Nearly 30 years ago, the first mobile applications were introduced to the market: Address Book, Calculator, Calendar, Mail, Note Pad, and Sketch Pad. Today, there are approximately 2 million apps available for download on the App Store and over 2.6 million in the Google Play Store. A lot has changed in the past few decades with no sign of the revolution losing momentum. As consumer demands and technological advancements continue to dictate the market, it’s key for businesses to stay at the forefront of innovation.

In this article, we’ll cover 7 trends affecting mobile app development and explore how they’re continuing to transform and impact everyday life.

7 Mobile App Trends in 2022

Internet of Things (IoT) App Integration

IoT refers to physical objects that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the internet or other networks. Smart home technology and automotive connectivity are two notable examples of IoT and give credence to the continued rise in mobile app development.

Within homes, consumers can use mobile apps to lock and unlock doors and adjust their thermostats. Houshold appliances, including refrigerators, can also be connected and controlled via mobile apps. In vehicles, voice-enabled apps are not only a convenience, but help increase safety as drivers can go “hands-free” while making phone calls, changing stations, and utilizing GPS navigation.

Undoubtedly, this market is poised to continue in an upward trajectory with spending predictions soring to $1.6 trillion by 2025.

Apps for Foldable Devices

Foldable devices are making a resurgence after going dormant for many years thanks to the first iPhone release in 2007. The latest iterations of the “flip phone” allow for a larger screen than any traditional phone while folding up into a more compact form.

Responsive design for mobile apps will be key to accommodate both foldable and non-foldable phone users. Building a responsive and optimized app is integral to providing a superior user experience on these devices.

5G Technology

5G technology affords developers the opportunity to build realistic apps that are more visually stimulating, more secure, and higher performing. As 5G smartphone connections are forecast to rise in the coming years, users will experience seamless connectivity that supersedes their past experiences with fixed broadband.

Features of 5G that will influence app development include:

• Speed – Offers high-speed performance, measurably 100 times faster than 4G
• Bandwidth – Designed to perform across a wide array of bands improving connectivity
• Latency – Low latency allows for data delivery in a millisecond
• Connectivity – Offers connectivity for up to a million devices

As 5G continues to evolve, developers will leverage its advantages to meet consumer expectations.

Development For Wearable Devices

As wearable technology continues to become more popular, app developers remain diligent in designing for this market. Today, users can download tens of thousands of apps with the use of wearables. The global smart wearables market is expected to reach $31.95 billion in 2026

Types of wearable devices include:

• Smart watches
• Smart rings
• Smart glasses
• Smart clothing with sensors
• Smart earphones
• Medical wearables
• Biosensors

Consumer demands for personal health, safety, and convenience will continue to drive this market. Wearable testing will become more prominent to accelerate time to market for these devices and applications.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Artificial intelligence and machine learning have gained a reputation for accelerating digital initiatives and maximizing business outcomes, particularly in the app development space. Artificial intelligence can be credited with improving app performance and making them “smarter” overall.

Many AI features can be implemented into a mobile app, including:

• Biometrics – Sensory and voice recognition
• Speech and image recognition
• Predictive maintenance
• Face detection
• Text and image classification
• Emotion recognition

Mobile Wallets and Mobile Payments

Digital wallets offer users the convenience of sending money and making payments straight from their phone. The Global Mobile Payment Market is estimated to be worth $15.75 trillion by 2027.

Some popular solutions include:

• PayPal
• Apple Pay
• Apple Wallet
• Venmo
• Cash App
• Google Wallet
• Android Pay
• Samsung Pay
• Alipay

With their ease of use and speed of utilization, contactless payment solutions increased in popularity throughout the pandemic as individuals needed to practice social distancing. Contactless transactions grew twice as fast as non-contactless transactions in certain purchase categories. Wallet integration will continue to evolve and, in the future, become standard for all apps that process transactions.

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality

AR and VR are transforming mobile app development with their ability to bridge the gap between the real world and the virtual world. App developers can integrate digital information in the real world in mobile applications. Pokémon Go is a great example of an AR app that revolutionized the market—it shot straight to the top of the app store charts on both Android and Apple, and just 7 days after its release it had over 20 million users active in a single day.

The Future of App Development

From their inception in the 90s to today, mobile applications have taken our smartphones from being useful to indispensable. Trends have propelled apps to new heights and will continue to do so. Companies must stay abreast of the latest trends to remain competitive and satisfy consumers’ every-changing needs. Having a partner on the cutting-edge of technology can help you maintain an innovative application.

Infostretch provides end-to-end application development & engineering — specifically for today’s digital environment. We offer the latest technology including IoT, wearables, edge computing, and digital twins. Learn more about our mobile app development services or get in touch directly using the form below.

Sequencing genomes is like ripping up a piece of paper into a million pieces, blowing them into the wind, then finding and assembling the paper by identifying patterns. Though this job sounds tedious—impossible even—completing it would be a big breakthrough when applied to the field of bioinformatics.

Genomic assets are present in huge stacks of data that are difficult to organize and analyze. With the Snowflake cloud data platform, data from multiple sources can be collated, queried, analyzed, and presented to support researchers, scientists, and geneticists with predictions.

This article will take you through a series of steps involved in genome sequencing and will demonstrate how Snowflake Cloud Genomics can simplify the process for researchers, data scientists, and geneticists. We cover the following ideas:

• History of human genome sequencing
• Applications of genome sequencing
• The steps involved in genome sequencing
• Genomics on Snowflake Data Cloud
• Using Snowflake for working with multiple sources, for storage, querying and analysis
• Future of Genome sequencing

History of the Human Genome Sequencing

In 1961, Marshall Nirenberg and his friends cracked the “code for life” eight years after James Watson discovered the helix structure of DNA. They then followed a series of explorations that landed in the Human Genome Project in 1990 when bio scientists decided to sequence 3 billion letters of the human genome in 15 years. A series of sequences were discovered and by 2007. A Map of Human Genetic Variation report was published using Solexa’s next-gen DNA sequencing technology. However, the cost of sequencing was still high until 2009 when they finally dropped. More discoveries followed, like 20,687 protein-coding in 2012; 100,000 cancer genomes sequenced in 2018; and the SARS-CoV-2 virus sequenced in 2021.

Applications of Genome Sequencing

The Human Genome Project has reached many milestones since its inception in 1990, but the real breakthrough was achieved only recently. The final missing pieces of human DNA were published to complete the whole sequence of a human gene with 3 million nucleotides on March 31, 2022. This genomic fingerprint can now help understand and fight many genetic diseases that were incurable earlier such as Huntington’s disease, progeria, hemophilia, and sickle cell anemia.

This was only possible thanks to a sequencing technology that could read thousands of nucleotides, cut them into smaller fragments, and then assemble the repetitive regions. Genome sequencing has already found its way into healthcare applications like pediatrics, drug trials, and cancer treatments. With the new discovery, it can now be used for cell repairs and curing genetic diseases that humans suffer from.

Previously, point mutations that caused major disorders were not only impossible to cure but also could not be prevented from being passed down to future generations. However, CRISPR-Cas9 (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) technology that was created after understanding the natural defense mechanism of bacteria against viruses can now be used to add, replace, delete, or edit specific regions to treat these diseases.

The Steps in Genome Sequencing

The sequencing journey begins with bioscientists taking bacterial cells to extract DNA from a sample tissue. Then it is cut into desired-sized fragments (typically 100-5000 bp range) with molecular scissors. The resulting fragments are converted to double-stranded DNA sequences and oligonucleotide adapters then attached to the ends of these fragments for recognition of cDNA molecules.

Next, scientists make many copies of these fragments using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method to create a DNA library. This library is then loaded to the DNA sequencer that reads the sequence of nucleotides (A, T, C & G). Millions of such sequences are created and later put together to complete the whole genome sequence, which contains millions of these nucleotides.

A number of vendors provide kits for making sequencing libraries such as Illumina, which was awarded by Snowflake as one of the winning Data Drivers in 2021 for its unified product analytics. Snowflake enables rapid data collection from Illumina sequencing instruments to allow real-time processing.

Genomics on Snowflake Data Cloud

In the past, genome sequencing was very time consuming and costly because of the complexities and the large volumes of data. However, Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technology can reduce time and cost to make genome sequencing more feasible for healthcare needs.

Genomic data is produced in massive quantities and thus requires large storage and computing capacities. Snowflake data cloud allows the extraction of sequencing outcomes from sequencers like Illumina and further support analysis of the genomic reads. Snowflake platform can store both structured and semi-structured data using compressed columnar storage. It can also help co-locate structured phenotype data and semi-structured annotation data to provide new possibilities. Genomic assets buried in a stack of VCF (Variant Call Format) files can be extracted for interactive data exploration and analysis that is critical for research and assessment applications.

The Snowflake data cloud can power genome analytics by supporting genome variants and gene expression data. Once the data is extracted from different sources and the genomic sequence is fed into the Snowflake cloud, Snowflake offers different approaches to make it easy to interpret this data for human agents through genome analytics. Your Snowflake cloud contains both your genome sequence data and other metadata from clinical databases extracted through FHIR APIs* (Fast Health Interoperability Resources – Application Programming Interfaces). This allows you to find the markers in the sequence and match it with the patient data to find anomalies and understand the connection between genome and dysfunctionalities in patients.

Let us understand how Snowflake data cloud can engage with a genomic firm to enable sequencing of large genomic datasets.

* The HL7® FHIR® (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources 1 ) standard defines how healthcare information can be exchanged between different computer systems regardless of how it is stored in those systems.

A genomic organization works on genome sequencing to come up with insights that help us learn how the body works. There are multiple steps involved that generate data that can be executed with a management platform. At every stage, a cost is also incurred that this platform can assess and reveal. Cost is incurred in sampling, lab preparation, processing, sequencing chip, sequencing device infrastructure, analysis, and reporting. Indirect costs of infrastructure, personnel, security, and different types of analysis are also added. Monitoring sequencing steps including litigation, amplification, sequencing, and analysis on Snowflake cloud data platform can be useful in tracking both processes and costs that can then be easily reported.

The Snowflake platform stores and co-locates structured phenotype data and semi-structured annotation data of the genome sequence. With this, bioscientists can query specific genetic markers both horizontally (one patient across positions) and vertically (one position across patients). The sequence that is generated is an extremely long set of DNA codes that makes no sense unless it is analyzed. The analysis identifies markers of physical characteristics of a human of misplaced nucleotides that could be the cause of a genetic disease in a person. Such reporting would require deep analytics of the huge volume of data. Healthcare analytics solution of Snowflake helps genomic organizations turn read sequences into actionable insights that can be used in healthcare.

With Snowflake platform, this is possible. Snowflake not only provides a vast data warehouse, but also integrations with partners like Tableau that deliver interactive analytics, Alteryx that offers advanced predictive analysis of large data sets, and Squark that uses machine learning (ML) and augmented intelligence to uncover human genomic patterns and predict human characteristics.

While Snowflake data cloud helps with data extraction, storage, and predictive analysis of genome sequencing, it goes a step further to provide integrations with the healthcare system. Besides the sequencer, Snowflake platform can consolidate data from multiple sources like EHR systems, insurance claims, and other lab results.

The Future of Genome Sequencing

The Human Genome Project started in 1995 with an aim to extract the gene sequence of a human. It took more than two decades for bioscientists to complete the sequence of 3 billion nucleotides to create the sequence. Along the way, scientists made many intriguing discoveries like CRISPR technology that gave way for base editing and work on point mutation cases to eliminate incurable diseases like progeria and sickle cell anemia. Rare diseases caused by disorders like mitochondrial inheritance and chromosome abnormalities such as fibrosis, hemochromatosis, turner syndrome, and myoclonic epilepsy can now be understood.

Moreover, scientists also discovered more accurate internal structure and the molecular clockwork inside our DNA. Scientists have long imagined creating tiny disease-fighting robots that could be sent inside the human body to repair and fight diseases like cancer. The thought of tiny micro-bots working across our DNA strands gives us hope for a better life ahead.

To learn more about Snowflake, check out the Infostretch – Snowflake partnership or get in touch using the form below.

This blog was cowritten by Dr. Jagadisan Suresh and Prashant Kumar

In 2021, the average number of cyberattacks increased by 15.1% from the previous year. Executives polled by ThoughtLab predict a rise in attacks over the next two years as cybercriminals become more sophisticated. The main causes of these attacks are expected to come from misconfigurations, human error, and poor maintenance.

Organizations cannot fight these attacks simply by putting pressure on the IT teams to take preventive measures. Cyber security resilience must be built around people, processes, and technology. People must be aware, processes must be compliant, and technology can be used to support preventive measures. This article highlights ways to build resilience against cyberattacks by covering the following concepts:

• Impact of cybersecurity threats on organizations
• People’s impact on cybersecurity
• Security standards and compliances
• Establish procedures to strengthen security posture
• Tools for cybersecurity

Impact of Cybersecurity Threats on Organizations

In 2013, a cookie-based attack compromised over 3 million Yahoo accounts at the time when the company was going through negotiations with Verizon. The breach cost the company $300,000 in ransom and cut down the Verizon offer price by $350 million.

NotPetya, an encrypting malware, globally attacked many companies in 2017, causing a loss of over $10 billion that included $300 million to AP Moller-Maersk, $400 million to FedEx, and $870 million to Merck. The malware destroyed 3,500 servers of the logistics leader Merck which runs cargos covering almost a fifth of the world’s shipping capacity.

Cyberattacks are now common, and breach attempts are made every day to penetrate the defense systems of organizations. It is not just the frequency of attacks rising but also the variations in attack vectors that exploit your vulnerabilities. Even if your organization has assessed your systems for vulnerability and found no issues, your organization is not future-proofed.

Most small and mid-size companies implement bare minimum-security defenses and then take the reactive approach to demystify cyber forces when they attack. The result is damaging due to cyberattacks costing $6 trillion to organizations across the globe. In the next three years, the losses might cross the mark of $10.5 trillion, suggests Cybercrime Magazine.

On the other hand, preventive measures can avert 94% of the attacks. To develop the proactive cybersecurity landscape, an organization needs to take measures considering people, processes, and technologies. People can help prevent mistakes that can expose systems to intruders, processes can help streamline security measures, and technological tools can automate and simplify processes to strengthen the cybersecurity posture of an organization.

People’s impact on cybersecurity

Many organizations today use VPN services to secure their network so that they can encrypt user access to their corporate network. An employee of Colonial Pipeline did the same on this company computer in 2014. He connected to the VPN from a location other than his office. This created an opportunity for DarkSide, a Criminal Hacker group from eastern Europe, to steal 100 gigabytes of data from the company’s billing system.

This caused a panic in America’s largest petroleum pipeline, and about half of the pipeline on the east coast was shut down for a couple of days. As a result, 15.4% of fuel stations in Georgia and 60% in Atlanta went dry. The consumer price for one gallon of gas rose from $2.927 to $3.008 because of shortages across states. A threat message was then floated asking the company for a ransom amount of $5 million or the stolen data would be released on the internet. Unfortunately, the company had no choice but to pay the amount in exchange for a decryption tool.

As per statistics, 95% of the security breaches are caused by human errors or lack of awareness as attackers use social engineering tactics like phishing to manipulate users into performing dangerous actions they desire. Among the breaches faced by SMBs, the most frequent is a phishing attack that accounts for 90% of breaches. Thus, it is essential for people to understand cybersecurity risks and the impacts of their actions to prevent such breaches.

One small mistake by one ignorant employee can cost millions to an organization. However, an employee aware of security protocols would know what not to do to create an opportunity for attackers. Cybersecurity awareness among your employees is not a choice but a necessity for your organization because attackers are waiting to capitalize on the ignorance of your employees.

At Infostretch, we leverage a Cyber Security Awareness Platform, a leading training tool in the segment. The training catalog covers a variety of cybersecurity features like Phishing Campaign, Automated Security Awareness Program, Vishing module, Second Chance, and Modstore. The tool has helped us cover users across all locations, which was challenging to do with manual training. The platform was used to run phishing campaigns to train users on various cybersecurity modules.

A layer of discussion is created between IT and functional teams to help employees learn about cybersecurity with quizzes created to test their awareness. The employees receive user digest on email activities, announcements of the latest developments or events in cybersecurity, and updates on measures taken by the company to strengthen security.

A typical update would look like:

The Infostretch IT team continuously monitors all activities, and any deviation from activities, whether harmful or not, is flagged and clarified through a personal connection that ensures that employees understand how their actions can affect the organization. All emails are assigned priorities based on their categories. Emails low on priority are flagged, quarantined, and individual users are automatically informed about taking a final action to block or retain.

Security Standards and Compliances for Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity aims to protect organizational systems, devices, programs, and networks from unauthorized usage by cyber attackers. It is not a one-time step to take but a process that involves identification of threats, protection from unauthorized users, detection of attacks, responding to attacks, and taking measures to recover from a breach. When you have the proper process in place, you can be proactive and minimize breaches. This would mean you could save millions of dollars with preventive cybersecurity measures.

You need to know your current security posture and where you stand when considering cybersecurity procedures. For this, ask your IT teams:

• Is your organization compliant with security standards and has a process to monitor and maintain cybersecurity?
• Do you have a defined cybersecurity policy that identifies ways to prevent and deal with security breaches?
• Do the policy measures have consideration of both humans and machines?
• Does your policy cover the processes, safeguards, and techniques in all significant areas of cybersecurity?

NIST has identified 22 categories of processes, safeguards, and techniques under the five functional areas of cybersecurity:

Figure 1: NIST Classification

Preventive measures are covered in the first three functions of the cybersecurity framework – Identify, Protect, and Detect. Let us see what processes and techniques support these functions.

Identify: To start with cybersecurity measures, your first step is identifying which assets, processes, and people need protection. Assets include data, devices, systems, and facilities managed by an organization. Processes include management and monitoring of the organization’s operational, legal, regulatory, and environmental requirements. People include stakeholders of the organization whose roles and responsibilities related to cybersecurity have to be determined. A risk assessment is done at this stage to understand risks, and a risk management strategy is developed to establish assumptions, priorities, constraints, and tolerances.

Protect: Key protection measures an organization can take to prevent security attacks and breaches include access control mechanisms, training and awareness programs, data security measures to protect confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data, security policies, maintenance procedures, and protective technologies.

Detect: Once protection measures are in place, an organization needs to continuously monitor systems and assets to check for the effectiveness of protective measures. It also involves the detection of anomalies occurring in data or processes. Timely detection of anomalies is essential to minimize or mitigate the impacts of security breaches.

Tools for Cybersecurity

In 2017, WannaCry Ransomware affected 230,000 computers across the globe in more than 200,000 organizations from 150 countries. The attack affected a third of NHS hospital trusts, costing them £92 million. In NHS England, 80 trusts, 603 primary care units, and 595 General Practices were affected. However, this was not the limited damage. WannaCry affected organizations across the globe, including FedEx in the US, Renault in France, and MegaFon in Russia. The attacker began by exploiting a vulnerability in a single Microsoft computer system. Then the infected program would be copied and executed across the systems connected in a corporate network.

A vulnerability could be in your machine or in an application you are using, but the ripple effects of it will make many organizations suffer. Thus, it is a prerogative of an organization to prevent its technological systems from being attacked by securing vulnerabilities that can cause damage.

While on one side, technology is exploited by attackers, on the other side, engineers who counter these attacks also offer tools to help us monitor, predict, and analyze our systems to reduce the chances of attacks on us. Many useful cybersecurity tools are available for network security monitoring, encryption, vulnerability scanning, penetration testing, auditing, network intrusion detection, incident response, security event management, and malware detection.

Putting it Together for Resilience Against Cyberattacks

People, process, and technology – when they go together, you can strengthen your security posture and take preventive measures on time to prevent most security attacks, saving millions of dollars. Cybersecurity is not a one-and-done solution, but it needs a continuous program that keeps improving the security posture of an organization. You can’t trust mechanisms because attackers adapt. You can’t trust people as they make mistakes. The only savior is to keep working and refining together.

Infostretch’s Security Testing services uncover security vulnerabilities and ensure minimal security risks. We offer end-to-end security testing services to protect your applications from cyber vulnerabilities at every stage of software development and maintenance. Infostretch leverages the latest tools and techniques to enable the best possible use of resources and time to make the security testing process streamlined and manageable.

To learn more, check out Infostretch’s Security Testing services.

Building a product involves risk. A minimum viable product (MVP) can be a major catalyst for success, allowing companies to quickly turn ideas into products, test in real world conditions, and launch with confidence. But which MVP is right for you? In this article, we’ll explore the benefits of building a minimum viable product, the different types of MVP, and the process to get your MVP launched.

Why do you need an MVP?

A minimum viable product (MVP) is a version of a product with just enough features to be usable by early customers who can then provide feedback for future product development. The basis of an MVP is to validate the assumptions made about a product and test the market need. The ability to get early confirmation from users not only gets them to buy-in, but it allows for an early entrance to a market, yielding a strong competitive advantage in the business landscape.

In addition, an MVP affords businesses the opportunities to:

Get funding/Attract investors: A well-built MVP will highlight your product to investors signifying your go-to-market readiness

• Save time and money: An MVP can prohibit you from making costly mistakes with a full-fledged build, also saving time
• Test product early; Solve user problems; Improve products: MVPs allow for early product tests to better solve customer problems and continually improve products
• Gain valuable feedback: Customer feedback on your MVP helps to validate your idea and forecast demand for product
• Develop products more quickly: With user feedback, the product team can quickly iterate and improve a product
• Increased engagement with target audience: An MVP allows for increased engagement with an audience; In many cases building an audience before product is created to ensure a customer base
• Gain market knowledge: Feedback gives valuable insights, allowing for a better understanding of the market being served

Types of MVPs

MVPs fall into two main groups: high-fidelity and low fidelity. Within these groups are several other types of MVPs organizations can pursue based on their needs and budget.

High-Fidelity MVPs

A high-fidelity MVP is a detailed clickable mockup of an app and seen as a more complex strategy to idea validation. High-Fidelity MVPs can:

• Identify the most optimal growth strategies
• Uncover early app adopters (first customers)
• Help discover what customers are willing to pay for product
• Allow you to enhance marketing strategy

Types of High-Fidelity MVPs

• Concierge: Implies manual solving of customers’ issues without product release; Considerable time requirement; Provides good insight
• Wizard of Oz: Similar to concierge; Owner does all the work with pretense that the product is automated enough to handle everything independently
• Piecemeal MVP: Use existing tools and services within your project; Creates new user experience and function
• Crowdfunding MVP: Best choice for businesses that need big investments, access to customers
• Single Featured MVP: Cost-effective as it tests one feature; Offers clear understanding of one specific problem or solution
• Digital Prototypes: Usually wireframes, mock-ups and prototypes; Make usability and functionality issues much easier to resolve early, before large investment
• 3D Models: Expensive option; Ideal for manufacturing

Low-Fidelity MVPs

Low-Fidelity MVPs test if there is a big enough group of customers willing to buy your product and seen as a more early-stage approach. Low-Fidelity MVPs allow you to:

• Better understand customer problems
• Discover how valuable solutions can be for customers
• Understand if certain problems are worth solving
• Investigate most effective customer solutions

Types of Low-Fidelity MVPs

• Landing Page: Creating a landing page describing benefits of product with different option selections for users
• Explainer videos: Videos can help to describe a complex product; Engagement and analysis can be tracked
• Forums: Allow you to directly interact with customers
• Blogs: Helps to validate ideas and offers great communication with customers
• Customer Interview: Unscripted questions to gain honest feedback about product, price, etc.
• Ad Campaigns: Ads specific to your target audience to gauge the aspects of your product most appealing to your audience
• Split testing: Great way to test 2 versions
• Micro-Survey: High response rate as generally there are only 1 or 2 questions
• Paper prototypes: Sketches of a user interface; Less cost, time and effort
• Audience Building: Building an audience before product creation is a low-cost effort to gauge demand for product
• Fake Door/Coming Soon: Get customers to sign-up for product before its available

Building an MVP

The average time to build an MVP may vary, but what is constant are the steps needed to be successful.

Step 1: Market Research

A great MVP starts with thorough market research. According to CB Insights, 35% of startups fail because there is no market need for their product or service. To command demand, a product or service needs to solve a particular problem. Initially, it’s important to first identify and understand the target audience.

First, by looking at the demographics, you can have a greater understanding of the age, race, gender and income of your potential customer. Further, you can create personas, which then offers information on the buyer’s personality, a snapshot of their motivations, what drives them to buy certain products, their preferences, and behaviors.

You’ll then have a better window into pain points and needs. By recognizing and understanding the customer earlier in the process, it helps to ensure greater chances of success later.

A true market and competitor analysis gives insight into target audience needs, pain points that are not being addressed, and exploits any weaknesses of your competitors.

Step 2: Feature Prioritization

For app features, it’s critical to limit your list to only what is necessary to take it to market. Focus on what functionalities you need to satisfy your target market, and reserve all others for future versions of your app.

Step 3: Design Process

Validation of your design can be realized with mobile app prototyping, which is simply a preliminary visual of your working product. Excellent mobile apps are both easy to use and beautiful to look at. A human-centric design that is consistent, simple, and minimal will be aesthetically pleasing and easy to use.

Step 4: Launch

Once the above steps have been completed, it’s time to launch. And though your app may be available to download, your work is far from over.

Step 5: User Feedback

After launch, gauging customer engagement will define the next steps in your process. Did your product solve their problems? What features did users respond well to? Are there improvements you can make to the UI?

Customer feedback is a direct and honest way to understand how to add value to your product, which may include adding or deleting features. In-app surveys, creating off-app communities, and beta tests are just a handful of ways to garner customer feedback.

To continually help increase the performance of your product and hopefully demand as well, don’t be afraid to encourage ongoing feedback from end users.

Ongoing: Make Improvements

By analyzing the results, you can then strategize the next steps to improve the product.

MVPs are the MVP

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to launching a digital application. Therefore, building a product is a very fluid and risky process. To optimize your chance of success, building an MVP is a great option. For those that go the MVP route, they can launch their products, acquire customer feedback, and continually improve their offerings with more confidence and less cost. In addition to vital product information gathered and continuous product enhancements, an MVP can also result in faster times to market for products, which can prove to a be a valuable competitive advantage in a crowded business landscape.

Let Infostretch assist with your MVP. We’re ready to help you with your toughest and most demanding digital challenges. Ready to discuss? Our engineering experts are up for the task.

The first rule of data governance is: don’t talk about data governance. But then how do we do it?

Let me start with my “A-ha” moment.

About 10 years ago, the organization I was part of was going through a restructuring and I was asked to lead the customer data governance team. A few weeks later, a colleague inquired about our customer numbers for a new product. With the data stewards, engineers, and master data, I believed the answer would be simple to provide. Much to my dismay, I was wrong.

After running some queries, we ended up with three very different answers to this simple question. The data surely couldn’t be wrong, I thought, but how could we not know how many customers we had?

A meeting ensued. The customer data governance team (who had yet to be engaged) our data engineers, a company expert, and myself all plead our cases for the numbers we came up with.

Then, the lightbulb started to flicker.

I realized we had no consistent definition of what a customer was. Our data may have been accurate based on our own definitions of what a customer was, but because we hadn’t agreed upon the qualifications for a customer, our numbers didn’t match up.

That was the moment I became excited about data governance.

Re-imagining data governance

According to The Data Governance Institute, data governance is a system of decision rights and accountabilities for information-related processes, executed according to agreed-upon models which describe who can take what actions with what information, and when, under what circumstances, using what methods.

Data governance helps us to make better decisions, guarantee transparency, and reduce costs while ensuring data is secure and trustworthy. A study conducted by TDWI uncovered that 36% of data leaders view governance as a priority to improving the success of an organization in relation to business intelligence and analytics.

A need exists for exceptional data governance practices. Data governance is a combination of people, processes, and technology. With good practices in place, the value derived from the data will drive the organization and encourage other departments to get excited and onboard with data.

But how do we reimagine data governance and bring value to it across the whole organization?

• Collaboration
  • Defining team roles
• Communication
• Learning from the past

The Importance of Collaboration

Within organizations, there’s a bit of a stigma when it comes to data governance. That’s why it’s important to build a collaborative data governance culture. It all begins by having the right people in place and getting early buy-in from the executive team. In doing so, a successful data governance strategy can be implemented and, in many cases, more easily adopted across the organization.

When roles, responsibilities, and the ownership structure are clearly defined, your data governance practices have a higher chance of finding success. It’s critical to measure the progress of your data governance program to make sure the best practices you have in place are effective.

With collaboration comes communication and the impacts and value of your strategy can be clearly communicated throughout the organization.

Defining Team Roles

Amongst organizations, data governance has been put in several different places. Some would say that it’s lived in IT, it’ an IT problem, IT will solve it.

To improve data quality, input and ownership must come from all parts of your organization. Companies are turning to and relying more on data governance councils within their organizations. This team is comprised of professionals who act as the guiding force behind the data governance strategy. For example, data scientists, engineers, the business team and even professionals from the call center, as they have direct contact with customers, would all provide quality insight. Further, data councils help to build trust and relationships within the community.

Communicating about Data Governance

For data governance to be valued within an organization, it’s necessary to get creative when speaking about it. As a data professional, you may be tempted to talk about numbers and KPIs, but to get other departments excited about the value, you need to tell stories with data; talk impacts, customers, products. The focus needs to be on the business value of data.

Tina Sebert presenting this topic at the DataConnect Conference in Columbus, Ohio- Hosted by Women in Analytics

Data is all about trust. Admittedly, we hear about compliance problems and yes, it happens. Customers lose trust in a company, a brand, and that is a reputation challenge. It’s a compliance issue, but we can’t lose focus on the positive impacts of data collection. Talk about the impacts first, get people in the organization excited and then transition into metrics. Trust is earned, not given. We all want to make sure that our data is trusted.

Learn From the Past

What have we learned? Data governance is not an IT problem. How do we embed governance into our initiatives? It’s a culture change that needs to happen and it’s a heavy lift; an effort in which we all need to partake. We need to act differently. If we act differently, what’s going to happen? We’re going to earn the trust of our partners. We’re going to earn the trust of our executives to make more investments in the tools and initiatives that are going to make our jobs easier. We’re going to give the company the advantage that we’re driving towards.

The Second Rule of Data Governance is…Rebranding?

Poor data governance can lead to inaccuracies, confusion, and loss of trust in enterprise data. Good data governance enables more informed teams, better decision making, and improved operational efficiency. To align your organization with the latter, I believe it’s important to rethink the traditional approach to data governance by changing the way we collaborate, communicate, and learn from the past. Putting these three tactics into action can drastically improve the culture of data governance within your organization.

However, some believe that data governance is played out and there’s no chance of whipping the negative stigma. To them I say, “What about a rebrand? Can we get the culture change that’s needed if we rebrand our governance?”

I challenge you to explore this idea and share your thoughts in the comments.

To explore the idea of rebranding data governance more, check out this video to hear what data professionals at the DataConnect Conference in Columbus, Ohio- Hosted by Women in Analytics had to say.

At Infostretch, we offer end-to-end Data Governance services to help you achieve your data governance goals. We help market leaders and emerging startups achieve faster insights, better data understanding, improved decision-making, increased collaboration, and regulatory data compliance. To learn more, check out Infostretch’s Data Governance Services.

The moment an Android user is informed of an update, the user would upgrade the OS. But even though the device is upgraded, the applications installed in the device might not be developed considering the latest version of Android. This might raise operational challenges when the application is used with Android 13. Thus, it is essential to make some modifications to the applications when used with Android 13. An application developer must understand how the interaction between an application and mobile OD is affected with Android 13.

Some tweaks might be required in the application if it must perform well with Android. In this article, we will discuss how Android 13 interacts with a mobile application and understand its limitations. We will further provide some guidance on how you can create an application that works well with an Android 13 device. A few modifications are recommended in applications to support Android 13.

How Mobile Applications work on Android 13 devices

In the Android 13 device, several changes have been made that can affect the way mobile applications work on Android devices. Here are some ways a mobile application interacts with Android 13 differently than earlier versions:

• Foreground Services (FGS) Task Manager: On Android 13, the notification drawer contains the list of active foreground services with stop buttons. When the stop button next to an app is pressed, it is not just the foreground service, but the entire application stops.
• Improved pre-fetch job handling using JobScheduler: In Android 13, determination of the next time app launch and uses the estimation to run prefetch job. App should use prefetch jobs

    (JobInfo.Builder.setPrefetch())

for any work they want to be done prior to the next app launch.

• Battery Resource Utilization: On an Android 13 device, an app must consider certain limitations on the background battery usage. There are 3 modes in which an application may operate based on how it uses its battery. These include:
  • Unrestricted: In this mode, more battery is consumed when background work is allowed
  • Optimized: This is the default mode that optimizes the app’s ability to perform background work depending on how a user interacts with the app
  • Restricted: In this mode, priority is given to the device battery and the background work is limited. An application is put in a restricted bucket in the following cases:
    • When the user is not interacting with an app for 8 days. However, it is considered “used” if another app is bound to its services.
    • When an app invokes many broadcasts or bindings within 24 hours
    • When the app is draining a significant amount of battery in 24 hours, this is based on the capacity of RAM in the device.

To put an app into the restricted bucket, the following code is generated:

adb shell am set-standby-bucket PACKAGE_NAME restricted

Prevent background usage adb shell cmd appops set PACKAGE_NAME RUN_ANY_IN_BACKGROUND deny

Exemptions to battery-saving measures:

Apps Exempted: Certain Android applications are exempted from battery-preserving measures. These include:

• System apps and system-bound apps
• Companion device apps
• Apps running on a device in Demo Mode
• Device owner apps
• Profile owner apps
• Persistent apps
• VPN apps
• Apps that have the ROLE_DIALER role
• Apps that the user has explicitly designated to provide “unrestricted” functionality in system settings

Situations Exempted: If the app itself is not exempted from battery-saving measures, certain situations can exempt an app from entering the “restricted” App Standby Bucket. This allows the app to bypass the 8-day inactivity trigger. These are:

• The app has active widgets
• The app is granted at least one of the following permissions:
  • SCHEDULE_EXACT_ALARM
  • ACCESS_BACKGROUND_LOCATION

Furthermore, in the following cases, the app exits the restricted bucket:

• The user taps on the app notification but does not swipe it away without interacting with it
• The User interacts with the app widget
• The App is visible in PIP (picture in picture) mode
• The app is one of the active apps on the screen
• The foreground service is affected by the user in your app by pressing a media button
• The user connects to your app while interacting with Android Automotive OS, where your app uses either a foreground service or CONNECTION_TYPE_PROJECTION

The following situations exempt an app from most battery-preserving measures in Android 13:

• Has an in-progress, active MediaSession
• Granted at least one of the following permissions:
  • ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION
  • CAMERA
  • RECORD_AUDIO

Exemption in notifications: However, a notification is still sent to the user for any application that runs its foreground service for at least 20 hours in the 24-hour window except in the following cases:

• Foreground service type is either FOREGROUND_SERVICE_TYPE_MEDIA_PLAYBACK or FOREGROUND_SERVICE_TYPE_LOCATION
• The notification associated with the foreground service is visible to the user and the user has not swiped away

Runtime permission for notifications: To help users to focus on the most important notifications, Android 13 has introduced a new POST_NOTIFICATIONS permission but the notifications related to media sessions are exempted.

To learn more about Android 13, check out this recent blog: Android 13 Developer Preview: New Features and APIs

Building app for Android 13

Let’s explore how to modify your mobile application to support Android 13. The changes you need to make include:

New runtime permission for nearby Wi-Fi devices: If an app running on Android 13 calls WI-FI APIs without proper permissions, a SecurityException can pop-up on the console, or the app could crash. This happens because of NEARBY_WIFI_DEVICES runtime permission that has been introduced in Android 13 as a part of NEARBY_DEVICE permission group. In earlier Android versions, you just needed to declare ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION permission. But with this new permission routine, some use cases must follow the new procedure for permissions. These are:

• Find or connect to a nearby device such as printers or casting media
• Connecting to known SSID, such as car or smart home device.
• Staring local-only hotspot
• Range to nearby WI-FI aware device

The use of body sensors in the background requires a new permission: From API 20, BODY_SENSOR permission was introduced for accessing heart rate, temperature, and blood oxygen percentage. But if your app is targeting Android 13, it also needs to declare BODY_SENSOR_BACKGROUND permission in addition to the BODY_SENSOR permission. Android 13 has also introduced the concept of “while in use” with a similar access model.

Intent filters block non-matching intents: When your app sends an intent to an exported component of another app that targets Android 13 or higher, the intent is delivered only when it matches with the <intent-filter> element in the receiving app. All non-matching intents are blocked by the system, except the following:

• Intents sent to other apps’ components that don’t declare any intent filters
• Intents sent to other components in your app
• Intents sent from the system
• Intents sent from a user with root-level privileges
• Granular Media permissions

Instead of using READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE, an app can now use specific permissions to request access to specific types of media.

Please follow these migration steps for your app if you are targeting Android 13

<manifest ...>

    <!-- App targets Android 13.  Declare any of below required permission. -->

    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_MEDIA_IMAGES" />

    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_MEDIA_AUDIO" />

    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_MEDIA_VIDEO" />

    <!-- Required to maintain app compatibility. -->

    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE"

                     android:maxSdkVersion="32" />

</manifest>

Achieving Success with Mobile Apps on Android 13

Mobile applications when run on Android 13 decide needs some modifications to be able to work productively. Without these considerations, certain applications might act differently from user expectations. Thus, it is recommended that application developers make the necessary tweaks to make their applications aligned with Android 13 changes.

Infostretch is committed to building apps of the highest quality that are both beautiful to look at and easy to use. We help enterprises deliver differentiated services, reduce costs, and improve efficiencies through data-infused end-to-end custom application development services aligned closely with your product/service lifecycle

To learn more about Android 13 app development, check out Infostretch’s Custom Application Development services or get in touch directly using the form below.

When you think about digital engineering companies, you probably think about 0s and 1s, computers, and bots—and you’d be right! Having cutting-edge technology is critical for digital engineering companies, don’t get me wrong, but it’s far from the only thing you need to succeed. As much as this industry exists in the virtual world, what truly matters is the impact it has on the real world in which you and I live. Therefore, humans are really what make or break enterprises in this line of work.  

In this article, I’ll explore 5 characteristics of human-centric digital engineering companies:  

• Understanding of the digital landscape 
• Domain expertise 
• Innovative commercial thinking 
• Deep understanding of the customers’ problems 
• Top talent 

Understanding the Digital Landscape 

It’s very easy for a technologist to become fixated on one technology or one part of a process and lose sight of how it fits into the big picture. This inhibits you from identifying opportunities to add value, though. Digital engineering companies must understand how all the pieces of the digital landscape puzzle fit together to drive a business.  

For example, you might be great at order processing, and fixate on doing the best order processing you could ever possibly do. But what about all the workflows that happen after an order is processed? It’s possible that your solutioning would conflict with other processes, or that other areas outside of order processing need advancements. Avoiding tunnel vision will give you context into the entire business process and illuminate other value-add opportunities.  

Domain Expertise 

In my experience, clients often compare themselves with other companies in their industry. In these situations, there’s no substitute for knowing that specific sector really well. Having your finger on the pulse of your customers’ domain will provide insight into the following:  

• Who’s competing for what 
• Who’s historically been the big players 
• Up-and-coming players 
• Who’s disrupting the industry 
• Next door industry that could come in and take the whole thing over 
• What are the best ways that technology has been used in this industry 

Successful digital engineering companies know their customers’ business as well as or better than they do. Having this insight will help you craft an innovative and future-proof solution to the problem.   

Innovative Commercial Thinking 

The other thing that companies like us need to do is to be ready to think innovatively around commercial models 

It’s easy for a company to just charge that by the hour—that’s the safest way to get paid if you’re in our position. But we probably wouldn’t add as much value that way as we would if we were on an outcome-based payment model. This assures the customer that we are, indeed, invested in their success.  

For example, a client might come to me and say, “I need 10 Java developers.” Obviously, I can give them 10 Java developers and bill by the hour. But if a client says, “I need to grow my sales by 10% per year,” that’s a different story. Now, I probably wouldn’t set up a payment structure where I’m compensated only when they achieve their goal—that’s too much risk.  

Instead, I would propose the customer pay just the cost of the Java developers plus a premium for every percentage they achieve beyond 5% sales growth. I’ll still take some risk this way, but it also increases both our rewards because when the client wins, I also win. They’re holding me accountable by not paying me as much as if they don’t succeed themselves.  

A Deep Understanding of the Customer and Their Problems 

There are plenty of companies out there that just come in, do their job, and leave, taking very little interest in the customer. In some cases, they may be able to get away with it. But to be truly successful in digital engineering, there needs to be a high level of empathy between the vendor and the customer.  

During my client meetings, I seek to understand what they want to achieve in the future. I take this approach because I can’t expect them to know exactly what issues they should prioritize or what the course of action should be. And so, as the digital engineering expert, it is my job to advise them on what they should be focusing on, be it new technologies, industry-wide themes, or business challenges.  

From there, my team and I take a deep dive into current processes and infrastructure to identify opportunities to innovate. And with our experience, expertise, and resources, we can align our initiatives with our clients’ goals for a human-centric digital engineering strategy.   

What we do here at Apexon is cultivate the attitude of taking an interest in everything we do. This top-down mindset allows us to empathize with the client and gain deep insight into their problems, opening the door for a successful and long-term relationship.  

Top Talent 

To be a successful digital engineering company, you must possess top talent. In order to obtain top talent, you must also set a very high bar for hiring. 

If you’re really discerning about who you hire, you can create exceptional teams and deliver high-quality services. Conversely, if you lower the bar and hire people just to fill a seat, usually it comes back to bite you because that person requires a lot of support and even then, can’t make the impact you expect. 

To me, talented people must possess 3 qualities:  

• Quick-witted 
• Tenacity 
• Innovative thinking 

Digital engineering companies need bright people on their teams because they can understand digital technology more intuitively and get work done faster. Really sharp people can hear the problem once, take interest in it, and really get under the skin of it. Your most perceptive team members should also be the individuals you show off to clients—they can embody the capabilities of the team and assure customers that their project is in good hands.  

I admire tenacity. When they get knocked down—a normal occurrence when working with cutting-edge technology—tenacious people get back up, keep smiling, and look at the problem again.  

Innovative thinkers are great assets to digital engineering companies. When faced with a problem, they can approach it from a different angle and find a novel solution. We also value entrepreneurial spirit, which helps us find new ways of collaborating, borrowing ideas, setting up new workstreams, to solve problems better.  

Becoming a Successful Digital Engineering Company 

This industry wouldn’t exist without technology, plain and simple. But it wouldn’t be expected to be worth $3,546.80 billion by 2028 if it weren’t for the humans behind it. A digital engineering company’s ability to understand the digital landscape, cultivate domain expertise, reshape commercial thinking, understand customers’ problems, and build talented teams determines whether it will succeed or fail. And that is the power of human-centric digital engineering.  

Today’s savvy digital citizens have very high expectations. According to a study by Salesforce:  

• 84% of customers consider the user experience of a company’s digital products as important as the products or services they offer.  
• 73% of customers say one extraordinary experience raises their expectations of other companies 
• 66% of customers are willing to pay more for a great experience 
• 73% of customers expect companies to understand their needs and expectations
   

These numbers demonstrate the challenge companies face to deliver an exceptional user experience. Faced with these high expectations from their customers, what happens when digital product offerings aren’t functioning at their maximum efficiency and the user experience is less than desirable?  

A recent Forbes report says that nearly 70% of consumers say their willingness to buy is impacted by page speed. Page speed, however, is just one factor that should be addressed for optimal customer engagement. Smart companies who want to embark on the right direction and improve the overall UX of their digital offerings make use of UX audits. 

Why conduct a UX Audit? 

For companies to stay competitive and offer a user experience that meets expectations, performance is key. A UX audit is an assessment that evaluates behavior as well as quantitative and qualitative data about a system. The issues uncovered are documented as a report that will help decision makers to detect what is hindering their system, how to make improvements and increase the user experience. By doing so, companies can make system adjustments that help lead to customer retention and attract new business. 

UX audits can help answer the following questions: 

• What is working properly? What’s not performing to its max efficiency? 
• At what point do users encounter difficulties with navigation or functionality? 
• What does data say about user behavior and needs? 
• What can be altered on an app or website to improve engagement? 
• What metrics are being collected and which other need to be collected? 
• What efforts have already been made and what was the impact on metrics? 

Process for conducting an audit 

Typically, an organization performs a UX audit when a critical product redesign or update is released. Additionally, periodic updates can be scheduled to make sure that products are meeting user experience objectives and business goals as performance analysis leads to good decision-making. 

Depending upon budget and timeline, the steps of a UX audit can vary. The following steps offer a general guideline that can be scaled depending on an organization’s limitations in relation to either budget or timeline. 

1. Understand objectives

To successfully complete a UX audit, the first step must involve a complete understanding of the business objectives and goals for the product being audited. 

2. Know the users

Getting to know your users involves the creation of user personas. UX personas are designed to identify the needs, goals, desires, and challenges of our typical users. If you identified personas when the app was first being developed, it is good practice to revisit these personas during the audit in case they’ve changed or evolved.  

3. Understand objectives of the user

This step is critical to understanding where the user encounters difficulties. In getting to know the user from the previous step, (user) flows can be created. These flows demonstrate the user’s objectives and steps they take. 

4. Analytics review 

The quantitative data businesses accumulate to track the performance of their products is crucial to a UX Audit. This data offers insight on users of their products and their behaviors during the interaction.  

5. Conduct a heuristic evaluation

The information gained throughout the UX process allows the auditor to do an evaluation through the eyes of the user, detailing all challenges an end user would face.  

6. Record findings in a UX audit report, offer recommendations for    improvements

A UX audit report should be treated like a gold mine of information. The analysis should include a compilation of all data gathered throughout each step of the process along with how the product is being used and the areas in which users face challenges.  

Based on the information within the report, clear recommendations should be made as to where improvements can be implemented. Further, recommendations made should be actionable, detailing the impact on business initiatives and user objectives. 

Once implemented, the results need to be measured to ensure the solutions meet performance expectations. The results also lay the groundwork for future software decisions.  

Tips to Perform a Successful UX Audit 

• Record everything including notes, screenshots, as well as all links to flagged issue 
• Organization is key  
• Provide actionable recommendations on fixes 
• Be exact when reporting 
• Prioritize findings based on importance and severity of issue

Improving your company with a Successful UX Audit Journey 

Statistics show that 25% of mobile apps end up being used only once. If your digital touchpoints have poor UX, it’s likely your products will fall within that number. On the other hand, every $1 invested in UX design results in a $100 return, representing a 9,900% ROI. 

An app or website is a representation of an organization’s brand. The overall success of an app or website is dependent on how the functionalities and design are presented to the end user. A strong UX fosters user retention, an increased number of new users, and an overall increase in user engagement. Don’t wait—the faster a UX audit is launched, the faster a business can unlock the benefits of good UX.  

For help with your UX audit, check out Infostretch’s UX Strategy and Design services or get in touch using the form below.   

Trust is at the center of every decision customers make. Over the years, I’ve narrowed the client decision-making process down to 3 questions:  

• Can they trust you to tell them the truth, even in adversity?  
• Can they trust that you have the skills to deliver? 
• Can they trust you to understand their challenges?  

If they believe the answer “yes” to all these questions, you should win the client. Let’s get into how to build trust in these areas.  

Trust to Tell the Difficult Truth 

When I was CEO of a startup, we installed beta software for a Chicago bank. Unfortunately, our overly aggressive installer disrupted their failover system. I took one breath and called the client at home to inform him. His wife answered, “He’s on the phone with work.” I replied, “I think I know why.”  

Three months later, I’m at a customer prospect dinner with the Chicago bank client who started telling the fried mainframe story to the table. Shocked, I pulled him away from the group to ask why he was sharing such an unflattering story.  

“You don’t understand,” he said. “Everybody that works with advanced technology knows the bad day will come. What they don’t know is how you’ll behave on that bad day. I was sharing how you behaved on a bad day, and that’s worth more than you’ll ever realize.” He is right. 

Mistakes are going to happen. You can either work to be right in a situation by working to avoid blame or you can win, and the only way to win is to tell the truth.  

I have this thing I call the “one breath rule.” It’s the idea that if you get really bad news, you take one breath and share it. The key is to be honest, and act quickly, so the client doesn’t hear the news from someone else. If you tell the client about your mistake, they’ll give you points for honesty; worst case they’ll think you’re foolish, but at least you’ll be an honest fool. 

Trust to Get the Job Done Right 

Clients need to trust that you can get the job done right.  

Competency involves the technical know-how of product and service execution and delivery. Technological competence is the basis of knowledge, skills, and abilities in technology—in other words, can the vendor do what they say they can do.  

Distinctive competencies are often what initially attract clients to an engineering services company. Building a team with relevant technology and/or vertical experience, exhibiting the ability to meet deadlines, and adhering to SLAs will garner the attention you desire. But what’s most important is the ability of your team to deliver its promised value, even when under pressure.  

Bluffing about your competencies for the sake of winning a client will have compounding negative effects on your time, money, and reputation down the road. Building rapport with a client means leading with honesty from day one—your authenticity will reflect your dedication and eagerness to meet their needs.  

Trust to Add Value 

Clients need to trust that you can add value to their business.  

The first question clients want to know is, “What can you do for me and my business?” Addressing plans to add competitive business advantages is at the top of my agenda when speaking to a prospect or existing client. This begins with a deep understanding of the client’s business, pain points, and goals. Then, it’s time to innovate.  

There are three different ways to add value to a business via innovation:  

• You can be innovative by using breakthrough technologies 
• You can be innovative by re-imagining a solution from the same industry 
• You can be innovative by borrowing a similar business process from a different industry 

The quote often misattributed to Walt Whitman, “Be curious, not judgmental,” certainly applies in these situations. If a client or team member has an out-of-the-box idea, I hear them out rather than shut them down. I want to discover the “Why?” behind their rationale. Understanding the motivation for their thinking opens the door to even greater insights. Exploring thoughts without judgment is critical to building trust and delivering innovation. 

The Key Ingredient to Winning More Clients 

Every interaction presents an opportunity to gain a customer’s trust. With fierce competition and increasing expectations of customers these days, businesses must never stop working to build confidence in their clients that they can deliver honesty, competency, and value.  

As you build trust in these critical areas, you’ll see the relationships between you and your clients elevate. Not only will this help to retain clients, but it will also help you attract more business. When customers trust you, they are more likely to introduce you to their network. A referral is the most accurate indicator of customer satisfaction and business growth. Technology will come and go. Trust is enduring.  

User Experience (UX) is all about understanding their needs and providing solutions in the digital products we design. We lean on Design Thinking in our daily problem-solving work and in doing so, we employ both divergent and convergent thinking approaches to help guide our ideas and solutions in our design process. Our goal is to understand our users current state, identify any issues and frustrations, and to be able to prioritize these as items to solve give the limitations of time, resources, and/or budget constraints. In a simplified design approach, these steps can be defined as discovery, define, ideate, prototype, and delivery. Like the scientific method, we consider data to form a hypothesis to test and measure our results for success. 

The image below known as the “double diamond” may be familiar to many. It illustrates the design process of widening our view to explore ideas and then narrowing them to allow us to focus on solutions. 

Convergent vs Divergent Thinking 

Both convergent and divergent thinking are cognitive approaches that work together to find innovative solutions to problem solving. The terms were first coined by psychologist J.P. Guildford in 1956. Convergent thinking is more efficient, linear, and systematic. Divergent thinking is more widespread and random. On one hand, convergent thinking will simplify and narrow down multiple ideas into a single solution. And on the other hand, divergent thinking will explore many options and find multiple creative ways to achieve our goal. Convergent thinking forces us to think through any clutter and focus on the single best solution, while divergent thinking is unstructured and asks us to consider multiple possibilities, even if some of those ideas may not end up working.  

These may seem like two opposing ways of thinking that compete against each other. However, in UX we use both convergent and divergent thinking together in our design process. We will often begin using divergent thinking to generate lots of ideas, and then move to convergent thinking to analyze and narrow down ideas into viable solutions. Then, we will return to divergent thinking for new and alternative perspectives, and then back again to convergent thinking for focus, iteratively returning to this cycle as needed.  

Convergent and Divergent Thinking in Practice 

Imagine your laptop starts acting up. It has already crashed twice, and you have a presentation to give this week. Since time is of the essence, you immediately submit a service ticket to your IT department. Your waste-no-time thinking approach is an example of convergent thinker by employing a straightforward solution.  

Now consider the same example, but this time you try to figure out the problem on your own. You open your system configuration, investigate any issues with running applications, and even try running some anti-virus apps. In this case, you’re using divergent thinking to explore multiple options and use creativity to find possible solutions. 

The UX Development Journey 

UX relies on both convergent and divergent thinking to arrive at good design solutions. As already stated above, both have their benefits, and we iterate on each in our UX design process. UX begins with empathy and so early-on, we try to understand our users. We rely heavily on divergent thinking to identify who they are and understand their needs, wants, frustrations, and goals. Once this foundational knowledge is obtained, we will use convergent thinking to focus on a single user and their task.  

Or consider the design of an application where we utilize divergent thinking to explore and consider distinctive features and modules. Later, we will apply convergent thinking to create a focused timeline and process for collaboration with cross-functional teams and delivery. A mix of convergent and divergent thinking are both required to arrive at sound UX solutions at each phase of our UX design process.  

Next, we will describe how each approach comes together at each step in the process.  

Discovery

Typically, UX engagements begin with some type of discovery to understand our user and their needs. The ability to empathize with our users plays a crucial role. There is no cookie-cutter formula to accomplish this because every user, feature design, and project are unique. Utilizing design thinking, some questions we might ask at this stage include:  

• What could create user reluctance to usage in our application or features?  
• What steps do users take in the use of the application or feature?  
• What creates delight for our users when using our application or features? 
• What creates frustration for our users when using our application or features?  

To obtain these answers, we typically create user personas from actual potential users. We develop personas by interviewing real people and collecting data on their preferences and behaviors. We can also create an empathy map from a user persona to show what a user says, thinks, feels, and does. 

A persona, as demonstrated above, helps us understand real user needs, wants, and frustrations 

An empathy map, like the one shown above, highlights what a user says, thinks, does, and feels regarding an eCommerce application 

Define

Upon completion of our UX discovery, our team can generate ideas to address user needs and frustrations. However, before moving to feature development, they must be defined in a language appropriate for our engineering colleagues. In the discovery stage, user actions and behaviors were identified and categorized to understand our user’s needs. UX goes beyond identifying the “what” and takes time to understand the “why.” In this stage, our research and data are synthesized to create an accurate picture of the problem. An actionable problem statement is developed that is focused and tells us what must be achieved for a successful solution for development. 

A problem statement, also called a Point of View (POV), helps us identify the gap between the current state and the desired goal of a process, service, or product. A problem statement can be written from the users’ perspective, a research perspective, or in a format that answers critical questions about users and their actions.

User journey maps a user’s interactions at various stages with  task or application 

For example, consider a smartwatch user. A problem statement from a user’s perspective would look like this:  

“I am a busy professional and I am not getting enough time to exercise. I want to be healthier and understand if my physical movements are enough to keep me healthy. I feel frustrated when I don’t know where I stand and what I should do to maintain my health.” 

Rewriting this from a research perspective, the problem statement would become:   

“Busy working professionals need an easy way to track one’s movements to stay healthy because they do not have time to dedicate to exercises and want to stay healthy with minimal movements.” 

Finally, writing it in a format that answers questions about the user, the problem statement would look like this:  

“A working professional is struggling to take time for exercise as work keeps them busy. We should deliver an easy way to track movements of the person and encourage physical activity to achieve desired fitness goals.” 

Ideate 

So far, we have talked about understanding user issues and creating a problem statement. Next, we take steps towards a solution and identify ways to solve their issues. There are many ideation techniques available to formulate solutions such as brainstorming, SCAMPER, and storyboarding. The table below describes these are a few more:  

Prototype

We create early models of the features or products to demonstrate functionality to stakeholders and validate our designs. The design fidelity of our prototypes varies depending on who we are presenting to and the answers we seek.  

Fidelity refers to how closely our designs match up with the look and feel of the finished designed feature or application. A low-fidelity (lo-fi) prototype has minimal or no interactivity and is less refined. In some cases, simple lines and shapes can suffice to create a wireframe solution to test critical elements like information architecture and navigation features. Increasing fidelity to produce a high-fidelity (hi-fi) mock-up adds color, content, animations, and interactions to take the prototype to the next level and closer to the final designs.  

During early ideation with internal team members, a simple sketch on paper can suffice to build understanding and confirmation of ideas. However, if we are presenting designs to client stakeholders or our end users, we may have to elevate the fidelity and interactivity of designs to validate solutions or sign-off. Regardless of the level of fidelity or interaction, prototypes are valuable tools to validate solutions before moving into development, which can be time consuming and expensive.

High-fidelity visual design examples for a cruise line mobile application 

Delivery

Once designs have been validated, only then can we say that a product or feature is ready to be we can move into production and delivered to users. Additional user testing with prototypes and working code can be done to further understand how various conditions impact the use of an application or feature and our users’ feelings and behaviors when using it. Findings from user testing are feed into our iterative stages of development to refine and optimize our solutions.  

As a product team, we move from convergent thinking to divergent thinking iteratively. User experience research and design is not a cookie-cutter approach, and it is important to collaborate with a mix of cross-functional teams with different experiences and perspectives. Together, as a team we contribute to the overall success of the development of features and products.  

An Interactive prototype for a healthcare mobile application showing the various linked pages 

An example of developer handoff specification guide 

Divergent and Convergent: A Perfectly Designed pair 

When you think about divergent and convergent, you might imagine two different ways of thinking competing against each other. But in reality, these two styles are complementary and can be used together to create an exceptional UX design. From the designer perspective, these two approaches challenge us to think in different ways to arrive at a cohesive and confident conclusion.  

Through the UX development journey, we first leverage divergent thinking to empathize with our users. Convergent thinking comes into play to help us develop a plan of design attack. Combined, divergent and convergent thinking are a perfectly designed pair.   

To learn more about turning your digital touchpoints into a competitive advantage, check out Infostretch’s UX Strategy and Design services or get in touch using the form below.