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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.

Telehealth, simply put, is some type of delivery. It helps to provide health care services when patients and health professionals are separated by distance via remote technologies. Telehealth uses technologies for the exchange of information for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases and injuries for the patients. Live video conferencing, mobile health apps and remote patient monitoring (RPM) are examples of technologies used in telehealth.

It’s Healthtech time

Telehealth is improving the healthcare industry in many ways, the first of which is increasing its accessibility. Telehealth allows specialists to visit patients virtually from any place in the world by improving access as well as making a wider range of healthcare services available via telemedicine.

Today’s Telehealth environment consists of a global ecosystem of myriad digital solutions.  There are two alarming end-users trends that you should pay attention to when considering Telehealth design and solutions.

1. What doctors struggle the most with
2. What people looking for when they choose the healthcare providers

Providing virtualized healthcare to any place in the world is one of the best-known applications of telehealth. But the medical industry is using it in several other ways, including:

• Urgent help in distance. It can be a headache or sore throat. There are many medical complaints that aren’t life-threatening, but they need some professional attention. Virtual care services allow skilled health personnel to treat minor complaints, including providing appropriate prescriptions.
• Stay in contact. Qualified medical personnel can use messages, phone and video calls to follow up the patients after they are discharged from the hospital. This way, improves worker productivity from not having to take time off and travel to appointments and ensures each patient understands the importance and carries out recovery and treatment plans. Also, telehealth platforms can automate much of the communication process, including sending reminders to the patients.
• Updating online prescription. Telehealth provides the possibility to update online prescriptions even If you’ve been unable to get to your own doctor to refill a current prescription.
• Monitoring of patients with chronic conditions. For these patients, it is one of the best benefits of telehealth. Virtual care helps those who have mobility issues, mental illness, and other conditions that may prevent them from going to in person medical appointments.
• Facilitating care to rural areas. Telehealth is a great way to provide patients in places that are outside the current health delivery system with access to quality care. In the event of a medical emergency, telemedicine makes it possible to coordinate with specialists in other regions without wasting time to provide patients with effective treatment.
• Increased patient satisfaction. In addition to referrals, many patients assess and choose healthcare providers through online reviews. As such, you must have positive reviews that will attract new patients. Telemedicine helps improve patient satisfaction scores by providing convenience of care and reducing wait time. The providers have the opportunity to offer remote services to the patients and make it convenient for them to receive medical attention. Also, this process reduces in-hospital visits.
  

All right, let’s move on to the design

Telehealth platforms require a unique approach to service design. As you can imagine, it isn’t the same way, say, for a food delivery service.

Telehealth is not about technology, it’s about people

That’s a good reminder that you need to create space for telehealth that provides human connections and assistance. The healthcare industry is unique and complex, and it can be challenging to set up. Establishing fundamental principles to guide telehealth design will help us keep sight of the user experience and user journey throughout different healthcare systems.

In this article, we’ll highlight the important and unique challenges in the design faced by digital health companies and startups.

1. Research. To begin, you need a shared understanding of how you usually provide face to face care. You will need a solid understanding of the patient’s journey through your service.
2. Construction. Based on our research findings, you need to discuss them with your client. There is the moment when you draft innovative solutions and delve into user journeys. We identify the most promising ideas based on jointly developed options. Service design can be quite abstract. The main idea is to find key service touchpoints.
3. Strategize and develop Next, it is necessary to work with your clients to co-create a product roadmap and business strategy. Together with medical professionals, you develop an extensive plan of the envisioned telehealth design, listing interactions between users, new processes, and workflows. Also, don’t forget to define the physical and digital things that will be used. By the end of this step, you’ve created visual content and material to start the development process.
4. Taking it live. From our experience, we recommend turning digital and physical artifacts into minimum viable products (MVP).  MVP is essential to clinical trials. There is a product that has basic features and can be used to get feedback from the users.

After the main last modifications, it’s time for launch! At this stage, it’s important to provide testing to ensure that the envisioned workflow and interactions are happening as intended.

That’s it

To sum up, telemedicine is full of benefits for patients and healthcare providers. When people have had a taste of telehealth, they’re willing to continue using this convenient care option.

Telehealth’s future looks very bright, doesn’t it?

Also, it’s obvious to see continued strong growth and upgrade around devices, communication channels, telemedicine services, and telehealth platforms. Look for them to become increasingly user-friendly and convenient. As this happens, we can expect to see a resulting increase in users. After all, good design is the right way to improve engagement.

Designers will need to imagine themselves in both the patients’ and providers’ roles during the preparation for the start to create the design for telehealth. Every detail of a visit, from the method of scheduling appointments to the distribution of follow-up procedures, should be carefully planned to ensure the best outcomes and clear understanding.

We can expect to see digital pharmacies, virtual appointments, online triage tools, and remote monitoring gain in popularity. It may well become the new normal in healthcare.

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The first question that you should ask yourself before contacting the IT outsourcing company is “what billing model is the best fit for my project?”. If you are confused about choosing an outsourcing model from the Dedicated team vs. Fixed price vs. Time and Materials for your business idea, then welcome aboard!

In this article, we will compare these business models for your project. Let’s analyze each in detail and describe the advantages and disadvantages of 3 main IT outsourcing models.

Fixed price

The fixed-price agreement is a single-sum contract where the software development team must deliver the project within a predefined sum which is agreed by both parties. A client should be able to share his clear vision of the product with developers to ensure appropriate final results. This model requires the client to provide a detailed list of requirements for the project and all required developer documentation.

Pros of fixed price model:

• Clarity. Project requirements are agreed upon before signing the software development contract, as well as all the required developer documentation is specified beforehand.
• Accuracy. The project scope and time frames are known and discussed in advance, so the team can set the deadlines, and it is convenient to monitor the project progress.
• Autonomy. The development process is coordinated by a project manager, so the client’s participation isn’t necessary.

Cons of fixed price model:

• Preparation. The period is needed as all requirements for implementation and deadlines must be documented.
• Inflexibility. Any change in the scope of work would cause a change in the total cost of the project and this change would be compensated by the service provider’s end.
• Risks. If you don’t provide your requirements correctly, then the delivered product won’t be the same as expected.

When is recommended to use a fixed price model:

• Clear requirements and determined deadlines.
• Limited or fixed budget.
• MVP.
• Small and medium projects with limited project scope of work.

Time and Materials

Time and materials contract is absolutely different. This model is great suited for long-term projects with changing requirements, where the final requirements are not known in advance and can be changed on the go. This is a flexible approach to IT outsourcing, as the customer pays in smaller chunks for work accomplished during the billable hours. To say more, this pay-as-you-go model allows you to pay only for the work actually done. For example, for features delivered, milestones, etc.

Pros of Time and Materials model:

• A flexible approach. The customer can change the scope of work, requirements or add/drop features on the go to meet his business aims without thinking about the budget. This model perfectly combines with modern agile methodologies, for example with Scrum.
• Transparency. This model allows the customer to control the cost and concentrate on important elements of the project. The client pays only for the results actually delivered.
• Involvement. The client can monitor the process of the development of a certain work schedule in accordance with the expected results.

Cons of Time and Materials model:

• Budget and time. It is not always possible to estimate the budget in advance. It’s hard to predict when the product will be delivered or how much it will cost. This depends on the accuracy of the specifications or its changes in the process of work;
• Communications. To achieve a high-quality product, continuous communication with the team is necessary. It requires full-fledged involvement from your side, which includes spending much time in communication with the development team.

When is recommended to use Time and Materials model:

• Long and middle term projects with dynamic requirements;
• Project scope is not fully known;
• The customer wants the flexibility to modify the project scope.

Dedicated team

The Dedicated Team model is used to compensate for the lack of in-house IT expertise on mid-to-long-term projects. The billing is based on hourly rates of the developers, and they become a part of a team that is only concerned with the project and not engaged in any other tasks. The developers report directly to the client. However, the client is responsible for team management and control.

As an example, let’s say the client wants to develop software that is not in his team’s expertise, he can hire a developer or team who can do this. In this case, the client can outsource to an experienced team that can help him fulfill his customer’s needs by creating rich quality projects. This will enable the client to maintain stability between your team and the dedicated team.

Pros of Dedicated Team model:

• Control. The customer is provided full control and management of the team. Cooperation between the client and the team is very important because it allows for effective planning and evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the work process.
• Development. When a team is focused on one project, it ensures the best results. The team has a full understanding of all project features and is dedicated to running the project smoothly.
• Progress. The ability to optimize the product is important for product growth. With the dedicated team, it is much easier.
• Reduced costs. The remote team solves many problems with the recruitment and hiring of staff. Plus, you always know the next month’s payments and taxes.

Cons of Dedicated Team model:

• Thoroughness. The client must consider process planning and task distribution for every member of the team.
• Engagement. You might have to invest more time in communication, discussion and software development.
• Graduality. Looking for the perfect candidate takes a lot of time and the client has to be involved in hiring team members.

When is recommended to use Dedicated Team model:

• For long-term IT projects with rapidly changing scopes.
• Adding more workforce to set up a strong development team.
• When you want to access cross-border expertise and knowledge sharing.

Conclusion

To sum up, every project provides the best results when it is managed according to the most suitable IT outsourcing model. Each software product development pricing model has its pros and cons. Choosing the best possible approach fully depends on the specifics of your project and expected results.

According to this, the first step is understanding your business model’s requirements. After determining your project’s needs, you can select the right outsourcing model and start with it.

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Imagine your website as a guide for people looking for healthcare answers. But, too much text, complex navigation, and poor mobile layout can stop them from getting the help they need. Who are these visitors about to pick your services, and how do we ensure they find what they're looking for?

• 77% initiate their healthcare journey via search engines.
• 60% of these explorers click through to websites brimming with the healthcare insights they're after.
• 71% feel disappointed with healthcare websites that fall short on information.

These figures send a clear message to healthcare providers: A strong online presence is vital. To engage and keep potential patients' trust, your website should be accessible and filled with the information they need.

What is a Good Healthcare Landing Page?

A landing page has two key goals: promoting and advertising. Here, we put together a short guide to share our insights, knowledge, and everything else you need to create a high-converting healthcare landing page.

Mobile-Friendliness

Studies show that the average American checks their phone every 12 minutes. Nowadays, a mobile-friendly website is a must-have for every business. 

Responsive Web Design (RWD) makes your website attractive for users with any screen, device, or browser. It automatically adjusts the layout and content based on the screen size, ensuring a user-friendly experience on phones and tablets, without the need for zooming or extensive scrolling.

Clear Content

Ensure your content is focused and minimalistic, directly conveying your business's offerings. A healthcare landing page must be clean, emphasizing key points. 

Include a prominent Call-to-Action (CTA) - a brief, compelling phrase that encourages visitors to take the next step. This CTA must stand out, guiding users clearly on what to do. 

Remember, visitors quickly form opinions; make those initial moments count with straightforward information, ensuring they find what they need swiftly.

Direct Navigation

To enhance your landing page's navigation, focus on a seamless user experience. Use an active voice to directly guide visitors to their desired information through simple, intuitive steps. 

Incorporate clear labels, a straightforward layout, and visual cues to ensure easy navigation. 

Regularly test your navigation with real users to identify and fix any hurdles, ensuring your landing page is as direct and user-friendly as possible.

Top 5 CMS Platforms to Create a Landing Page

Building an effective landing page is key to a successful marketing strategy, and selecting the right CMS platform can greatly enhance your ability to connect with your audience. Here's a top list of CMS platforms ideal for crafting landing pages, each providing distinct features to meet different requirements:

1. WordPress

The most popular CMS in the world, known for its flexibility and extensive plugin ecosystem. WordPress offers both simple functionalities for beginners and advanced solutions for experienced developers and complex products. 

With over 58,000 plugins and thousands of themes, WordPress offers rich opportunities for customization. You can use SEO and analytic tools, social media integration, and contact forms — everything you need for a healthcare landing page.

2. Wix

Wix is renowned for its simplicity, featuring a drag-and-drop interface and stylish templates. It offers an intuitive platform that requires no prior coding or design knowledge.

Ideal for small business owners and web development & design newbies. Wix’s simple platform will enable even a private healthcare practitioner to create a professional-looking landing page.

3. Velo by Wix

For more experienced users, Wix offers an advanced Velo development platform. It provides rich customization options, allowing direct editing of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, giving full control over the website's look and feel. 

Velo also allows for the integration of APIs and external databases, making it possible to build dynamic, data-driven healthcare landing pages.

4. HubSpot CMS

HubSpot CMS shines by integrating powerful marketing tools directly with website management. This includes email marketing, SEO strategies, and other inbound marketing techniques, all within one platform. 

It's ideal for marketers and businesses looking for a single platform to manage their website creation and ongoing marketing activities.

5. Webflow

Webflow offers complete control over website design and interactive features through an easy-to-use visual editor, so you don't need to know how to code. It's great for designers and developers who want the freedom to create without complexity. 

With Webflow, you can design unique healthcare landing pages that stand out and communicate effectively, thanks to its detailed design capabilities and responsive design options.

Conclusion

The landing page is the connecting bridge between the online, digital marketing message, and the visitors’ next step. The landing page must look good on a smartphone, have informative content, and clear navigation. 

For medical businesses and practitioners, it’s essential to have a landing page for each service they’re offering. Are you a doctor, a medical center, or a big healthcare corporation? Contact us for a consultation on attracting more patients. 

With more than 2.7 billion smartphone users across the world in 2020, it’s no surprise that the mobile app industry is expended with no signs of stopping. Nowadays, smartphones have become a useful and convenient instrument that offers multiple benefits such as communication through emails and social networking, web surfing, entertainment, GPS and various other productivity apps.

In fact, studies show that the average American checks their phone every 12 minutes. 10% of people check their phones every four minutes.

We use our phones every day at work, at home, on the street, in bed, while we are eating, in our cars. You might be reading this article from a mobile device right now.

What are people doing on their phones? Well, 90% of mobile time is spent on apps.

According to these facts, many companies considering mobile apps are facing a common challenge — which app development approach to choose? Should we build a native, mobile web, or hybrid app? More importantly, which is the most appropriate app type for you and your business?

Let’s find out what are native, mobile web, and hybrid apps, analyze the differences between them, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each. After reading, you will be able to understand which approach will be the right one for your business idea.

Web Apps

A web app is a software program that uses web technologies like HTML5, CSS, JavaScript. It exists entirely within browsers such as Safari and Chrome and is essentially a mobile website. It is therefore not possible to download them from an app store.

Also, the web app is not connected with the device’s operating system and does not use its storage. Unlike an iOS or Android app, there is no software development kit (SDK) for a developer to work with. There are templates and frameworks for developing web apps like Angular, React, and Vue.js that you can use to get a quick start.

So, here are some pros of web application

• Developing a web app can be simple and quick. So, web apps are a cost-effective way to put your product in the hands of a lot of users.
• Web apps can be built for all platforms as long as they can run in an appropriate web browser.
• The user doesn’t have to manage updates manually. The newest version always loads when a user opens a web app.

And some cons:

• Searching for an app might be difficult because the user doesn’t find it in any app store.
• A browser is required to run a web app. It means that users have to take more steps to use a web app, whether that’s searching for the page or typing in a URL.
• Web apps can be slower and lack a lot of benefits. They only work online and they don’t have access to as many phone features like push notifications, contacts, etc.

However, as browsers and web apps become more advanced, PWAs (progressive web apps) offer a wider functionality like:

• Sending push messages
• Using some touch screen elements
• Using some of the device’s hardware

So, If your startup is on a budget and doesn’t require complex functionalities or access to operating system features, then building a web app can be the most suitable solution.

Native Apps

A native app is a software application that is built for specific platforms and is written in languages that the platform accepts. For example, Swift and Objective-C for native iOS apps, Java or Kotlin for native Android apps and C# for the most part for Windows Phone apps. Native apps are also built using the specific Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for the selected operating systems.

Advantages of the native application:

• Native apps offer the fastest, most reliable and most responsive experience to users.
• Good integration with the hardware of the device (e.g. camera, GPS, phone, touch screen)
• It comes with the push notification functionality.
• Great design and user experience possibilities. For example, the implementation of sophisticated UI/UX design and animation.
• These apps can be downloaded from app stores and installed on mobile devices, where they can be placed as a designated icon on the home screen.
• Native apps are also more suitable for working offline.

Disadvantages:

• Need more than one codebase. iOS apps will not run on Android and the opposite, so you will have to work with different codebases for every platform you choose to build in.
• Native apps are usually more expensive in developing, especially for companies that need apps on multiple OS platforms. For both platforms, it will require two separate developers or teams.
• A lot of time is spent on development. Also, it takes time to update the app for different platforms.
• Require constant updates to keep with the current OS versions.
• Expensive to keep your native app updated
• Both Apple App Store and Google Play get a 30% commission from every in-app payment.

To sum up, a bigger budget is required if you want to build your app for multiple platforms (i.e. iPhones and Android) and to keep your native app updated. Native apps are not the best option for simple applications.

By offering a great user experience, better performance and accessibility, native apps are able to offer users a more personalized product.

Hybrid apps

Hybrid apps combine the power of native and web apps to reap the benefits of both. Actually they are made, so they look and feel like native applications, but like web apps, are built with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. Also, there is a shell that is downloadable and loads the code using a WebView.

Advantages of the hybrid apps:

• Hybrid apps don’t need a web browser like web apps.
• With a hybrid app, you only have one codebase to manage. So, instead of building two apps like with native apps, you’re building one app, and it works on both platforms.
• Hybrid app developers are often less expensive than native application developers. You will probably require half the number of developers two native apps would have required. Or, with the same number of developers, a hybrid app could be published in half the time.
• Hybrid is a great option for developers that create visually intense applications, for instance, games
• Hybrid apps let you retain the same ability to access device features as with native apps.
• Easy to work with, maintain and upgrade
• Because of their native infrastructure, hybrid apps can work offline.
• Hybrid apps are easier to scale to another platform. Once you’ve built for one platform, you can launch on another, like Windows Mobile.

The downside:

• Getting your hybrid app to run appropriately on each platform generally takes substantial work. Sometimes, the total cost might become comparable to that of fully native apps. It all depends on how close you want to get to the “native user experience” or how simple your app is.
• Hybrid apps can be slower than native apps.
• Need to customize to a large number of exciting browsers
• Inability to implement complex features (e.g. in-app analytics, charts, diagrams)
• These hybrid systems make bug fixing more difficult.
• Hybrid apps load in a WebView, so performance can be worse than native applications.

Say you have an idea for an app, and you don’t know if people will like it or not. If you understand that a web app doesn’t really allow you to test this app, the simple version of the hybrid app will be a good solution for you.

You give to people to download and use the app on their device, although you are short on resources. Usually, a startup project is decided to create a hybrid app that in the startup world, this is called an MVP, or minimum viable product.

Conclusion

There are many different directions in which you can take your app, all of which have their pros and cons. The choice between web, native, and hybrid development is dependent on a number of factors, including business needs, app requirements, developer skill, budget and timelines. What’s important is to spend enough time thinking and analyzing before you start building because the apps are expensive enough. So, you may only have one go at getting it right. Find out the information as much as you can about the different kinds of apps and the development stages.

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Nowadays, having a company website is as essential as having an office, domain or telephone number. By 2020, approximately 4.5 billion people, or more than half of the world’s population, are connected in some way to the World Wide Web in order to satisfy their entertainment, education, research and consumer needs.

If your business does not have a website, we provide a number of benefits to you:

1.  It sets the first impression

When your audience visits your website, it gives them their first impression of your business. They will judge your business within seconds. In these first few seconds, you can make a positive or negative impact on your audience. The impression you make on them can either get them to remain on your page and learn about your business, or leave your page and turn to a competitor.

2.  Cost-Effective

Use your website to sell goods and services directly to consumers without various forms such as printed media, radio, television, etc. Having the website will make promoting much easier and less expensive.

3. Online 24/7

Anyone, anywhere and anytime, has access to your website and gets business information and details about your products and services.

4. Advertising and Increase Sales

SEO and online advertising are a great way to be the first company that a potential new customer sees when searching for a product or service online. An effective website with great content can attract many more people and increase sales.

5. Customer Service Online

Websites provide an easier way to handle customer service. In the modern world, people buy products and services using mobile phones to browse the internet.  So, it might help customers find your location while they are on the move. This is especially important for restaurants, cafes, and other eateries, but is also relevant for other businesses.

However, there are a few disadvantages of having a website for your business:

1. Reliability

The information on your website might be updated on a regular basis. Otherwise, you will lose some part of potential customers due to unreliable information on the website.

2. Bad Publicity

If customers are unhappy with your products or services, they may feel the need to reference your website in their reviews or comments. This could potentially be damaging, hurting your reputation and your search engine ranking. Of course, not having a website won’t prevent such things from happening, but it might allow you to monitor and be aware of it.

3. Right development team

It is no secret that there are lots of companies that can design and develop a website. Among the sea of designers and developers, you need to find a team that will understand your business goals and the needs of your customers and convert them into a beautiful website.

Having read that, you might come to the conclusion that having a website is a crucial thing in the digital world, and it is a great opportunity to raise your sales.

Darly team understands this fact, and we are going to show how we can provide your business and your potential customers with a great experience.

At Darly Solutions, we offer two main approaches to creating a website:

Creating a website from scratch

Required knowledge and tools:

1. HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language)

HTML is the basic structure of web pages and web applications, which makes the content semantic to the web browser. Every web page you see on the Internet is written using one version of HTML code or another.

2. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)

CSS is the language for describing the presentation of Web pages, including colors, layout, and fonts. Without CSS, a web page would look like a large white page with some unordered text and image on it. CSS is the thing that makes it all look pretty.

3. Scripting Languages

HTML and CSS cannot be interactive without scripting languages. To make a dynamic web page that will respond to user actions, you need languages like JavaScript and jQuery. Server-side languages like PHP, Python and Ruby might also be needed over time.

4. Database Management

Database Management allows to organize, store and retrieve data from a computer. Database Management Systems like MySQL, MongoDB and PostgreSQL are used on the server-side to do this job efficiently.

5. FTP (File Transfer Protocol)

FTP is a standard Internet protocol for transmitting files between computers on the Internet over TCP/IP connections. FTP is used to transfer a website’s source files to its hosted server more easily.

Creating a website with CMS

WordPress is extremely powerful and can run most types of websites. Statistics show that WordPress is currently the most popular CMS (Content Management System) in the world. It powers 27.8% of all sites on the web, with about 50,000 new sites being created daily. With more and more people viewing sites on their smartphones and other mobile devices, it’s really important to have a site that is responsive to these digital demands. With WordPress, most themes come mobile friendly by default. Usually, WordPress is used for creating blogs where you have to work with a big amount of texts and need to edit them all the time.

Design

The success of any website entirely depends on how good its web design is. It is important so much that 38% of the visitors will leave a website if they find the design unattractive. When your audience visits your website, it gives them their first impression of your business. They will judge your business within seconds. In these first few seconds, you want to make a positive impact on your audience.

You can think of web design like selling a car – it could have the most incredible engine, but if the appearance is hideous, people will not be interested in buying it.

Good website design needs a wide range of professionals having expertise in different areas.

Here in this article, we’ll outline the 5 steps to create the perfect design.

1. Set your goal and strategy

2. Research the latest web design trends

3. Select a team for cooperation

4. Decide on your branding

5. Think about positioning and optimization of your content

We’ll run through all the steps in detail below.

Set your goal and strategy

Before you jump head-first into designing your website, you need to be clear on its purpose. Keep in mind that your visitors want to understand what your business is all about in the blink of an eye. Having multiple main objectives is likely to result in confusion.

Once your purpose is clear, the focus shifts towards what action you want visitors to take when they land on your website. Is your site there just to display information? To sell products? To get sign-ups? The answer to this will ultimately dictate how your website looks and feels. Using E-Commerce as an example, one crucial element of your design is your landing page.

Research the latest web design trends

It’s important to note that just because a web trend is current, it doesn’t mean it’s necessarily right for you. You can look at what competitors are doing and analyze the things and features that you like and dislike. Each sector will have different styles, so it’s important to consider this fact.

Select a team for cooperation

Design of your website plays a vital role in your online marketing campaign’s success. If you want to drive the best results for your business, you must invest in designing a website that encourages people to learn more about your business. At Darly Solutions, we have over 4 years of experience designing websites.

We are a full-service IT company that specializes in web development, mobile app development, UI/UX design and so on. Our team of experts will bring their knowledge and expertise to your campaign. We know the importance of web design and can help you create a website you’ll love.

Wireframes, prototypes and mockups form three of the earlier steps of product design. The great way to explain them is to imagine a parallel between them and the human body. The wireframe is the skeleton or the structure of the product. The prototype is the brain or the organ that decides how the human should move and interact with something. The mockup is the skin, hair, and facial features, or brand, that make the human instantly recognizable.

Decide on your branding

Color is one of the brand’s biggest communication tools. In fact, according to Color Matters, a signature color can boost brand recognition by 80%. There’s a lot of psychology behind people’s perception of color, so it’s important to understand how it’s used in relation to your industry.

Most brands have one dominant color, then two or three secondary colors. Blue is the most popular color, with one third of the top 100 brands using it in their logo.

There are many factors that should be considered like colors, font style, imagery etc. In this case, a professional designer can help and suggest a solution based on your business and your requirements.

Think about positioning and optimization of your content

There are two things that you need to consider: positioning and optimization.

Recent research shows that website users scan a page in a shape that resembles an ‘F’. This is why navigation bars on websites are nearly always displayed across the top of the page. It’s the first thing people are drawn to when landing on the site.

Optimization is the process that helps content rank higher on search engines (primary example being Google). Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can increase the quality or quantity of people landing on your pages.

Conclusion

After all of that, congratulations! Your website is now live. You can publish it, but it’s time to check if everything works before you go live! Ask your family, friends, and colleagues to test the site in preview mode (all website builders and E-Commerce platforms will have this), and see if they find anything wrong. You can even get members of the public to test it too. Always take the time to properly check your website. After that, you’re ready: publish your site!

Now, you’re the owner of a live website. But, if you think that you can kick back and relax now, you are quite wrong. Regularly checking the growth and performance of the site will be your responsibility.

However, you can connect your website to tracking tools or at least have an analytic app to install. Alternatively, you can connect your site to Google Analytics.

The truth is, a web designer’s job is never truly done. If you just sit back and admire your work, others will overtake you. So, you need to keep on top of your site’s performance and check for design trends updates.

Darly Solutions is a software development company based in Ukraine. Throughout extensive expertise, we build excellent web and mobile applications to empower your business and deliver results.

We work with locations worldwide and have already helped many businesses start their activities or increase the performance of existing ones. Our customer focus allows us to create unique solutions that provide a competitive advantage in the market.

Key facts about us:

✔ Founded in 2017
✔ 20+ English-speaking professionals are serving our customers from all over the world
✔ 40+ completed projects
✔ Took 3 startups from idea to life

Industries we work with:

✔ Manufacturing
✔ SaaS
✔ FinTech
✔ Healthcare

Our services:

✔ Web development
✔ Mobile development
✔ UI/UX Design
✔ Quality Assurance
✔ Project Management

Technologies we use:

✔ Frontend: Angular, Ionic, React, Vue
✔ Backend: Node.js, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, PHP (Laravel)
✔ Databases: PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB
✔ Our focus has always been a clear process and measurable progress to deliver the best in class solutions.

Top 5 reasons why you should work with us:

✔ Time efficient
✔ Expert level
✔ Result oriented
✔ Budget-friendly
✔ Less hassle, more work

Let’s put the best ideas into action together!

Daria Lalaiants, CEO of Darly Solutions, met with Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Ukraine Melinda Simmons on 8th of September 2020.

As a member of YBC, the Ukrainian top closed community for young entrepreneurs, Daria shared insights about building IT business in Ukraine as well as how COVID impacted Darly Solutions and the industry overall.

The venue for the meeting was a 5 start hotel Kharkiv Palace which back in 2018 has been awarded as the best business hotel 5* in Europe conveniently located in the heart of the city, just a block away from Darly Solution office.

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Hello dear Guest! We are here to tell you a short story about Darly Solutions team.

We are a friendly team of passionate professionals committed to delivering reliable software solutions for customers from all around the world.

Our company started in 2016 as a team of Angular Frontend developers. We made every effort in providing only the best experience for our customers and realized that we want to take our services to the next level and cover backend development as well. Treating our clients’ challenges as our own, we’ve never been satisfied until an excellent solution is found. Eventually, we gained the ability to manage complex large-scale projects and kept on improving and growing professionally.

Clutch already recognizes our company as one of the fastest-growing in its region in 2023. We successfully implement cases of any complexity in such industries as FinTech, Healthcare, SaaS, and Manufacturing.

Darley Solution always keeps up with the times, so attending the most trendy events in the industry is a must-have for the company's management, and improving the qualifications of all personnel is an integral part of the corporate culture.

Here are the things contributing to our well-being and job satisfaction:

• Individual approach to everyone
• Focus on soft skills, emotional intelligence
• Promoting self-development (internal workshops, English with a native speaker, Speaking Club, etc.)
• Mentorship (guidance by an experienced and trusted colleague)
• Business trips to meet customers in person
• Professional equipment (MacBooks for work)
• Individual/flexible schedule
• 50% of training costs coverage (conferences, meetups, etc.)
• Paid vacation and sick leaves
• Assistance with taxation and accountability
• Creative and diverse corporate events not only for the team: our overseas customers enjoy coming over to us!

Keeping customers happy is another focus at Darly. Although our project management is driven by the Agile approach, our clients’ comfort and satisfaction remain the top priority.

Simply put, in our work we keep up with new technologies and do not forget to share expertise!

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