The new post “Software for hair loss treatment: high-tech way to save beauty and dignity” in Oxagile Blog awoke my interest. It’s devoted to special computer applications that help people fighting against hair loss (alopecia).

The author also published distressing statistics for this disease. It turned out, that a lot of men and women face this
problem by age 50 years (and some of them even by age 30 years).  I’m waiting impatiently the continuation of the topic, programmers from Oxagile are planning to write about software for people who inherited alopecia.

Have you ever heard a story about the person who had a huge problem with saying NO. Psychologists even have a special name for this problem but the topic of this post is not dedicated to psychology. Today a want to say some words about this problem related to IT testing.

But at first I want to determine the software testing process not as a process of finding and localizing bugs but the way to achieve the software quality at the highest possible and necessary level. So, if you are a software development company I think that you may find you in one of the following situations:

1. Your company doesn’t have a software testing specialists and these activities are among the responsibilities of software developers and managers (or maybe sales people). For many companies this situation can look strange and they believe that the results will lead to terrible bugs and money loses. But believe me I know enough such softwareу development teams (mostly small ones) that believe that website development for an iron works company or dentist entrepreneur can be successful without test cases and special techniques… If these are the statement of your company’s policy and you have no software testing specialists among you, it’s a good idea to have a short list of 2-5 companies to outsource your testing if needed.

2. Your company has software testing specialists but it seems that you are paying too much and their salary can eat all the profits. Software testing consultants are aware that one of the main reasons for overspending for quality assurance depends on not enough qualification of that company’s testing team. They fulfill much more tests and spend much more time than it’s necessary. If it’s so, as a manager your need to choose among two variants. On the one hand you can pay for their education and training or hire another team of software testers. Or you can think about outsourcing the part or the whole testing to another company that has enough experience in domain knowledge and can guarantee the needed level of budget and fulfill the project in time.

3. Your software testing team works good but the client is so important for the future of your business that your start thinking about additional testing. In this case software testing outsourcing is the best choice and the external view will be able to find the bugs and errors that were missed but in-house team. Why? The answer is hidden in psychology: it is really difficult to find your bugs even if we are speaking about testing bugs.

The conclusion: outsourcing of software testing and quality management is not the only but really good way to develop quality software, save money and do everything in time.

But what about the person who has a problem with saying NO? The answer you’ll find in one of the nest posts…

There are many types of traffic monitoring software at IT market. Most of it can analyze technical aspects of user activity – attendance of the site and every page, numbers of visitors and so on. These parameters are often useless to evaluate the effectiveness of web site.

Modern monitoring software should assess the conversion of the site and its financial parameters. Such tools have to separate out customers from visitors. Also they should collect full information about the customer: from which site he got to this one, where and how he was working with the information at the site, how much time it took him to make the order in whole and at every step, which type of payment he prefers and so on. The monitoring software should also collect detailed information about site visitors, who did not complete the order of a good or a service.

The main goal of monitoring software is to find problem points of the site. The analysis of such points can lead to improvements of user interface or pages descriptions. As a result, it will bring us the rise of site conversion rate.

It’s generally regarded that people perceive 70% of incoming data by sight and that this kind of information is likely to be remembered much better than anyone else. Many companies try to attract client’s attention to their site using numerous colorful pictures and pop-up boxes. Nevertheless sometimes it can be irritating and interrupting. So let the users choose by themselves whether to address to the visual means or just briefly take a look at the text. People like when somebody is taking care of them.

Streaming TV can replace annoying banners and meaningless pictures and fill the site with sapid information in a cute form. Thus the installation of personal flv player makes it possible to increase customers’ satisfaction, give them the opportunity of wider choice and richer functionality that brings you more loyal clients and therefore much money. Applying directly to the streaming software engineering company you’ll get development of your player, its customization by including personal features, integration with other site content and further improvement.

So why should you be irritating and interrupting when it’s possible to be practical and solicitous.

Mobile technologies develop rapidly. This fact explains growing number of mobile phone applications  today. Up to date mobile devices has wide variety of functions, they are equipped with innovative elements.

With the help of such innovative functions it is now possible to create really revolutionary mobile game applications. Many of them give opportunity to play favorite mobile game even without pressing the buttons. All the user needs is to move his phone from one side to another, up and down, and this makes the player on the screen run around the playground and jump.

Most progressive mobile development companies adopt modern technologies to make the life of people more convenient and exciting.

Graphical user interface of a bad quality is often the main reason of low traffic conversion. There are frequently too much loses of potential clients because of bad designed or complex interface. Web designers and UI analysts have to keep in mind some simple rules of building good structured and easy-to-operate web-sites.

The main principle of a good Internet shop is quite simple. Shop has to persuade visitors to buy goods or services. Main aspects of building such kinds of sites are:

• Don’t overfill the home page of your Internet shop. It should have only the most necessary tools and navigation links: main menu, search field, news or discounts information and unique selling points.
• Navigation shouldn’t be too deep. Visitors should have opportunity to get full information about the good or service in two or three clicks.
• Goods list should have filtering and sorting options to provide better navigation through the various products.
• Every good should have big and clear photos from different angles with possibility to enlarge the pictures.
• Buttons should be named according to “action – object” principle. For example, it would be better to use “Buy this DVD” than simple “Buy” for button names.
• Use clear descriptions of errors on you site. In case of error, visitor should know what to do next.
• Use standard color of the links. Visitor should know which pages he has already visited.

Simple and intuitive interface is a good source of additional customers. Interface optimization and simplification can raise your shop conversion in two or three times.

We live in the era in high technologies. More and more devices with different functionality have been invented for last decade. Mobile phones are one of the most unique examples of last scientific breakthroughs. The functionality of mobile phones becomes wider every day. Modern generation of these little phones has almost unlimited facilities for every kind of activities including internet access and mobile applications for serious business.

Modernized mobile phone allows not only being online when you are not in the office, but also use special applications both for fun or relaxation and for fulfilling work tasks and decision making.

Most analytics admit, that mobile applications confidently remove mobile web. The speedy tempo of life makes it more convenient for users to have access to necessary information even being offline.

But not all mobile development  companies have experience in development of unique innovative applications. For perfect result it is necessary to create and use special system of communication and skills transfer. And only this will makes it possible to fulfill projects of any complexity. Really reliable partner for mobile development should also have quality assurance certificate, such as ISO standard.

Modern IT-infrastructure requires system approach, especially in large companies. Managers can take the initiative and show their self-dependence in small IT-teams, but in large-scale IT-businesses any spontaneous actions won’t be appreciated. Companies require united IT-policy and its common practical application in order to ensure proper work of all the computer systems. All these peculiarities induced IT-managers to search new methods and principles. The answer was found two decades ago. This is IT Infrastructure Library or ITIL. Nowadays it’s de facto standart for the majority of companies.

ITIL is a “code of laws” for IT-specialists, set of policies and concepts for managers in information technology. As a matter of fact it’s a set of books, where specialists can find the best methods of IT-business organization. The recommendations and principles, written in ITIL allow not only to build a united IT-company infrustructure, but also to guarantee its compatibility with similar structures of other companies. ITIL can be used in any IT organization; it has been adopted by many succesfull businesses all over the world: Microsoft, IBM, Guinness, Procter & Gamble, British Airways, Hewlett Packard and others.
The abbreviation “ITIL” and the phrase “IT Infrastructure Library” are property and registered trademarks of the United Kingdom’s OGC (Office of Government Commerce), but the information from this unusual “library” can be used by all comers.

www.GSM-eapiece.com is an online store, a leader on the market of quality ware for communication. Last month they presented GSM Pen, new device for invisible communication.

GSM Pen with micro earpiece was designed for lazy students, who want pass exams or write tests without any problems. Also this device can be used by other specialists: security guards, businessmen (for closed meetings or negotiations), etc.

Communication via GSM Pen is the following: the wireless spy earpiece works as a micro earphone with a transmitter (real pen with ink) that gets signal from the cell.

The company provides 24/7 free support for GSM Pen and spy headphone.

Great, you have a comprehensive and skilled team of web developers, which provides good interactive web-solutions for your business needs. But, do you really sure that it would be enough to guarantee you business success?

No one can propose better answer to this question, than your customers. And the solution of this problem will be to use suitable application. There are various applications, which can help you to gather user experience. One of them is freeware tool, powered by Google - Website Optimizer or just GWO.

The main steps you have accomplish to get a report about the activity of your site visitors are: create test pages or use current pages of your web-application, modify them according to you marketing needs, then create test scenario and after some time get the report of user activity at your site.

According to the report you may decide which design or text content is better and increases conversion rate of your site. It will give you a source of the changes in your web-solutions and will lead to the growth of selling goods or services.