Category: Usability

Omni-Channel Customer Engagement : Inspiring Loyalty by Driving Great Customer Experiences

November 8, 2017

If you own a business or head the marketing department of any organization, you will know the hard work and resources that go into building digital assets such as content, documents, PDFs, audio and video files, and images. Not only is it expensive to create rich media, it is also difficult to distribute them to the right customer at the right time. Considering how marketing strategy is changing altogether, one needs to remember that rich media content is getting richer, thanks to all the digital marketing and various forms of communication that we use to influence our customers. In addition, our customers and target audience themselves add to this sea of content, in terms of social conversations, reviews, queries, questions regarding products and services, etc. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that even calls made to the customer care can be included in our list of digital assets, as much of that is used for training, or to improve marketing communication. At the end of the day, all this rich content is used to enhance customer experience and is delivered and received through multiple channels. Why multi-channel customer experience is a problem Multi-channel customer experience may seem effective, but is inherently chaotic, and misses the context. Let us take a look at this example: While a customer might browse for information on your website on his mobile device, he may choose to visit your brick and mortar store to take an actual look at it before making the purchase. When he arrives at the store, he may realize that a third-party vendor such as Amazon is providing a better discount than your brick and mortar store, and may eventually order it off that platform. In between, your blog may not have updated information about the product he wants, but Amazon’s customer reviews may. If the product has a problem, or if he has any questions regarding his purchase or warranty, he will probably have to call up Amazon, and your customer care, and co-ordinate between the two entities, leading to a lot of confusion and chaos. In the end, he may leave an average or below average review just because he was annoyed with multiple channels being made available to him. Worse, he may rant on Twitter about the perceived lack of help he received. What gives? In the end, though you may be offering various forms of information and media on multiple channels for your customer’s benefit, he may end it on a sour note. While multi-channel customer experience is the reality today, it needs to be delivered via an omni-channel model. How is this even possible? Well, modern technology allows multiple channels to converge, and appear as if it were all tied together, resulting in a truly omni-channel customer experience. Understanding the omni-channel customer experience model Omni-channel customer experience brings voice, email, chat, media, and other forms of content together, and distributes this across channels by placing them in a context. By synchronizing these disparate channels, omni-channel experience brings a context-appropriate and customized experience to each customer across the buying cycle or customer journey. On an omni-channel model, when the man described above browses your website for a product, the CMS picks up his visit, shares this with the CRM, and communicates to the backend. Probably, when he arrives at the brick and mortar store, the sales guy already has this information on his tablet, allowing him to give a special discount. What’s more, your customer care executives get a detailed history of the customer’s buying journey, so that he doesn’t have to explain anything all over again. In this model, you avoid the confusion, save the customer’s time, make him happy by solving his problems quickly, provide a great buying experience, and avoid the pitfalls of online rants and bad reviews. Most importantly, you inspire loyalty by providing a seamless experience right from the time he made that web search to the time he called up the customer care after making the purchase. All along the journey, all the content and digital assets you have created are shared to him depending on the context, across devices and channels, ensuring that there is no information overload or out-of-context communication. In other words, an omni-channel customer experience model gives you control over how you manage your digital assets to your customers’ and your advantage. Instead of having disparate processes of document management system, CRM, ERP, offline situations, etc, omni-channel customer experience brings all this together through integration and cloud computing techniques. All customer engagement exercises are sourced from a central repository which influences the way your CRM, ERP, document management system, and other tools behave across channels. In short, today’s omni-channel customer experience is a tightly-knit and cohesive multi-channel model that actually works.  How does omni-channel customer engagement work? An omni-channel customer engagement model begins by creating appropriate awareness and uses your existing digital assets such as rich media and blogs, which are distributed across channels. Deeper-level content is then used to generate interest and desire both online and offline and once your automated systems recognize the desire to purchase, a convenient purchase process is presented to the customer. Customer’s needs are fulfilled by constantly engaging and communicating, and customized post-sales support is provided, leading to customer satisfaction and loyalty.  Here is how you can use omni-channel customer engagement to inspire customer loyalty: Adopting a customer-first policy Whether your customer prefers to walk into a store or chooses to browse on his mobile phone, you need to place his needs at the top of your priority list. Develop and reuse content, and distribute it across channels such as website, email, offline media, etc depending on who your customer is. Identify buyer personas and use analytics to place your existing digital assets within the context of your individual customer. Of course, a lot of this permutation and combination is done by software tools resulting from integration, so that omni-channel customer engagement is automated to an extent. Leveraging existing

Read More »

MakeYourTax: A Web-Based Tax Filing Solution for CAs and Enterprises

July 27, 2016

The new financial year has already begun and most of us have finished filing for returns in the nick of time. In fact, studies reveal that for accountants and CAs, the weeks preceding tax filings are some of the most stressful, leading to reduced performance and quality of life. People get stressed out on tax issues simply because numbers are scary, and filing tax returns involves a lot of number crunching. A simple mistake can cost a CA his client. While chartered accountants are trained to do this, even they find it difficult to handle different clients and may inadvertently make errors. Existing tax software programs require you to install them physically on a computer, making your system slow and inefficient. Also, you may not be able to rectify or correct issues on a different computer or from a different location, requiring you to file your returns on the computer where the tool is installed. All this leads to a reduction in efficiency and a gradual loss of man hours which could be used for something else. The solution to all these problems is MakeYourTax, a unique income tax returns filing web-based application, a joint venture of Indus Net Technologies and Taxmantra. How does MakeYourTax help CAs and enterprises? MakeYourTax is a cloud and web-based app that requires no installation and is available 24×7. It is easy to use and all you need to do is log in once to start filing your returns instantly. This is the perfect tool for those who are working from multiple office set-ups. MakeYourTax supports all ITRs and you can directly upload XML files, negate the requirement for entering data manually. This web-based application is perfect for chartered accountants (CAs), accountants and enterprises. The tool is specifically useful for chartered accountants, who often go through a reduction in efficiency because of older legacy taxation tools. This cloud-based filing system helps CAs to delegate work to junior interns, and it makes filing ITR and e-TDS of different clients a breeze. If you are a CA, you will no longer have to struggle through manual installations, performance audits and regular updates of your software. All this happens in the cloud, without you ever having to do anything. In other words, chartered accountants can finally leverage the power of cloud computing. If you are a chartered accountant and were wondering how MakeYourTax will help you, this section will help you to understand its main features. A taxation solution with full features The app covers ITR 1, 4S, 2, 2A, 3, 4, 5 and 6. You can easily make revisions and rectifications. In other words, MakeYourTax is a full-suit taxation app that solves all your problems as a CA, and you can simply focus on growing your business and nurturing your clients, instead of worrying about technicalities and software issues. Cloud-based solution MakeYourTax is a cloud-based app that does not require any installations or upgrades. This means the app is always up-to-date, ready to serve you, help your crunch numbers and make your work a lot easier than you might ever imagine. It is incredibly fast and can scale up during demand seasons such as the weeks before tax-filing deadlines. If your interns are not able to come to your office, they can simply work from home. This allows you to hire more interns and employees, especially if you do not have a large office. Helps you collaborate As MakeYourTax is a cloud-based app, you can easily collaborate with your team and also your clients across the world. The application provides simultaneous access, which makes coordinating and collaborating very easy. With a single license, you gain access to a multi-user, multi-location platform that easily solves all your tax-related problems. Easy to use As a CA or an accountant, you might worry about how difficult this software might be to use. The app has been designed with non-IT professionals in mind and is thus very intuitive and easy to use. In fact, even junior interns can use the application easily. If you need support, our trained tax professionals will help you and clear your doubts. Data protection and security When it comes to sensitive data such as tax-related numbers, data security is of utmost importance. MakeYourTax has been designed with protection and security of data being high on the priority list. All data is kept private and the app features 256-bit SSL encryption. With encrypted back-ups being the norm, you never have to worry about your stored data falling into wrong hands or it getting lost. With guaranteed data backups and security, you can heave a sigh of relief and focus on your work. Future updates and features In the future, MakeYourTax is going to receive even more features as it is updated regularly and automatically over the cloud. Some of the features that will be available soon are TDS returns preparation and filing, service tax returns preparation and filing, and VAT returns preparation and filing. Moreover, we have a list of other useful features that we plan to introduce soon. With more than 30 years of experience in the field of taxation, our team consists of veterans who know what it takes to crunch numbers efficiently. Our team has filed more than 300,000 tax returns for their clients and managed more than 8000 businesses. The team’s technical expertise is sound too, with more than 18 years in the technology sector. MakeYourTax.com costs INR 9850/- per year for unlimited usage, multiple users, and multiple offices, for one firm. We also offer a white label tax filing portal which will help you acquire new clients, but this comes at an additional cost. All along, no matter what questions or doubts you have, our experienced team will be happy to assist you. If you would like to understand more about the application and how it can specifically help you, please feel free to contact one of our representatives and they will be glad to help you.

Read More »

Will Net Neutrality Receive its Due Justice?

May 25, 2015

Now your experience of watching videos online could soon become a hit or flop experience….you might experience either a flawless and smooth network or it could be extremely frustrating with interrupted services; and the reason behind this uncertainty has nothing to do with technology but with money making policy. It is to check how much a company is willing to pay to provide content faster onto internet connections. New Regulation against Net Neutrality Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voiced their concern against Net Neutrality as whether all content need to be treated equally or not. They emphasized on ‘paid prioritization’. They are trying to create a two-tier internet system – two virtual lanes; one fast and one slow internet. Now, this is something which is not fair enough! Recently, many internet service providers including Time Warner Cable, Verizon or AT&T strike deals with YouTube, Facebook and other web content firms for priority internet access to consumers. This means a content providing company can pay to an internet service provider company like Verizon or AT&T to have its traffic on the fast lane for better user experience. Similarly, many such other companies will follow the same rule. In a way, the internet service providers make more money and the costs for content providers shoot up. Now, the question lies how would the content companies recover these costs? They are left with no choices but to charge their customers more. The net result is that you and I will have to pay more for everything on the internet. Nonetheless, the start-up businesses will have a tough time to compete in the market. In fact, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) planned to block apps and websites to extract more money from businesses and consumers. It supported extreme violation of Net Neutrality. Airtel and Internet.org are two entities that were a threat to Net Neutrality. Both of them were offering plans that involved using websites and apps free of cost. Apparently, they looked like good plans; however, the real cleverness lies in their strategy to charge more money from you for data packages. The Ongoing Debate However, the FCC’s and TRAI’s attempts to execute enforceable and sustainable rules to prioritize internet access to its users have been twice struck down by the court. The debate is still persisting as what’s good for corporations vs. what’s good for citizens of the nations? Net Neutrality is not only a fight between the big tech companies but its existence will highly affect the future of how billions of people access the internet. The Cause behind Net Neutrality Network Neutrality or Net Neutrality is the concept of treating all traffic equally, regardless of what data is being sent – it could be VOIP calls, emails, web searches or streaming videos. Internet Service Providers cannot block traffic to certain sites, in order to allow higher traffic to some other sites to get through. Any individual who have access to the internet needs to be able to find what they need online without any kind of hindrances. Net Neutrality advocates that internet is too important to the economy and democracy. It is a critical tool to conduct commerce, communicate, educate, innovate and engage in the world around. Supporters of Net Neutrality Supporters believe that consumers are already paying for connectivity and they certainly deserve to get a quality experience. Violating the core rule governing the internet will be a ruinous way of delivering justice. They say ISPs… Need not be allowed to accept money from companies to make internet service run faster for subscribers Need not strangle user’s bandwidth, if they reach a fixed data cap Need not block competing websites from subscribers Need not exempt companies from data cap for paying more money The Open Internet Order The order is in support of transparency when it comes to broadband providers’ responsibilities. They need to be sincere when it comes to management practices, performance reviews and terms & conditions of the services. Also, they cannot discriminate transmitting lawful internet traffic to websites. Absence of Net Neutrality and Its Impact on the World of Commerce If companies providing internet service makes it difficult to get access to internet, numerous commerce platforms would have a negative impact on hundreds and thousands of SMEs that rely on them as a means to reach their existing customers & prospects across the world. Net Neutrality reduces the barriers of entry for entrepreneurs, by ensuring that the web is a fair field to work on. It is only because of Net Neutrality that entrepreneurs have been able to thrive on internet. The internet needs to be open to foster job growth, innovation and competition; and without Net Neutrality, ISPs would seize every possible opportunity to earn profit. Letter to FCC (Source: Bussiness2Community) Major tech companies including Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon and more asked FCC to encourage Net Neutrality. The letter says, “Instead of permitting individualized bargaining and discrimination, the Commission’s rule should protect users and Internet companies…against blocking, discrimination and paid prioritization….” What’s Next? With opponents challenging the new rules in the court and some Republicans in Congress upholding open-internet legislation that would supplant the new regulation against Net Neutrality, the Federal Communications Commission finally approved the policy of Net Neutrality by a 3-2 vote. They ensured that no corporate or governmental body should rule free open access to the internet. In fact, Mark Zuckerberg says he is no enemy of Net Neutrality. On the other hand, over 10 million emails have already been sent to TRAI to prevent Net Neutrality in India from being manipulated. It has also received around 7-8 lakh comments on its discussion paper to preserve the Internet’s free and open character in India.

Read More »

The Real Need for Syndicating Content

March 19, 2015

Content syndication is the act of publishing content, which is already published on your website, to other websites. The content so published on third party website with your due permission can be either full or a portion of original content. Syndication enhances reach of your content and improves visibility on search engines. In contrast to syndication, guest post is when you write content to be published on a third party website but do not publish the same on any other website including your own. Many content marketers believe that syndication harms their content by lowering search engine ranking and raising questions about plagiarism. This article will bust that myth and highlight the real need for syndicating your content. Why do you need to syndicate? Syndication is an excellent way to give wings to your content. It lets your content get exposure through superior third-party websites. Your content can be viewed by well-established audience of other websites who share common interest with you. For a growing business, this is crucial, as you want your content to be viewed by as many people as possible. Higher the viewership of your content, the better it is for your brand. A site with higher viewership and superior reputation will in turn garner respect for your content. This clearly indicates that your content is qualified enough to be published on a superior website. If your content is being liked by the audience, the demand for your content will increase. It will further increase traffic on your own website. Thus, as you might have noticed, without putting in extra labor, except of course building relationship with owners of other websites, you are able to create tremendous exposure for your content. You need to also be cautious while selecting a third party website. It need to score high on reputation, quality of content posted and most importantly relevance to your business. How does it help a small business? While content syndication has numerous benefits for marketers, it is interesting to see how it helps small business owners for whom frequent content creation becomes a challenge. There is nothing to lose in content syndication, contrary to the thoughts of many marketers. Once you publish your content i.e. write up, photo or video on another website, audience of that website starts engaging with your content by sharing, liking and commenting on it. Because you can use the links that drive the visitor back to your website, content syndication gives you a much needed impetus. Sharing buttons to social media pages, blogs, website and links of your landing page or website, all help you to take the credit of your work. The multiplication of content across the deserving websites will highlight your business ultimately. The reposted content always contains a postscript saying this content was originally published by so and so person or brand. Even if the postscript is overlooked, you still can use embedded links, sharing buttons and hyperlinks that direct the visitor back to pages owned by you. A number of websites focus entirely on syndicated content. You can look for relevant websites in your industry. Uploading RSS feed on your website is another good way for alerting your followers that you’ve published a new piece of content. Any third party website interested in your content might choose to publish the content on their website. Many social media profile owners like to share interesting content with their audiences and they look for website like yours to use content on their website. It is a win-win situation for both you and the publisher. You can also approach blogs in your industry to publish your content. While this is a free content syndication strategy, another way of going about it is paid syndication strategy. Paid syndication involves websites which go out in the market and syndicate content for you on the topmost websites in the industry. The right time to go ahead with content syndication is when you have built enough audience for your own website. It is essential because by this time you are able to strike a chord with your target audience and create content actually liked by them. You can experiment with your content. Whether it is blog or social media profile, don’t abandon it ever. Always do the necessary follow-up and answer to the queries generated. A loyal audience comes really handy as they share the content further. With necessary experience and credentials in content publishing & visitor engagement, it becomes easy for you to approach other websites. As a small business owner, it is evident that you can’t spend your entire time and energy in creating & managing content. After all, it is not your core business. It is always better to select a team of individuals who work towards developing content. Even if you have a remote content developer, it is better to keep a back up option. Appoint a manager to take charge of content syndication. All syndication efforts of your company need to be directed through him/her to avoid confusion for others. How to be selective? Syndication efforts need to be driven safely. You just can’t go overboard and syndicate whatever you like or whatever you publish on your site to other sites. Such an attempt diminishes the purpose of content syndication itself. Choose to syndicate selective content that intrigues the visitors to explore the details. This leaves room for visitors to pay a visit to the original content publisher. Apart from that, you always want your loyal website visitors to get the maximum information from your website. As a beginner, you need not prefer to withhold content, rather spread it as much as you can on “carefully selected websites.” Once you build the reputation as an exemplary content publisher, you might choose to redesign your syndication strategy. SEO consideration while content syndication Content syndication bolsters your SEO strategy as your content gets more recognition and credibility through publishing on renowned websites. Without having to write more content, you can leverage

Read More »

Fence Your WordPress Website from Hackers with “Wordfence” Security Plugin

December 15, 2014

Have you ever thought that your WordPress website can be hacked? Are you ready to face the adversities of such an attack that can put your site and blogs at stake? If you are pondering about how to secure your website from such attacks/hack, then this blog is a must-read for you. Hackers across the globe are always actively working on their plans to hack websites that are of interest to them; and obviously WordPress based websites are no exception. In fact, the present frequency of hacking attacks across all WordPress sites is increasing every minute. So, isn’t it wise to secure your tirelessly created website before it gets hacked? Off course it is! How to Secure Your WordPress Website Securing the WordPress site you have is not that tough with ‘Wordfence’ Security plugin. All you need to do is download the latest version of the plugin, which is one of the premier cyber security solution developed specifically for securing WordPress websites. It’s a free WordPress security plugin that includes a comprehensive package of anti-virus and firewall incorporating tools & machine learning that can help your website recover from any major hack. However, the premium version of the security plugin is even available with some extra features at a cost of $ 3.90 to $ 39 per year. What You Would Get Wordfence, featured with a number of unique security features, is the sole WordPress site security plugin that offers real-time distributed protection by learning from other websites that have already been hacked. Once it gets notified about a hack attempt on WordPress website running Wordfence, it automatically blocks that particular attacker not only for that site but also from intruding into the other sites running this security plugin. How Wordfence Secures Your WordPress Website Here are the features that help Wordfence to be so much active in maintaining your website security: Cellphone Sign-in: Even referred to as Two Factor Authentication, Cellphone Sign-in allows you to sign-in to your website through cellphone and permanently stop brute force attacks. Network and Geo-blocking: This feature helps in blocking WordPress hackers even when they change IP address for hacking. Wordfence directly bans their network, range of IP addresses and country & makes WordPress security stronger. Site Repair: Being backed by cloud servers, Wordfence can help you identify the hacked files. When your WordPress website gets hacked, Wordfence uses its source code verification feature for letting you know what has changed in your site so that you can easily repair the files that have been hacked. Machine Learning: This feature of Wordfence keeps your WordPress website pre-protected when someone else’s website receives a hack attempt. It reports attacks on a real-time basis to its cloud server and this in turn, helps it identify the IP address & block it for all the websites running Wordfence. Source Code Verification: Wordfence not just verifies the integrity of the core source code and opensource plugins & themes of your WordPress website but even does a full scan of unrecognizable files. It even scans the source code that remote scans are unable to do. What Limitations Wordfence Has In spite of all the aforementioned features and benefits, this WordPress security plugin is not free from limitations. Here are the loop holes of the plugin: You might need to wait for a while to get a tech support. If you are unsure about how to use the plugin, it might provide you with false positives. If the plugin is misconfigured, it causes Wordfence to stop working without any prior intimation. Scanning of websites tends to occupy a lot of memory. Currently, it does not include security from fake sign-ups. Final Thoughts Despite all of these limitations, Wordfence is a feature-packed and efficient cyber security plugin that can protect your WordPress website on a real-time basis at a affordable price. Detailed information about this security plugin can be availed at the site of Wordfence. Further, for any technical support you may consult us at info@indusnet.co.in

Read More »

How to Make Website Usability Work for You

March 28, 2012

Before designers and developers begin to argue about how a website must look and feel, the first and foremost factor they consider is that of usability. What is Usability? Usability in layman’s terms could be described as a quality attribute which allows us to assess how easy the user interface is. A website interface’s usability depends on its learnability, efficiency, memorability, recovery from errors and satisfaction. Firstly, users should be able to learn around the design and the interface of a website’s interface. Secondly, the interface should be efficient and easily perform tasks and help users to navigate around. Even if a visitor returns to the website after a long time, the interface must be easy to remember so that they can start using the website easily. The interface must pose minimal errors, and when errors are presented, they should be able to resolve easily. Lastly, the interface must be satisfying and pleasant. Another aspect to usability may be utility, which refers to the quality of an interface actually doing what it is supposed to do. This leaves us with the question why usability is important. Why is Usability Important for a Website? Usability’s sole goal is to retain the attention of the visitor. Any flaw in a website’s interface will cut short the span of attention, prompting the user to leave the website for its competitors. This is very crucial in a competitive world, where every website competes with another in order to retain the attention of the visitor. If a website is difficult to use, if the homepage does not clearly state what the company offers, if the users aren’t told what they could do on the website and even if they get lost while using the website, they simply leave. If the information is not written well or if the language is superfluous and lengthy, users again leave. Aesthetics, preciseness of content and usability of design are crucial to usability and to retain the attention of the visitor. Research shows that spending about 10% of a design project’s budget doubles the website’s desired quality metrics. This translates to purchasing products, if we are talking about an ecommerce site. Thus, usability not only depends on the design of the interface but also on typography and the way the content is presented. Usability Checklist for Websites Web designers and developers who seek to make websites as usable as possible should go through certain usability checklists in order to make sure that nothing important is missed out. Like mentioned earlier, the more usable a website is, the longer the users would stick around. This ultimately leads to better interaction and probably purchase decisions as well. KeyRelevance has a checklist of 101 usability tips that designers and developers must always keep in mind. These include design, typography and aesthetics related tips. Smashing Magazine too has a number of links to usability and user experience tips, which lead to better interaction with web interfaces. Mashable listed 7 key website usability tips of which keeping content as concise as possible remained at the numero uno spot. The idea is to get to the point, cut out unnecessary information, avoid jargon and use shorter phrases and sentences. They also recommended using headings to break up long articles as many surveys and studies point towards better retention of content when it is presented under headings and subheadings instead of lengthy paragraphs. Another important factor is to make the content appear in an inverted pyramid format. The most important and newsworthy material must be written first, and the supporting details should be given later. Finally, related information can be discussed so that even if someone gives up reading an article due to lack of attention, they read the most important information first. Using bullets and text formatting is always pleasing to the eyes and easier to perceive information. One must space paragraphs, words and lines appropriately. Clumping words and paragraphs tightly around each other gives a claustrophobic effect. Spacing is very important. Hyperlinked text must be user-friendly and should be marked in bold or in different colours. Using visuals and graphics have their own appeal. One must remember that a single image can speak a thousand words. How to Engage in Usability Testing for a Website? Usability testing allows you to learn what works and what doesn’t work on a website. It helps you to make critical decisions regarding design, aesthetics and typography. Usability testing can be very expensive if you set it out to do it all on your own. There are several free, freemium and premium tools that can be used according to your needs in order to engage in usability testing. These tools and services help you to gather real-world data and decide what works and what doesn’t. Some of the free and freemium tools are Ethnio, xSort, KISSinsights, etc. A tool called Simple Mouse Tracking helps you to see how visitors interact with a website. It helps to record mouse activity and play it in real time. This helps you to make changes if visitors tend to leave after a certain pattern of mouse movements. AddUse, UserEcho and other services help you to track online activity on your website similarly. For more complex data and tracking of web activity, paid and premium services of free tools can be used. These can reveal complex patterns of users, and even get professional users to point out flaws in design and usability. Smashing Magazine has a list of free, freemium and premium tools and services that help in usability testing. Some of the Common Myths Regarding Usability can be Described Below Economic: Usability is either seen as something that is expensive, and almost a luxury. In fact, it can be quite affordable if one is considering daily usability. There are evolved ecosystems that help to bring in usability in design projects. Of course, another myth is that usability is so common that it is actually free. Unfortunately, there are no free lunches. Aesthetic: People

Read More »

Online project management tools

January 25, 2008

Proper project management is key to a successful project. To manage multiple projects and teams which are geographically spread across the globe, you need a quality project management tool. As a web development company, we looked around for some quality software which serves the purpose and does not burn a hole in the pocket. Here is our pick! Basecamp HQ:- A nice, minimalist simple to use software true to the philosophy of 37signals, the company which built it. This software is only available in a SaS (software as service) model. IMO this software best suits small projects which are communication centric. It lacks version control, task management, project tracking along with cost-benefit analysis. Overall, very easy to easy and adapt, but reporting is not up to the mark. If you are a small business and you do most of your project management yourself, this can be a good choice for you. Intervals:- It seems to have picked up the baton where Basecamp HQ has left. It also works on a SaS (software as service) model. It has more features (specially in terms of reporting and role management) than Basecamp HQ, thus making it suitable to manage complex projects across a large organization. Overall, it is a good attempt to overcome the shortcomings of Basecamp HQ. However it needs to improve on its usability. It also needs to provide staged progression in terms of features and complexity so that small businesses can adapt the system. I am sure that this software will become popular as they keep improving and become old. For a SaS model company, time-tested reliability is more important than anything else. Ace Project:- A comprehensive project management software with user friendly interface and short learning curve. It has different licensing policies and therefore you can rent or buy off (with our without source code) the software to suit your organizational needs. This software is around for quite some time and therefore seems to be reliable. It has decent reporting capabilities, but not as good as what Intervals claim to have! Dot Project:- The best free open source project management software that I have come across. This software looks flexible and extendable. You can plug in various modules, including Mantis (for bug tracking). The usability and reporting leaves much to be desired. So if you are looking at free project management software with access to source code, Dot Project is a good choice. Conclusion: There is nothing called a perfect project management software. The usage, the users and the desired result determines the one which suits best for a given organization. So take your pick from the above mentioned toolset.  

Read More »

Basic limitations of using open-source products

January 23, 2008

Apart from doing software / web development on Open-source platform, Indus Net Technologies also customize and implement open-source products for clients on demand. Some popular (and free) open-source products are SugarCRM, Drupal, osCommerce for CRM, content management and e-commerce respectively. IMHO, these are some limitations that I have observed. It is important to know them before initiating a project. These are not very serious in nature and using free open-source products remains a good option for many small and medium sized enterprises around the world. 1. Like any product, it is very important to align the product with your workflow and/or requirements. You must fit the product into the organization by making necessary changes. Therefore a gap analysis should be done and the effort must be estimated for aligning the product as per the current work-flow and/or requirements. 2. Most free open-source products lacks in usability. Therefore if you are doing a major implementation which will be used by thousands of people and you are going to pay for their time, you must consider a major overhaul of interface by involving a usability consultant from your vendor. Otherwise you will end up spending a lot of money. 3. Most free open-source products have very poor reporting system. These reports are not good enough to run a business as they fail to provide any insight into the business function that you are tracking. They should be re-done as per your company requirement aligned with your key measurement matrix for the given business function. 4. The programmers who can change the software as per your needs are the code-hackers types, who love to dive into an existing system architecture and make small changes to achieve the desired results. Therefore you must identify and hook up with the right programmer / programming company (like Indus Net Technologies – a bit of shameless self promotion) to get it right. 5. It is a myth, that implementing open-source software is free. Software code is free, not the hard work of programmers and analysts which goes behind implementing it. And you need the later to successfully implement it in your scenario and reap the benefits of the solution. Yes, it considerably reduces the cost, improves reliability and gives you a head start from where you can take informed decision about your IT needs. Do not get me wrong. I am only listing the limitations. The benefits are well-known and they out-live the limitations any day. However it is very important that these limitations are known before proceeding. Feel free to discuss / debate!  

Read More »

User Experience

September 5, 2007

Of late there is pressing demands of kinds of professionals who suggests user experience and are called user experience experts. But what is user experience? A common idea is, behind a website’s success two factors contribute; namely great design and flaw less script. The third perspective is often ignored and this is the most vital aspect of a website. It is called user experience. A great design can lure you to stay glued, some good dynamic HTML can make you feel elated and flawless code can add joy in the exploration of the web site. But what if the messages, graphics present in the website are confusing or ambiguous? A small example will help you. Say in a shopping cart after adding an item to cart, the message flashed is ‘Thanks for buying this product’. Will it not confuse you, when you actually are not buying the item but adding it to cart? Some eye-catching designs sometimes found to be totally ignorant in terms of user perspective. I often come across blogs which have light colored fonts against dark background. A blog is meant for reading and if it is not soothing at all, you will not be able to concentrate leaving a bad user experience. CAPTCHA is one other case where more than 50% of websites only harass visitors. CAPTCHA is to block automatic form submission through script and it is often distorted so that electronically it cannot be read. Often websites remain ignorant of this fact and make CAPTCHA text so complex and distorted that one need to hire a calligraphist to decipher it. All these only leave a long sustaining bad impression in your mind and whenever you visit the website it haunts you in the back of your mind. The wikipedia definition of user experience states that ‘User experience design is a subset of the field of experience design which pertains to the creation of the architecture and interaction models which impact a user’s perception of a device or system. The scope of the field is directed at affecting “all aspects of the user’s interaction with the product: how it is perceived, learned, and used’. For every successful product or service there is a context and content of website is built upon it. The content and context is enjoyed by the user of that product or service. If we go by user perspective and satisfaction level and if our website answers in positive for all the questions asked below, and then only we can claim it to be satisfying user experience. When the user first visits the website (and every time) is it accessible to him? If it is accessible then can he find information easily? The information he gets, is it useful? Is all the information he gets credible enough? If he ever gets wrong information, he will never trust you. When he browses the website, then all the messages or helps he gets, are relevant? If you providing any text, message etc in any area, then are the placement of such texts, images desirable? Is there any flaw exists in the usability of monetary transaction in your website? The user will never come back if he is harassed with payments. Is the website overall bug free? Is it eye catching? And last but not least how unique is its service or product? Are all these information valuable? Proper mingling of content and graphics in the light of context will draw visitors to your website and accessibility and usability will keep them loyal and contented.

Read More »

Forget “#”

August 27, 2007

Sometimes we click on some buttons or links of many websites but nothing happens. It sometimes just takes you to the top of the page (if you are somewhere below on the page). I am sure everyone has experienced this at some point of time, in one or the other website. If we see carefully, a “#” symbol is visible on the left of the browser’s status bar on moving the mouse over that button or link. It signifies that the button or the text-link is not connected to any page or section. The creator has just placed that for future work. May be the designer is working on the page to be linked and once it is done, the file will be uploaded and link will be updated with the real one (xyz.html etc.). It’s an example of poor experience design. It just makes the visitor feel frustrated. If your page is not ready, simply don’t put the link on the button or text from where it will be linked. You can link it later when you have the file ready for the visitor. We see the same thing in case of navigation bar. If you have to design the navigation bar and you don’t have a few pages ready to be linked, simply omit those navigation items. You can update the navigation bar later and do a “find-n-replace” through out the website. If you are lazy enough to do that or feel it will look odd, just give a clear “coming soon” message when people mouse-over the item. Sometimes designers handle it in an other way too. When the page is not complete they use a general template and put “data coming soon” on the content area. This is also a bad practice. Why taking a visitor to a page where you have nothing to say? You can say it before he goes there by putting a simple “coming soon” tool-tip kind of stuff on the related link or navigation item! It might be a small thing to you, but think about a person who is not as “tech” as you are. He or she might feel that there must be something wrong and try clicking randomly to find the information he/she is looking for, but in vain!

Read More »

Services

Industries

Company

Resources

Press Kit

MENU
Book a free consultation
CONTACT US

Let’s connect!

    Privacy Policy.

    Book a free consultation
    Almost there!

    Download the report

      Privacy Policy.