Tips to Provide the Best Website Experience

Agile development sprints are an essential portion of agile work methods. During the sprint stage, a development project truly starts to take shape. It also un-shapes and emerges and then shapes itself again. If this doesn't seem possible, then read on to find out how a sprint works.

Mistakes and Dynamics

Very rarely do software programs work correctly the first time around. Code gets wrapped around itself, interfaces don't respond in the manner designers planned, and sometimes the client changes their requirements and specifications mid-stream.

Agile workflows take rapidly changing scenarios into consideration with the understanding that it is better to correct flaws as they happen than it is to apply bandages to a product.

Sprints and Iterations

Sometimes called iterations, sprints are the work portion of the agile development workflow. They usually last two weeks and end with a presentation of the work that was accomplished during the previous fourteen days.

Un-Shaping and Emerging

Sprints are a way to correct product flaws as soon as they happen.

At the end of the two-week period, when all parties engaged in the project put their pieces together, issues with the product tend to emerge. Since the product is still in development, its designers, developers, UI and UX experts, as well as others involved in product development can collaborate new solutions.

Flaws and strategies that don't work are un-shaped and new strategies emerge. These strategies are put into place during the next sprint. And the next, until the final product has fully formed.

Documenting Your Sprint

During the sprint, clients use the existing product and test for efficiency. Make certain to document your ideas and experiences during the sprint. Your notes and even your abandoned ideas might prove useful during collaborative sessions. What you abandoned in one sprint may very well hold the solution to a future issue.

For more information on building your software project with a collaborative and agile team then please contact us.

Developing a more engaged and focused team is what any business needs, especially with large goals, complex projects, and important objectives in mind. But what can allow you to reach that goal? In agile development, "scrum" has been a popular answer to businesses wanting greater production, speed, and engagement from their employees. But What is the "scrum" framework in Agile development, and how does it build success? Here's a simple breakdown of the scrum process and its results.

A Breakdown of Scrum

The scrum framework is broken down into 4 major parts:

1. Sprint Planning: A "sprint" is a designated timed period to complete certain stories and projects. The sprint planning meeting determines which tasks need to be done to meet the sprint objectives.

2. Daily Scrum: The daily scrum is a short meeting dedicated to just the sprint goals, and reviews what was completed, what needs to be done, and what might be in the way of completion. It helps keeps members focused, up-to-date on finished components, what tasks are left, and how to better manage and prioritize tasks.

3. Sprint Review: At the end of the sprint, members review their achievements and completed tasks. Typically, members will be able to demo or present their contributions informally.

4. Sprint Retrospective: The sprint retrospective allows for members to reflect on their own performance and adjust the process for greater efficiency. Together, the team could talk about what works, what doesn't, and what to tweak or stop doing for greater success.

By moving through these 4 motions, teams can improve their efficiency and complete necessary tasks together. In addition, it allows for members hold themselves accountable as individuals and as a team. In all, the team engagement with scrum helps move projects along quickly and give employees a measurable goal to work on. This focuses their energy on the most important jobs.

Contensive can help you reach your goals with scrum and agile development. To learn more about how agile development can move you forward, contact us.

It is not unusual for some small businesses to place too much focus on bringing in new customers and not enough on keeping their existing customers. However, this is a mistake because retaining existing customers is less costly than finding new ones. Depending on advertising and marketing expenses, getting a new customer may cost seven times more than keeping the repeat customer.

Repeat customers are already "sold" on your products and services but this fact can't be taken for granted. Efforts must be made to connect with them and to make them feel cared for. This will reduce repeat customer attrition and induce them to increase their purchases. The same efforts at retaining repeat customers should also be made with one time customers.

Increasing Customer Loyalty with Mobile Apps

Provide interesting and useful content. Providing content that your customers value retains their awareness of your brand at times when they have no immediate need for your products and services. Regular content updates will keep people checking into the app. The content will depend on the niche market that you serve and can be of a more general nature or personalized to the types of purchases made.

Provide customer loyalty rewards. These can include coupons, discounts, vouchers, prizes, and other incentives that only exist for the app user. This is important because it creates a feeling of exclusivity that makes them feel they are special to you. Loyalty apps that track purchases can segment their users into one time purchasers who require inducements to become repeat customers, as well as various tiers of repeat customers.

Tier your repeat customers according to their spending patterns. The metrics for measuring spending patterns would include average amount spent per purchase, purchasing frequency, and purchasing recency. The 80-20 principle often applies in that 20% of your repeat customers are often responsible for 80% of your profits. Retaining the loyalty of the top 20% should be your highest priority and your loyalty rewards should reflect this.

If you require mobile app creation that increases your customer's satisfaction and loyalty, contact us. We can build it and make it happen.

In a recent podcast, the State Department announced that was converting their network of overseas mission websites -- which host country information, visa applications and more -- to a responsive web design. Their plan is to make sure that everyone can access their 450 websites from any computing device from anywhere in the world.

As the State Department discovered, the mobile computing revolution changed how every business and organization conducts its business online. Everyone from your customers to your employees now do most of the computing and media consumption with some sort of mobile device. Indeed, according to the State’s own web metrics, about 30 percent of visitors to their sites come from mobile phones with another 7 percent using tablet.

However, a lot of people still use desktop computers. Some people even use both. One moment consuming your website on their desktop only to move to a mobile device in the next. If you want to keep these customers from going to your competitors, you have to make sure your website has a responsive web design. That is the only way you can ensure your customers see everything you offer them.

Unfortunately, not all response website site designs will work in all situations. The State Department discovered early on that they need a custom theme for their website as all commercial themes were too much for what they need.

Fortunately, we have you covered. If you find yourselves with your own growing mobile customer base, contact us immediately so we can help you develop the right responsive web design for your business.

Recently, more users than ever have been flocking to the Internet. Usage is only going to continue to rise with each passing year. Even with so many people using the Internet on their tablet and mobile phone, many websites haven’t adopted a mobile-friendly design. Not only is this a pain for users, but it also causes you to lose out on potential customers. A responsive Web design can take care of all your problems at once. Find out more about the benefits of responsive websites below.

It’s the preferred option for SEO purposes.

Google prefers the new responsive websites over a traditional template. When you have a single URL, the Google bot can easily crawl through your site. This helps to reduce the chance of any errors with on-page SEO. These sites tend to perform better and are far simpler to maintain that a mobile template that stands alone.

It cuts down on multiple SEO campaigns.

With a responsive website, you don’t have to worry about having two separate websites and two separate SEO campaigns. It’s hard enough to try to keep up with one SEO campaign, let alone having to have two separate ones to accommodate a separate mobile site and desktop site. Combine your sites together with a responsive design and focus your efforts on a single SEO campaign.

It loads faster.

Any mobile content that lies above the fold should load in less than one second. The entire page should be loaded within just two seconds. This isn’t possible when attempting to load a standard desktop site on your mobile device. If the user waits too long for the page to load, they are going to head elsewhere to get what they want. Responsive sites eliminate the long wait times.

If you want to take your website to the next level, contact us to help redesign your website today.

As experts in web app creation, we work in an agile software development environment. Our expertise is creating applications for clients that are superior because they have been extensively tested. Every app is the collective work of engineers, designers, and analysts who strive to understand the client's application requirements.

Why Choose Agile Development for Web App Creation

The belief behind agile development is that the client will get a software product of higher quality and that the total development time is shorter. When we pursue web app creation in an agile environment, we are developing products for small and medium businesses and larger organizations. Diverse organizations may have multiple needs for their software applications, but they all want a product that serves its purpose. Every application must also provide enough security to comply with government and industry standards.

Creativity in the Agile Environment

The agile development process that we use for web app creation differs from traditional software development. This discipline consists of developing software requirements, design, coding, testing, and deployment. Now, we use a cross-functional team of designers and engineers to turn out a product in a matter of weeks. The process involves a series of iterations, each of which includes these stages: user input, planning, development, user review, and retrospective. The series of iterations that we use to develop a software eventually produces a version that satisfies the client and performs the best in user tests.

Our web development team loves to create new web apps for clients that test the limits of existing coding methods. If you have a project that you would like us to tackle in the agile environment, please contact us today.