Enterprise Mobile Apps Development – Going Beyond The Mobile First Approach

Whether at work or at home, mobiles have completely transformed the way we live. We rely on smart phones to do almost everything instantly. At work too smart phones are looked upon as devices that can dramatically improve the efficiency of their employees and processes. Mobile apps development has given way to smarter and more efficient ways of working. Enterprises are steadily realizing that developing a mobile application is not just about covering all devices and users, it’s a more strategic approach to plan and transform enterprises and the way they work.

Mobile growth is exponential

Six out of seven people who own a phone, own a smartphone. Smart phones are becoming the primary point of access to the web. If we take a look at SnapChat or Uber or Facebook, more than 400 million of their users log in only with their mobile devices. The desktop usage of these websites has drastically reduced. In other words, mobile is the primary way that interactions happen these days.

User Convenience

Studies show that one in four mobile apps that are downloaded are never used again. This means that a high percentage of apps fall short of user expectations. The most important among user expectations from a mobile app is its convenience. If the app does not deploy quickly or is too difficult to use, the users will simply discard it!

Use Experience

User experience goes beyond mere looks. Users expect mobile apps to be intuitive, available and provide the right content. User experience can be spoilt by a simple inconvenience caused by a pop up or an irrelevant button or inconvenience in browsing through the various screens. If your enterprise all connects to the backend systems, you must ensure that the connection has a good speed and is highly secure.

Integration with backend

In case of an ecommerce app, if a user adds a few items to the shopping cart from the website, the mobile app should also reflect the same data. Strong backend integration is essential for this purpose.

Continuous delivery

Mobile apps development is never ‘finished’. Developers need to keep track of the latest and greatest in mobile technology and update and upgrade your mobile app accordingly. New releases and updates to a mobile app is a continuous process.

Mobility and other tech trends

It is a known fact that there is a convergence of mobility, cloud, the Internet of Things and big data happening across all the industries.

Mobile phones have added to the convenience of our lifestyles. Your mobile phone is your phone, computer, camera, entertainment center, map, personal trainer, assistant, shopping guide, and lots more! It is no longer a luxury in life, it has become a necessity. Whether its work or home, mobile apps give you the freedom to access the internet and get things done from anywhere and anytime!

It’s no longer nice to have a mobile app for your business, it’s a must have part of our lives!

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Challenges in enterprise mobile application development

With the massive number of mobile apps that are implemented for enterprises, it is predicted that 2016 will be a year of taking enterprise mobility to the next level. Enterprises are not only thinking about implementation, they are focusing on improving processes and efficiency of employees with anytime, anywhere access that is provided by mobile devices.

Mobile application development for internal apps that are required by enterprises will be in demand. These apps have different requirements and different features than those apps that are developed for public app stores. Each enterprise has a set of existing technology and the app must blend with the existing set up. Completely changing the setup may turn out to be an extremely expensive affair. There are plenty of such challenges that need to be addresses.

Here are a few challenges that enterprise mobile application development:

Security

Enterprise security requires a user login and credentials for each user and there should be a secure authentication in place. Integration with the enterprise LDAP servers is a must and should comply with their single sign on policies. There should be server validation and checks rather than client side validations. This improves the app performance. Data should always be encrypted so that if the mobile device is lost or misplaced, the enterprise data is not compromised. Security features definitely need to be thought through before you begin developing the app.

User Interface

Functionality beats beauty when it comes to enterprise mobile applications. This does not mean that you completely ignore beauty. Some fundamentals of aesthetics must be met. But features and functionality always have greater importance in enterprise mobile apps. These applications are used to improve the efficiency of employees and business processes. Thus, their beautification can be limited and functionality needs to be a top priority. The app will be more successful if it does not look that trendy, but helps an employee perform better. The overall success of the app depends on how much it aids the business and acts as a support to the entire process. A developer needs to think in that direction and then plan the app features and functionality.

Technology

The development technology used is also a challenge. For mobile applications, there has always been a tough choice between HTML apps and native apps. Native apps are platform dependent. HTML based apps are more portable and are hence becoming increasingly popular. More and more businesses prefer web apps that can be accessed from any device and from anywhere. Selecting native apps depends on the purpose the app is going to serve. If the app needs to operate on many form factors without any alterations to the code, HTML5 could be your best bet. Hybrid apps are those that include the positives of both native and web apps. These kinds of apps are becoming very popular for mobile apps development.

Overall, it is important to note that, enterprise mobile application development needs special attention to some of the factors of development.

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Building An Ecommerce Web Development Strategy

Customers are increasingly turning towards smartphones and the internet for purchasing almost everything. The traditional brick and mortar store shopping is turning into a ‘click and order’ shopping. Now, as technology changes hands, it’s transforming into tap, swipe and order. Ecommerce is quickly turning into m-commerce.

Well, ecommerce web development needs to change accordingly. There are many aspects of ecommerce that need to be taken into consideration before you build your website. You need to take care of the site design, social media strategies, make space for customer interactions, and lots more.

Here are a few things you can include in your ecommerce web development strategy:

Create user oriented experiences

This is a tough one. Customers cannot touch and feel the products. It is difficult to convince them how good they are. This is where eye catching images and product descriptions come into picture. Make sure that you make space on your website for customer reviews too. This means that if a product is recommended by existing customers, it will sell better.

Customer feedback

As mentioned earlier, make sure you include space on your website for customer feedback, recommendations and testimonials. All these are crucial factors that impact buying decisions of your customers. This also helps you analyze and re-evaluate your product. You get to know what your customers want and what they are expecting from your product. This can help you build better products.

Social Media

Recommendations from friends work better than recommendations from strangers. If a customer buys your product and shares it on their social media profile as being good, you will definitely see a positive impact on your sales.

Mobile commerce

If you aren’t thinking mobile yet, might as well close down business! Well, mobile is one of the most popular means of shopping these days. Four out of five people are shopping via smartphones these days. So your ecommerce web development strategy should include mobile compatibility for your website too. If you are building a site, it must be responsive. Well, businesses go a step further and build dedicated apps for ecommerce too.

Create easy checkouts

One of the most important aspects of an ecommerce business is the checkout process. The quicker it is the convenient it is for the customer. This helps improve customer experiences as well as improve sales. If the process is too long or complicated, it increases the changes of customers abandoning their shopping carts. To retain customers and urge them to buy more design a shopping cart that quickly does the job for you!

Overall, ecommerce websites should include all the necessary features that are required from a customer as well as business perspective. You need to take care that you include all your requirements as per business demands and make it customer friendly too.

Ecommerce is a means of representing your business online. Make sure that you make the most of it. The way you design and develop your site can make or break a business.

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10 Simple Tips to Improve Your Web Design

The way you design your website, the fonts you use, the colours you select – that’s what adds up to the success or failure of your website. Website design decides whether visitors want to stay and find out more and buy from you, or they just want to leave! Here are a few simple things you can follow and ensure that your website visitors stay and buy from you!

Logo Design Is Crucial

Logo design should be professional. The logo of your website has the potential of creating the first impression. Make sure that he logo is placed prominently on your website. Another thing to remember is to link the logo back to your home page. This would be very useful to direct the users back to the home page easily when they click on the logo.

Intuitive Navigation

Navigation should be as intuitive as possible. The primary navigation should be at the top of the page to ensure that the users can easily locate it and browse the site. Other than that you have an option to include a secondary navigation bar on the left hand margin. Other less important links should be placed at the bottom of the page.

Do not clutter

It’s easy to overload your website with great graphics and great text. But be sure that you do not clutter the site. It is well known that when confronted with too much information all cluttered at one place, your brain stops processing information. Lots of visual clutter will confuse the visitor as to where to click next.

Use of Colours

Use colours strategically. Give your site a modern, elegant and clean look with the right selection of colours. You can also use colours for headings and key text in your website content. But just remember to keep your colour scheme complementary to the logo but in sync with the other marketing and branding materials.

Professional Photography

Investing in professional photography if your site requires it could be a great idea. It will give your site a clear and professional look. Poor quality photography just takes off the charm from the site.

Fonts

Select the fonts that are widely acceptable or if you are trying out something new and funky, make sure that it is readable on all devices and their screen sizes.

Every page is a landing page

Design your website as though every page is a landing page. It is a myth that your visitors enter your website from the home page only. Hence it is very important to design each page with great care.

Above the fold

The most important point to remember is to keep the most important aspects of your website above the fold!

Responsive design

In today’s world, if your site is not responsive, you might as well close down business! Make sure that your website renders well on all the available screen sizes.

Test your design

The final point to remember is to test your website for all the features and functionalities.

If you are looking for a website design and development agency, your search ends here! Contact us at info@multidimensionusa.com

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The Do’s and Don’ts of Enterprise Mobile Application Development

Mobile application development today has completely changed the way people work – both in personal life as well as business. There seems to be a mobile app that is available for everything you do. Personally or professionally. Businesses are also turning towards mobile applications that will benefit their employees and customers and in the long run improve productivity of their businesses.

Developing enterprise mobile apps is not easy. There are a lot of things to consider. Well, the distributed enterprises with multiple technologies that include legacy as well as new age infrastructure require a lot of planning in order to develop the most appropriate mobile app.

Here are a few do’s and don’ts for enterprise mobile application development:

Do’s:

Use Experience

Make sure that you design for the users. Mobile devices are fundamentally different from the desktops and laptops. So, do not simply port the designs. The form factor for mobile devices is different, they have less processing resources and input mechanisms are different. Optimize your mobile design to suit all this in order to provide a great user experience.

Sensors

Mobile devices of today come with G or LTE, a camera, GPS, accelerometers, Bluetooth and wi-fi (and some also include near field communication sensors too). Make the most of these features.

Empower the users

Mobile devices are always within reach of employees – develop an app that truly empowers them. A well planned and thought of app will enable users to work efficiently and be more productive.

Real Time

Mobile devices are always connected. So, any information that user wants to access or wishes to update to the organization’s central database can be done real time. Make sure you remember this while designing your app.

Don’ts:

Don’t create an app for the sake of it

Spend time identifying the purpose of your enterprise mobile application. Don’t create one just for the sake of it.

Learn From other apps – Don’t copy!

Do not copy an existing app. At the most, you can look at similar apps and learn from them.

Don’t take everything “mobile”

Identify the business processes of your organization that require to be mobile. Do not mobilize everything for the sake of it. Do not develop something that nobody will use.