All posts by [x]cube LABS

[x]cube LABS is a leading digital strategy and solution provider specializing in enterprise mobility space. Over the years, we have delivered numerous digital innovations and mobile solutions, creating over $ 2 billion for startups and enterprises. Broad spectrum of services ranging from mobile app development to enterprise digital strategy makes us the partner of choice for leading brands.

Blog, Quality Assurance/Testing

How To Effectively Implement A Mobile Testing Strategy?

July 24, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Wearable health and iPhone

With a phenomenal rise in the usage of smartphones and tablets, we’ve reached an era where mobile devices have become an integral and inseparable part of our life. As per the latest statistics, nearly 80% of world’s adult population own a smartphone – which gives ample scope to businesses to create extremely useful lifehacks via mobile applications. And with that comes into picture the need for proper mobile application testing process to ensure that the app’s quality and performance are flawless. To achieve this, it’s imperative that testers have a good mobile testing strategy in place.

So, what’s a mobile testing strategy? It’s a description of the plan of action to be followed in the testing cycle to let PMs, app developers and testers know of certain key processes involved in the testing part of the app development. App testing happens at two levels

Native Apps testing

This has become very significant no, as testers need to verify whether native apps can be easily downloaded on to the phone from the Playstore or AppStore, and executed without difficulty. The QA also has to determine how the app is interacting with the backend support. Native apps testing also becomes important when updates to the app need to be pushed, or when major changes are made to the app or the OS on the device(s). Therefore, it is essential that the app be tested on multiple physical devices and the older generations of devices to ensure backward compatibility.

Web apps testing

While dealing with web apps that have to be deployed on to mobile devices, testers need to understand that web apps are viewed by users across the world – so they need to think about the scalability factor at the global level rather than at the local level.

Getting the right app testing strategy in place depends on the complexity of your app, your industry and also on which kind of app is being developed – native, hybrid or web. A tester needs to put in a lot of thought and effort in creating a successful mobile application testing strategy. However, creating a test strategy isn’t very easy as, at times, testing becomes difficult due to the following factors

Device Selection

Selection of different devices is the most crucial part to start testing because there are tens of thousands of devices in use by millions of consumers worldwide to open mobile apps. So, the device selected should make the experience perfect for different customers who use your mobile application.

Physical devices can achieve 100% test coverage and provide good results. Different types of testing activities may be performed to confirm that the application is tested perfectly.

Device Model

While choosing any device model there are different options that need to be considered.

OS Version: The mobile apps need to be tested on different OS platforms to ensure consistency.
Screen Resolution: Portrait & landscape are the different screen resolutions that need to be considered while testing any application.
Memory Size: It plays a key role in understanding how the usage is for that particular app.
Connectivity Options: Bluetooth & WiFi are two main connectivity options to be considered and tested.

Emulators

An emulator is a software that can emulate the behavior of one or more mobile devices. A Quality Analyst can use emulators to test that particular app in different devices with different versions. Besides being highly efficient, emulators tend to be cost-effective as well. Emulators such as Jennymotion and Bluestack are good for testing the app’s basic functionality, especially in an agile environment or when features are under development. Emulators also help in effective testing of the app in all possible scenarios. Beta testing an app – either on emulators or on real devices can help testers understand how users use the app and how the app behaves on different mobile devices

Automation vs Manual

Automation tools are good to test any application in emulators to avoid manual work, and reduce time and cost. The tools available in the market such as SeeTest, QTP, Selenium and TestNG will help in covering multiple categories of tests using different scripting languages. However, it is advisable to use device OS-specific tools to carry out the testing process across platforms while development is still in process. Automation can be performed in the following scenarios

When a new OS version is released, the application compatibility should be verified.
When an application is updated, the compatibility factor needs to be checked.

Cloud Testing

Cloud computing allows users to provide a web-based testing environment where apps can be deployed and tested. So, cloud testing can be very effective in testing mobile apps. Complex apps can be tested perfectly as cloud testing environment provides real-time testing results which means defects can be analyzed while testing is in progress.

Conclusion

In mobile application testing, selection of devices & emulators before creating the application testing strategy is considered as perfect to achieve good results for the apps we tested. All these testing strategies and practices can help all those involved in the app development to overcome obstacles of mobile application testing, while making it easy to test mobile apps in all possible scenarios and strategies.

Chevulapelli Nikhil works as QA Engineer at [x]cubeLABS and experienced in Mobile and Web Application Testing. His expertise in testing extends to different domains like Education, Hardware Integration, Finance & Healthcare.

Blog, Gamification

Gamification For User Engagement & Retention

July 22, 2015 [x]cube LABS

The concept of applying game mechanics and game design techniques to engage and motivate users to achieve their goals.

In other words, Gamification is the use of game mechanics in a non-game context to engage users or solve problems.

Game Mechanics is a combination of Design, Rules and Tools intended to produce a Game play.

Game play is a way in which players interact with a Game.

Good Game play = Good Game = Engagement.

There are different kinds of games and over the years they became more complex, more interactive and more real. All of them have something in common, A special feature that drives us to spend more time playing making us feel like we’re part of the game. This is called Gamification.

A guy steps out of the elevator with a laptop bag and smart formals, swipes his card and enters a floor where only hi-tech systems are visible with lots of “heads” behind them. He walks to a system, logs in and starts hitting the keys on the keyboard. He does this for 8 hours (of course with all tea-biscuit-smoke breaks) and leaves for the day.

Before going any further, read the above sentence continuously for 10 times. I bet you won’t even be able to do it more than 3 times. Why? Your interest is lost. When an adult can’t even read four lines 10 times, how can we expect a kid of 10 years to do the same problem or write the same spelling again and again?

Now let’s start a small game. Imagine there is a crossword table in front of you on a screen. Start filling it. Once you’re done, a sentence will be displayed saying, ‘He was going at the speed of light and suddenly there was a loud bang’. Immediately, one more crossword table comes and throws an alert saying if you want to continue the story complete the crossword puzzle-2. To know what was the reason behind the bang, you will definitely try to solve the puzzle. After solving it comes the second line. By using such a sequence can’t we make kids learn “Algebra” or “Trigonometry”? This process is known as Gamification.

Maimonides, a Jewish philosopher in 1100s, once stated: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

In the present-day, using gamification we can state “Teach a man to fish, he will be fed for a lifetime. Teach a man an interesting way to fish, he will teach his heir too.”

While the potential of Gamification was realised by the intelligentsia in 2010, it was originally coined by Nick Pelling, a British computer programmer, in 2002.

The three pillars that Gamification is founded on are

1. Achievements

Achievements can be divided further into 3 factors

Progress: (Saying game is XX% complete, Motivate the user to progress further)

Badges: (Awarding users various types of Badges with respect to their progress and Game play)

High scores: (Displaying list of top users and displaying ‘zero’ before the score of the top user, This shows he is first but there is a lot more in the game to Achieve)

2. Competition

Competition can be further divided into 2 factors

Opponent: (Competition in Progress, Badges and High score)

Pride: (Leader boards, Displaying the list with respect to their positions in the game)

3. Fun

can be further divided into 2 factors

Easy: (Learning how to play or do things in the game should be easy)

Challenging: (Each level that the user passes should be challenging)

Areas where gamification can be implied include Physiotherapy, Wellness, Teaching, and Mechanical engineering, etc.

Over 95% of the youth plays video games. They live it, eat it, breathe it and will embrace gamification! Roughly 50% of the current Internet population plays social games.

So how can enterprises leverage gamification to increase revenue? According to me, by following/maintaining the Achievements, Competition and Fun elements, we can motivate the user(s) to play more and to make In-app Purchases.

Keep running stories like “Panchatantra” to make kids play the characters of the story. It gives enjoyment along with teaching moral values. We can increase productivity in offices by making employees play various puzzles, crosswords, etc.

Finally, I would like to say that Gamification is a great way to motivate users to do what you want them to do as it leverages our love for competition and reward, and uses it to encourage certain actions of the game.

Sairam Reddy works as Senior QA Engineer at [x]cubeLABS and has over 3 years of experience in Mobile and Web Application Testing. His expertise in testing extends to different domains like Gaming, Health Care, Finance, Logistics and Travel.

Blog, Enterprise Mobility

9 Simple Steps To A Winning Enterprise Mobile Strategy

July 15, 2015 [x]cube LABS

From ‘we too need an app’ to ‘mobile as a strategy’ and ‘optimize mobility benefits’ enterprise mobility has travelled lot of distance. Today, mobile technology is at the heart of every business strategy fueling innovation, new efficiency gains and driving profits and customer satisfaction. A robust enterprise mobile strategy has become essential for enterprises. A comprehensive strategy offers numerous benefits such as:

Leveraging your existing enterprise technology like ERP, CRM, etc., and integrating the existing IT infrastructure to derive optimum results.
Improving adoption rates by focusing on user-centricity.
Enabling enterprise-wide adoption—connecting people, products and processes.
Maximizing productivity by speeding up responsiveness to employee needs and process requirements.
Making the organization more agile and responsive to customer needs and, thereby, boosting brand perception.
Maximizing results and returns from investments on mobility solutions by widening its scope and coverage.
Allowing businesses to create sustainable and clear policies for mobile governance.

But where to begin? Here are 9 simple steps to a winning mobile strategy

1. Define Business Goals

State the purpose of enabling mobility in your enterprise. What are your high-priority business goals? What type of apps will help you reach those goals? Look outside, as well as, within your organization, to identify opportunities for mobile.

2. Prepare Mobility Roadmap

Once you have a set of business goals that you wish to achieve through mobility, the next step is to find the desired mobile devices and apps that will help you reach those goals. For each mobile solution, you need to build a case summary that lists key benefits, functions, target users and target beneficiaries, etc. Prioritizing these mobile solutions based on your set business goals will evolve into a mobility roadmap.

3. Do user Workflow analysis

Any mobility solution will replace an existing workflow process. Therefore, it is important to do a comprehensive analysis of the existing process before it is mobilized. This will not only help you improve the existing process, but will also help you measure the impact of mobilizing the particular process and justify the costs.

4. Prepare a Technology Blueprint

Designing a technology blueprint has several facets, including deciding on a mobile platform, OS and device selection, device procurement strategy—company sponsored or BYOD— core mobility architecture, mobile app development strategy, security policy, app and device management strategy and wireless connectivity requirements, etc.

5. Set a Budget for Mobility

Many organizations make the mistake of combining a mobile budget with IT, which often results in confusion and, at times, pushes mobile investments down the priority ladder. You need to create a separate budget for your mobility efforts. What are you planning to invest today, in the next six months and in the next few years? Breaking up the budget for processes, departments, etc., will enable you to build an accurate ROI model.

6. Draw an Implementation Roadmap

The mobile implementation roadmap will allow you to assess the current state of mobility in the organization, to compare it against the business goals, and to set up the timeframe and work process to realize it. Since an implementation roadmap requires the identification of risks and dependencies and the entry and exit criteria of each mobile project to be well defined, it can help you to monitor and manage each project effectively to achieve the overall strategic goals on time.

7. Build a Center of Excellence

Mobility serves the requirements of various stakeholders in the system. To accomplish this, build a Center of Excellence with people from diverse domains and expertise to unify and centralize the many voices.. The COE will institutionalize best practices for mobility, bring consistency to the integration process, define policy and procedures for use and access of mobile solutions and look for opportunities for further adoption of mobile initiatives, etc.

8. Do Test Deployment

Pick a particular process or mobile opportunity to test your mobility plan. Implement it and see how it turns out. Analyze and document the deployment to understand success and failure points. Fine-tune your mobile strategy based on the test deployment experiences. Then, expand it to an organization-wide rollout.

9. Monitor, Evaluate and Review

It is important to constantly monitor and assess your strategy based on the feedback collected from various sources. Any deviation has to be immediately corrected. There should be a calendar for the review process for each element of your mobile environment.

The key to success in enterprise mobility is to adopt mobile devices and apps within a well-defined strategy, integrating processes, products and people to optimize the benefits. The goal should be to derive optimum value by creating a collaborative, secure and scalable mobile environment. In your journey to mobilize your enterprise, the keywords to remember are strategy, synergy, security and user-centricity.

App Marketing, Blog, User Acquisition

Numbers On User Acquisition Which Are Creating Success Stories

July 14, 2015 [x]cube LABS

1. Number of paid mobile app downloads worldwide
	In 2015 Source : Statista
	In 2016 Source : Statista
	In 2017 Source : Statista
2. Number of free mobile app downloads worldwide
	In 2015 Source : Statista
	In 2016 Source : Statista
	In 2017 Source : Statista
3. Most commonly used user acquisition methods/Common methods of App promotion
	(a) App Cross Promotions-Own Apps Source : VB Insights
	(b) App Cross Promotions-Partnership Ads Source : VB Insights
	(c) App Cross Promotion- SEO Source : VB Insights
	(d) Banner Ads In Mobile Ads Source : VB Insights
	(e) Email Campaigns Source : VB Insights
	(f) Native Ads Source : VB Insights
	(g) PR, Press Source : VB Insights
	(h) Interstitial Ads Source : VB Insights
	(i) Inbound Marketing Source : VB Insights
	(j) Incentivized Installs Source : VB Insights
	(k) In-app Viral Tactics Source : VB Insights
	(l) Social Campaigns Source : VB Insights
	(m) Video Ads Source : VB Insights
	(n) Web Organic Search Source : VB Insights
	(o) Others Source : VB Insights
4. Advertising investment in Mobile App
	(a) US app install ad spending is expected to reach. Source : Emarketer
	(b) Of US mobile display, this year the ad spending app install ads will account Source : Emarketer
5. Ranking App Store categories as per the investment they are drawing in user acquisition- (Q1 – 2015)
	(a) Games Source : AppAnnie
	(b) Photos &Amp; Videos Source : AppAnnie
	(c) Entertainment Source : AppAnnie
	(d) Social Networking Source : AppAnnie
	(e) Lifestyle Source : AppAnnie
6. Ranking Play Store categories as per the investment they are drawing in user acquisition- (Q1 – 2015)
	(a) Games Source : AppAnnie
	(b) Tools Source : AppAnnie
	(c) Communication Source : AppAnnie
	(d) Photography Source : AppAnnie
	(e) Entertainment Source : AppAnnie
7. Retention Rates in Mobile App
	Improvement in App retention over the past four years, with apps used just once declining to 20%. Source : Localytics
	Of apps are now used 11 times or more, an improvement of 13% over the same period. Source : AppAnnie
	Android has overtaken iOS with the percentage of apps used 11 times or more rising to 45% compared to iOS, which remained at Source : AppAnnie
	Of iOS apps are only opened once, whereas this applies to just 16% of Android apps. Source : AppAnnie
	Of app time by an average user is spent in 3 most frequently used apps. Source : AppAnnie
	Of the app users loose half of their peak users in 3 months. Source : AppAnnie
8. Projection on growth of Mobile Ad Spend ( In $)
	In 2015 Source : Emarketer
	In 2016 Source : Emarketer
	In 2017 Source : Emarketer
	In 2018 Source : Emarketer
	In 2019 Source : Emarketer
9. Projection on growth of Mobile Ad Spend ( In %)
	In 2015 Source : Emarketer
	In 2016 Source : Emarketer
	In 2017 Source : Emarketer
	In 2018 Source : Emarketer
	In 2019 Source : Emarketer

Blog, Enterprise Mobility

7 Steps To Building A Winning Mobile Center Of Excellence (MCOE)

July 9, 2015 [x]cube LABS

As enterprises embrace mobile engulfing their entire ecosystem, it is creating a complex, non-standardized environment consisting of varied devices, several enabling technologies and numerous security issues. The result: poor control, under achievement and less than expected ROI. A mobile center of excellence (mCoE) can be a stable solution to bring order, establish policies and governance and help enterprises in leveraging mobile as a strategy.

1. Set strategy and goals

The first step in creating a mCoE is to set strategy and goals of your CoE. You can begin with answering following questions-

What will be the core function of your excellence centre? Will it play the role of a coordinator between various mobile projects or will it play the lead in driving your mobile strategy and programs?
What will be its span of control? Will your mCoE support the entire enterprise mobility architecture- internal and external apps, mobile platforms and other enabling technologies?
How will your CoE interact with your existing IT infrastructure- legacy system and software, IT workflows and processes etc?

2. Pick your team

The MCoE will sit between the technical and business part of your organization. The size of the team varies between a couple of executives at the kick start stage to as big as 100 executives under the leadership of a senior executive depending upon the size and requirements of a business. You would need people who are technical experts as well as people who understand the business and customer well. Bring together people with different skill sets and subject matter expertise to foster broader synergy.

3. Get Top management buy-in

A MCoE cannot be successful without the management endorsement and participation. In fact, it is better if it is led by someone from top management with lot of executionary and budgetary powers. Put MCoE as part of your organizational structure to help it gain visibility and authority across departments. Empower it with decision-making and execution responsibilities.

4. Spread the word

More so for a bigger organization with numerous business units spread across geographies. The mCoE, in future, would need to collaborate with other business units to guide and fulfill their mobile programs. So, spread the word on the establishment of a mCoE, create awareness among your workforce on its mission, scope and nature.

5. Make it easy to approach

Centre of excellences fail when they are perceived to become an impediment rather than facilitating projects. While a certain degree of regulation is necessary to bring governance and policy into your mobile programs but keep rules and regulations to bare minimum. Business units will avoid your center if they find it to be erecting barriers rather than guiding them into taking decisions.

6. Look for low hanging fruits

A few small but early success stories will not only put you mCoE in motion but will also help you convince other business units on the need to maintain collaboration and consistency. You can start as small as building an app or bringing standardization and consistency to existing apps.

7. Define success and measure it

It is important to measure the success of your center of excellence by defining performance metrics and measurement methodologies. Also vital is to set a calendar for evaluating various projects implemented by the center, document the hits and fails and use it as a guide for future.

A mCoE comes across as a best approach to adopt mobilefirst attitude and ride on the next wave of mobility. Moreover, today with enterprise mobility not just limited to smartphones and Tablets, and encompassing M2M, sensors, wearables, NFC and Internet of Things, a mCoE can help you minimize fragmentation, provide better control over your infrastructure and help you derive more from your mobile investments. A mCoE can not only bring order in your present complex mobile environment but can also help you be better prepared for future.

Blog, Ebooks, Manufacturing

6 application areas for wearables in manufacturing

July 8, 2015 [x]cube LABS

The wearable technology market is exploding…

Research firm Strategy Analytics predicts massive surge in the wearables industry with revenue in the global wearable devices market expected to reach $37 billion in 2020 from $1 billion in 2014.

Juniper Research predicts shipments of wearable devices to be almost 130 million by 2018.

From being a consumer fad to becoming the latest enterprise phenomena-wearables have come a long way. And, there are very few industries as manufacturing that have huge opportunities for embracing wearables and leveraging it to gain new efficiencies. From product design & development, shop floor operations to worker’s training and safety- wearables have the potential to play a major role in the entire value chain. How? Here’s 5 application areas in the manufacturing industry where wearable technology can make a significant impact:

1. Improving Employee Safety

Imagine having employees operating a press machine from a distance using a glass, or operating the paint booths with the tap of a finger. Wearable tech has tremendous potential to improve the safety of the workers by providing them a hands-free, face up environment to work.

2. Field Service

In industries like maintenance which require workers to work at a height and also underground, wearable devices can play a greater role. It can help workers connect to their managers to collaborate and take decisions. They can also get access to online support tools aiding in resolving issues faster. Gartner research predicts that wearables could help personnel diagnose and repair problems more quickly, saving up to $1 billion annually in 3 to 5 years.

3. Line Monitoring

Wearable reduces the need of your worker to be tied to his workstation for long hours to monitor the assembly line. It enables you to monitor various aspects like line speed, or failure of any component or machine from anywhere. You can also control the process and manage operations with the device.

4. Employee Monitoring

Imagine a situation where you can schedule employee breaks depending on their fatigue levels. This empowers the managers to manage their workers more efficiently and also reduce the risks of mishaps, as most of the mishaps are found to be caused due to lack of concentration originating from tiredness.

5. Warehouse Management

Wearable tech like sensors, watches and Google Glass enables anyone having to work in a warehouse to locate goods stored, maintain the inventory, order in case of shortage — all at the tap of a finger on the device. This saves on time, reduces chances of misplacements and reduces downtime.

6. Employee Training

Wearables can be used by enterprises to improve training facilities or sessions and helping workers learn on the shop floors. This will save time and help manufacturers take training out from the confines of training rooms. Moreover, it will also help employees access learning material on the move anywhere, anytime.

Wearables promises exciting possibilities for manufacturers. But where to begin? Download our latest ebook ‘Wearable Tech in Manufacturing’ to gain deep understanding and insights on-

What’s driving wearables in manufacturing?

Industrial Wearables in action in the industry.

The big gains

Steps to Success and high ROI

Blog, Quality Assurance/Testing

11 Best QA Practices That Every Tester Must Know

June 26, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Before QA moves on to test development, it is very important to figure out the importance of having the processes in place throughout the project. In order to get better results w.r.t increased efficiency, productivity and for a stable system, QA needs to implement the processes correctly and effort should be be made enhance them as and when required.

It is always a good practice to start with requirement analysis. A Quality Analyst needs to understand what the product/project is about and what should the QA do, besides understanding the Entry and Exit of the product/project. A better understanding of requirements will reduce lead testing time.

Test case creation process is the base for a stable system testing. If test case scenarios cover the functionality completely, then there will be no coverage Issues. Good test case writing not only ensures effective testing but also helps in covering future risks like knowledge gaps, testing gaps and defect free delivery. We’ve put together a few important aspects of test case development, listed below, and following these practices will help in an intelligent test suite.

1. Estimation Template

The test lead/manager should use or create a template for estimation of effort required for delivery. The template should be a realistic one which takes into account each and every aspect of the process and the effort involved in completing a task. The template should be shared with senior managers and should have an approval from them to use (by aaron). A good estimation will not only lead to realistic schedule but will also not burden the tester due to incorrect estimations and timelines.

2. Checklist for Test Cases

Before going for the test case creation, the test lead/manager should discuss with the client and understand the structure of the test cases the client wants to be prepared. Create a document with all the points a tester needs to take care of while writing a test case. Discuss the points that are not feasible to cover and take a buy-in from the client on those points. A baseline review checklist will be ready, based on these points, which needs to be followed while creating test cases.

3. Session with BA Team

A discussion with a business analyst is very helpful before you start the test case creation process. The BA team can help the testing team to give a holistic view of the application to be tested. The BA team will be helpful not only in clearing the functional doubts of the testing team, but also in understanding the impacted areas. This discussion will help the testing team close any functional or knowledge gaps and will, therefore, lead to a complete test suite.

4. Maintaining Query Log

It’s a good practice to maintain a query sheet for the queries resolved by the BA Team. A tester should log his queries into a query sheet and the BA Team can periodically update and answer the queries. This sheet will help new associates who join the team as they can go through the query sheet and get their queries resolved. This will help in saving the BA Team’s effort.

5. Format of Test Cases

The test case, when written, should be clear and concise. It should clearly state what needs to be tested. For this, it is required that the format used for test case development should be defined properly so that there is no ambiguity in the test case. This will help in creating coherent test cases. The advantage of using a standard format is that the test suite is not only easy to maintain, but also to modify, repair and review. The points mentioned below are the base for effective test case creation:

Scenarios written should be precise and complete.
There should be no “if” and “or” statements in test case.
Pre-requisites should be mentioned clearly and the ones that are not required need to be eliminated.
Design steps should clearly state what needs to be performed and how.
Design steps should not mention the pre-requisites.
Expected result should be clearly mentioned with each detail of requirement.
Test cases should be written on the basis of the requirement document. Tester’s knowledge should not be the base of test case.
Expected result should never be blank.
Scenario and Design steps should be in sync.

6. Scenario Based Test Cases for Reports

Reports represent the face of the application to the Management. The management will always rely on reports to check what is going on in the system/application. Reports, therefore, require a thorough testing with a different mindset. At times, the management relies on the data present in reports to make business decisions. It’s imperative that the testing team should understand the importance of data shown in report and how a minor defect can impact the business. Test cases should be written from an End-to-End perspective. They should not be written just to test the field values. If reports show correct data, it shows that the system is in good shape.

7. Peer Review

Once the test cases are written, a peer review is necessary to validate the test cases against the client-agreed checklist and also as per the Use case. It will also help you catch the structural or grammatical mistakes. It will bring everyone in the team on the same page and people will learn to follow the guidelines by learning from other’s mistakes. Peer review will be more effective if the test cases are given to peers who know the functional area. It will help you in spotting the functional gaps in the test cases. The test lead/manager should ensure that the review comments are incorporated and closed. A sheet should be maintained in central repository to track the same.

8. Business Analyst Review

A review by a business analyst is an essential part of the test case writing and review process. Every tester in the team is concerned about his own functional areas, which essentially means that an effective test suite may not be ensured. A business analyst not only reviews the test cases but also looks at the impacted areas. She/he will help you in identifying the missing areas or scenarios. A rigorous BA review is definitely a smooth path towards an effective test suite. The test lead/manager should ensure that the review comments are incorporated and closed. A sheet should be maintained in central repository to track the same.

9. Traceability Matrix

Traceability matrix is the most important component of the test case creation process. A traceability matrix will help you map the requirements with your test cases. Every section of the requirement should have test cases against it which signify the complete coverage of the functional areas. Every time a CR is received, it will be easy to determinate the functional areas impacted by the CR. This will help in calculating the exact number of test cases that will be impacted due to the introduction of a CR and hence will provide precise effort estimation.

10. Delivery Quality Audit

Once all the test cases are written, it is a good practice to get the quality audit of the delivery done. This will not only help in improving the quality of the delivery that is made to the client but also gives us a chance to learn and close the gaps for any future delivery. Quality Audits are performed at three levels as mentioned below:

It’s the responsibility of the Test Manager to get the Quality Audit completed before making the delivery to the client.
If there are any comments or observations, the Test Manager should ensure that all comments and gaps are closed in the delivery.
It’s a good practice to maintain comments and observations for future reference.
The quality inspection should pass all three levels.

11. Customer Review

Once a delivery is made to the customer, it’s important that customers also does a review of the delivery made to them. This will help in gaining customers’ confidence in delivery besides making sure that we keep delivering quality results. If there are any comments by the customer, the Test Lead should get the review comments incorporated on priority.

“Venkat Devarapu works as a Senior QA Engineer at [x]cubeLABS and has over 4 years of experience in Web, Desktop and Mobile Applications. He is an expert in domains like Retail, Telecommunications, Insurance and Healthcare.”

Blog, Quality Assurance/Testing

Why Testers Should Use Real Devices Rather Than Simulators?

June 25, 2015 [x]cube LABS

“Testing on simulators will never replace testing on real handsets as there is no substitute for the real things.”

The mobile market is booming. This is evidenced by the large number of handset manufacturers as they are continuously delivering a wide variety of devices with different mobile operating systems and different sizes. As more companies and brands are turning towards developing mobile applications, their risk exposure is also high. If users don’t have an excellent experience with the app, they may switch to an alternative product. To avoid this switch and to retain users, pre-launch testing on mobile platforms has become a challenge. This may be tricky sometimes because today there is a wide range of handsets with varied specifications. Therefore, the simulator has become an important tool for developers and testers.

Simulators are very powerful tools but they are virtual devices which lack the real target environment. A virtual device is not a real phone but a software which gives the same functionality as the real phone.

But not even 0.01% of the end users use simulators after the app release. So we have to test mobile apps on a real device at some point of time during the development cycle to catch bugs at an early stage. Now the question is: which one should a tester prefer – real devices or simulators! As different kinds of users run the application on different devices, most companies prefer real devices for testing than simulators as it gives accurate results.

Limitations Of A Simulator

Processing Speed

Simulators are often laggy as it takes a lot of time to load and they often depend upon the amount of RAM allocated at the time of designing. Hence the whole process is dependent on the hardware. By using real devices things can be tested directly. So we need at least one real device available during all phases of development to assess the processing speed of the app.

Gesture Testing

Simulators can emulate touch screen gestures, but it’s a bit clunky. Using a mouse or a keyboard to click on a simulator is different from using a finger on the screen of mobile devices. Certain actions like pinching the screen, zooming the image and scrolling the screen are considerably different on touchscreen devices.

Network/WiFi

In terms of network configuration, simulators run on the PC, connect to LAN and access the internet via corporate firewall. Slow network is not possible to be tested on simulator where devices experience network issues.

Screenshots

For marketing the app we need to upload some quality screenshots in multiple sizes for each of the multiple devices. For example, we uploaded nearly 20 screenshots for our Advocare app using multiple devices. (iPhone 6+, iPhone 5S, iPod 5G, iPhone 4S). By using a simulator, we can capture these screenshots but it renders somewhat low quality. Therefore, a real device is a better choice.

Preview Videos

Videos are an excellent way to showcase our app for marketing than screenshots alone. It is possible to screencast in a simulator but simulator’s extra latency won’t show our app in the best light. The best option for video is to take it straight from the device itself, which is well recommended by Apple.

Display

It is not always about the resolution but problems are also related to the quality of a display i.e. pixel density, colors and overall quality of the display used in the device. For example, developers want to have dark blue button for login as per requirement, but due to low display quality of simulator, it is shown as shades of blue.

Real occurring events

Interruptions like incoming calls, SMS and battery consumption i.e., how charger effects overall performance can be performed in simulator but they’re not real. The only option for such events is to do it in real devices.

Hardware Features

No support for IMEI number (00000 is returned) or device ID
No support for Mac Address
No support for GPS testing
No support for Camera
No support for Recording and Audio playback
No support for Sensors (Gyroscope, Acceleration sensor, Gravity sensor)
No support for USB connections
No support for attached device headphones
No support for determining SD card eject/insert

Software Features

Some of the APIs behave differently or don’t work at all on the simulator (For example – Canvas API like clipPath, drawPath, etc).
Camera and Flash functionalities cannot be tested.
Email functionality cannot be tested.
Installation and configuration cannot be tested.

The Verdict

Although there are a few advantages of simulators like cost- and time-efficiency, covering of more devices, easy integration at early stages of development, we must maintain the quality of the application, and this can be achieved only by testing the app on real devices as it covers different experiences.

As everything has both advantages and disadvantages, there’s no guarantee that the software which works perfectly on a simulator will definitely work in the same way on the real device. A good approach is to use simulator in the early stages of testing when the maturity level of the app is low, and use real devices in the later stages.

A lot of factors should be carefully considered like submission deadlines, costs and customer demands. A healthy mixture of real device and simulator testing can give you the test coverage you need at a reasonable price. If you’re intending to release your application in App/Play Store, or to devices, it’s worth testing it on the device at least once. Only then can we be sure that it will act and perform as expected on the platform you intend to target.

Vikas Donkeshwara works as QA Engineer at [x]cubeLABS and has 3 years of experience in Mobile and Web Application Testing in different domains like Education, Healthcare and Finance.

Blog, Technology, Wearables

Wearable Technology Statistics

June 22, 2015 [x]cube LABS

1.(a) Wearable Market Trends

Wearables market estimated value, by 2018

Source : Statista

1.(b) Wearable Market Trends

Total shipment of Healthcare wearables till the end of 2015

Source : Statista

2.Smart Watch, the leading product category in Wearables

Smartwatches will account for largest share in wearable shipments by 2019.

Source : BusinessInsider

3. (a) Healthcare Industry being benefitted by Wearables

Of healthcare organizations worldwide will invest in consumer-facing technology including apps, wearables, remote monitoring and virtual care by 2018

Source : IDC Health Insights

3. (b) Healthcare Industry being benefitted by Wearables

Compound annual growth rate & $41 billion market volume of smart wearable healthcare by 2020.

Source :Soreon Research.

4. Wearables in Organisations

Of consumers would wear employer-provided wearables streaming anonymous data to an information pool in exchange for lower health insurance costs.

Source : PwC.

5.(a) Wearables in Sports & Fitness

Of Fitness Wearable devices are forecasted to be shipped in 2015.

Source : Gartner

5.(b) Wearables in Sports & Fitness

Will be shipped around the world till 2017.

Source : Statista

5.(c) Wearables in Sports & Fitness

Shipment of wearable sports/activity tracking devices are forecasted, in 2015.

Source : Statista

Blog, Technology

The History of App Pricing And Why Most Apps Are Free

June 17, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Mobile apps have changed everything- from the way we live, connect, entertain to the way we work. Pick any interest, subject, topic or activity and you have an app for that. Thousands of apps are added every day to various app stores and the app user base continues to grow. Recent data from various sources suggests, an Apple user downloads around 6.2 apps every month while the Google Play user downloads 4.1 apps per month.

Over the years, with increase in app usage, we have also witnessed significant shifts in app user behavior and app developer revenue model. However, one fact remains as it was- the majority of apps in the stores are free or are priced very low.

Users love free apps

As a mobile app developer, if you think your users hate seeing ads on their apps then you are right? However, if based on the above fact, you think that the users are ready to pay for an ad-free experience then there are not many takers. The Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) with Zozby Analytics conducted a survey of 1,015 Americans which reveals that 58% respondents preferred free, ad-supported apps to those than paid apps. Further, when asked if they would download the existing apps if they were required to pay, 46% said they wouldn’t download the apps.

If you look at the download download distribution of Android apps by price category, you will find that it’s really tough for paid apps to cross 5000 downloads.

Source-Appbrain.com

Users are in no mood to pay

The above data certainly provide overwhelming evidence to suggest that the users as much as they dislike in-app ads, but the vast majority of them, be it an iPhone or an Android user, would rather tolerate them rather than pay for an app. The Freemium model, wherein a user gets the basic version of the app for free and later have to pay for advanced versions is gaining some traction, especially in games and productivity apps, but paid apps from other categories rarely match the success of free apps. Mobile app developers and publishers have to continue exploring new revenue models to make money from their apps. The user is in no mood to pay.

Blog, Platform

Is Security Pulling Down Android Numbers In Enterprises?

June 16, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Apple rules the enterprise mobile space and is gaining lead over Android. The latest mobility index report from Good Technology reveals that Apple’s iOS has retained its top slot in enterprise adoption. The total activations for iOS devices increased this quarter from 69% to 73% while Android numbers slide down from 29% to 25%. According to the report, the upswing in iOS activations is mainly due to the introduction of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

While the report provides no specific reason for slowing down of Android numbers, however the variance in platform adoption across industries does throw up some light on the major barrier blocking Android growth in enterprises. As per the report, Apple’s iOS significantly outpaced Android in regulated industries like legal, financial services, public sector etc., whereas Android got more traction in industries with less stringent regulatory compliance to follow. For example, Android numbers in High Tech, Manufacturing and Transportation were 45%, 39% and 35% respectively.

While Google and Samsung, with Android for Work technology, have made real strides to beef up security capabilities in the operating system, Android still has a long way to go to match iOS security mechanism. Device encryption issue is still not fully resolved with most Android devices enabling optional and partial ebncryption. Risk of malware on Android apps remains a threat with regular reports of phising apps found in the Google App Store. Apple’s tighter control on publishing and distribution of apps in its app store has helped it restrict phising attacks in a big way.

With data security being a key issue for enterprises, more so in regulated industries, Android has to do more and quickly if it wants to unsettle Apple from its top slot. Android has given tough competition to Apple in the personal mobility space, by dominating the market in terms of device activations, and it would be really interesting to see its strategy to arrest its slide and challenge Apple’s dominance in the enterprise market.

Blog, Technology

Make Way For Mobile Sensing Technology In Smartphones

June 15, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Today’s smartphones not only serve as the key computing device and provide a smart way of communication, but also come with a rich set of sensors enabling applications in a wide variety of domains like social networking, healthcare, safety, environmental monitoring, transportation and home automation, to mention a few. Well that’s what really sets apart a smartphone from laptops and PCs — all of its on-board sensors besides its portability.

As embedded sensor technologies advance with each passing day, mobile sensing gets more powerful. So today let’s discover the world of mobile sensors.

What does a sensor do?

A sensor is a device that detects and responds to some type of input from the physical environment. The specific input could be light, heat, motion, moisture, pressure, or other environmental phenomena.

The input data is then converted into digital signal and processed to display the required information to the user in human-readable format through some graphical interface, in our case on a smartphone screen.

Built-in sensors in iPhones

There are many sensors available on-board in an iPhone. To list a few

Camera: To take pictures, videos and do image processing like QR code, Bar code reading, face/smile detection.

Proximity sensor: Used to detect closeness of physical body to a phone during a call.

Ambient light sensor: Senses the light of outside environment and adjusts the screen brightness.

Magnetometer: Used to detect strong magnetic field and used in the digital compass application of your phone.

Accelerometer & gyroscope: Checks position and orientation of device accurately and device motion.

Microphone: Used for speech synthesis.

Fingerprint identifier: Provides security through local authentication.

From seamless touch sensors on your device screen to GPS sensors to biometric sensors, the mobile smartphones are getting more powerful and secure as mobile sensors are becoming ubiquitous.

Usability

Although smartphones as mobile sensing devices have great potential, there has been little or no advancement in this field until recently. Usage of mobile sensing was perceived early but technology advancement has kept it struggling to evolve. As the evolution has begun, here are a few use cases where it can contribute a lot.

Surveys: As phones can be programmed through applications to share real-time activity of users, it opens a gateway between researchers and common public to make surveys and get volume information in many fields ranging from healthcare and marketing to social networking, and business.

Environmental monitoring: Sensors could enable monitoring environmental conditions like temperature, pressure, humidity, pollution and air quality, and provide more awareness to consumers.

Healthcare: We’ve seen smartphone makers recently plunging into healthcare innovation by enabling to monitor your daily activities like walking, running, heartbeat calculation, etc., through sensors which can dramatically transform how health and wellness data are accessed and treatment is delivered.

Traffic congestion: As population in urban areas continues to grow, traffic congestion generates more complications. Mobile sensing can deliver real-time data of a particular area or city which can be used to analyze and produce better solutions.

However, these are just a few areas and the usability of mobile sensors lays beyond the scope of this blog.

The key driver

As researchers are striving to bring innovation to embedded sensors in devices, the market is gaining momentum propelled by the goal to have a leading market share among smartphone makers.

It’s no secret that Apple is developing new sensors – and has already introduced some – to embrace health and fitness sensor technologies to revolutionize healthcare research field, besides home automation.

While many of the possibilities are still veiled, the requirement of mobile sensors in the future smartphones is about to expand. It is believed that mobile payment will continue to be the primary driver for fingerprint sensors whereas RFID for NFC (Near Field Communication) will expand over the coming years due to healthcare research requirement.

With more than 10 billion smartphones and tablets expected to be shipped in the next five years, related component volumes are about to soar with expected revenue to grow from $3 million in 2012 to $3 billion in 2019.

Something to take over

As the evolution of embedded sensors has begun, we may see many new and powerful sensors in the future. In a public event, Apple CEO Tim cook said: “The whole sensor field is going to explode. It’s a little all over the place right now. With the arc of time, it will become clearer.”

Blog, Quality Assurance/Testing

Delivering Quality Mobile Apps

June 12, 2015 [x]cube LABS

What Is Quality?

In simple words, ‘Quality’ means delivering an error-free mobile application which fulfills the user’s expectations.

Why do we need a quality mobile application?

In this world of competence, everyone looks for a quality product. It’s akin to shopping for a product which we use on a day-to-day basis — we, as consumers, first check for its quality, and only then its functionality, durability, look & feel, etc. So ‘testing the product’ is a process that can be done anywhere, anytime. And testing needs to be done perfectly for mobile applications to be of high quality.

What does a tester do to deliver a quality mobile app?

To deliver a flawless mobile application, everything has to be done perfectly right from the time the project starts. This includes continual efforts put in all team members including Project manager, developers, and testers to achieve the common goal of delivering quality application.

To ensure the delivery of a quality application, we need efforts of all team members but testing team members’ efforts will be much more valuable – especially in the final stages – which ensures that the app delivered is a high-quality application.

The following things are needed before starting testing

Software Requirement Specification documents (SRS)
Application Wireframe
Writing Software Test Plan (STP)
Writing the test cases, covering all requirements

Firstly, testers should gather all required documents like Detailed Requirements document (DRD) and Wireframe analyzing and understanding the requirements and functionality of all the screens. Then, testers should start preparing test plan and test cases documents by covering all requirements which are needed for doing a testing in a sequential manner.

After receiving the build from the developers, the tester will first check whether the build is testable or not, executing all major functionalities by performing smoke/sanity test. If it is testable, then the following things are to be done:

Complete round of testing (Functional & UI)
Logging defects
Executing all test cases by updating results
Preparing traceability matrix document mapping all requirements
Performing negative testing on the mobile app which covers non-functional testing types like application with no network, low network, and medium network.

All these things should be covered in the very first round of testing and it’s better to shoot maximum number of bugs in the initial phase itself, so that it is cost and time effective. For the developer-fixed bugs, it is important to perform regression testing because the fixes may sometimes cause side-effects to other features.

Testers will get the confidence on any application quality only if they have done proper testing on the application by covering maximum number of supported devices and versions in all types of supported platforms like iOS, Android, Windows, and Blackberry. There are two types of applications in mobiles: one is native application and other is testing the application in mobile browsers. While doing testing in mobile browsers, the testers need to cover various browsers versions.

By taking care of all the above-mentioned things, one can easily achieve the goal of delivering high-quality mobile app by satisfying the end-user expectations.

Divya Priya works as a Software QA Engineer at [x]cubeLABS. She is an ISTQB certified tester and has around 2 years experience in testing mobile & web applications for different domains like Education, Social, Gaming, Travel, Finance andHardware Integration.

Blog, Mobility

How Mobility Is Leading To Skyrocketing Growth?

June 11, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Mobility is disrupting all Industries & accelerating their growth pace. Let’s see how.

1. Mobility- Mobilizing The Economy

Worldwide mobile app downloads are expected by 2017.

Source : Statista

2. Mobility In Retail

Of Internet users accessing retail destinations (sites and apps) only use mobile devices to do so, thus more mobile-only shoppers than mobile-only Internet users.

Source : comScore.

3. (a) Mobility In Banking

US millennials with $250,000-$1M in liquid assets check their bank balances via mobile devices

Source : Nielsen.

(b) Mobility In Banking

U.S. adults use mobile for Banking purposes

Source : PewResearch

4. Enterprise Mobility

Large enterprises will leverage mobile application development platforms to develop and deploy mobile apps across their organizations in 2015.

Source : IDC

5. (a) mHealth

Of those surveyed said increased access to patient data and technological innovation will present the biggest opportunity for growth in 2015.

Source : Kinnser, Software survey of home health leaders.

(b) mHealth

Of Healthcare Organisations will invest in Mobile apps by 2018.

Source : IDC

6. Mobility &Amp; Wearable

Global mobile data traffic of wearable devices which amounted to 15 petabytes per month will grow immensely in 2018.

Source : Statista

7. (a) Mobile Usage In Travel Industry

U.S. travelers use mobile phones on vacation

Source : TripAdvisor

(b) Mobile Usage In Travel Industry

Frequent travelers use mobile phones for planning.

Source : Google.

(c) Mobile Usage In Travel Industry

Travelers use smartphones for searching restaurants

Source : TripAdvisor

App Marketing, Blog

Mobile App Marketing: 5 Tips to Boost Your App’s Visibility & Success

June 9, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Mobile app marketing is the newest and happening trend now, which seems to be growing at an amazing scale every year. Currently, there are over 2 million mobile apps in major app stores. But not every mobile app released becomes successful. Your app has to be really unique to be successful and should offer real value to users to sustain it.

1. App store optimization (ASO)

Similar to the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) we do for a desktop website, App Store Optimization is very important to market your mobile application. It’s also important for a new mobile app to get visibility among the ever-expanding app stores. Consider the below techniques to help your app to get more reach.

Title: It must be short, relevant and eye catching. Your app’s search rating can be improved by 10.3% by having a right keyword in your title.
Description: Punchy description and targeted keywords improve the ratings.
Type/Category: The app should be aptly categorized to help users who do a category search rather than a particular app search.

2. Ad Networks

After finding out your target audience, the next step is to find the apps they most likely download to post in-app ads of your app on the targeted app. Though Facebook and other social apps are always a safe bet to post your ads, options like AdMob from Google and iAd from Apple can boost your app on various platforms. Ad networks have a click-through rate of mere 1% but this number can improve your app store ratings.

3. Mobile-Friendly Content

Mobile app experience is totally unique and entirely different from the website user experience. The design should be very simple and minimalistic keeping in mind that entering data in mobile devices is comparatively time-consuming than desktop. Make use of the advantage of other mobile features like allowing users to use the map, GPS and other mobile applications. The screenshot below is an excellent example of how a mobile-friendly design can improve the user experience.

4. Sustaining Loyal Users

Retaining existing users is the biggest challenge. It has been found that 90% of the users are gone in 6 months for most apps. To avoid this, you have got to make every user feel special. Following are the ways to sustain a loyal base.

Release features and upgrade versions of your app regularly and find a recurring use case which makes users come back to your app again and again.
Send push notifications to your users giving them current status, profile look or special offers like discounts, coupons, etc., based on your business.

5. Social Media

Last but definitely not the least is the social media. Making your users market your app is the best way of marketing, which is also the toughest to achieve. Social media is one such tool which multiplies your return on investment through word of mouth communication. It also gives a platform to users to give suggestions, and developers to address the queries.

These tips, if followed wisely and diligently, will really grow your app and help you achieve a great success in mobile marketing.

Ebooks, Healthcare

Internet of Things: A Game Changer For Healthcare Industry

June 3, 2015 [x]cube LABS

A Forrester survey gives us a sneak peak into how the next decade looks for Connected Healthcare and reveals what the future has in store for the healthcare sector. As per the survey, “Healthcare decision makers listed security solutions, cloud services and data analytics as the most important IoT solutions for their industry.”

The changing face of healthcare loops in the Internet of Things to redefine the way people, devices and apps connect and interact with each other in the ecosystem. Connected Healthcare is no longer about fitness trackers or step counters alone. From wearables and insideables to wellness sensors, implantable devices and surgical robots, the IoT has brought about a phenomenal change in the healthcare industry by boosting patient care, improving treatment outcomes and reducing the costs.

All that the healthcare providers need to do is jump on to the bandwagon to capitalize on the opportunities IoT provides to hospitals and providers to optimize their resources and save lives.

As IoT gains more traction in the industry, decision makers have to quickly figure out how best to leverage it as a strategy to fuel innovation in healthcare delivery as well as address various challenges facing them.

Our executive guide “Internet of Things: A Game Changer for Healthcare Industry” aims to impart a deep understanding on the impact of IoT in healthcare, and help decision makers in leveraging the potential of Connected Healthcare in the future.

What is a connected hospital?

Find out how smart devices will enable healthcare professionals to better patient care.

Factors driving adoption

Discover why there’s been a big shift in provider and clinical models driving healthcare, and understand how various factors like aging population, advancements in mHealth, shortage of human resources, SaaS & HaaS are driving adoption of IoT in healthcare.

Opportunities galore in healthcare

Get insights on how healthcare can leverage IoT today and in future in terms of Prevention, Diagnosis, Treatment and Wellness.

Steps to Success

Key success strategies that can help hospitals and healthcare providers optimally benefit from IoT and maximize benefits to patients with better treatment outcomes and reduced costs.

download ebook

App Marketing, Blog

Sending A Micro-Survey: Industry Metrics & Best Practices

June 1, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Haven’t we all filled up a survey at least once in our lifetime? I’m sure most of you have. A few surveys might have got us annoyed, but the key point here is “few” since most of us aren’t annoyed at filling a survey. In fact, it’s a mutual exchange. We want to know what kind of questions are being asked and what our thoughts are about it.

Creating surveys isn’t an easy task. In fact, deciding if you want a survey is a tough decision in the first place. One needs to answer the tough question before coming up with the survey questions. What problems is the survey trying to solve? What are the insights that I’m trying to gain? Who are going to be my Target Audience?

Creating a micro-survey for mobile app users can have its own challenges apart from the challenges which are common to any survey, be it online or offline.

Some of the generic industry rules and best practices for any survey include

Pre-planning before the survey is sent out is very important – As mentioned earlier, you need to answer the important questions. What problems are the survey trying to solve and who my target audience are?
Decide the type of questions to ask. Surveys can have open-ended questions (what’s your opinion on mobile banking?), or close-ended questions (on scale of one to ten, how would you rate reliability of mobile banking). Questions can be quantitative (how much are you ready to pay for a new feature) or qualitative (how much are you ready to pay for a new feature – low, average or high)
Keep your survey short and to the point.
Avoid asking multiple things in a question and avoid cascading questions (Do you like to eat dark chocolate and sweets?)
Avoid questions which use the extreme words such as “Always”, “Never”, etc.
Place your questions strategically; frame the flow of questions with the respondent in mind.
Always test the survey by sending it to a select group of people to get an initial idea of whether the survey will provide the desired feedback.
Segment the right audience to take the survey.
Share the result with the respondents if possible.

These are some of the agreed upon industry norms for sending a survey.

However, micro-surveys in the mobile ecosystem have their own set of challenges. Make sure you take the following points into consideration while automating a micro-survey for app users.

Since the size of smartphones is smaller compared to desktop and offline pen paper surveys, designing the look and feel of the survey on the mobile is vital.
Avoid surveys that occupy the full screen of mobile as this may come across as an obtrusive ad(d) and user might get annoyed by the survey.
Since the general user statistic can be obtained directly by the inbuilt features of the app marketing automation engine, avoid direct questions on demographic details of the user, this may invade their personal space and result in incomplete survey.
The survey size for mobile should be even smaller compared to normal surveys.
Make use of features offered on mobile platform to create rich engaging surveys which are also creative and fun to use.
Avoid confusing the user – the cancel button should be clear and big.
If you are not doing your survey right, the other end would be the user leaving the app which will reduce the retention rate.

Surveys are a great way to understand who is using your app, for the specific purpose, under what trigger conditions and reasons the retention is trailing. If your survey is planned and executed well, and the data gathered from the survey is analyzed well, this will help you get crucial insights on user’s mind and help you personalize the experience.

Blog

Mobile App Development: 6 Vital Factors To Consider

May 29, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Mobile devices have evolved to be one of the best sources for a lot of enterprises. Whether it is Banking & Finance, or Transportation & Logistics, or Healthcare, Education, and Retail, a lot of businesses are dependent on mobile technology. With the increase of interaction of the customers, the demand for new mobile applications, disruptive innovation and advanced technology has been growing exponentially. With the invention of these technologies comes the challenge of testing the mobile applications being developed.

Developing a mobile application which suits the consumers’ needs is the most important aspect for any company which is into mobile app development. So what are the factors to be considered to build a mobile app? Read on to check out about a few factors.

1. Multiple devices and Platforms

In the current open market we have a lot of devices and various platforms on which the mobiles are designed and released. The mobile devices which are designed for operating systems like Android, iOS, Blackberry, and Windows are of different screen sizes, resolution and screen density. For any company to develop a mobile application which suits all the above needs is going to be a challenging task.

2. User Interaction

User Interaction plays a vital role in the mobile industry, and with a variety of smartphones available in the market, the user should be able to feel comfortable while using the mobile app whether it is for texting, or playing games. Therefore, companies require interactions from users to further enhance the application in terms of improving design, UI and performance. The interactions can be of various types like single touch, long press, double tap, slide – as each of these actions play a vital role.

3. Size

Applications are designed in such a way that they should fit into each of the devices.Sometimes, it may vary depending on the screen resolution as there are different resolutions available like (1200X768, 1280 X 720, 1920X1080) – so it gets difficult at times to make sure that apps fit into these screens.

4. Screen Density

We have devices with a screen density range from 120 dpi to 240 dpi and depending on these density ranges, the app’s look and feel varies, i.e., sometimes the app looks freezing for a device with 120 dpi as compared to 240 dpi; sometimes the tabs or text may be too small to be visible or to perform any action (like tap on it).

5. Phone Integration

Gone are the days when mobile phones were used to make and receive calls. Now there are a lot of other functions you can perform with your mobile phone besides just calling and texting. Therefore, phone Integration has a very key role to play in the development of a mobile app as mobile devices these days are quite sophisticated, thanks to the evolution of technology, and consumers use their phone for mailing, browsing and also GPS to not only identify the location but also share their location details from anywhere with friends and family.

6. Processor and Battery Usage

We have multiple processors and the battery consumption is dependent on the processor’s performance. For ex: We have dual core processor , quad core processor, qualcomm snapdragon processor, etc. With the increase of the processor’s performance, the battery usage will be high which leads to battery drain and directly affects the end user. When Android Lollipop version was released into the market, there were lots of complaints by mobile users regarding the battery consumption while using mobile apps. To overcome this and to help optimise application performance, Android introduced Android Runtime. But this optimisation for ART requires more space.

And these kind of issues make users hesitate downloading/using apps on their phones. So companies involved in app development need to keep in mind the above factors, and ensure that end users have an optimal experience.

App Marketing, Blog

The Art Of Strategize-Engage-Retain

May 26, 2015 [x]cube LABS

(Strategy —> Build —> Acquire —> Analyze —> Engage —> Monetize —> Retain —> Upgrade)!

The Mobile App ecosystem is maturing and becoming increasingly complex, and to succeed, beyond a killer product and discoverability, a plan is needed for the user’s journey after install. Approximately 50,000 new apps are launched each month, but over half become Zombie Apps (Dead) within the first 30 days. Success or failure is determined by the customer, and to avoid letting your brilliant work, money and time result in a dead-end, it is important to learn how to create a lasting relationship with your audience.

Mobile Strategy

Setting the right mobile strategy that can provide solutions to user needs, help realize business goals and can transform with evolving mobile technologies is very important. Every app out there is trying to solve one or the other problem and if your app has to stand out from them, start the journey with the right mobile strategy.

Design & Build

Building a bug-free app with aesthetic UI and intuitive experience is always important for an app. There can be tens of apps trying to solve the same problem like the Chatting Apps, Taxi Apps, Photo filtering apps, etc. However, the ones which are successful are the ones with the simplistic design and intuitive experience.

Acquire

Most apps have stopped charging people upfront because it is tough to start a relationship on a transactional note – you have to establish a connection first. Most people will not do everything you ask of them unless you start the right dialogue and conversation. Spotting the right audience and making your app discoverable to them are equally important. Another vital aspect you need to consider is installs cannot be the only measure of success; you have to factor in the ROI on the money spent.

Analyze

Keep in mind you are training for a marathon, not a sprint. Long-lasting customer relationships are what make businesses successful. Analyzing and understanding consumer needs and feedback will make the consumer feel listened to and will increase loyalty towards the brand If you get to know your users and understand their habits, they are more likely to reward that effort with loyalty. When it comes to the mobile market, there are hundreds of thousands of fish in the sea. While recently it seemed like the Wild Wild West, the landscape is rapidly changing and rules are emerging. Therefore, using the right tools to learn about your audience is very important.

Engage

Just understanding who your users are and what they do will be proved useless unless you act on the data. Around 46% of users discontinue using an app after a month. By promptly showing interest, asking the right questions and investing time in your users, you will minimize drop off with an increased mutual understanding and rise in significant interactions. Segment them and deliver customized content through multi-channel In-App actions. Traditional mobile methods like push notifications are not going anywhere, but given the size and subtleties of the current ecosystem, you need more diverse channels to create a compelling message.

Data is no doubt important, but thinking about the individual rather than the number will enhance the customer experience. No two persons are alike, but do not let a large audience overwhelm you. The more people you reach, the better off you will be, and by grouping users by behaviors and preferences via segmentation, you will be able to create a personalized, relevant experience for them that is not only easy and scalable, but will benefit your business. It is also very important to know the difference between pushing personalized content to users and spamming them.

Monetize

Monetizing techniques such as context-based upselling will increase the app revenue. More engaged users are likely to spend money in the app and, again, the key here is sending relevant offers and ads to make the most of it.

Retain & Upgrade

Engaged users always retain and expect the app the give them more so it is very important to Update the app with enhancements and fixes that keeps the user interested about the app and make them come back again and again.

Blog, Quality Assurance/Testing

5 Tips To Build A Testing Centre Of Excellence

May 22, 2015 [x]cube LABS

In many IT organizations the testing runs as a silo under each project team. There is a flip side to this practice; the overall quality is not as expected from an organization standpoint. Many companies are shifting towards a TCoE which is a one-stop shop for all the QA and business testing.

TCoE has also shown a remarkable growth from 4% (fully operational TCoE) in 2011 to 26% in 2014 according to report published by HP, Capgemini, and Sogeti. Expectedly, there are many challenges in building a TCoE and here are a few crucial tips that should be looked at in setting up the center.

1. Top Management Commitment

The top management plays a crucial role in setting up a TCoE; not only is there a shift in thinking there is a shift in organization methodology of working, delivering the bad news if the project quality doesn’t adhere to new TCoE standards and practices – all these issues should be dealt with at the top of the organization for smooth transition.

2. Independence

The QA leaders should be able to deliver news about the testing without conflict of interest. There can be conflict that arises between the project management and TCoE team, and the problem mechanism system should be defined beforehand without handicapping the independence of the TCoE.

3. Decision Making

While discussions are being held regarding the standards and practices followed by the testing team, a TCoE personnel should participate actively so that all the stakeholders are on the same page and there is no confusion in the later stages of the project.

4. Early Prevention and Detection

Fixing the problem at a later stage can be complex, time consuming and a drain on resources. So it is best to fix the bugs at an early stage – preferably at the design and formulation stage – as this will lead to fulfillment of the overall objective of TCoE which is the overall business process testing for clients rather than just checking for specs and system readiness.

5. Operationalize and Automate Repeatable Tasks

This is one of the primary objectives of setting up a TCoE. All the standard testing processes that can be automated should be automated. Automation should not be just for automation testing; every stage of testing that has scope for automation and repeatability of automation tools across different projects should be looked at. Standard operating procedures should be set up as well.

The above-mentioned are a few top tips for setting up a TCoE. But, remember rule zero is adaptability, and setting up different competencies to adapt to changing situations is equally important.

App Marketing, Blog

5 Tips For Effective User Acquisition For Mobile Apps

May 21, 2015 [x]cube LABS

If you are starting a business, one of your main concerns is going to be growth. If you fail to gain any traction by attracting as many new users as possible, no matter how disruptive your idea is, how great your product is, you won’t be successful. In today’s world, there are infinite strategies to grow your business, but only a few tactics will really skyrocket your growth and expand your user base exponentially in a short span of time.

So, what makes it so difficult? The tactic which works for one company might not work for the other company. And there is no clear cut route defined to achieve that massive success. One company can try many strategies but zero in on one once you’ve discovered your successful growth channels.

Roadmap for customer acquisition

Many companies have a clear product roadmap for their product, but they don’t have a plan to determine their customer acquisition channels. Software like Agile, Waterfall and Kanban can help us in software development through well-documented processes. And through the defined process in customer development and the lean start-up methodology, finding product market fit has never been easier. Selecting the effective customer acquisition channel is as important as software development and finding product market fit. Here are five useful tips to user acquisition for mobile applications.

1. Understanding Your Position in the Market

It’s important to assess where your organization is in your sector before launching your acquisition strategy. Find your unique selling point (USP) which differentiates your product from the fellow market competitors. Assess the difference between how your company is defined online and how it is perceived by customers and suppliers.

It’s wise to keep your enemy closer and watch them closely if you have any defined competitors. Find out their USPs and analyse how they interact with the market. Track their activity if they try something new and analyse the impact of it. Their failures can be converted into your success with some careful and wise modifications.

2. Setting up an Objective

To succeed in any short time or long-time strategy, it’s important that objectives are defined clearly. It should express what you are looking to achieve and why. This is where the step 1, understanding your position, will help you in setting up a suitable objective. If the objective you have set doesn’t coincide with your current position, this won’t succeed as much as it would have been. This set objective should give a specific number or percentage that you are looking to achieve and the time-frame to achieve it.

3. Targeting the Right Audience

It’s imperative to find your target audience you plan to attract through this acquisition strategy and to understand how they currently interact with your brand online. Using your consumer history and third party data, like Experian Hitwise and Web analytics which use big data for instance, would be very useful source of information to understand your customer’s purchase patterns, products sold, geography and repeat visit rate.

4. Selecting the Right Acquisition Strategy

To realise the objective you have set, you need to identify the digital marketing strategy to use as an acquisition technique. The conclusions you drew through the evaluation of your existing customers should justify the selected tactics. There are majorly 6 key digital media channels which can be used to increase the brand visibility and to drive more visits to your websites and social media pages.

5. Monitoring the Performance

Every strategy explained above will have a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPI). By analysing these KPIs we can determine whether the chosen strategy is helping to achieve the objective we have set in step 2. You can follow 3Ms approach to analyse the performance of your strategy.

Measure: Collect all the metrics regarding the number of visits your website gets after the strategy is implemented since the objective is to increase the number of visits.

Monitor: Determine how the reporting is to be done e.g. weekly or monthly for a certain period of time, for ex. January-March, and monitor the results.

Manage: Manage the resources – as in who will assess the overall strategy and to whom the results are to be reported. Periodic feedback should also be given to the rest of your team.

What many companies don’t get is that there is a slight differentiation between Viral Marketing and Viral Growth. Viral Marketing is the latest buzzword which is nothing but “Word of mouth” or “Person-to-person distribution” whereas Viral Growth indicates a K-factor more than 1 (i.e., every new registered user will invite more than 1 registered user on an average). Generally, the actual costs incurred to acquire customers are miscalculated by many companies which make true viral growth so hard to achieve in practice. But by applying the above five tips in User Acquisition Strategy, any company can achieve that dream viral growth.

Blog, Quality Assurance/Testing

Challenges In Testing Mobile Web Apps

May 20, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Mobile web app is a website app which runs on all mobile browsers. So any app which runs on all browsers does not need specific memory to use and the mobile phones which are now available in the market have a default browser. Therefore, the audience for a mobile web are more than the users for a native app. Deploying these kind of apps is easy when compared to native apps.

What makes a mobile web app different from a native app?

There are many things which make a mobile web app different from native app. To use a mobile web app, users need not have special memory to install the app because web apps are available in browsers. Web apps are easy to deploy when compared to native apps as we need only to know the URL to use them, and they can be shared easily with a wide range of people via text messages, WhatsApp, etc.

Mobile web-based applications are increasingly becoming more important, feature rich, and also the most popular means for developing commercial systems. Most of the e-commerce apps like Flipkart, Amazon , Myntra, Snapdeal, Shopclues, Ebay and others are first designed as websites and then the apps came up in native.

Of Performance, User Experience & Security

The more the audience for a web app, the more is the usability for the app. Testing mobile web apps is different because of the many factors affecting the performance and user experience; as these apps are exposed to a wide range of people, there are security constraints which need to be considered.

To make sure that the web app runs reliably under different types of situations, the above points are accounted for testing. As the testing process starts from test plan and test cases writing, they should be written properly – the test cases should be written by covering network speeds, resolution of the screens and performance test cases along with functional, and UI test cases.

Challenges for a Web App

Different Paths (Entry and Exit) for a Single App

To access web apps, users will use different types of paths. For example, there is a web app which is an ecommerce app, so different users choose different paths to access it – some may do online shopping without doing registration, some may do so after the registration. Every user chooses a different path i.e., each user may search for different things at the same point of time. So, while testing, all the possible permutations should be covered.

Network Speeds

Depending on the network speeds, the performance of the app will vary. Apps will work fine sometimes in broadband networks, some may work fine in 3G/ 4G network. So, a web app should be tested in all kinds of network types with different sets of speeds.

Different Types of Browsers

Web apps are usually developed by making sure that the apps are not browser dependent. The code written in a browser is independent and every browser is developed using different types of languages including scripting languages like javascript. So if we test the app in just one browser, it may work fine in that browser but it may not work well in other browsers. The web app should, therefore, be tested in all browsers. Even on similar browsers, the app may behave differently based on the screen resolution/ hardware/ software of the device.

Security Constraints

Some web apps will capture secure data from users like credit/debit card information which is needed while doing online payments/transactions. Testing should be done in such a way that users’ data should not get compromised.

To ensure that sufficient test coverage is provided for web applications and to provide a secure, reliable application to the user, the above points need to be considered. Testing is the only way to prove that the web app is a quality product and it is also the last chance to ensure the safety of the data.

(Preethi works as a Software QA Engineer at [x]cubeLABS and is experienced in Mobile , Web Application testing. She has expertise in testing different domains like Social, Gaming and Health care.)

Blog, Wearables

How Businesses Put Wearables To Work

May 19, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Apple Inc. sold 957,000 Apple watches on the first day; the devices were available for pre-order. Many experts consider this watch to revolutionize the wearables industry just like their earlier devices did. The iPod changed the way the music industry sold their music and it changed the way we consume our music; the iPhone changed the way we use our mobile phone – from using it for regular tasks to using the mobile as a smart device and a trusted ally.

Wearable devices are heading in the same path though they are in their infancy; it’s far from the tipping point but definitely getting there. Wearables are not limited to smart watches alone, various devices such as wearable wrist band, smart ring and other niche items are available in the market.

From Fitness Aids To Handy Accessories

Wearable wristbands are making waves in the international market as they make a handy addition to a smartphone and a must-have for any fitness-conscious, tech-loving person. Companies such as Jawbone and Fitbit are popular in this segment with thousands of wearable devices being sold by them.

Wearable ring might sound like a fancy fashion accessory to have, but in reality it’s an extremely handy accessory. Ringly is the company making this device and they came up with this brilliant idea when its founder missed a lot of calls as her phone was usually in her bag. This device is really handy for women who usually prefer keeping their smartphones in their bags. The company recently got funding worth a million dollar from investors.

The leader of the wearable device is, however, the smart watch. While the utility aspect of a smart watch is questioned by many critics, very few question its potential. The latest Apple smart watch is being compared to a handy smartphone as it can perform most of the tasks a smartphone can. There are a number of smartphones in Android as well, and the market is experiencing a flurry of activity with all the big players coming up with their smart watches.

What Does The Future Hold?

In the years to come, wearable devices which give the experience of virtual reality might gain commercial dominance, and devices providing augmented reality (read Google Glass) have got everyone excited as well.

Wearable devices may be a significant part of our lives in the near future – just like laptops, desktops and smartphones. It is difficult to imagine a life without these devices today, but did we always think that would be the case? No, we didn’t. We can only anticipate what will happen in the future, and bet on wearables, just like the businesses of today are doing!

Blog, Internet of Things

Internet of Things: A web of Connected World

May 13, 2015 [x]cube LABS

From childhood we have come across cartoons and shows that depict a future that is quite tech savvy and machine dependent. Most of us might have given some incredulous looks, brushed it off and taken it on a stride — after all, they were fictitious. But how fictitious would one consider the world now for the technological advancement it stands at? No denying it, we are warped and entirely engulfed by the supremacy of the net.

Predicted to be at the Cusp of a fourth industrial revolution, we are far more advanced in the information age than when it started, and have delved deeper into the Big Data age. So what is that crucial factor that has brought about the avalanche of developments in the past few years that has set into action the Connected World?

The internet of things, famously known as “IoT” in the past few years, has almost achieved a biblical status. Such is the fervor and reverence with which the avid digital world foresees it. So what has IoT achieved that we say a connected world is not so far away? First, let’s get a good grip on the core concept. The popular definition is “The Internet of Things (IoT) is a computing concept that describes a future where everyday physical objects will be connected to the Internet and be able to identify themselves to other devices”. Sounds like a feat, right? Not really.

Let’s picture a few scenarios 25 years down the lane:

You’re travelling to a new country for your vacation and you realize you have left your passports at home; but that’s okay! All your healthcare and citizen records are in a database open and accessible to the airport authorities… and voila, check in and your flight takes off.

A person with no ID card on him has a panic attack and falls unconscious. Oh and yes you are the doctor on board, but with no medical history how would you be able to treat the patient? But it’s the connected world, and it’s just a touch away – now with all the medical history and details of his syndrome known, you give the right treatment and become the hero.

Your patient checks in with a chronic syndrome and wants only you to treat him. Why not, thanks to Connected World, you treat the patient all along your journey. Vacation still isn’t disrupted. It’s a connected flight system and your first flight lands late – but you have no hassle of booking another flight, your smart devices – all connected to each other and in sync with your schedule – have already booked a connecting flight and with no waiting period. We can elaborate with any number of example scenarios, but the focus here is to say that the world that we are going to enter is smart and intelligent in every way; led by the innovation of the net, the connected world is an inevitable and most anticipated era.

Let’s look at a few things that have made headway into this phenomenon. Starting with healthcare, IoT has made the current netizens more health conscious. Not only can we now keep a check of our health but also keep an eye on our dear ones and their health. Start-ups like 2mpower health, Ducere Technologies, Diabeto MedTech India have empowered themselves with the IoT and have taken their enterprises and customers’ health to the next level. Diabeto, for example, has created a wireless device that reads and stores blood sugar readings with the help of the Bluetooth technology. This enables the transfer of glucose readings from a glucometer into a mobile device and displays & stores the information on a cloud server. The information is then sent to a smartphone app to be shared with the doctor, hence eliminating the need for a physical visit to the hospital.

Another of those mind-blowing innovations is a product with alter egos. Working on the concept of “hyperlinking the physical world” with the aim of making physical products smarter by connecting them to the web, Linqs has worked on creating digital identities of physical products, what the founder calls “Alter Ego”. The start-up venture “Linqs” has a platform to build a host of micro web services for things It provides a unique identity (ID) to every object and from the object ID serves a Web Service tailored for the user’s context.

Starting with digital business cards, the company hopes to go a long way and innovate more along with the growth spurt of technology. And we have more such innovations and products as a result of IoT that has helped evolve many start-ups. That doesn’t mean that the Giants in the enterprise are behind. Take, for instance, GE implementing IoT in Industrial field. GE’s aircraft engine maintenance business, born out of its jet engine business has moved into preventing maintenance on the whole by expanding and automating aircraft fleet optimization.

Road transport solutions provider Michelin Solutions is one such company that has built a high-tech, high-touch Industrial IoT system to reduce fuel consumption in its client’s truck fleets by including sensors inside the vehicles that collect data on consumption, temperature, speed and location which is then transmitted to a cloud service. Michelin Solutions, after analyzing the data, makes recommendations to fleet managers on lesser consumption.

With many such innovations in various fields ranging from industrial to daily consumer needs, we are inching quite progressively towards a connected world that holds ample opportunities. Be it the first world nations or the third world nations, everyone has had a taste of the future and many initiatives have been taken by the nations to put their country in the forefront of technological advancement.

Not everything, of course, is a rosy picture. With more open information sharing comes the eternal issue of security. With work proceeding in that direction as well to make the IoT more secure, we can conclude with a positive note that the future not only would be more connected but more secure than it is now, provided the net neutrality is not hindered.

Life at [x]cube

Bud Indian Pool-ball League 2015

May 12, 2015 [x]cube LABS

‘Bud Indian pool ball’ is a game similar to snooker but the snooker balls are replaced by small sponge footballs and for shooting the balls in, we use our foot instead of stick. The rules are the same as snooker. The game is played between 2 teams and each team consists of 2 players.

The interesting part of the game is the Beer which is served all through the game, and as a game custom. Such refreshing events are always energy boosters and a halt from the work pressure. We were really excited when the game was played and most amazingly, the event happened during work hours, and this made us feel like we’re back in school with a “Games Period”

And oh, you get a perfect kick only when a DJ is around… So, we had a DJ who added the real spice to the event taking us all on a mind trip. Cheer girls from Budweiser added excitement to the already charged atmosphere and made the event cheerful, colorful and most happening. We look forward to many such events, whenever possible, to act like stress busters.

Blog, Healthcare, Wearables

DIAGNOSING THE HEALTHCARE TECHNOLOGY

May 12, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Earlier, we could measure only Body temperature, Pulse, Blood Pressure at home but today, we live in an ecosystem which allows us to track almost every human action owing to accessibility to gizmos & Gadgets. Now we are blessed with Smart clothes, insideables , sensors etc., which monitor our daily activities from number of steps we walk, calories burnt, distance covered, sleep quality + smart alarm, blood oxygen levels, blood glucose levels, cardiac fitness, stress, eating habits, ECG, cognitive skills, to brain activities & productivity. There is a drastic shift in the EMR mandates, adoption & personal health apps due to government intervention.

Here are some of the trends shaping the Healthcare Industry:-

1. WEARABLES

Smart Clothes: Fashion industry can be instrumental in increasing the awareness & adoption of smart clothes in the audiences, Companies like Hexoskin and MC10 are working to make smart clothes & sensors which can be embedded in clothes . This enables healthcare providers with crucial, lifesaving data.
Insideables: devices implanted into our body or just under the skin. There are people already having such RFID implants with which they can open up a laptop, a smartphone or even the garage door.
Digestables: (Pills), another great invention which will track digestion.
Stickables: The most exciting of all are the sensor-equipped patches designed to be paired with specific drugs to help measure their efficacy. Most of them rely on an app on the patient’s smartphone to transmit the data from the devices.

2. GAMIFICATION: It has been noticed that patients tend to ignore the compliance of treatment regimes as prescribed by the doctor. Gamifying these regimes by giving patient goals, rewards for attaining them will tremendously improve the healthcare process as it will give the patient’s treatment regime an entertainment streak.

3. 3D PRINTING: Doctors can use 3D printers to create customized casts, prosthetics, braces, and implants like knee replacements, & also print off replicas of a patient’s internal organs (from an MRI scan) to practice on before a surgery.

4. AUGMENTED & VIRTUAL REALITY: According to the WHO (World Health Organization) the current estimated worldwide deficit surpasses 4.3 Million. There is a huge demand of medical practitioners but the supply is less. This pose a great threat but solution to this is Virtual & Augmented Reality with which we can enter into a world of improved, enhanced and digitally created features which will be incredibly useful in Healthcare solving the major issue of demand & supply gap of medical providers. Thus, can bring a paradigm shift in Healthcare.

Scenario A: Where working-out means tedious, mundane health regime.
Scenario B: A combo deal of VR + Video games develops not only interest but also makes exercising a lot more fun.
Virtual Reality is encompassing all possible participants of Healthcare under its purview. Its helpful in educating the medical students in much better way as they can perform ‘hands on’ procedures in a safe manner which enables them to make mistakes & learn.

5. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: Let’s see few ways in which Artificial Intelligence is going to improve the skills of doctors.
Eradicates waiting time– An Artificial Intelligence system will schedule as efficiently as possible by reducing the doctor’s waiting time for a patient, a lab result, etc.
Connect the doctor to crucial patients– An Artificial Intelligence OS could crunch out the most urgent messages from a pool of calls, in-person questions, e-mails and even messages which a doctor receives from social media channels on a daily basis.
Healthcare Industry is witnessing change with everyday innovations & inventions making the society a better place to live in a more healthier life.

Automobile, Blog, Internet of Things

5 ways connected cars are accentuating driving experience

May 8, 2015 [x]cube LABS

A car company recently came up with an advertisement where you can see people sync their mobiles to car and instruct it verbally to play songs, show maps, etc. Last year Google unveiled its driverless car. All these advancements are the giant steps into the future of automobile industry; connected cars, where you can remain connected to the world even on wheels and also control all the devices inside your car without risking safety. The basic concept behind connected cars is transforming the vehicle into a node in ‘www’ universe.

IoT enables connected cars to create an entirely new ecosystem of connected services. The car turns into a hub providing customers a lot many advantages and better experience while driving, in the form of enhanced security and safety, and new suite of product offerings.

5 ways in which connected cars technology is accentuating driving experience:

1. Mobile Hotspot: In-vehicle hotspot capabilities is the new thing car manufacturers have introduced for customers’ convenience. Using this, now drivers as well as passengers can remain connected even inside the car. Leveraging IoT, connectivity is being provided for all kinds of mobile devices.

2. Infotainment: So far, people used to make calls and navigate on cars via bluetooth only but streaming apps was never an option. Using the IoT platform, car manufacturers are providing connectivity in cars, where you can easily stream contents, have free trials of services being provided by manufacturers and retailers.

3. Safety and security: The most important aspect for automobile manufacturers is ensuring safety and security of customers. So, while providing connectivity in cars, focus is on making the drive more secure. Many steps have been taken for it like introducing threat alert which alerts the risk of accident if it is anywhere in its range, black box (records the details of accident a few seconds before and after accident so that reason can be known), crash notification (sends accident alert automatically), emergency assistance, etc. These features have low-latency in connectivity and are thus reliable and life saving because even a slightest delay can cause huge loss.

4. Entertainment: The infotainment unit can be synced with phone and it can be used as an entertainment device for downloading music and streaming content. Messages can be received on the screen of the infotainment unit keeping the driver socially active at all times without the need of touching the phone every time.

5. New product offering: Connected cars are embedded with mobile broadband chips and they generate vast amounts of data. These data are being used by service providers to make offerings based on the usage patterns. Based on conclusions drawn from these data, insurance companies can decide what type of insurance to offer, manufacturers can measure real-time on-road experience of customers and improve product quality.

As IoT and other enabling technologies evolve, we will see a lot many improvements in connected cars resulting in further accentuating the driving experience.

Blog, Quality Assurance/Testing

Mobile App Testing: How good is your app from a customer’s perspective?

May 8, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Ensuring the quality of mobile apps has become an essential part of testing for the ones trying to stand out in today’s competitive market which is growing exponentially, and probably will continue growing in the next few years. Almost 30% of all apps that are being developed are mobile apps. Eighty-four per cent of companies which are not currently building mobile apps are planning to do it in the near future. The key to success in the mobile app market is producing quality mobile applications. Around 15,000 new apps get released each week globally, so you can imagine how hard it is for your mobile app to stand out in this enormous market.

There are a lot of companies of different sizes developing apps, from start-up teams of 5-6 people to medium-size companies, and certainly companies with thousands of employees.

So, how can you ensure success of your product?

It has been shown how developers are often sacrificing quality to gain speed in the making of the app, pressured to release new apps and updates as soon as possible. In this process, the things that consumers value the most are generally overlooked.

For both developers and consumers, the things that matter most for an app with high quality are functionality, speed and simplicity. However, the consumer value is focused on speed when developers might focus on simplicity.

Seeing that most of the characteristics for a quality app are oriented in the same direction, you may think that the average user is pleased with the mobile experience. The truth is far from that– only 1.7% of consumers could not recall ever having a bad experience with a mobile app.

So, what are the common causes to have a bad experience, and what we can learn from them?

When the customers were asked about the bugs found in an app, nearly 50% answer that they would delete the app when a bug is found, and more than 35% would report a bug. But that is not always a good thing for the developer, because the report could be sent to the app provider, social media, or to friends and peers.

Each bug then can cost you not only the customer, but also the spread of negative reviews for your brand, company or yourself. This should be the principal motivation to make a quality product from the beginning.

Since the mobile app should be appealing to anyone who uses it, there are a couple of questions, and if answer is “yes” then app is going in right path.

If you use your app when your friends are near:

Does their attention get drawn to your screen?
Does it look so good that they ask you what that app is for?
Then, do they take a moment to go to the app store so they can try it themselves?

Conclusion

Use the only chance you have to make a first impression and make it the best.

According to the survey on how to best keep users engaged, many answers suggest that “the app must simply be easy to use and avoid frustrating customers.” It all comes down to usability.

Take advantage of usability testing and work with the feedback from a group of people who mimic your real user base before your application goes into the hands of actual users. Then continue testing to be sure your application will continue to impress them.

At the end, the app needs to be usable by your target market, and it doesn’t matter if the rest of the world finds it usable. When the people in your target group are not able to use the app, then your application is a failure. A quality approach to every stage of the application life cycle can help you avoid that.

(Shravani Keerthi works as Senior QA Engineer at [x]cubeLABS. She has over 4 years of experience in Mobile and Web Application testing.)

Blog, Cloud Computing

5 Ways of Monitoring Performance in Cloud

May 7, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Performance monitoring in Cloud can take place from two vantage points. One is from the vendor’s point of view and another from the user’s point of view. Here are 5 ways of cloud performance monitoring:

Infrastructure performance: This performance is more important for the vendor. The metrics analyzed in this report are related to the infrastructure required to keep the cloud up and running. Performance of Virtual machines, storage, and network are calculated in this report. Analysis at individual components may not show the entire report of the cloud infrastructure. Therefore Infrastructure Response Time (IRT) is examined to monitor the entire cloud environment. IRT is defined as the time it takes for any workload (application) to place a request for work on the virtual environment and for the virtual environment to complete the request.
Resource Utilization metrics: A few resource utilization metrics include:

- CPU usage
- Disk Usage
- Disk Latency: In batch operation disk latency may not be of much importance but in interactive operation disk latency is important.
- Percentage Busy
- Percentage ready
- Memory used
- Swap activity: If the swap activity is very high then increasing the memory is one of the solutions.
- Network usage
- Host system state
- Host system resource usage
- VM configuration
- VM state

Virtualization performance: Similar to performance data collection of physical servers, it is also important to collect performance data of the virtual machines. A few important parameters are:
- Number of VMs used by the application
- Time taken to create a VM
- Time taken to migrate an application from one VM to another
- Time taken to allocate additional resources to VM

Transaction performance: This collects data related to the transactions of a specific application. Some metrics are:
- Success percentage of transactions
- Count of transactions for a particular application

Application performance: This performance parameter is important from the user’s point of view. The user would deploy the application in the cloud and would collect data to monitor the application performance in the cloud. The main metric here is application response time. It calculates the time taken for the application to respond to user requests.

Keeping track of the above parameters will result in smooth and reliable cloud operations and meeting the SLA.

Blog, Quality Assurance/Testing

4 Benefits of Implementing Automation in Testing

May 5, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Testing is the backbone of every software project. It is more a tedious task than a one-time job to check the quality of the application and the software for every release. Hence test engineers actively participate in identifying glitches in the application. However, with even best manual testing processes, the problems keep appearing, leaving no space for testers to focus on actually improving the application’s performance.

Automation testing as an alternative to manual testing is the best way to rise the effectiveness and efficiency of software testing efforts. Automation Testing means using an automation tool to execute your test case suite. It breaks all the barriers of manual testing, ensuring better usability, coverage, security and scalability.

Most of the companies have started implementing automated testing for accomplishing their regression testing cycles to come out with flawless applications using various test automation tools like Selenium.

Based on the experiences of testers working on automation, we have listed a few pointers on why we feel projects will benefit from automated testing.

Saves Money and Time: This is one of the biggest benefits for me, especially when it comes to regression testing. As we all know, the aim of regression testing is to confirm that the application still works as expected when new features have been introduced or a change is made to an existing feature. In order for us to verify this, we need to run all test scripts associated with the change. There is a risk here – due to time constraints, we may not run all tests associated to the change which may result in undiscovered defects.

These issues can be overcome by setting up our automated tests to run after each deployment – this creates time for the tester to perform exploratory testing, concentrate on areas which cannot be automated and concentrate on other tasks, which, in turn, reduces the investment spends on the resources.

Sufficient Test Coverage: After you’ve designed some test suites for the application, and gotten them all to pass, you may wonder, “Do I have enough tests to cover all the possible scenarios? Am I missing anything?” One way to help yourself answer that question is to measure the coverage of your tests – that is, how thoroughly your tests exercise the application’s code. Automation is one of the ways to achieve the test coverage of the application in a short span of time.

Reusability/Repeatability: Reusability should be built-in in all areas of Software Testing. We’ve outlined a possible set of such areas here – designing test cases, churn out generic test cases for some of the major areas of your project, build frameworks that are modular and can be easily reused. Spend that extra time upfront to decide what kinds of reusable data can be created.

Increase Efficiency and Productivity: Testing efficiency is the average number of tests you can run for an hour of tester time.The developer may spend some time to implement the tests, and run the tests with tools like Selenium; the developer can see how the buttons and links in the browser are clicked. And this is done much faster than manual testing. Higher testing efficiency reduces the product development time and cost.

Automation testing does not mean we are totally eliminating tester’s role. Even if the system is fully covered up with automation suites, you still need to perform some manual testing to identify bugs like UI issues which will not be fully covered in automation. Overall, automation is faster and cheaper than manual testing and it helps to ensure quality in a better way than manual testing does.

(Shiva Dasoju works as a Senior QA Engineer at [x]cube LABS. He has 3+ years of experience in Mobile, Web Application, Automation testing and is an ISTQB, SeeTest(Mobile Automation tool) certified tester.)

Life at [x]cube

Just Relax, Paint the Office Wall

May 4, 2015 [x]cube LABS

It was an amazing fun project we did in our office.

As a designer it’s always fun working with colours and when a designer gets a laaarge canvas to paint, it’s like heaven. I always get fascinated by looking at large graffiti and painting on walls. I just thought of doing something great for my office pantry area where employees have tea/coffee and chat for a few mins to just relax. And so I gave the wall this theme I call ‘Just Relax’.
As a doodler I thought of making a large doodle on the wall and some typography. In a few hours, I came up with a concept and sketched it on paper.

After finalising the sketch, my wife (she is also a designer ☺) and I went to the office at 11:00 PM to see how we can start it. And we started by sketching on the wall right away.

On the second night we started with colouring. We bought exterior paints, brushes and other required materials from a local paint shop. While working on the project, a few of our colleagues joined us in this project and helped us to complete it sooner – special thanks to Sanjana (Finance team).

On the whole, we spent 3 nights and a full day to complete the project. It was really fun to do all this amid pizzas, coffees and chats while working. We had closed the pantry door for a few days but a few employees did manage to peep at the work (in progress) and amazed to see a transformation of the blank white wall to a colorful painted wall. The smile on their faces and ‘wow’ & ‘amazing’ remarks were kind of boost for us.

Working in open pantry on the 12th floor became a challenge with bad weather. It was raining heavily and so we wrapped our colours and brushes to save them from rain and fast wind. The sound of the wind was horrible and was not congenial for painting.

Overall, it was great fun. We really loved it and were showered with great/lovely remarks and praises by mates. The new look is amazing and now we don’t have a bland pantry area. It’s now a perfect blend of fun and relaxation.☺
And, oh, we hope to do similar projects in future!

Blog, Internet of Things

8 Statistics on IOT which shows how it is encompassing all Industries

May 4, 2015 [x]cube LABS

IOT is no more a buzz word, it is rather a gigantic wave of disruption bringing in improvement in almost all sectors of the economy. All industries are now welcoming the IOT revolution, leading to increased efficiency & effectiveness.These stats signify how it is being anchored in Industries.

1. IOT gaining traction.
	Internet of Things (IoT) Market, will grow at a CAGR of 31.72 percent from 2014-2019. Source: TECHNAVIO
2. IOT in Manufacturing
	Firms look to IoT solutions as improved customer experience by enabling things such as supply chain optimisation, visibility, loss prevention and cost efficiencies. Source: ECONOMICTIMES
3. IOT in Automobiles
	Cars will be connected to the internet by 2020, as compared to 10% in 2012. Source: GARTNER
4. IOT & Consumer devices
	a) Savings in food & beverage industry by 2020 owing to connected kitchen . Source: GARTNER
	b) U.S. consumers will own smart refrigerators . Source: GARTNER
	c) Predictive adoption of Internet-connected clothing. Source: GARTNER
5. IOT in Energy Sector
	Energy costs can be reduced by equipping street lights with sensors and connecting them to the network. Source: John Chambers, CISCO.
6. IOT in Energy Sector
	Energy costs can be reduced by equipping street lights with sensors and connecting them to the network. Source: John Chambers, CISCO.

Life at [x]cube

Teamwork through Sports

May 4, 2015 [x]cube LABS

“All work and no play is not good for the soul.” – Felix Sabates

At PurpleTalk we know that it’s important to have our PurpleTalkies hopping and skipping to work. We believe that employees here should have plenty of opportunities to have fun at the workplace. Some of the ways we make that possible is by organising sports, intra-company tournaments, Zumba workshops, etc.

History of Sports at PurpleTalk
At PurpleTalk we started off with intra-company games. Sports like Cricket and Volleyball were widely popular among employees and the effects of introducing these activities were almost immediately palpable. The morale improved and there was more networking across various departments in the company.

We started taking part in Inter-company tournaments like Corporate Flag Football Tournament, ACE Connect at IMT Hyderabad and Corporate Football Hyderabad Tournament 2. Along with this, the sports activities within the company almost doubled to include Badminton, Cricket, Volleyball, Table Tennis and Soccer.

Sportsmanship at PurpleTalk
Now sports has become such an integral part of the company’s culture that we have events happening almost every month, and we are supportive of Events such as the Airtel Hyderabad Marathon organized by others. Along with our team volunteering at the Aid counter of the AHM, we also had others who participated in the marathon. Vinod Nair from the engineering team successfully completed the full marathon of 42.5 Kms within 5 hours. Another such notable event was the Pink-a-thon, a women’s only marathon which focussed on raising awareness of Breast Cancer and other lifestyle disorders.

Sports activities organized throughout the year naturally brings out aspects like teamwork and team spirit that permeate through the cultural fabric of our company. The friendships forged through competition, sweat and cheers stand strong through tough projects and tight deadlines. Sports teaches important lessons about the need for teamwork and gives a thorough understanding of our culture where we believe we can accomplish anything, and help each other recover from mistakes by showing acceptance, encouraging each other and laughing together.

Blog, Quality Assurance/Testing

Testing Challenges: Hardware Integration with Mobile App

May 4, 2015 [x]cube LABS

Mobile app hardware integration has opened up new possibilities in enterprise mobility. A hardware can be integrated with the app by connecting to audio jack, pairing with bluetooth and WiFi.

Our main approach while using the app is simple: to collect the data that we want to pick up from the hardware and display it on the mobile app. Based on this logic, we build an application and the communication is established between hardware and the application via protocols depending on the type of integration such as bluetooth, audio jack and WiFi. It is also equally important to notice and overcome challenges we encounter while integrating the hardware and the software. Here are a few testing challenges commonly encountered in hardware integration with mobile apps:

Hardware and software compatibility with various devices and OS: The most complex is integrating the hardware with an array of handsets and versions of the mobile platform available. It’s important to test the application in possible devices which are mostly used by end user. Hence we need to make sure that the hardware integrated with a particular handset with one OS is working well with another handset with a different OS.

Verifying audio file compatibility: It is very difficult to identify that the integrated audio file in the mobile application for hardware is working fine with all mobile devices including iOS and Android devices with different OS versions. So the tester has to verify that the hardware is responding well and the data displaying in the mobile application in different mobile devices is correct/ accurate.

Verifying battery status of hardware: It is most important to verify the battery status of the hardware which is displaying in the mobile application. So the battery should get tested first – how much voltage it has – using the multimeter and make sure that

The same data gets reflected in the mobile application as the battery status.
While using the same battery in different hardware components, it should display the same battery status in the mobile application and should not fluctuate.
When the battery is about to die, the hardware response to the mobile application is very poor.

Verifying data bits using protocol document: To ensure proper functionality and data response from the hardware to the application, the tester needs to take the help of a hardware engineer to collect the data bits response of the application when the hardware is connected to the device. And those data bits should be compared with the protocol document to check whether values displayed in the app are correct or not.

Another way to verify the data is — the tester should go through the original hardware components and play with those to see how the hardware is working, the display of values and functionality, etc., so that the tester can easily understand the application and test it thoroughly with all possible scenarios.

(Devi durga Potluri works as a Module Lead QA at [x]cubeLABS. She has over 6 years of experience in Mobile handsets(MRSF), Mobile and Web application testing and Hardware integration testing.)

Blog, Cross Platform HTML5

PhoneGap vs. Titanium: A comparison

May 1, 2015 [x]cube LABS

PhoneGap (created by Nitobi) was the first and notable framework that captured the attention of the mobile application development community and was eventually acquired by Adobe Systems.

Titanium (from Appcelerator), which was already providing tools for cross-platform application development for Desktops, started supporting iOS and Android around the same time as PhoneGap was announced.

Now, let’s see how PhoneGap and Titanium compare in cross-platform app development and when to choose one of these for your application needs.

PhoneGap / Cordova

PhoneGap is an open source project maintained by the Apache Software Foundation as Apache Cordova. Applications built using PhoneGap are a mix of native functionality combined with most of the business logic built in Javascript and the UI rendering in HTML5/CSS. PhoneGap does not have a UI library of its own, but provides an architecture for communication between the JS layer and the Native layer of the application. The Cordova development community contributes plugins that add to the base framework and modules of Cordova. Cordova’s aim is to build a sub-set of functionalities that are common to all the mobile platforms and expose them through the Javascript interface to a web application. This helps developers by eliminating the conditional programming (coding based on the underlying OS / platform) and focus on the app functionality. But this also causes developers to put in the extra effort and create their own plugins if they need any platform specific functionality.

Titanium

Titanium is also an open source project, which helps build native applications through a Javascript interface. Unlike PhoneGap, the UI of the app will be native but it is generated by Titanium after interpreting the Javascript code. Javascript being a well-known language and web developers being already accustomed to it, Titanium can help create native apps without much training. Developers still need to understand how native applications are created and how native controls or concepts are mapped to the Titanium SDK. Alloy is an MVC framework built on top of Titanium SDK, which uses XML and TSS file formats to define and style the UI of the app. Alloy uses Backbone.js and Underscore.js frameworks to provide tools and architecture needed for the MVC pattern in javascript.

Choosing the right toolchain

Control on app release: If you want absolute control on the app release and bypass the review processes of the platform specific app stores, pick PhoneGap. Since PhoneGap apps are more like app enclosed websites, you can release/update websites as frequently as you would want to and the app is instantly updated for all of your users.
Porting an existing web app to mobile: If you have the business logic built and the website already working, then PhoneGap route is the quickest, provided you can quickly make most of your web pages / website mobile friendly.
Need native UI, but do not know platform specific languages: Titanium wins, because your app can be deployed to all platform specific stores that are currently supported by Titanium. With PhoneGap, your app UI will not be native and performance will depend on the web browser of the platform and its limitations.
Support all major mobile platforms: PhoneGap is the choice here, it supports iOS, Android, Blackberry 10, Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, Amazon Fire OS and Tizen. Since the framework and the architecture of PhoneGap are simple, they can be quickly ported to any new platform that may be announced in the future. Titanium, on the other hand, currently supports iOS, Android with BB 10 and Windows (recently added). Adding a new platform to the list supported by Titanium takes a lot of effort and Titanium may or may not choose to support it.
Software and Hardware needed (infra): PhoneGap applications can be built on any system with just a browser. But tools like Dreamweaver, etc., can be used to help in the process. You would need to have the platform specific OS, SDK, and IDEs only if you want to build the application for deployment on your own machine. You can use a service called PhoneGap Build to build your apps for all supported platforms on the cloud and get the binaries. Titanium, on the other hand, requires platform specific hardware/software/SDKs to be installed to develop and build the apps.
Programming Languages and Technologies: Although Titanium uses Javascript, XML, etc., to create the apps, the development team must understand the terminology and the constructs of the native applications to build the UI of the apps. PhoneGap does not need this. As long as you are good with HTML/CSS and Javascript you can go ahead and build the UI using any JS framework you like (JQuery Mobile).

This blog does not intend to show one tool is better than the other, since there is never a “one shoe fits all” scenario. Your project requirements and priorities should help you choose the tool.

Blog, Cloud Computing

4 key cloud migration challenges and solutions

April 24, 2015 [x]cube LABS

The adoption of Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) as well as the advent of social media platforms and popularity of mobile is resulting in data as well as processes migrating out of the firewall into the cloud. The migration to the cloud presents a lot many opportunities but at the same time there are many challenges which enterprises need to address for successful adoption, deployment and implementation. Here are 4 key cloud migration challenges and solutions:

Security: With more information out of firewall and presence of more third party service providers, there is a risk of data security. To solve this, the integration must be able to authenticate and authorize access to enterprises’ resources, in the cloud as well as on premise. The ability to store encrypted data is another essential to ensure security. Accessing data securely without compromising the firewall, requires security mechanism that will assure cloud users in SaaS integration.
Flexibility and scalability: While moving forward with migration, multiple integration flows moving both across the enterprise and the cloud are necessary. The solution needs to be flexible. In addition, it must also be able to scale up.
Less visibility and Control by Users: Cloud based applications offer great convenience and ease of usage for enterprise users in the meantime, transferring the burden of upgrades and maintenance to the SaaS provider. But this again has drawback as users will have much less visibility and control over their own SaaS applications. Therefore, solutions need to include rich monitoring capabilities to offer the visibility and control over key information flows and performance attributes to the users.
Closed Platforms: To address the challenges of cloud strategy deployment, vendors have begun offering creative solutions but using integration solutions from third party limits the enterprises’ ability to freely select and manage the solutions that are best suited to their needs. To resolve this challenge, integration solutions should be offered with open platforms that would enable enterprises to easily move on/ off whilst seamlessly integrating their applications and data.

These challenges need to be looked upon before going ahead with migration but once cloud migration is attempted, many other difficulties also arise in the road to successful migration.

In simple terms, the migration process can be broken in 3 steps:

Plan: In this step, key goals are determined and accordingly objectives and guidelines are then set. Key metrics for measurement are then developed.
Execute: While execution, it is very important to stick strictly to the plan and follow the best practices.
Monitor: The whole process of migration needs to be monitored and reviewed periodically.

The issues regarding integration can be addressed quickly by adopting a well-defined architecture and comprehensive strategy. A well thought plan on migration and implementation only, will help in avoiding the inconveniences that arise due to unpreparedness.