User testing is a great way to validate assumptions and gain new insights about how people interact with our websites and apps. When it comes to eCommerce (and in particular mobile commerce or “mCommerce”) it’s critical to understand how people find and purchase products online. This was evident on one project where we were tasked with testing the mobile website design for retail membership giant, Sam’s. As it turns out, there are many common navigation patterns that aren’t nearly as effective as people might think.

Web application startup time has a big impact on user engagement. When writing client-side applications, we deal with this problem in a variety of ways such as:

Think of the app on your phone that you love using: the one that just makes sense when you use it, the one that feels like it was built with you in mind. This is good UX or User Experience. Good UX makes an application sticky; it invites new users and retains active users. UX is the process of designing an application (or product) that is intuitive for people to use by considering how they will use it. Intuitive interactions are important for every project simply because people like things that are ‘easy to use’. However, creating a product that is easy to use takes lot of time, expertise, and iterations.

There is nothing more rewarding than watching people use your app and seeing how they interact with it. User testing is a lot like making dinner for someone; you choose a recipe, ingredients, and invest time making a meal you hope your guests will like. Then you sit down with them and talk about what is good about the meal, what could be improved, and if you’d make it again. At Bitovi, we put a lot of value on testing our designs (and our assumptions!) to be sure we’re building the right thing for our clients and our clients' customers.

After a technology-filled day at work, one of my favorite ways to relax is to sit with my dog and knit something. I love the tactile qualities of fiber. I can create something both appealing and functional (much like the interfaces at work), but without hunching over my laptop.

Existing solutions for server-side rendering your single-page application are full of compromises. These compromises affect the performance of your application (affecting the time until your user sees content) and the maintainability of your application (affecting how quickly you can iterate and bring more value to your user).