According to the latest statistics by Business Insider, 58% of the mobile retail revenue has been driving the top 500 brands in 2014. In-app purchases account for the rest of the business. Another study by Google indicates that 82% of smart phone users choose to browse retail websites on their phones rather than on their computers. Today, there is a mobile app for simply everything. For businesses, this has implications far deeper than gaining leads and enhancing revenue streams. Here’s a list of top 5 retail apps that every modern business should utilize to their benefit –

Vend POS

Vend POS has been integrated with the iPad and enable businesses to connect with clients and global customers at any given time. Used by businesses all over the globe, Vend POS can be integrated with receipt printers, barcode scanners and cash drawers. Making financial transactions, reporting, and building analytics for your business is made simple on this app. Even without an active internet connection, Vend POS allows a seamless business process. The software has been further integrated with programs like Shopify, Alidrop, Timely, Xero, and Stitchlabs.

PayPal Here

Another innovative app for iPad users, PayPal Here lets you to accept payments and do transactions just by connecting to mobile device and dedicated PayPal dongles. It is a highly trusted transaction platform for many businesses across the globe and further allows the business to send e-receipts over email and text messages. Since it requires customers to check in with their mobile devices, PayPal Here is also a beneficial tool to personalize interactions and guarantees a repeat purchase.

Collect

Collect has been developed to engage businesses in making repeated business out of first time sales. Used by many businesses globally, Collect integrates customer loyalty and reward programs to attract customers to do repeated purchases. Personalized marketing exchanges also enable the businesses to increase foot traffic sales and establish push notifications. Companies can use it as a tool to track every customer’s shopping history and send customized notifications.

RetailNext

RetailNext has long been used as an in-store solution, helping collect massive amount of customer data and actionable insights to engage and convert. The application taps into several data sources including Wi-Fi, POS Systems, and promotional calendars, staffing systems, weather and much more. The app also organizes and converts all such data into reports and graphs that are easy to understand.

Xero

Xero enables your business to stay updated on your financial front even when you are not connected to the internet. The app allows you to approve, create and generate invoices using your mobile device. The application will help you upload receipts and track expenses. The automation features integrated with this app lets you import and categorize transactions on the go, allowing the business to focus on the core business activities rather than spending time on daily balance sheets.

Modern day retailing is all about simplifying the way we buy and sell. Do write in to us and let us know which apps from the above list are a part of your digital marketing strategies.

Higher education covers an exciting and interesting time in the lives of student- a time full of revelations and intricate learning which lets them excel in their domains of choice. Like other education sectors, the teaching and learning methods of the modern higher education sector have also been duly influenced by new technological innovations and development. Computers and smart devices now enable higher education students and teachers to make use of a whole new set of tools to enhance and enliven the learning experience.

Apps designed especially for use in the education sector have livened things up, and their appropriate use in the higher education sector can significantly improve the rate, quality and longevity of knowledge absorption. Here are a few of the most important education apps meant for use in the higher education sector –

1. Google Apps for Education – Internet behemoths Google have tailored a suite of web and mobile applications meant for use in the education sector and christened it Google Apps for Education. In essence, this is a collection of Google apps which are tuned for collaborative use. It provides teachers with a means to share and grade assignments on a group basis using the popular Google Docs platform. Accessing daily routines and schedule management can be accomplished via the Google Calendar. Google Story Builder focuses on the writing and expression abilities of student. These well-fashioned tools, accompanied with other important apps, make this a must-use in the higher education sector.
2. TED – This fascinating app can be a major source of education inspiration for those pursuing higher education. The app combines a large volume of intriguing and thought-provoking lectures, seminars and talks by people who are recognized as world leaders in the field of education, innovation and mastery of their subjects of choice. The entire database is available for users and can be viewed on multiple devices, with subtitle support covering more than 90 languages around the world.
3. Duolingo – Learning a new language is often a key activity in higher education. With Duolingo, learning a new language becomes easy and intuitive. The app engrosses students with a fun and interesting learning process that involves challenges, real-world scenarios and exciting tests. The multiple exercise types and detailed pronunciation guides keep things interesting, and students have the option of grading their progress on a daily basis.
4. iTeacherBook – This user-friendly application is a detailed schedule management system for college and university teachers and students. With the clean and navigable interface, teachers can set up multiple classes, post their class schedules online and instantly share it with their students. Course management, lecture management and attendance management are also integrated into the program. Teachers also have the option to set up assignments and manage student grades.
5. Evernote – This immensely popular note-taking app is a hot favorite among students. It gives them the option to jot down their ideas and keep a record of important information for later use. Used creatively, this can be a fun platform for thought-mapping and help students with their assignments, theses and dissertations.

Do write in your comments if you have been using any of these apps, to share your feedback of its effectiveness in your learning or teaching endeavors.

2014 marked a substantial increase in usage, quality and quantity of mobile apps. While app stores for Android and iOS crossed more than a million apps hosted way back in January 2014, it also set a new high in terms of downloads. As of Oct ’14, there were 85 billion downloads in Apple app store¹

With games (20.38%), education (10.36%) and business (9.43%)² forming the top 3 segments of apps available on app stores in September 2014, smartphone user interest has certainly been versatile. The downloads came from a large swathe of industries and niches including publishing, games, entertainment, music, stores, utility, enterprise and others. Since the birth of smartphones, apps have not only been attracting extensive investment from marketers of all forms but also converting it into billions of dollars as revenues. This trend is only set to grow further, and the onslaught of several startups is only going to fuel the practice. Now that we are well into 2015, here’s looking back at the best trends set in the app market.

Growth of messaging apps

From WeChat (438 million users in Nov ‘14) to Facebook Messenger (200 million) and several players like Viber (105 million), Line (170 million), and KakaoTalk (50 million), messaging apps have seen a massive increase led by WhatsApp (600 million)³. Smartphone users have been found to set a clear division between communicating through a social network (Facebook messenger) and exclusive messaging apps. However, messaging apps of today aren’t just limited to texts and picture messages. Today, to send a video instantly, one needn’t create and send an MMS. It can be easily done over platforms like Lettrs and Cyber Dust and more importantly in a bare minimum of data usage. Messaging apps are also integrating music, shopping and even games to make the interface much more entertaining and engaging.

Educational apps

There has been a substantial rise in the number of educational apps in 2014. Tablets and smartphones are proving to be a great means of information exchange and spreading awareness. In some schools in California, iPads have been included in the school kit to create better access to education and syllabuses. This certainly is a great moment for developers as their designs are directly helping create a better society and not just entertaining kids (games).

Enterprise apps

Some of the most innovative apps brought into the stores have been developed by companies, to be used by their staff. Enterprise apps have been able to break the barrier and create remote collaborations and easier team building. Taking a closer look, enterprise apps like HP Flow CM, Worx Home, IBM Worklight and Quip have been able to bring about a change in the way companies and entrepreneurs do business.

Free gaming

Gaming has always been a much wanted accessory with mobile device. However, since the launch of smartphones, gaming has gained much prominence among users. 2014 has seen a rise in constructive and free-to-use gaming apps with popular titles like Candy Crush Saga, Lumosity, The New York Times Crossword and Angry Birds.

Internet of things

The most talked about titles in the app world come from the wearable apps, including Google Glass and Smart Watches. While there is a lot of technological challenge involved in this category, they seem to be the hottest topics in the Android and iOS marketplaces.

Stepping into 2015, we can only say that the app industry will continue to spread its wings and we certainly can expect to be impressed.

1- http://www.statista.com/statistics/263794/number-of-downloads-from-the-apple-app-store/
2 – http://www.statista.com/statistics/270291/popular-categories-in-the-app-store/
3 – http://was-gb.wascdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Slide41.png

A successful app development for iOS entails close collaboration between iOS developers and graphic designers. Any disconnect between the two delays the app development process, leading to an infuriated client. In order to ensure seamless workflow between developers and designers, we have listed below a few practical and easy to follow tips for designers that save time, reduce iterations, and speed up the iOS app development process significantly-

1. Honesty at the mock up stage – At the initial stage, use only those deigns in the mock up that delivers value to the full developed app. At the mock-up stage there are a lot of unknown variables that need to be accounted for

a. will the app being developed be the right fit for your designs?
b. will your design respect the dynamism or uncertainty of real life and adjust well to actual elements, layout, data, or content?

This tip will make certain that developers’ screen mock-up truly depicts how the app will look like at the stage- i.e. when not all information is at hand.

2. Close collaboration – Constant and open communication is a must between developers and designers. As a designer, you can sit with developers and see how your designs get programmed into living entities within the app. This helps maintain overall consistency of the color and theme of the app and prevents any disconnect with what the designer delivers versus what the developer expects.

3. Avoid redundancy – If possible and applicable, you can deliver a similar set of elements as a template that can be customized further by developer and then applied appropriately. For instance, if you are designing a button element, there need not be separate buttons for ‘ok’, ‘cancel’, ‘submit’, ‘search’ etc. Developers can easily add the label upon blank buttons wherever required.

4. Design prototypes – There are tools that help designers convey a dummy depiction of how different elements will be arranged and brought together. Developers will get a sense of the different action, navigation and animation put together by you and thus remove any confusion. You can try out tools such as Invision and Proto.io to create such productive design prototypes.

5. File delivery – Developers already have a lot going on to accomplish app development. Some useful piece of advice for designers to help reduce overheads on developers would be-

a. Sorted delivery – You can make folders per screen of the app and dump all images in it. You can also put in a screenshot of entire screen with placement of various elements to avoid confusion.

b.Consistency – You would need to ensure that all elements are consistent. For instance all images should be .PNG (and not a mix of .JPG and .PNG)

c. iOS oriented – Images need to be both high res (for retina display of recent iOS devices) and low res (for older iOS devices). Also follow the universal naming convention (for e.g. suffix high res images with “@2x”).

These steps will ensure that the deliverable can be easily used by developers further in the app development process. Got any other useful point to add to the above list? Write in to us and let us know.

In today’s frantic technology driven world, mobile app have created a strong niche in a short span of time. When 25% of international media and marketing executives view mobile as the most disruptive force in their industry ¹, it is time to sit up and take notice Having a small business app developed for its service/product offerings could help give emerging and nascent businesses a solid platform to chart the growth map by capturing the formidable mobile audience.

The need for such apps is further corroborated by the fact that by end of 2014, mobile usage is predicted to overtake desktop usage ². Having said that it is essential to know what features can help in sustained interaction and engagement that will in turn help close sales and earn business through the mobile. Today let us have a glimpse at some of the must-have features which could tip the scales in your favor:

1. Seamless Social Media Integration:

Before everything else, this clearly is the need of the hour! We are living in a world of social media boom. You simply cannot undermine the importance of this aspect. Having mobile apps and social media business pages separately proves cumbersome for smooth management and increases abandonment rate. Hence, business apps need to be seamlessly combined with the respective social media profiles.

2. Location Based Services:

You can employ this strategy to give your company increased chances of business from mobile users in the vicinity. You can showcase your outreach with the help of location check-ins. Moreover, you can optimize customer satisfaction by giving them area specific offers, discounts, and special prices.

3. Customizability:

In a world of mobile revolution, people have gained heightened app sensitivity. That’s right! Users want their apps to represent their preferences, tastes, hobbies and likes. They need the power of customization. Changes like appearance modifications, notification settings, saving personal information and managing order history need to be incorporated within the app for best results.

4. Simplicity:

Apps with simple yet enticing interface and navigability will promote ease of understanding, improved readability, and seamless internal mobility. Too many advertisements and offers can act as deal breakers. ‘Minimalistic’ is the new buzzwords adopted by leading players such as Apple to great effect.

5. Payment Processing Methods:

Make sure that your customers have access to single button payment features [Credit cards, bank transfers, online banking, etc.] so you never get to miss ever a single business sale due to cart abandonment or long-winding checkout process.

6. Timely yet Relevant Communication:

Push emails and push messages optimize customer communication by a significant margin. Users will appreciate getting to know about new offers, deals, discounts or early bird rewards that will sweeten their online purchase.

7. Monetary Management:

Take care to have a robust and secure gateway and backend to –

• Integrate Bank Accounts
• Monitor payments and sales
• Manage payroll and orders anytime, anywhere
• Track Invoices

8. Shipping and Delivery Management:

Allow your precious customers to get real time updates regarding the whereabouts of their package information once the payment has been done. Keeping them informed about the status of delivery till the time it reaches them instill a sense of confidence in customers’ minds – a factor that possesses a great recall value.

9. Comprehensive Feedback System:

Give your users the power to communicate with you directly or indirectly via comments, periodical surveys, FAQs, discussion forums and forms. Getting a chance to review and post feedback provides further impetus to customers to try out your business app again as they know that their comments are being acted upon.

1 – As appearing in http://blogs.sap.com/innovation/mobile-applications/8-statistics-every-business-should-know-about-mobile-0363048

2- http://www.convinceandconvert.com/mobile/7-mobile-marketing-stats-that-will-blow-your-mind/

Rapid prototyping is nothing but submission of mock-up design (wireframes) about how a system should look and function upon full-fledged release. The system can be anything – a software, an app or a website. With rapid prototyping, stakeholders get a glimpse of what the fully ready design will look like and how it will behave. This will then undergo validation from leadership executive, developers, designers and other associated stakeholders.

The core purpose of this activity is to ensure that all perspectives are clearly factored in when doing actual development and thus save costs, time and effort in multiple iterations afterwards. When prototyping, you need to focus on the key/common functionality that will be used the most. Anything that is new, complex or routinely used functionality but needs security will definitely go through prototyping.

The process

The three key stages of rapid prototyping process include –

1. Prototype – is the development of sketches or simulations that mock-up the actual solution
2. Assess – this is then shared with key stakeholders for their review and feedback
3. Revise – all feedback is incorporated into the prototype and made ready for further fine tuning

As more feedback keep getting added the prototype grows in scope and assumes a full-fledged pre-development design. The term ‘Rapid’ refers to the quick time in which the mock-up goes through a series of iterations to evolve into something concrete.

Fidelity in prototyping

Fidelity refers to the amount of effort/time involved to make prototype nearer to the actual product. So, low fidelity (wireframes) will be a rough pencil sketch far removed from the actual working system (more practical in the initial iterations), while high fidelity is as realistic to actual system as it gets – by use of high end simulator tools (this will be practical when all feedback has been collected and incorporated into the prototype).

Depending on the stage at which the development happens or the end objective of the prototype, fidelity can also encompass one or more of the below dimensions of fidelity –

1.Visual fidelity – This tackles the look and feel aspect of prototyping. It can range from rough pencil sketches of the mock-up to hi-fi stylized versions. More focus should be on the UI aspect here.

Juicy Tip – Don’t go high end in the first stage itself as the mock up is bound to take shape and evolve further post gathering feedback from stakeholders. As the process progresses, you can bring in individual elements such as color, graphics, high-res images etc.

 2. Content fidelity – This tackles the way content placement will affect the overall look of the application or website.

Juicy Tip – Start off by placing dummy text (“Lorem ipsum…”) into the rough sketches just to fill up the blank space on layout. As the design keeps getting better you can replace this with actual content to gauge its impact.

 3. Behavioral fidelity – This dimension shows whether the prototype will be static or dynamic / interactive when presented to stakeholders.

Juicy Tip – Initially, keep interactivity to the minimum as focus should be on layout and visual appeal. Later on you can add elements of interactivity to make the behaviors as similar to actual system as possible. This way the subsequent iterations can be utilized for usability testing and user experience.

GoodWorkLabs specialises in User Experience (UX) for software products, mobile apps, games and enterprise products. Request for a free quote for your UX, prototyping and design needs.