that all your work in only depend upon the internet connection and the tools that help you proceed with the project. Make sure to find a workplace with flawless internet connection and have the right equipment to take calls without any interruption.

In case, if you are switching from location to location, make sure that you find some peaceful place with no signal problems, so you can easily avoid distractions.

Secondly, while counting upon equipment, the laptop is one that saves lots of files and its probably that your machine will start to work slowly.

If you don’t find a suitable workspace and equipment, then find our good coworking sets support excellent internet connection and provide equipment to manage your work flawlessly.

4. BE ALERT AND UPDATED

Web Development Companies look forward to hiring remote software developers, who are familiar with the reputation of the company before they get started with the initial conversation. That means reading company blogs or signing up for a test account to better understand their product and services.

Companies are more interested in “Doers” instead of “Thinkers”. Someone who proactively researches about web app development company prior scheduling an initial appointment is those traits that companies seek.

As nobody is looking over your shoulder in a remote work environment to judge what kind of management you have, therefore, your knowledge and initiative to get to know more about the company will let the company know how serious you are towards your work.

5. STAY CONNECTED WITH OUTSIDE WORLD

You can’t choose the one, to be a success as a remote employee, you need to stay connected with work as well as the outside world. With the help of technology, you can get collaborated with your colleagues.

And being leading iPhone App Development Company, we use Skype for our meetings and use Google docs, Join.me, etc. also transparent working.

To be successful as a remote employee, also make some changes in your routine and surroundings occasionally to enhance productivity and increase the focus.

6. KEEP THE THINGS SIMPLE AND TRANSPARENT

Remote workers who don’t communicate, don’t exist in the market! To find out want opportunities you can adopt for better engagement and take advantage of them.

Take time to get to know about the remote employer as people instead just assuming them as a task manager. Your communication is the most reliable key to success. No matter whether you are managing things via chat, telephone, email or text leverage the best technology and simply manage things.

7. CREATE A RIGHT WORK CULTURE

While working from home or remotely, it’s easier to mess up with things and your schedule.

Remote employees should create a perfect work culture and start the work after reading the documentation to understand the needs of the employers. To cut down the risk of having any lack of communication, you can schedule a call to chat with them for better understanding.

Ultimately your initiative of creating a positive work culture, encourage businesses to hire Android app developers or other dedicated developers without having any doubt on their mind.

8. STAY VISIBLE TO YOUR CLIENTS

You must hear this phrase “out of sight, out of mind“. It happens if you are keeping your status unavailable during your remote working hours and others are working at the same time.

You can keep yourself visible by taking advantage of video chats, collaborating often using your projects management systems, sharing pro-working tips and new information in your team portal using slack. Also, set up recurring meetings with core management to discuss the project details and providing a perfect output.

Right from having face-to-face online meetings to provide weekly updates, you can follow a system to ensure that you are heading in the right direction.

9. BE A GOOD WRITER

While working with any Android App Development Company remotely, a lot of your communication with teammates will be written, so focus on your writing skills. You can clear the issues to everyone better by being a good writer.

To be a successful remote worker, dedicate a lot of time on writing; hence you can convey the message in a clear and simple statements.

10. ORGANIZE THE WORK CAREFULLY

The first and foremost thing for being successful as a remote employee is to organize the task using an appropriate platform.

Today most reputed App Development Companies are using Asana as a task management platform. Everyone works on that platform knows what they need to work on now, what they will be working on next, and what has been completed already. Without clarity, it is difficult to operate smoothly remotely or even on-site.

June 28, 2020 by Walter Steward

5 Tips for Charities for Conversational AI

Charities can be smarter and use voice, chatbots and digital assistants to help their fundraising, brand building and audience engagement strategies.

Charities

1. IsItOK?

The IsItOK? campaign is a collaboration between the Charity Missing people, The NSPCC, Children In Need and Bradford/Waltham Forest districts. They are trialing a web based chat assistant to help young people at risk of exploitation to find the right support — to have a voice, know where they can get help and have a safe place to talk to someone.

One of the key aims is to use technology in the appropriate way to let teenagers know there is somewhere safe they can ask questions and get help. The chatbot is conversational and friendly, asking direct questions from the start to gather feedback.

It lets users know they are talking to an automated chatbot (this is important — in this situation, being very transparent about who/what the user is talking to could make a difference in trusting and using the bot again) and offer assurances about privacy and removing data.The assistant starts with asking what you like to be called with free text input, before moving on to a guided navigation tree structure where users can select input buttons and find out about the service and get more information. There is also an opportunity for a live chat handover to an appropriate operator if required — though this depend on availability.

Key takeouts for charities thinking about Conversational AI initiatives

Keep an appropriate tone for the target audience — in this case they are likely well versed in YouTube, Instagram, TikTok etc, so it needs to feel relevant to them.

Conversational style, how questions are framed, look and feel are all important.

Being upfront about whether the service is a bot or a human from the start answers a key question ‘who am I talking to, can I trust them?’ make sure any live agent handover is flagged up clearly.

Don’t overcomplicate the bot. The key design principles of conversational AI should apply, the design should be invisible, helpful and relevant at all times.

Being rules based (no NLP) is fine, as long as the conversation answers the questions is needs to. The downside is that having no NLP elements can make the bot feel more ‘artificial’ or single track — this can limit re-engagement.

Make it clear how you can get support outside of office hours, and if using NLP do homework on trigger words and phrases, You can base these on existing call centre scripts, social media listening or customer service frequently asked/requested questions and answers.

Co-create with target service users if possible to ensure tone and the questions being asked are relevant and useful — ultimately leading to a better service and usage.

Personalisation can really help to up engagement. Sketching out user personas and matching flows to their needs is a part of this process.

Answer questions upfront about human/bot interface privacy questions.

What to do next — 4 things we’d tackle

Well, as its on webchat only, all the CTAs are directed there, I’d look at extending to Facebook Messenger, SMSand possibly WhatsApp and drive users from there to the full experience.

Having more conversational interactions could work well, it currently a little restrictive to have just one free text input (what’s your name?) at the start perhaps remove the free text option after the brief onboarding for clarity.

It would be great to see a little more personality within the bot itself, it doesnt necessessarily need a name/persona, but would have been interesting to see how it might encourage longer conversations.

Make a little clearer personalisation and conversation tree flows — between users/worried friends. Giving each a richer flow of content can help to keep users coming back for more relevant content.

Obviously its a great initiative, and hopefully the trial produces useful feedback on data and usage to bring forward into the next version and other initiatives channels and enagement campaigns.

June 28, 2020 by Walter Steward

5 Quick Tips to Improve Your Website Design Accessibility

design Web development projects can be complex. They focus on many things – content management systems (CMS) platforms branding, content, responsive design, and the way the page appears to visitors or visual web design. One feature that is often overlooked is accessibility, perhaps due to the misconception that websites designed for accessibility may not look aesthetically pleasing or may even seem disordered. Good website design, however takes into account visual as well as accessibility concerns. It is extremely important that access to information can be available to everyone, regardless the individual abilities.

design

Websites that adhere to accessibility guidelines can improve website traffic, earn more revenue and add a layer of responsiveness and inclusiveness that appeals to all users. While final U.S. web accessibility regulations are slated to be implemented in 2018, International guidelines are already in place. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recognizes that website access is a basic human right and suggests website conformance to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

When designing a new web development project or updating an existing design, we recommend that you keep accessibility in mind from the very beginning of the project. It should be part of the very fabric of the design to ensure any visitor, regardless of ability, is able to access, enjoy, and engage with your site.

Tip #1 – Mind the colors

Make sure you always create contrast between the content and its background. It is worth considering that there are millions of users in the world who are not able to distinguish between colors and their various shades. Sharp color contrast assists those with color deficiencies.

Besides strengthening the brand recognition, colors can also be used to orientate, indicate or even direct the user through the website. If the website has been well designed, in general it may not cause any major problems to the users who can’t distinguish colors. However, in interactive elements or action calls this may become a problem. For example: a simple text link with only one highlighted color may end up being difficult to recognize as a link if it has not been underlined or if it has a highlighted darker background color. In order to better understand how many of your users may see your website, insert your URL in an online Colorblind Web Page Filter tool to check the different kinds of filters that simulate visual disabilities.

Tip #2 – Contextual Links, a Better Description

Users who use screen readers to navigate have the option to skip from link to link until they can find the content they are looking for. When a link is selected it is literally read by the browser of the screen reader. If the link only contains something like ‘click here’, the user won’t be able to learn what the url function is since there is no contextual information around it.

In order to provide better information and orientate the user, it’s important you have relevant link descriptions. For example: Instead of “Click here” use “Contact us here”. Instead of “See more” use “Browse more related topics here”. The upside of using more relevant contextual links is that in addition to helping users, search engine optimization also gets a boost.

Tip #3 – Make More Alternative Content Available

There are some kinds of content that will never be accessible to certain types of users, such as audio contents by hearing-impaired individuals for example. Nevertheless it is possible in some cases to provide alternative content for these types of users to consume. For instance, if your website shares content in video format, you can also publish the written transcription of the video so that any user can read it their screen reader.

Tip #4 – Guide The User Through the Tabindex

People who use a keyboard are familiar with the Tab key, that when pressed, moves them sequentially through a page to the next ‘field’. On a website, the Tabindex determines the order of the tab movement. Tab movement can be very important for visually impaired users who are moving through navigational menus or forms. Forms especially, can be a challenge. Sometimes they may contain small elements such as checkboxes or buttons which can be really hard to click on with a mouse. A well-defined tabindex can make navigation much simpler and provide a better user experience.

Tip #5 – Alt Text

Alt text, an abbreviation for alternative text, is a word or phrase that describes an image, video, graphic or any kind of media that typically would not have words associated with it. The alt text is inserted as an attribute to the HTML of a website page. Users can see it by hovering over the image, screen readers can ‘read’ it out loud to tell the user what is in the image/graphic location, and it describes or replaces the media if that media is not loading for any reason.

In search engine optimization (SEO), alt text provides information about a page for the search engines, because it does not have the ability to read the image contents. Descriptive and relevant alt text on a website improves accessibility, SEO and user experience.