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Micro Interactions: Take User Experience at New Level

 

What Are Micro Interactions and What Is Their Purpose? 

A well-designed mobile application capitalizes on the ability to create experiences that are positive, personalized, engaging, and valuable. This is done by creating a visually appealing interface and pairing it with a meaningful experience that is emotional, user-friendly, and accessible without instruction. Companies building digital products like mobile applications, it is critical to creating, retaining, and building business momentum. Why? Simply because poor user experience results in your end users feeling a negative emotional connection to your product. Micro interactions are the small moments in user journey that influence users through feedback, rewards, and direction. These elements can take a good digital product and make it exceptional.

Many of us are unaware of the countless micro interactions we come across on a daily basis because these moments are programmed by keeping social engineering in mind. An example of a micro interaction would be the download animation you see after tapping a file to download or the animation and sound you hear when you lock and unlock your phone. A micro interaction has one single purpose, to create an emotional moment that is engaging, informative  and constructive for next step we want targeted user to perform.

There are four basic elements that make up a micro interaction.

The first is a trigger, which is what initiates the interaction. This could be anything from clicking a specific element on the interface or touching a notification that pops up. A trigger can be user-initiated or a system-initiated trigger, which requires software to initiate an action once certain qualifications are met.

The second element are the rules that determine what happens once a micro interaction has been triggered.

The third is the feedback provided to help the user understand what is happening. While a micro interaction is occurring, anything that the user hears, sees, or feels is considered feedback. In most cases, feedback is provided to show the user that the micro interaction has been successfully completed.

Finally, the fourth, the loops and modes that are used to determine the duration of the interaction and what actions the user needs to make to continue the process of the event. These also determine what happens to a micro interaction when the conditions or rule sets change.

Why Do Micro Interactions Matter?

 

The primary reason why micro interactions matter is because they often evoke a positive, emotional response from the user while simultaneously keeping them engaged and interested. Beyond this, they also help with the following:

  • Website navigation is improved as users find it easier to interact with a website that as mini-directions and feedback,
  • They provide instant and relevant feedback about completed interactions,
  • They provide direction or tip off the user as to whether they are using the website or mobile application correctly,
  • They communicate important information about the design interface of the device or software,
  • By providing visual animation and response, a user feels more rewarded,
  • They encourage the user to like, share, or interact with content,
  • They teach the user how to work within the system they are in,
  • They pull in and direct user attention,

When done right, not only do micro interactions provide immediate visual feedback to the user, but they also influence users’ actions and produce positive feelings about your mobile application, brand, and business.

When Should Micro Interactions Be Used?  

In mobile applications, micro interactions should be used at any time where communication is required with the user.  There are generally seven types of micro interactions that should be used at specific times.

  1. Swiping is probably one of the most well known micro interactions due to how interactive it is. Not only does it help guide the user subconsciously but it can help a user switch between pages or tabs of information in an addictive and fun way.
  2. Whenever a user has to input data, using animations like password strength provides some interactivity to an otherwise frustrating and dull experience. This helps keep users engaged with the process while accomplishing the end-goal.
  3. Animations are used with micro interactions as a way to improve or enable them. They can personify a micro interaction, make a micro interaction interesting, and produce a unique aesthetic style.
  4. A current system status micro interaction is used whenever a user needs to be kept informed about the status of what is happening with the application. For instance, when a user goes to upload a document to the cloud, a status bar keeps the user engaged into what is happening and whether the process is successful or not. If there is no micro interaction at all, a user is more likely to get frustrated and exit the application.
  5. You can make tutorials or information interesting by highlighting and simplifying the features and controls of the application through micro interactions.
  6. A micro interaction can be used to nudge the user towards a call to action by providing a rewarding experience for completing the call to action.
  7. Animated buttons are used to provide a seamless transition from one interaction to another. Within this interaction, things like loading bars and special effects show the user how to move through the engaged process.

How Are Micro Interactions Designed? 

Through careful design experimentation. Animations need to be aesthetically pleasing, functional and enhance the user experience. If you use too many animations, this becomes an annoying user-experience and so developers should focus on minimalistic, intuitive, & entertaining designs that aim to please. 

What Are Some Tools Used to Create Micro Interactions?  

  • If you are able to code micro interactions, use tools like Xcode and Android Studio for mobile, Framer for web and mobile, and CSS animation for just web interactions.
  • If you want to design an interaction between a touch-screen push and a module, you can use both Invision and Marvel.
  • If you want extremely detailed interactions, choose Principle, Adobe CC, Protopie, or Origami Studio.
  • If you want to create interactions and add in animations, use After Effects.

Here are few more examples of Micro Interactions.

    

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Startup Zone Charlottetown, PEI

It would be unfair If Startup Zone does not get a blog post on Personal Blog.

Last 3 months have been crazy as I have been stationed here in Charlottetown , PEI  which certainly has impacted few of the ventures I am involved it.  You almost try to justify about your decision you make. When you are stationed in small town your life tends to slowdown.

Being selected at Innovation PEI , I had an opportunity to select office space at Launch Pad PEI and Atlantic Center as well as at offices in Summerside. But I just wrote an email to Pattric ( CEO SUZ) and He just told me get in. And thats it. I have never seen such welcoming gesture in past.

(I remembered before few years I had approach NIDus for getting one design startup incubated. CEO at NIDus ripped me apart 🙂 After that I have nurtured 3 startups & generated more than USD 2 Mn in Revenue with no external funding.) 

If any good thing has happened to me in last 3 months then it is Startup Zone. I met few amazing folks from SUZ PEI team ( Pattric, Medlyn, Erin are freaking great).

Every workshop I attended has added value into my life learning lesson. This is like a Christmas to me.

If I have reason to come back to Charlottetown PEI  after my vacation then it is Startup Zone PEI.

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5 Most Important contextual tips for your Next IT Project

Be it Small project or large scale project these 5 Principle will ensure to improve success ratio of your next project

  1. Make sure error messages are contextual. Not just plain simple. Based on nature of business error messages should be friendly, strict, humorous but should not be plain.
  2. Make sure all Buttons in your next project are contextual. Do not just end up with “Submit”. Button / Anchors are main call to actions in which drives business. Make-sure to use language which your target audience can understand + enticing enough to drive user action as per your goal.
  3. Show your system’s navigation to 10-15year kid. If he is unable to navigate properly, change navigation system. If system is not easy to navigate users are like to leave & never return back.
  4. Ensure to load your screen with in 3 seconds even at low bandwidth internet. Implement special architecture for low bandwidth internet. User does not trust the app or web which takes more time on loading. If content is not loading with in 3 seconds you are likely to loose the visitor & potential customer.
  5. Make enough effort on Dashboard of the system be it Admin or User. This Screen is going to be used maximum amount of time. If it is not appropriate enough system is going to die quickly ( even before your realise), Every pixel on Dashboard matters. Probably value of every pixel is more then 1 sq.ft space in Manhattan. So give top level effort on making it super useful ( graphs, charts, analytics, updates, setting ,configuration, numbers & what not)
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Sometimes you have to Break Down to go up.

It is so phenomenal that when you grow you tend to slow , everything around you feel is pacing up & you keep thinking how do I pace it up.  In this fast-moving world don’t get broke instead of that break down.

Breaking down seems to be the best approach.

No matter how humongous task is breaking it down in small pieces can help us to achieve it faster and efficiently.  Drill down the simple approach

  • Break it down objectives for daily, weekly , monthly
  • Retrospect progress everyday , revise and readjust for next week.
  • Delegate what can be done by someone else.
  • Only pursue the goal if you are not going to regret the time you will waste if it fails.
  • Keep Hustling

 This year has been really amazing , We increased our Net Profit , Average Hourly Rates by constant & steady improvements in processes and with communication.

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Judgment Call

 

Being an observant personality I tend to observe how people “precept” about others when they meet them first time or how they decide to take relationship further. Here are few of my experience & with sip of tea I am deeply thinking about not being judgemental

Bad Aadmi lagta hai Kapade Achche Pehane the ( He seems to a big man , Was wearing trendy clothes)
One of my friend gave me a feedback after meeting a person. I began wondering how he can be a big man based on clothing ? what is definition of a BIG?

“Party plays in billions”
I & one guy were just walking & discussing about some work at the same time he met one old age looking person. Person was his relative ( not closed one). After few minutes he told me this party plays in billion. I don’t know why he told this or he tagged him with that.

Seems to be a big shot , wears Rolex
Judgement call one more time. someone rated one person that he is a big shot just by meeting once & seeing him having Rolex on his wrist.

“Color” Fool Judgements
Many of friends have problem about racism, we discussed it many times. But when it comes to their own skin preferences about selecting a friend , relationship they tend to forget about their own problem about “Racism” 🙂

 

What is your Judgement call about how you judge others?

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LetsNurture Brings ‘Konnected Art’, iBeacon Technology, with ‘no coding required’ For Museums Management

KonnectedArt-for-museums

iBeacon technology has already been used in diverse industries ranging from retail to hospitality and museums. We’ve seen adoption from a small number of high-profile brands, such as Disney, Hudson’s Bay Company and SXSW.

iBeacons have been proven to boost the purchase intent twenty times.

iBeacon app development constructs a good impact on the retail sales. It is noted that customers are likely to keep a retailer app installed if they received iBeacon notifications through it. The only problem lies in the adoption of a technology that not every consumer is aware of. It’s a particular stretch for small businesses to invest. LetsNurture has introduced KonnectedArt to solve such issues.

iBeacon app development where ‘no coding required’

Museums and Art galleries are one of the industries that have invested in these technologies and are glad to do so. Museums are looking for innovative ways to interact with visitors. KonnectedArt, is an IoT solution that provides the interactive ways to connect the visitors with the art.

A beacon associated with the art or a particular art segment, sends a signal to the server and the server then fetches the data inputs to notify the visitors. The data can be a detailed description of art, an audio or visual display of the description or merely the directions.

Step-by-step implementation of the iBeacon solution for your museum

  • Once you have decided where you want the beacons to be set up, all you have to do is login into the KonnectedArt admin portal.
  • Each beacon comes with an unique ID. You can add details of the art or segment associated with that beacon. The details can be the descriptions or audio/video.

iBeacon solution for your museum

  • You can add custom notification as per the art segment or user type. The visitors get notified about the art as they explore each segment.
  • You can also send personalized notifications according to the users. If you would like to notify the audience about the upcoming event that is specific for jewelry designing, you can target the female visitors as a priority.

KonnectedArt for museums

KonnectedArt for museums – More features with no coding

A customized iBeacon app, KonnectedArt, makes it possible for the museum owners to send location-specific information and create awesome user experiences, such as:

Digitize Information: Replace brochures, pamphlets and other printed material with beacons that transmit online content. Save time and money printing and update the content in real-time to be more environmentally friendly.

Self-guided Tours: Create multimedia tour guides for cities, museums, galleries and attractions with iBeacon app development. Let the visitors use their smartphones as their guide. Provide your visitors with indoor maps, photos, videos, and audio to interact with the art at their own pace.

Floor Management: The museum management can rely on the real-time dashboard to manage the peak hours. When any floor or area gets too congested, the admin can notify the visitors and manage the flow indisputably.

Automation & IoT: Share information in real-time. Let the visitors know about the latest news and events happening in your museums and art galleries.

Reach us to learn more

LetsNurture is a leading IT service provider with vintage experience of website development and mobile app development. We provide extensive IoT solutions to varied industries. With an initiative to connect the museums and art galleries to their audiences, we have incepted ‘KonnectedArt’, an iBeacon solution.

Get a free quote from us or write to us info@letsnurture.com.

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The beginning of screenless design: UI jobs to be taken over by Solution Architect

UI-Design-LetsNurture

When your mobile responds to your voice command or just a single touch, the time taken for mobile app design and development reduces. Not in terms of features or functionality but in terms of development. The design aspect of the mobile application development will be less of a hassle with the screenless architecturing.

Typically, the solution architect renders the requirements created by functional analysts into the architecture for that solution and describing it through architecture and design artifacts. But with the idea of screenless designing, I have a strong belief that the solution architects will take over the job of UI designing. Here are few points that will support the statement that I just mentioned.

1. Voice command will do majority of the task

  • Siri : Book a ride for me
  • Amazon Echo:  Play Lincoln Lawyer on Netflix

With Alexa application development, the surge in the demand of Amazon Echo has been notable. Apple has freshly launched it’s HomePod. It is fitted with Siri and has been designed to rival the Amazon Echo and Google Home speakers. The revolution of technology is inevitable.

2. Chatbot development is enhancing the customer service industry

With chatbot development, you do not need separate screens for all processes Chatbot can bring information in same window as per desire of the user.

  • Chatbot for Domino’s : Entire booking process can be integrated in one window.
  • Chatbot for Hyatt: Once the user enters the booking date and requirements of the room to be booked, Chatbot handles the entire booking process by just few commands of the user.

3. Collaborative Layers

With multiple layers like google maps and other social media app interfaces, the custom functions have become ease of navigation. Functions like sharing picture has become easy with a feature that enables sharing without even having to be on that app. Few of the examples of such mobile apps are listed below:

  • Book a ride option from Google Maps reduces screen visits at UBER or Ola.
  • Custom Notifications where you can reply or do few action on notification itself reduces screen usage at the app.
  • Deep linking : deep linking will help user to directly navigate at the right screen which eventually reduces a screen usage.

4. Storage Economy

Everything we do involves a cost in it. More Screen needs means cost of development will be high, more screens means more API calls means more bandwidth means more expense on server infrastructure. More Screens means more storage required at user device means more expense at user end.

5. IoT & Rise of Bluetooth Devices

Gartner, Inc. forecasts that 8.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2017.

We have seen rise of bluetooth devices which eventually help devices to talk with each other without manual intervention. And this will lead to less screen design need. Yes you can call it AI & Machine Learning but more or less it is just a system design, system should be self sufficient to act without manual intervention, that is what technology needs to do right. Doing right things at right time without being supervised.

6. Pile of Screen Resolutions

It makes a lot of sense to reduce screen usage because world has gone exponentially in-terms of screen resolution , there has been new adaption on auto layout for mobile apps , responsive web design for web user interface also to deal with multiple resolution.

More Mobile Less Time

As we have witnessed that the world has become mobile, very mobile rather, this changing on marketing strategy has become unavoidable. Earlier it was like how system can be designed in a way that customer spends most of the time in the mobile app. Now architecture is being thought differently and prime focus is on getting the right information at right time without any hassle. This strategy ensures you happy customers. You send motivational quotes to your friends every day to stay engaged with them versus you help your friend when they need. Which one will be more effective?

I believe, if you are into UI/UX Design field start thinking to build your system screen less or with less screens. And if you are solution architect you should master this architecture.

Tweet us your thoughts on Twitter @letsnurture or drop a post on the official FaceBook page of LetsNurture. Share your thoughts with us, we will be happy to have a discussion on the same.

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Business is Built on Relationship

I want to discuss about the foundation about how relationships boosts our business. My friends often ask me about strategy to develop any new startup. I can spend hours talking about choosing in perfect networking events, finding right sales people, training on products and services and much more. But everything boils down within one sentence “Business is built on relationships.”

What does that mean actually? Relationships are like two sides of the coin and if you want to a successful one then it needs work. And I look my business relationships as personal relationships and I do care about each and every person as much as I value business. I can point out some.

business relationship
business relationship

Relate your Client

Here relating to client doesn’t mean how product or service is relevant to theirs. Let me explain, it is important to discuss these areas but also it is necessary to know your client on a personal level as well. What I am trying to say is get into some common topic and discuss about it. Many a times we get to caught up trying to negotiate business and we almost forget to get to know the person we are trying to do business with. We have many people having a great business minds and plans, a good product/service but they don’t always have someone they like that offers these solutions.

Respond your Client

Always respond genuinely after responding your client. Get them aware that you understood their concerns and convince them to offers best solutions for their problems. I can’t elaborate many sales employees, I’ve watched have failed to respond in the way that they are listening to the client’s needs. When we respond in a way that shows we have best interest in mind fills the distance in our relationship.

Align your Solutions with needs of Clients

Elaborate how exactly your products and service offers best applicable solutions, how they fit needs and give them reason why it works better than other alternate solutions. To know this your should be well-versed with your competitors’ products/services. And to reveal your solution as a best one, you need to understand their needs better than they do.

Be Reliable

Make yourself available to answer questions smoothly, add value to what they are trying to do. When we are reliable for our clients we can enable them to lean on us with trust. They will question our solution less as they will understand that we will maintain relationship, do not compromise with the value in working with them.

Recover after Setbacks

Each relation has a setback. We are never going to be able to deliver completely on expectations since they will be many unpredicted reasons. Make sure the client knows how important their need it to you. Suggest solutions, work for resolve  and find smooth over the problem. Taking responsibility is not always someone needs, many a times they simply want you not to point a finger and jump in aggressively to find a solution to the problem. When we work to recover from a problem we bring back the trust into our business relationships as we see that we can accept ownership of problems and handle them without any hassles.

Know why your customer opted your solutions

It’s important to know what your customers bought rather than what you sold them. And more importantly, it is important to know why they bought it. We think they bought our services because we turned out to be reliable to them or cheaper to them or they had no other offers for them. But the real reason can only be explained by understanding your customer’s requirements and the real reason why they want that particular solution.

Obviously, business is built on relationships and if we can build our relationships stronger, our success will grow exponentially.

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Google goes Cloud – Enterprise Cloud Strategy

During Cloud Next event in San Francisco, the team of Google segmented the roadmap for its cloud business. Having more than 10,000 attendees, the event also resembled the world that it is ready to take on the enterprises.

Having a hard work since 18 months to get a position to the cloud market, it has been a strong player. The top executives didn’t miss the opportunity to pitch its cloud platform to enterprises. Though Amazon and Microsoft are major player of this game, Google is using some of its deep strengths to provide the differentiate platform to the customers.

Let’s go through some takeaways from Google Cloud Next 2017.

Securing the cloud

The first priority for Google is to maintain security for its cloud platform. It is all about innovating in the fields of key management, compliance, multi-factor authentication and data loss prevention.

Secure access to enterprise application without using VPN is done with the help of Identity-Aware Proxy. It limits the access of user identity and groups that comes up with integrated phishing resistant Security key.

Data Loss Prevention (DLP) API scans data for many tactful data types and automatically edits them. Customers can find and edit the sensitive data that is store in GCP with few API calls.

Customer wins by securing enterprise

The case studies of Google’s cloud base were based on Spotify, Snapchat etc. Though it was a large implementation, they are not considered as traditional enterprise companies. Now, Google claims impressive customer list that includes Verizon, Disney, HSBC, eBay etc. Adding these brands in the keynote, Google made a statement that its cloud platform is enterprise-ready.

GCP into a data-centric cloud platform

The secret sauce of Google is data and analytics. Being, one of the Big Data and Machine Learning, the company is turning it into a differentiating factor. GCP has list of Machine learning services in the form of Cloud ML engine, Cloud Vision API, Cloud Jobs API and Advanced Solution Lab (ASL). Developers can explore video content by providing information about the entities within the video content with the help of Cloud Video Intelligence API.

Cloud Dataprep is a new service that aims to make the extract, transform, and load (ETL) jobs easier on GCP, build in the collaboration with Trifacta. The GCP customers can now analyze commercial datasets that are coming from Xignite, Remine, AccuWeather and HouseCanary with BigQuery. 

Boosting Developers Productivity

Google announced the fleet of services, new features and tools to bring the developer productivity. App Engine now supports a flexible deployment model based on containers. Developers can choose from multiple languages, runtimes, and frameworks to run their mobile application in the cloud.

Enabling deployment workloads in GCp, Google has launched a service called Cloud Container Builder where developers can develop complex CI/CD pipelines to manage the workflow of containerized applications running on Google Cloud Platform.

Commitment to Open-source and Multi-platform

Kubernetes and Tensor Flow are making significant strides in the open source. Google donated Kubernetes, container orchestration platform to Cloud Native Computing Foundation and Tensor Flow, an open source Machine Learning platform powers the managed Cloud ML engine. Google collaborating with Pivotal Labs made Kubernetes deployment accessible across multiple cloud platforms.

Talking about multi-cloud deployments, CloudEndure, a GCP partner, enables one-click migration of VMs from other platforms to Google Cloud. Google’s Stackdriver is a multi-cloud monitoring platform that works across GCP and AWS.

Collaborating with the Proven leaders

At Google Cloud Next, the company made few announcements about involvement of some independent software vendors and global system integrators. Google was often criticized for the lack of ecosystem for its cloud business.

HANA to GCP is integrated that includes the certification of  SAP HANA on GCP, new G Suite integrations, and collaboration on building machine learning features into intelligent applications, bringing Google and SAP partnership into the picture.

Rackspace, the leader in managed services partnered with the Google cloud to become one of the first managed services support partner.

Since many enterprises are using Microsoft Windows, Google is presently working with principal SIs from the Microsoft ecosystem to integrate workloads to GCP.

Concluding Note

Concluding all, Google is trying to transform itself into an enterprise-friendly company by figuring out a niche being the most open and developer friendly. With Google Next, the company tried to consolidate its place in the market. It implicits the strong message that Google Cloud is yet to stay. Though AWS and Azure are top players in the game, but Google is moving at the rapid pace, inching closer to become  a viable alternative to Amazon and Microsoft’s public cloud.

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My team participated in Vibrant Gujarat event

vibrant-gujarat-2017

I’m glad for my teammates of LetsNurture and KarConnect who joined Vibrant Gujarat and made me proud. My team had a great experience in this 8th edition of Global Summit. Before I share their experience, let me elaborate about the event.

The event took place for the week from 9th of January to 13th of January. We had many visitors at our stall – NRIs, students, delegates, even farmers, tech enthusiasts and many more. My team was keen to explain each and every one to index different unique business challenges for enterprises and real world.

I think my team being there, made a remarkable transformation. It was so cool to see how people came up to our stall to know about our unique and remarkable solutions.

Though I was not the part of the event but the experiences they shared with me, I still feel the waves if I was there. I take it as a sign that this was a great event throughout and something that was right to me.

So a huge thank you to my LetsNurture and KarConnect team, the volunteers and guests, because we together make an awesome community.  I hope to look forward this event again and for now; stay, feel and stay connected with us!