October 2013

Today one of my readers asked me following question via e-mail.

 “Which is the world’s best PHP framework in these days which have all the features, fast, robust, everything and developer using that can develop very good web application.

Second i want to know what is better for a web application using any frame work to develop it or just start it from scratch using PHP. Because some suggest that direct codes writing is better than using any framework.”

I choose to answer it here:

Here is post about one more session in mobile developer summit today. The title of this post is the also the name of session – The other side of usability. In one word it’s all about optimizing the apps for speed.

Here is the key takeaway :

1. Apps response time is crucial element to engage the users. Speed bottleneck can easily make the first time user to abandon the apps  and finally uninstall.
2. The wait loader can easily give bad impression about the apps. Hence avoid it wherever possible.
3. Load the text content first and then load the images. You can download the images in bulk in a single HTTP request
4. Do layout optimization. Avoid over drawing UI elements
5. Identify the bottlenecks and fix them. Below are the few way to identify the bottleneck…
   • Hallway usability testing
   • Competitor Analysis
   • Start using the apps yourself
   • User comments an feedback

This sessions had a good showcase on how the apps can be improved. The speaker shows the different version of an example app, improving it on next higher version.

 

Today I attend the Mobile Developer Summit in NIMHANS conventional center,Bangalore. This event was very well organized and was information filled. Mainly I liked two session of scott davis – One Web Many Screens , Mobile OSes : More than Android & iOS. I would write a post with collective of those two.

Here are key take away from the sessions :

1. Today users access you web app with many devices , hence one web & many screens . Giving the same user experience through out the device is challenging.
2. Apps must save it’s state on a device for every user  and resume back to the same state when switched between the devices
3. Apps must eventually learn it’s user behavior & get automated based on the same.
4. Apps can use GPS for location based automation
5. Apps must give instant activity updates across the device, across the OS, across the browser.
6. These days web has become a collection of different pieces which are loosely coupled.
7. Mobile devices can be integrated with other day-to-day machines like car.In fact car may be seen as a extension of mobile.
8. By next year the mobile OS spectrum may include few more OS like Tizen, Firefox OS, Ubuntu Touch etc
9. Big companies are trying to take a pie of mobile market .However the approach may be different  – Market Share or Profitability
10. Mobile OS , Mobile Hardware & Apps store are 3 elements of a mobile industry. Owning all of them by a single provider gives more control & market share. Hence Google , Apple , Samsung , Amazon are aiming at it.

I have just covered the major points of the whole talk. I would write more about them some times later.

That’s being said….I like the way scott gives the presentation. Good and engaging…

Today, I discovered that IRCTC is testing a new user interface. As per my observation not every request is routed to new interface, instead a random request is sent to this new interface after the user clicks on the “Find Trains” button.

At first I thought this new interface is public , however during my continued search for trains on different browser tabs I was landed on to the old interface. Hence I just took a screenshot of new interface.

To speak about new interface – it’s pretty good. Following are the few features I observed in the new interface:

Plan My Journey
The new interface includes few good enhancements.Now the auto suggestion for “To” & “From” station appears just after 1 letter is typed. Below the “Find Now” button a section appears after a click of “Find Trains” which help to filter the result by journey class – like 1A, 2A,3A,SL . Below that I  found 3 more sections like “Train Type” , “From Station” , “To Station” , for which I still wonder about the reason. May be “From Station” & “To Station” will list all the station which come between the specified stations before  search. As of now, these columns just display the specified stations before the search with a check box.