iOS vs Android App Development: Uncovering Key Differences

If your website has existed for a long time, this is a reason to think about redesigning it. The fact is that web development trends are constantly changing, and the things that attracted users around five years ago may seem high and dry today. 

In particular, several years ago, the independent web resource GoodFirms conducted a survey among designers to find the reasons why users leave their websites. It turns out that about 40% of respondents were sure that this was due to the outdated design. Do you need to look for more explanations as to why you need a redesign? If you don’t, this article is for you. 

What Is a Website Redesign?

Website redesign is a modernization that involves changes in the design, content, and functionality of a specific web resource. There may be not only a change in color scheme but also in the website’s structure, which also implies a certain optimization of the HTML code.

Redesign can be done every two years, or less often, every three or four years. However, when the appearance of your website remains the same for five years or more, your users are likely to begin to believe that your business is idle and, therefore, will likely choose a more successful competitor.

Why Is a Site Redesign Important?

Let's imagine that when you launched your website first, it generally satisfied its visitors. However, after a few years, its traffic began to gradually decline, although the quality of your service and/or goods did not decrease. Most likely, the problem is that your website’s design is outdated. Although this may seem to be the only reason why you need a redesign, there are several other reasons that also lead to it:

• You are going to migrate your website to a new engine;
• Despite regularly taking SEO measures, your website is not ranking well in search engines;
• You are planning to expand your audience reach and scale your business;
• Your company has rebranded, and now, this should apply to your website as well;
• You are entering a new market;
• Your product range or the concept of its promotion has completely changed.

Why You Need a Website Redesign Project Plan

In general, there are many goals that you can achieve through a redesign. The benefits of website redesign include improving the user experience, rebranding, increasing reputation, optimizing traffic indicators, conversions, etc., involving the website in marketing campaigns, and so on. 

At the same time, whatever goal you pursue, its achievement must be consistent, and each step must be justified from the point of view of business and available resources. Otherwise, you will act chaotically, and the result of these actions will most likely not live up to your desires. To prevent this from happening, you actually need a project plan for website redesign.

How to Redesign a Website: Applying Key Principles for Success

Now, it's time to find out what five sequential phases the correct redesign strategy includes. 

Setting Clear Objectives

Any well-thought-out project plan for website redesign implies matching goals and needs to redesign tasks to be completed.

Understanding the Need for Redesign

At the very beginning, you will need to correctly identify the reasons for the redesign. For example, this could be an outdated design, a not-mobile-friendly user experience, the functionality update and complicated website structure related to it, etc. You need to describe all these reasons as precisely as possible to make it easier for your team of designers (and possibly developers) to decide on the scope of work.

Defining Your Goals

Once the reasons are clear, you can define SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals. Special cases of such goals may be increasing traffic, achieving better conversion rates, improving user experience, etc.

Research and Preparation

At this stage, you will have to complete more complex tasks that will lay a solid foundation for your team's further work. They will also help you understand how competitive your website is at the moment and which aspects of it have the highest priority.  

Analyzing the Current Website

Your website is probably already connected to some analytics system where you can evaluate the dynamics of its traffic, conversion rates, abandoned carts, and so on. Thus, you have to collect this data, evaluate its changes for better or worse over the last year, and compare these changes with seasonal and local trends in your niche to get the most objective assessment of your website.

Competitor Analysis

You will also have to analyze the websites of your main competitors to understand in what they are good at and what needs optimization. Through this analysis, you will be able to prioritize the tasks that your technical team will have to deal with.

Target Audience Identification

Refine your audience data – this is especially important if you're looking to enter new markets or scale your online business. However, even if your goals are less ambitious, you'll still need to refresh information about your potential customers – their demographics, pain points, goals, needs, etc.

Content Audit

Finally, you should conduct a global content audit – for this, you'll probably need the help of SEO experts. Specifically, if your website's main problem is low search engine rankings, it's likely due to poor-quality content that will need to be optimized or replaced with a new one.

Planning and Strategy Development

Actually, you are left with the last steps before you hand over your website rebuild project to your technical team.

Site Structure and Navigation

Based on the key indicators of your website displayed in the analytics, you will be able to determine which of your website’s navigation elements and structure components need to be changed.

Visual Design Considerations

If your current website seems visually outdated, you will need to identify relevant examples from your competitors and indicate which graphical aspects of their websites you like the most.

Technical Requirements

If you find that your website's performance is suffering or, for example, the website itself is not fully displayed on some mobile devices, optimizing these aspects will require the participation of web developers.

SEO and Content Strategy

If the problem is the poor quality of the content (lack of necessary keywords in the texts, low-quality images, outdated data, etc.), you will need to involve SEO specialists in the project as well.

The Design and Development Process

Now, it’s the practical part of your website redesign roadmap, which requires the involvement of technical specialists and the designers themselves.

Wireframing and Prototyping

Now that the project is in the hands of the designers, they can start creating wireframes according to your requirements for the updated version of the website. As your requirements become more detailed, they will build prototypes based on these wireframes.

Design Mockups

An intermediate stage between the development of wireframes and prototypes can be the creation of mockups. Essentially, these are medium-fidelity sketches of your project that, like wireframes, schematically demonstrate the main components of the website but already have a pre-defined color palette and some graphic objects. Typically, this intermediate stage is necessary for websites with a complex and/or non-trivial structure.

Development and Coding

If your site requires migration to a new CMS or you have discovered problems in the previous stages that can only be solved through changes in its program code, you will have to involve developers to eliminate these bottlenecks.

Testing and Quality Assurance

And, of course, don’t forget to staff your project team with quality assurance specialists who will check if the updated version of your website works correctly before it goes public.

Launch and Post-Launch Strategy

Finally, you can begin preparing for the website relaunch.

Preparing for Launch

If your updated website looks the way you like and all the inconsistencies have been ironed out, it makes sense to check its effectiveness on the representatives of its target audience. This way, you may get additional insights about optimization that can still be implemented before your website’s launch.

Launching the Website

Now, developers can upload a new version of the website to the hosting. It may require you to choose a new hosting provider or a new tariff plan from the old one – this makes sense if you plan to expand the reach of your audience.

Post-Launch Activities

This stage will last exactly until the next redesign. In particular, you will have to monitor the analytics of your update to see whether the new key indicators meet your original business requirements. You will also need to constantly work on your website's SEO by regularly uploading new, relevant content.

Conclusion

We hope that in this article, we have helped you understand how to website revamp, and now, you can begin this procedure as consciously as possible. If you are looking for specialists ready to take on not only the planning task but also the implementation of your redesign project, feel free to contact us, and our team will bring your most ambitious goals to life within your budget and timeline.

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If you regularly think about how to optimize your business operations by speeding them up, increasing their accuracy, reducing related expenses, and eliminating risks associated with the human factor, perhaps the introduction of artificial intelligence will be the best option. 

Specifically, according to the CompTIA IT Industry Outlook 2024 report, today, about 22% of companies are actively seeking to integrate AI into most of their technological solutions and processes, and 45% of companies are considering its implementation. If you are still in the second category, it's time to figure out which programming language will be able to form the basis of your new highly intelligent software tools.

What Is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

The term "Artificial intelligence" describes software algorithms and systems that are aimed at solving problems typical to the human mind – such as learning, as well as pattern generation and recognition. Such algorithms are based on colossal amounts of disparate data collected from various sources. Thus, these algorithms form self-learning software solutions capable of analyzing this data and extracting valuable insights from it.

Programming Languages ​​Most Often Used for AI in 2024

It is worth noting that AI-powered solutions may not be based on any software language – this can be explained by the high resource consumption of the AI algorithms that form them, as well as the lack of high-level functions. At the same time, there are seven languages that are most often used in AI programming.

Python

This programming language appeared long before the popularization of AI development. However, thanks to its low entry threshold and extensive compatibility, its community quickly grew, and today, Python is considered one of the three most relevant languages worldwide.

As for the tools for artificial intelligence programming, there are a lot of Python-compatible frameworks, libraries, and APIs, aimed at simplifying and speeding up this process. Among them are TensorFlow, PyTorch, Keras, SciPy, NumPy, and many others. Using them, developers can create high-performance, reliable, and scalable solutions that can solve even the most complex research problems.

R

R, being a statistical programming language, is great for data analysis and visualization. Even though developing artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions is not the primary use case for R, it is still adept at handling very large numbers. So, where popular Python may fall short, particularly in Data Science and Data Analysis solutions, R may be a better alternative.

Additional benefits of this developer tool include support for functional programming, vector computing, and OOP, as well as a number of packages specifically created for AI and ML development (for example, gmodels, RODBC, and OneR).

Java

This portable and scalable programming language is actively used in the development of highly intelligent corporate applications, especially for mobile platforms. In addition to compatibility with popular tools for ML and AI programming, such as the Deep Java Library for deep learning, OpenNLP for natural language processing, and Neuroph for building neural networks, Java is easy to write and debug program code.

It is worth noting that this language is object-oriented and scalable. It also simplifies data visualization and supports Swing and SWT (Standard Widget Toolkit), which allow developers to create attractive and complex graphics and interfaces.

C++

C++ is considered an extremely powerful language for AI programming and can greatly benefit developers when creating games and embedded systems. Like Python, C++ is a mature language, which does not detract from its advantages, such as flexibility and high performance. C++ has several libraries for machine learning and neural networks that help complex algorithms run faster (including MapReduce, mlpack, and MongoDB). In general, many software engineers prefer this language for building projects that require high speed, as it interacts with training modules in a production environment.

Actually, that’s why this low-level language used for AI is primarily a tool for creating complex banking software, cloud systems, and intelligent speech recognition solutions.

JavaScript

JavaScript is a scripting language used to add interactivity to web pages. Even though it is not as popular as the AI programming languages ​​described above, it can be extremely helpful in implementing solutions for Data Science, one of the most promising areas for using JS.

In addition, JavaScript is the most popular programming language in the world, so you won’t have any problems finding the right AI development tools and frameworks that are compatible with it. The popularity of this coding language for AI can be explained by several factors: reliability, stability, abundance of high-level functions, libraries, and tools, as well as fairly low requirements for other technical skills of developers (it is likely that you will not have any difficulty finding dozens of AI tools that support JS, which will cover the whole scope of work related to your AI project) .

Scala

This machine learning language is concise and expressive, and is often used in big data solutions. Scala is a multi-paradigm language specifically designed to express common programming concepts in a simple, convenient, and type-safe manner.

Scala is commonly used in the development of machine learning algorithms and pattern detection in large data sets, and all this – thanks to the built-in Smile data processing library, extensive compatibility with AI frameworks and libraries (in particular, BigDL, Breeze, DeepLearning.scala, and so on), as well as its object-oriented and scalable nature.

Julia

Julia is the best programming language for AI powered scientific solutions and technical projects that require statistical data processing. This is a relatively new language with dynamic typing, parallel programming, and JIT compilation that has proven itself well due to its high speed (Julia-based projects are rarely inferior in performance to their C++-based counterparts), flexibility, and a mature ecosystem.

Many of the tools built into this language use polymorphic dispatch, which makes switching between them much faster than in other languages. It is also worth noting that Julia projects can be integrated with TensorFlow.jl, MLBase.jl, and MXNet.jl.

The Programming Languages That Are Not Recommended for AI

Along with the extensive list of languages for AI development, there are also those that are better used for solving other problems. These are usually niche and low-level languages, such as PHP and Ruby (scripting languages that do not have the needed flexibility and speed to simplify the development process), C (a low-level language that lacks almost all the functions needed in AI development), and Fortran (despite its use for mostly scientific purposes, it has poor functionality).

Ultimately, a seasoned software engineer will be able to cope with any AI development task using any language; another thing is that, given the expected scope of work, the languages that we described in the previous paragraph are much better suited for these tasks.

If you are looking for an experienced team that will launch the digital transformation of your business processes through custom-made AI and ML solutions, feel free to contact us.

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Interesting fact: there are approximately 8,462 project management methodologies to choose from. Every project manager understands that selecting the right methodology is crucial to getting the job right.

So, how to understand which one is right for your project?

There are many various ways to deliver projects. Generally speaking, these ways are our project management models – applying different principles, themes, frameworks, processes and standards to help provide structure to the way we deliver projects.

Agile is one of the more recognizable project management methodologies. This methodology is best suited for projects that are iterative and incremental. It’s a type of process where demands and solutions evolve through the collaborative effort of self-organizing and cross-functional teams and their customers.

Agile is a methodology that has methodologies within itself, such as Scrum and Kanban. Scrum methodology is one of the most popular and simple frameworks to put the principles of Agile into practice.

Let’s talk about the Scrum and how it works

Scrum is a subset of Agile. It is a framework for agile development that helps teams work together with the customers. Much like a sports team training for the big game, Scrum encourages teams to learn through experiences, self-organize while working on a problem, and reflect on their wins and losses to continuously improve. Its goal is to develop, deliver, and sustain complex products through collaboration, accountability, and iterative progress. According to this, it is not surprising that Scrum is the most widely-used one among the teams.

Scrum team roles

• Product owner: The product owner represents stakeholders, which are typically customers.
• Development team: Group of professionals that consists of three to nine individuals who have the business, design, analytical and development skills to carry out the actual work, solve problems and produce deliverable products.
• Project manager: Manager who ensures the understanding and execution of Scrum is followed. The manager’s responsibilities include coaching and motivating the team, removing impediments during the development, and ensuring that the team has the best possible conditions to meet its goals and produce deliverable products.

Phases of Scrum Model

Now, let’s take a look at the main steps of the development process that Scrum consists of.

Step 1. Product Backlog Creation

A product backlog is a list that contains features to be implemented during the development process. It’s ordered by priority and every item is called a User story. A user story is an informal, general explanation of a software feature written from the perspective of the end user or customer. It helps development teams capture simplified, high-level descriptions of a user’s requirements written from that end user’s perspective. The examples below show how these stories can look like:

• As an internet banking customer, I want to see a rolling balance for my everyday accounts, so that I can keep track of my spending after each transaction is applied

• As a manager, I want to be able to understand my colleagues’ progress, so I can better report our success and failures.
• As a customer, I want to receive an SMS when the item arrives, so that I can go pick it up right away.
• As Max, I want to organize my work, so I can feel more in control.

This structure is not required, but it is helpful for defining done.“Why can’t we just write features or tasks instead?”

Step 2. Sprint Planning and Sprint Backlog Creation

The sprint duration is very important so that the user stories are as small as possible. The typical average sprint duration lasts about 2 weeks. If the sprint duration is small, then the advantage is that more customer feedback can be received and most of the errors and bugs can be addressed earlier. If the sprint duration is long, then it allows the developer to work thoroughly.

The next stage is to do the sprint backlog creation. It consists of user stories that will be completed during the current sprint. The scrum team must select the important user stories and make them into smaller tasks. They need to plan on how to get the task completed. The Scrum team should be capable of finishing all these stories on time. Also, one important thing is to prioritize the necessary tasks.

For example, the goal for Sprint: “A website visitor can order a product”. We discuss with the team and product owner how to implement this. Roughly, customers have to go through three steps to order something: 1) select a product, 2) enter address and billing information, 3) perform the payment. We discover several exception paths. After the discussion about what technology we will use for this goal and how the team will implement this functionality, we start creating the Sprint Backlog.

Below are some of the items that can end up on the Sprint Backlog:

• When an order is placed, send an email to the sales department;
• Allow customers to pay for their order by credit card;
• Encrypt user information in order (e.g. email, address);

Step 3: Working On Sprint and Scrum Meetings

The actual user stories are moved as small tasks in the sprint backlog, where the actual work starts. This is where the implementation of a software application, such as website development, begins.

To begin with, a task board is made with a lot of cards is used. The cards specify the details about the tasks such as assignee, work details, due date or the time duration, etc. The cards can be arranged according to their importance. When work on a task has been started, the corresponding sticker is moved from the “To do” field to the “In progress” one. When work is completed, the sticker can be moved to the “Testing” field, and after the task is successfully tested, the sticker goes to the “Done” field.

For this activity, we use specialized software JIRA and Trello for this task.

In this step the scrum meetings are important as it is done to track the progress status and who is doing what status. The burndown chart is the output of this meeting, as it provides the details about how many tasks are completed and if there are any issues or problems in completing the tasks in the “Work In Progress” columns.

It is also important to notice one more Scrum feature is Daily Scrum meetings. These meetings’ main purpose is to get full information about the current project status and make sure that all team members are on the same stage. During Scrum meetings, every single team member should tell what he has done for the day, which tasks will be the next, and what problems team members faced during the work.

Day by day Scrum meetings help increase the flexibility of the development process. They also allow understanding of what changes should be made.

Step 4. Testing, Product Increment and Sprint Review

The result of every sprint in Scrum is a potentially shippable product increment that can be presented to the customer. After each iteration, the development team creates a new version of a software product and adds new features with increased value. In the end part of every sprint, there is Sprint Review where the overall results can be demonstrated and analyzed. According to this info, the stakeholders can make a decision about further project changes and plan the next sprint.

Step 5. Retrospective and Next Sprint Planning

Retrospective’s main goal is to consider the results and the ways how to improve the development process on the next step. The team should talk about the lessons learned and the pitfalls that were during the development part. An important feature is to improve the work of the Scrum team as a whole. The team should conclude what went well during the working process and what can be done better during future iteration. When the ways of improvement are defined, the team can start and concentrate on the next sprint planning.

Project Closure

The project closure phase represents the final phase of the project management. Around this time, the final product is ready for delivery. Here, the main focus of the project manager and the team should be on product release and product delivery. In this stage, all the activities related to the project are wrapped up.

Once the product is handed to the customers, the documentation is finalized and the project is closed.

Conclusion

The main differential features of Scrum are flexibility and constant progress. It’s provided mostly by regular communication and close cooperation between the stakeholders at each step.

When the sprint is done, the customer can assess the working product functionality at the current iteration and make decisions about how the project should evolve during the next sprints.

Use Case: Web Development

Problem Statement: Important changes need to be implemented on an existing company website.

Scrum team roles:

1. Product Owner: Team Lead
2. Development Team: Developers
3. Scrum Master: Project Manager

Basic Flow of Events:

1. The website needs to be updated.

Using Scrum:

1. Product Owner creates a backlog, i.e. the prioritized changes to make.
2. The development team and the QA team is created.
3. Sprint of 7 days is decided.
4. Project manager is assigned to set up the meetings and help with issues.
5. Tasks are assigned to the team
6. A daily 15-minute Scrum is set up for holding team meetings
7. The website is updated each day with the work done
8. QA notifies issues on the same day
9. Each week, the Sprint Review meeting is held with the CEO for an update on progress

Scrum is best suited for projects that consist of teams of less than seven people who need a flexible approach to deliver a product or service.