In web development, design and programming merge more and more as mobile, internet delivery, and data technologies advance. While keeping in mind the continual blurring of traditional technology lines (programming, design, hardware, PC, big data, etc.), here are some development trends to watch in the coming years.

1. Continued Development of Web-Based Programming - One of Info World's hot topics for the year, technological advancements have made it practical to create fully functional apps to be delivered via a web-browser. This reduces OS specific programming costs, and the marketing issues faced with various app marketplaces.
2. Big Enterprise Goes Open - "Just one day after Big Data firm Pivotal Software Inc. revamped its business model and open sourced core technologies," Microsoft Azure announced an open source integration to be used on Linux. Microsoft follows Google's Android which is leading the way. Today, watch for innovative ways open source technologies are going to be integrated with enterprise systems.
3. Data Management - With the last holiday season's queuing issues, data speed in web development is once again a significant issue.
4. Simplified Designs - With mobile development increasingly using websites over apps, web based applications need to be simple and easy to use. Modern trends are to use less color, less images and longer pages to produce aesthetically pleasing, minimalist designs.
5. Agile Development - According to TechRadar, a trend continuing to grow in 2015 is agile development processes. In the past, software development teams spent intense amounts of time building the foundations of their programs, then they worked on the functional aspects. With so much open source or cheap programming frameworks available, programming and design teams are using agile to cheaply and efficiently produce programs.
6. Smart Production Will Slow - With high-turnover technological products already integrated in the mobile-web driven world, new "smart" products will slow as they are worked into long-lived product cycles, according to Web Designer Depot.
7. Increasing Screen Diversity - As companies are releasing watches, glasses, and more wearable technology, interfaces are getting increasingly complex. Web development will increasingly use Responsive Design to optimize across multiple platforms.
8. Single Page Applications - To reduce screen problems, to manage data, and to simplify the user experience, single page web applications will become more common.
9. Data Processing on the Front End - Web applications have traditionally done most of their processing via servers. As more content is delivered via browser based programs, responsive programming languages take away the heavy lifting from the server and rely on each user's processing capabilities. This presents businesses the opportunity to develop large systems without extensive server presences.
10. Images are Big - When Grace and Lace appeared on ABC's Shark Tank, none of the sharks could believe a company could have pulled in as much money as they did off socks, with minimal advertising. Until the owner said her photograph was one of the most shared pictures on Pinterest. One well-done image can make a company, and with high definition screens the standard for mobile technology, expect high quality images to continue to be a part of web design and development.
11. Continued Use of Games - Many apps have been using the functionality, feel, and reward/consequence aspects of the gaming universe, even when creating serious commercial software. With online gaming itself becoming a huge industry, organizations will continue to use the feel of games to increase marketing of their web programs.
12. Cloud Infrastructure - The cloud is not just changing the way we access data, it is changing the way we think about information and business processes. Web design and development will include increasingly more powerful apps as high speed fiber connections, cloud hosting services, and colocation providers bring big data closer to consumers. These data processes will change the way businesses access data: employees anywhere, management everywhere, and systems available for any constituent.

We offer web development, creative processes, app management and software engineering services using Agile processes. Please contact us for more information about keeping your web development current. 

The term "product/market fit," in its most basic form, means that a product is in perfect sync with its customers. The product has been refined to perfection -- assuming you define "perfection" as giving your chosen market exactly what it wants.

"Product/market fit" might be the buzz word -- the golden goose egg -- of start-ups, but everyone big or small needs it.

In Ryan Holiday's book Growth Hacker Marketing, he write this: "The best marketing decision you can make is to have a product or business that fulfills a compelling need for a defined group of people -- no matter how much work it takes to create this."

No matter how much work -- that's the key.

The old ways of doing things, however, like the Waterfall Method, are becoming sluggish. Like a winded runner in a race, those models are falling behind. Today's Screen Age market moves with incredible speed and complexity, and the slow-footed, clumsy methods of traditional assembly line marketing and product development may not be as effective as they once were.

Companies need agility.

The Necessity of Agility in Today's Market

The decline of the old model of traditional marketing is not news. Although it's still a popular blog headline and book topic in 2015, the writing has been on the wall for years -- even among household name companies. According to a 2013 article, Taco Bell CEO Greg Creed said: "Marketing in its traditional sense no longer works in the competitive restaurant industry."

Creed admitted how social media was running laps around Taco Bell and how it can be a major challenge for slow-footed companies who still rely on the old models of public relations and marketing -- yet still expect total control over their message in an age of decentralized media. "If you are a control freak, you’re not going to like the future," said Creed.

The heart of the problem is not just learning to master social media. Agility is needed at the heart of where success happens: at that crucial intersection between product development and marketing. Companies can flow with greater effectiveness when they master what we call a "scrum," a "lightweight project management methodology" (which you can read about in our page that defines a "scrum").

Smarter, Faster, Stronger

What companies need is the ability to react quickly to changing markets. In web design, for example, having a malleable, lightweight project management methodology -- like what we at Contensive have innovated -- gives you the versatility to create and update powerful web design quickly without compromising the product. It's like a championship athlete who learns to change directions on a dime without compromising their power and speed.

Another example: in the game-changing field of Mobile App creation, adaptability and speed is a must. And sometimes companies don't realize how a powerfully designed mobile app -- one that is seamlessly integrated into their operations -- can revolutionize the way they do business and upgrade their quality of service to customers.

For example, with our mobile application LoadLog, a trucking company could communicate with its trucks through encoded SMS messages intercepted from the server and the registered mobile device. Someone might ask, "So what?"

When your company's server has to track trucks and communicate with them, and your trucks are running 24/7 through remote areas of North Dakota where standard web communication for mobile apps is spotty at best, you quickly realize how valuable an encoded SMS system -- which proved to be reliable even in remote locations -- could be. It was a game-changer for that company.

The Sky's the Limit

These are just two examples of how this new methodology can change companies into agile performers in the digital marketplace. Whether you're needing web design, web app development, mobile app technology, or multi-platform responsive design, Contensive understands how agility can refine your product and the service you provide until you're in perfect sync with your customers.

Whether it means making minor or major adjustments on your quest to product/market fit, contact us to see how we can make you more agile and powerful.

What is a product backlog in Agile development and how is it used

Have you ever wondered, "What is a product backlog in Agile development and how is it used?"

In answering that question, it helps first to understand the core benefit of the process: the Agile method gives you the ability to make fast and powerfully effective course corrections as you construct your product backlog.

Power and agility have always been a winning combination.

Athletes who combine power with light feet and quick correction capability are usually the ones who out run, outmaneuver, and outscore their opponents.

In aviation, the F-22 Raptor fighter jet has "supermaneuverability" -- the ability to turn on a dime, yet maintain incredible power and control, in ways that outperform normal aerodynamic technology.

These analogies illustrate how product backlog works when you're applying the principles of agile development.

It's all about speed, effectiveness, and maneuverability.

The Crucial Role of Product Backlog

Venture Beat makes this important observation about product backlog:

A backlog is where you define and prioritize the functional and non-functional requirements of the app. Each feature within the app must have requirements associated with it. If the development is left open-ended and lacks requirements, then you are more likely to get something you didn’t expect.

In other words, product backlog ensures that every little component knows what it's supposed to do (and not do).

Going back to the sports analogy, it's very similar to crafting a successful play in football: the 11 players on the field know exactly what their job is -- and what their job isn't. (You really wouldn't want a 350-lb lineman trying to run a passing route to catch a pass.)

How the Agile Scrum Revolutionizes the Backlog Process

As you map out all of the requirements for your app's features, the scope of the work can be intimidating.

That's where the "Scrum" team in Agile development comes in.

This method saves you the inflexible, tedious burden of having to document every requirement in your product backlog at the beginning of the process -- a very imposing, slow-going road over the mountain, especially at the start when you haven't built much momentum yet in your project.

How is this accomplished?

The major stages of developing product backlog -- mapping out the requirements for features and bugs, for example -- are no longer kept separate. You don't do each type of work one at a time in a linear path like an assembly line (also called the Waterfall method). Each type of work in a Scrum is combined, developed, and refined all together into "sprints." This allows incredible flexibility, speed, and quick correction capability.

Mike Cohn of Mountain Goat, one of the top trainers in the Scrum method, wrote this about product backlog in Agile development:

"Typically, a Scrum team and its product owner begin by writing down everything they can think of for agile backlog prioritization. This agile product backlog is almost always more than enough for a first sprint. The Scrum product backlog is then allowed to grow and change as more is learned about the product and its customers."

Other crucial stages, like listing all technical work or additional research that is needed, are also combined with the other stages. The team -- as they review their agile list of features, bugs, needed tech work, and research to-dos -- then decide together which items are the highest priority and which of those can be done in a single "sprint."

Greater Transparency and Collaboration

This sprint-by-sprint, all-stages-combined process allows insightful transparency for the customer. In fact, it gives the customer real-time collaborative opportunities throughout every stage of development. They no longer have to walk away and wait for the team to make their way down the assembly line of the Waterfall Method.

It also helps to have a wonderfully talented team of engineers, analysts and designers -- something that we're very proud (and grateful) to have at Contensive. To discover more about agile development, contact us and learn how our talented, hard-working team can help.

The Apple Watch has grabbed the most headlines so far, but the new Apple gadget represents just a small drop in a very large tech tidal wave heading our way. According to IDC.com, global wearable shipments will likely hit 112 million units by 2018.

What this means for mobile app companies can be summarized in one word: revolution.

And, just like it has been doing for everything else in the last 10 years, Apple is leading the way with the Apple Watch.

iGeeksBlog.com thinks the Apple Watch is a great idea because, among other things, it makes Apple's SIRI service immensely better, it's safer to carry (and harder to lose), and it means less time wasted on the phone. And mobile apps that design themselves around the Apple Watch's Star Trek-like SIRI voice interaction could go in some interesting directions.

But, as fantastic as the Apple Watch might be, it is only the beginning. Here are some other fascinating (and jaw-dropping) wearable gadgets that could transform design potential for mobile apps and, ultimately, change our world.

Feels Good to Look Good: Mobile Apps for "Smart" Clothing?

Companies are developing smart clothes. The most obvious application, physical fitness, is already well underway. Companies make smart shirts that measure your heart rate, breathing rate, steps taken, and other physical actions, and the shirt automatically sends it to a physical fitness app on your phone that compiles your fitness data.

MakoInvent observed the next step in smart clothes:

Apart from smartwatches, there are also wearables in the form of fashion...clothes such as Ralph Lauren’s Smart Polo Shirt. These devices are being tested for the possibility to assist field-based or remote working employees, through ‘bring your own wearable’ (BYOW).

Employee uniforms with smart technology embedded could produce a limitless array of possibilities, from on-the-job safety to job training and performance monitoring, for mobile apps -- especially, as MakoInvent noted, for employees who spend most of their time in the field or in remote locations.

Myo Armband (For Everyone Who Has Always Wanted to Be a Jedi)

If you're a Star Wars fan, how many times have you pretended -- either as a joke as an adult or in serious play as a kid -- to use the Force on something? Every person who has seen Star Wars has secretly wished they could move a giant vehicle with their little hand -- Yoda-style.

Thalmic Labs has brought that wish a step closer to fulfillment. Although no one will be moving giant spaceships into the air with a hand gesture -- at least not yet -- their new wearable gadget, the Myo Armband, can move just about everything else that is important in our digital worlds.

How?

They've designed an armband that tracks your muscle movement on your arm, hand, and fingers with incredible precision. The armband then translates your gestures into commands that can operate any Bluetooth-equipped computer or smart device. You can then control any device you already own just like Tony Starks controlled his Jarvis computer interface in the Iron Man movies.

So what's it like to use it?

Mashable.com writer Lance Ulanoff tried the Myo Armband and explained his experience:

In one instance...I controlled a Keynote presentation. I would wake Myo, wave my arm to the right or left to change slides and then, because Myo was set to sleep after two seconds, wake it up again to gesture to the next slide.

The more I did all this, the more adept I became at all kinds of gestures. One of my favorites was the demonstration where I turned on Myo, clenched my fist and then slowly turned my hand one way or the other to control the temperature of an on-screen thermostat.

Just like the arena of smart clothing, creating apps for mobile devices or computers that interact with Myo Armbands creates new frontiers -- and new challenges -- for mobile app companies.

And that's where we come in. Our highly dedicated, talented team of engineers loves challenges. If you have some wild ideas for mobile app creation -- whether or not it involves wearables -- contact us and see how we can help you make those dreams reality.

Like any other artisan work, it takes years to mature in the "art form" of user creation -- but these five tips will provide rock-solid principles that will point you in the right direction or, at the very least, provide some helpful reminders:

Tip #1: Go for Simplicity

You could make the case that novelists are the ultimate "user story" creators. If you've ever tried to write a novel -- a truly, reader-centric, riveting, fully operational story -- you know it takes a tremendous amount of planning and development, one sentence, paragraph, page, and chapter at a time.

But when it comes time to pitch that story to agents and editors, every novelist must have one indispensable skill: they must be able to sum up the story -- yes, the entire novel -- in one sentence. This magic sentence contains all of the ingredients: protagonist, the conflict that rises against the protagonist, and the goal that motivates the protagonist to overcome that conflict. It's all about who, what, and why.

In a certain sense, it's no different for user story creators. Until you're able to reduce your entire concept into its most elemental properties, you likely don't have a clear enough vision of the project.

All About Agile offers this tried and true formula that uses a one-sentence summary to establish the premise for your user story: "As a (user role), I want to (goal), so I can (reason)."

As the article author notes: "This [one-sentence summary of the premise] helps to ensure that the requirement is captured at a high level, is feature oriented and covers who, what and why."

Tip #2: Think As If You Were the Stakeholder, Not the Developer

We all develop bad habits, and even the best user story creators can nurture them without realizing it. One of the most problematic bad habits is viewing a user story from the developer's point of view and not the perspective of the user.

As AgileModeling observes: "User Stories should be valuable to the user (or owner) of the solution. They should be written in user language. They should be features, not tasks."

Tip #3: Don't Think of It as a Contract. Be Flexible.

If we approach user stories with rigid parameters, it could sabotage our ability to get the job done and get it done well. Every team member must establish an attitude of total flexibility and collaboration beforethey walk into the room to begin work on the user story.

As this article points out: "User Stories are not a contract. They are not detailed specifications. They are reminders of features for the team to discuss and collaborate to clarify the details near the time of development."

Tip #4: Rely on Teamwork When You Write Your User Story

Tip #3 segues nicely into #4. It's all about teamwork. If we slip into a put-this-into-the-assembly-line-and-walk-away mentality, we miss the point of agile development and user creation. Getting the product owner involved is the key.

As RomanPichler.com recommends:

A user story is not a specification, but a communication and collaboration tool. Stories should never be handed off to the development team. They should rather be part of a conversation: The product owner and the team should discuss the stories, or even better, write them together. This leverages the creativity and the knowledge of the team and usually results in better user stories.

Although human nature sometimes shrinks away from collaboration -- after all, we get a little nervous when too many cooks step into the kitchen -- we must remind ourselves that this "kitchen," the user story, thrives in a wide-open, flexible, collaborative environment.

For more information on how to write user stories for use in agile development, contact us and learn how our talented, hard-working team of agile experts can help.