Key Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Mobile App Developer

Key Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Mobile App Developer

Perhaps the least surprising thing you’ll read today is that mobile app development is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world. Businesses ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies recognize that apps are a must-have in 2019; the benefits are endless, such as boosting sales and user engagement. There’s no question that you should develop a mobile app for your business, but there are questions you should be asking a development agency before hiring them to create your app. 

  1. Can I see some of the mobile apps you’ve developed before?

Qualified developers should be excited to show you their portfolio and provide you with a list of apps they’re responsible for building. This is one of the best ways you can tell if you’ll get a good ROI.

  1. Can I speak with some of your clients?

Many agencies have profiles on review sites like Clutch, where you can read unbiased and verified accounts detailing mobile app development projects. Ask your candidates if you can speak to some of their past or present clients; this will give you invaluable insight into how the candidate performs and whether they have the experience necessary to understand your business model and customer base. 

  1. How skilled are your developers?

This may seem obvious, but make sure the agency’s developers have the skillsets necessary to build the features and functionalities you want on your app. Ask for links to the developers’ GitHub and LinkedIn accounts. 

  1. Do you follow coding standards and use a framework?

We highly recommend hiring an agency that uses web application frameworks, which are organized coding systems. If you ever need to bring the app to another agency, it could be hard for other developers to work on it without a framework in place. For example, most agencies use Bootstrap as a standard coding practice. Does the agency you’re considering use Bootstrap?

  1. Can you build apps for different operating systems?

Keep in mind that some developers specialize in coding for Android apps, while others only do iOS. 

Photo credit: App Partner

  1. How will you manage the development process?

The quality of your app depends on how effectively you relay your app design and functionality requirements, so make sure the candidate is open to frequent communication and feedback. Ask whether they use collaboration tools, such as Asana, Trello, or Jira, which allow you to see the developer’s progress in real-time. 

  1. How can I make money off my app?

If your main goal is to generate revenue, the developer will need to know how to build in features that will allow you to make money. 

  1. Who will own the mobile app? 

Typically, the individual or company paying for a mobile app will own the finished product. To be sure you own all of the rights to the app you commissioned, you and the developer should sign a written contract. 

Photo credit: BuildFire

In 2018, global mobile app revenues amounted to over $365 billion USD. In 2023, mobile apps are projected to generate more than $935 billion USD in revenues via paid downloads and in-app advertising. 

Don’t miss out on this potential income for your business—find the perfect mobile app developer for you on great platforms like Clutch, where we are ranked as a top app developer in Delhi, and The Manifest, where we are listed among the best web design agencies in India. And don’t forget to ask the right questions! 

For more information, contact us.

IMPROVING SOFTWARE TESTING WITH AI

IMPROVING SOFTWARE TESTING WITH AI

It’s safe to assume that by now, everybody is well aware of AI and its potential adverse effects on humanity and it’s been on everyone’s mind for quite a while. We thought it would be a great idea to explore more pragmatic and short-term implications of AI, like how it can improve some facets of our professional lives. Namely software testing. 

There is now a body of research published throughout the last few years that AI is soon to become the “hottest new thing” in software testing. It is projected to improve the work efficiency of QA engineers all over the world and help them overcome the standard issues commonly associated with their field.

In this article, we want to explore the ways AI can improve software testing and why you should stay tuned for the innovations in this emerging niche. Let’s dive right in, shall we? 

Non-deterministic testing

While philosophers are still debating whether humans possess free will or are purely deterministic beings, it’s essential to underline that there’s nothing deterministic about the algorithms that govern the decision-making of AI. This is a crucial complement to software testing. 

Most probably the best document published to date on the non-deterministic character of AI-assisted software testing is the “Test Automation for Machine Learning: An Experience Report,” posted by Angie Jones, a senior software engineer at Twitter. 

A non-deterministic approach to software testing has proven to be much more thorough, compared to what a human could have executed, due to the limitations related to the nature of human thought. However, it’s essential to stress that there are also specialists that are against non-deterministic approaches in testing as well. 

Increase efficiency and client satisfaction

AI has the potential to considerably impact the amount of time developers will have to spend on tasks like writing scripts and analyzing massive datasets. AI can replace developers on tasks like sorting through logs, thus allowing them to make a broad spectrum of processes less prone to error and executing these tasks much faster. 

Obviously, various test methods have their own shortcomings. When it comes to manual testing, even the most sophisticated software demands very straightforward and even simplistic approaches to testing like, clicking individual buttons in a particular order, ticking certain boxes, and so forth. While this type of testing is undoubtedly essential, it’s also known for being very time-consuming. 

Thorough manual tests are very time-demanding. Writing scenarios for these tests unnecessarily capitalizes on the developers’ time. 

AI allows tackling this issue on both ends by eliminating unnecessary distraction on the developer’s end and skyrocketing the quality of the manual test. AI-powered tools can thoroughly analyze the log files, which will allow to considerably increase the correctness of the manual tests.

Predicting bugs before they arise

The MIT Technology Review has briefly covered Ubisoft’s AI tool that is designed to spot code errors, allowing developers to detect issues at the earliest stages of game development. As you may have anticipated, they’re doing this in order to minimize the costs associated with bug fixing.

Identifying bugs is a demanding task, and Ubisoft reported that it could often consume 70 percent of the budget for a game that they’re working on. 

The AI is trained to identify certain lines of code that were previously associated with bugs in previous projects and immediately flags the problematic parts of the script.

This type of tools is expected to become much more widespread, allowing to minimize human error before it can have an adverse negative effect. 

Predicting your customers’ requirements

There is now astonishing demand in the tech industry, which underlines the importance of exceeding your clients’ expectations, in order to stand out from a large pool of competitors. 

We asked Jeremy McCoy, the head of marketing at IsAccurate and Grab My Essay how artificial intelligence can improve a business’s approach towards their customers’ requirements. Here’s what he had to say: “AI can have an impressive contribution in providing your customers with impeccable services, along with being able to use its predictive capabilities to understand what drives your clients, what their next steps are, and more importantly, understand what they actually need. This will allow you to be a few steps ahead and build a strong partnership with your clientele.”

Making testing less expensive

The later bugs are identified, the greater the financial toll they’re going to have on the development process. As we mentioned previously, the predictive capabilities of AI allow teams to identify bugs at the earliest stages of development and massively reduce the costs of these errors.

A study published in the Journal of Information Systems, Technology, and Planning, called “Integrating Software Assurance Into the Software Development Life Cycle,” reports that dealing with a single error after the product’s release can be as high as four times more costly than in the design phase. The same study indicates that it can be a hundred times more expensive at the maintenance phase. Here’s a figure published in the above-mentioned paper: 

AI will enhance our roles

AI will also have an impact on the “shape” of the work we do. At this point, we can only speculate how exactly the QA roles associated with AI will be named, and the spectrum of their responsibilities. However, some companies have already started thinking about how AI will impact our job descriptions. 

For example, the World Quality Report that we mentioned above considers that it is most likely that we’ll be seeing more of the following new roles:

  • AI QA strategists — their responsibilities will be rooted in understanding how Artificial Intelligence can be applied to various businesses, and how that can facilitate and enhance software testing.
  • Data scientists — while this is by no means a new role in IT, these specialists will have to analyze test data and make use of predictive analytics and statistics to build models.
  • AI test experts — these professionals will be responsible for testing AI applications. Besides having an in-depth understanding of QA principles, their responsibilities will also have to do with ML algorithms and NLP techniques.

The reason we’re still not entirely sure about the way these roles will crystalize over the years since these phenomena very much depend on many external factors. Maria O’Neil, an HR manager at Studicus and WoWGrade, told us that many conventional IT roles today have evolved to their current form over time, and will continue to shift shapes. Like UX designers, for instance. While this role was an inexistent 15 years ago, it’s slowly starting to morph into other, newer ones today, such as Product Developer, and others.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that we’re now living in a perpetually evolving world and our job descriptions mimic the technological progress we’ve embarked on. Artificial Intelligence is certainly a central factor when it comes to changing the way QA engineers will be working in the years to come. A new era, where the efforts of Quality Assurance engineers are intertwined with AI, will most certainly bring us more efficient and accurate software testing. 

It’s time to buckle up. 


Dorian Martin is a frequent blogger and an article contributor to a number of websites related to digital marketing, AI/ML, blockchain, data science and all things digital. He is a senior writer at Supreme Dissertations, runs a personal blog NotBusinessAsUsusal and provides training to other content writers.

Technological Advancement To Change Enterprise Systems

Technological Advancement That Will Revamp Enterprise Systems

As per the recent examination , global ERP market is expected to grow by 7 % CAGR . As a result enterprises are investing heavily on ERP software development at it is become one of the most indispensable platform .

Enterprises system helps business to ease on their day to day work by providing unique solution to automate their business . Technologies plays an important role in boosting importance of these application and it is continuously growing since beginning . Let’s look at the enterprise technology that will help enhancing enterprise application in upcoming years .

Technology Concepts Enhancing Enterprise Applications 

# Intelligence Enterprise System 

The introduction of artificial intelligence and machine learning has opened new world for developers and the ultimate aim of these technology is to benefit ERP software industry  . Machine learning concept is one of the major attraction among them .
Enterprise are actively taking part in implementation of these technology and it is predicted that by 2022 machine learning will play important role in this technological advancement .
On the other hands , business are handling huge amount of data . Thanks again to machine learning which enables predictive analysis to comprehend data faster and at the same time tracking of insights about data .
Another great advantage being data is churned to figure out potential issues even before its actual time , in case of system failure . This helps in saving of cost , increasing of productivity and timely recovery of data 

# Connected Enterprise Environment 

The next big technological advancement in this fields is Enterprise ” Internet Of Things ” that aids in connecting physical devices with computer which helps in contribution of process of business . Physical devices are connected by use of internet with computer to share real time insight of data flow . This helps in reduction of manual intervention of data and increasing overall work efficiency .
Internet of things bring down endless opportunities on the table with its thrilling concept . It helps sending control instruction to desired device on the basis of pre set business rules .
The density of integration comes from data . Big data analytics are also getting advance to obtain IoT based data sets which will become priceless for decision maker of enterprise .

# ERP Based On Cloud

Since the very beginning of 2019 , it has great upsurge in traction of cloud based ERP systems . There has been ever increasing demand for cloud based ERP as it helps enhancing business efficiency enhancement . The major factors that are encouraging cloud based ERP adoption are : 

Scalability :

SaaS based applications facilitates enterprise to have freedom to choose for their own custom needs . ERP based solution which are cloud based are easily to upscale as well as removal of unused modules in ERP at any point of time with ease .

Multi Tenancy :

As enterprise are growing globally their customer reach has also increased at tremendous stage . Therefore application which a single code base hosted centrally is in demand by all users . 

Cost Saving :

In cloud based ERP systems  there is actually no need of hardware and infrastructure set up . Cloud hot ERP are cheaper and accessible from any web browser with ease inspite of system configuration . SaaS modules also has upfront license fees as SaaS is generally based on subscription based module which is Pay as you go .
Apart from what has been discussed above , many new things are coming up every now and then in upcoming years .
Winklix can help you develop custom as well as customisation of SaaS based ERP platform in order to cope up with existing trend . Contact us now .