• Read more about Part One: Test Driven Development

Automated testing has become one of those terms that we hear but what does it mean exactly? Is it actually necessary in order to be successful? And what common objectives can we learn from automated testing? What is automated testing? Test automation is the use of special software (separate from the software being tested) to control the execution of tests and the comparison of actual outcomes with predicted outcomes. Test automation can automate some repetitive but imperative tasks in a formalized testing process already in place, or perform additional testing that would be difficult to do manually. Test automation is critical for continuous delivery and continuous testing. The biggest question that many ask is why is automated testing necessary - see some of our reasonings below.

Automated Testing Saves Time and Money

Software tests have to be often repeated during development cycles to ensure quality. For each release of the software, it may be tested on all supported operating systems and hardware configurations. Manually repeating these tests is costly and time-consuming. Automated tests can be run over and over again at no additional cost, and they are much faster than manual tests.

Vastly Increases Test Coverage

Tests are written as YOU define, if you put in the time and effort to write a lengthy test you wouldn’t normally test manually, you can run this unattended ensuring the product is behaving as expected while keeping your sanity.

Testing Improves Accuracy

Even the most robotic humans make mistakes, automated tests will run as specified every time they are ran.

Automation Does What Manual Testing Cannot

An example of this is the fact that automated testing can scale, simulating thousands of users hitting the web application or test all 200thousand plus pages of our web application

Automated QA Testing Helps Both Dev and QA

Simply put, you catch bugs quicker and are notified in real time.

Morale Improves Across Team

Automating repetitive processes allows team members to focus on more challenging problems which can be more rewarding.  

Some common objections to automated testing:

Writing test will take me more time to write thus making me less productive!

Initially, this may take you away from moving the application forward at the rate your comfortable with but automated testing will help you from having to go back and revisit what you’ve created.

It won’t catch the tricky bugs

It may or may not, writing automated tests frees up your time to find the tricky bugs so you can push fixes.

Writing tests are boring! Boring? I agree, writing tests isn’t always the funnest scenario; if you want you can try writing your test as a pun. I have no idea where to start! We will cover a roadmap that is open ended to facilitate discussion. We are always here to help!   Want to read more about QA and automated testing? Check out how automated testing saves QA jobs! 

• Read more about Interview With Clutch On WordPress and Drupal

President of Mobomo, Ken Fang, recently sat down with Clutch for a Q and A about all things WordPress and Drupal.

What should people consider when choosing a CMS or a website platform?

They should probably consider ease of use. We like open-source because of the pricing, and pricing is another thing they should take into account. Finally, for us, a lot of it revolves around how popular that particular type of technology is. Being able to find developers or even content editors that are used to that technology or CMS is important.

Could you speak about what differentiates Drupal and WordPress from each other?

Both of them are open-source platforms, and they’re probably the most popular CMS’s out there. WordPress is probably the most popular, with Drupal running a close second. Drupal is more popular in our federal space. I think the main difference is that WordPress started off more as a blogging platform, so it was typically for smaller sites. Whereas Drupal was considered to be more enterprise-grade, and therefore a lot of the larger commercial clients and larger federal clients would go with Drupal implementation.

They’ve obviously both grown a lot over the years. We’re now finding that both of the platforms are pretty comparable. WordPress has built a lot of enterprise functionality, and Drupal has built in a lot more ease of use. They’re getting closer and closer together. We still see that main segregation, with WordPress being for smaller sites, easier to use, and then Drupal for more enterprise-grade.

Could you describe the ideal client for each platform? What type of client would you recommend each platform for?

Definitely on the federal side, Drupal is a much more popular platform. Federal and enterprise clients should move to the Drupal platform, especially if they have other systems they want to integrate with, or more complex workflow and capability. WordPress we see much more on the commercial side, smaller sites. The nice thing about WordPress is that it’s pretty quick to get up and running. It’s a lot easier for the end user because of its limited capability. If you want to get something up more cost-effectively, that’s pretty simple, WordPress is a good way to go.

Could you speak about the importance of technical coding knowledge when building a website on either platform, from a client’s perspective?

Most of these main CMS’s are actually built in PHP, and most of them have a technology stack that requires different skillsets. So, on the frontend side, both of them require theming. It’s not only knowing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, but it’s also understanding how each of the content management systems incorporate that into a theme. You usually start off with a base theme, and then you customize it as each client wants. As such, you need either WordPress or Drupal themers to do that frontend work. For any backend development, you do need PHP developers. For Drupal, it’s called modules. There are open-source modules that people contribute that you can just use, you can customize them, or you can even build your own custom modules from scratch. For WordPress, they’re called plugins, but it’s a very similar process. You can incorporate a plugin, customize it, or write your own custom plugin.

In between all of this, because it is a content management framework and platform, there are site builders or site configurators. The nice part about that is that you can literally fire up a Drupal website and not have to know any PHP coding or whatever. If you’re just doing a plain vanilla website, you can get everything up and running through the administrative interface. A Drupal or WordPress site builder can basically do that, provided they are savvy with how the system actually works form an administration standpoint. So, those are the technical skills that we typically see, that clients would need to have. In many cases, we’ll build out a website and they’ll want to maintain it. They’ll need somebody in-house, at least a Drupal site builder or a themer, or something like that.

Do you have any terms or any codes that clients should be aware of or should know prior to trying to launch a project in Drupal or WordPress?

PHP is definitely the main language they should know, and then HTML, JavaScript, and CSS for the frontend stuff. Drupal 8 has some newer technologies. Twig is used for theming as an example, so there’s a set of technologies associated with Drupal 8 they need to know as well.

Is there a particular feature of WordPress or Drupal that impressed you and potential users should know about?

I’m going to lean a little more into the Drupal world because a lot of people are starting to move to Drupal 8, which was a big rewrite. There are now a lot of sites starting to use that in production. They did quite a bit of overhaul on it. It is more API-driven now. Everything you do in Drupal 8 can be published as a web service. You can even do a lot of what they call headless Drupal implementations. That means you can use some of the more sexy frameworks, like Angular or React, to build out more intricate frontends, and still use Drupal as a CMS, but really as a web service.

Are there any features of the two platforms that could be improved to make it a better CMS?

I think they’re pretty evolved CMS’s. On both of them, platforms are getting into place to build right on the CMS’s without having to install them. Platforms like Acquia, WordPress.com, Automaticc. These platforms are profitable because from an enterprise standpoint right now, it is hard doing multisite implementations at that scale, managing all of the architecture, and stuff like that. From a technical standpoint, if you get into an enterprise, clients who says they want to be able to run a thousand sites on a single platform, that becomes difficult to do from a technical perspective. They both have the ability to support multisite implementations, but advancements in there to make those types of implementations easier to use and deploy would be a significant advancement for both platforms.

What should companies and clients expect in terms of cost for setting up a website, maintaining it, and adding new features?

For a very basic site, where you’re just taking things off the shelf – implementing the site with a theme that’s already built, and using basic content – I would say a customer can get up and running anywhere from two to six weeks, $20,000-30,000. Typically, those implementations are for very small sites. We’ve seen implementations that have run into the millions, that are pretty complex. These are sites that receive millions of hits a day; they have award-winning user experience and design, custom theming, integration with a lot of backend systems, etc. Those can take anywhere from six to twelve months, and $500,000 to $1 million to get up and running.

Can you give some insight into SEO and security when building a website?

The nice thing about Drupal and WordPress is that there are a lot of modules and plugins that will manage that, from Google Analytics to HubSpot, all sort of SEO engines. You can pretty much plug and play those things. It doesn’t replace the need for your traditional content marketing, analyzing those results and then making sure your pages have the appropriate content and keywords driving traffic into them, or whatever funnel you want. All your analytic tools usually have some sort of module or plugin, whether it’s Google, Salesforce, Pardot, or whatever. A lot of those things are already pretty baked in. You can easily get it up and running. That’s the nice thing about the SEO portion of it.

The other nice thing about it being open-source is that there are constant updates on sort of security. Using these CMS systems, because they tie to all the open-source projects, if you download a module, anytime there’s a security update for it, you’ll get alerted within your administrative interface. It’s usually just a one-click installation to install that upgrade for security patches. That’s nice, as you’re literally talking hundreds of thousands of modules and millions of users. They’re usually found and patched pretty quickly. As long as you stay on that security patching cycle, you should be okay. You could still do stupid stuff as an administrator. You could leave the default password, and somebody could get in, so you still have to manage those things. From a software perspective, as long as you’re using highly-active, contributed modules and the core, security patches and findings come out pretty regularly on those things.

As a company, because we do stuff with some regulated industries like banking and federal agencies, we usually have to go a level above on security. Take a WordPress site or whatever, we would actually remove that form the public so it couldn’t be hit from outside of a VPN or internal network, and then have it publish out actual content and static pages so the outside just doesn’t even connect to the back-end system. That does take some custom programming and specialty to do. Most people just implement your regular website with the appropriate security controls, and it’s not a big issue.

Are there any additional aspects of building a website or dealing with a CMS that you’d like to mention? Or any other CMS platforms you’d like to give some insight on?

For us, because we are such a big mobile player, we typically would say that, whatever you build, your CMS, obviously focus on user experience. Most people are doing a good job of that these days. One of the areas that is still a little weak is this whole idea of a content syndication. There’s still a big push where the content editors build webpages, and they want to control the layout, pages, etc. They get measured by the number of visitors to the website and all that stuff. I’m not saying that’s not important; however, we’re trying to push an idea of a web service content syndication. So, how you use these CMS’s to do that, so your content gets syndicated worldwide. It doesn’t necessarily have to be measured by how many people hit your website. It should be measured by the number of impressions.

For instance, with the work we’ve done at NASA, they announced the TRAPPIST-1 discovery of potential Earth-like planets. That drove a huge amount of traffic to the website, probably close to nine million hits that day. If you look at the actual reach of that content and NASA’s message – through the CMS’s integration with social media, with API’s that other websites were taking, with Flickr, that sort of thing – it hit over 2.5 billion social media posts. That’s an important thing to measure. How are you using your content management system more as a content syndication platform, opposed to just building webpages? USGS has also done a really solid job of this ‘create once, publish everywhere’ philosophy. I think people should be looking at content management systems as content management systems, not as website management systems.

We ask that you rate Drupal and WordPress on a scale of 1 - 5, with 5 being the best score.

How would you rate them for their functionalities and available features?

Drupal – 5 – We have a bias towards Drupal because it’s more enterprise-grade. It fits what a lot of our clients need. I think they’ve come a long way with both the 7 and 8 versions and have really brought down the cost of implementation and improved the ease of use.

WordPress – 4 – I think it’s fantastic. It’s obviously extremely popular and very easy to set up and use. I give it a 4 and not a 5 because it’s not as easy to extend to enterprise-grade implementations. For some functionalities, you still have to dig into core, and nobody wants to be modifying core modules.

How would you rate them for ease of use and ease of implementation?

Drupal – 4.5 for ease of use, because it’s not as easy as WordPress, and 4.5 for ease of installation.WordPress – 5 for ease of use, and 4 for ease of implementation. If you want to go out of the box, it’s a little more difficult. Configuring multisite is a real difficulty in WordPress.

How would you rate them for support, as in the response of their team and the helpfulness of available online resources?

Drupal – 4

WordPress – 4

Being open-source projects, there are a ton of people contributing. They’re very active, so you usually can get your answers. In many cases, to get something embedded into core, it does have to get reviewed by the organization, which is a bunch of volunteers for the most part. Because of that, it does take a while for things to get embedded.

How likely are you to recommend each platform for a client?

Drupal – 5

WordPress – 5

I think they’re the strongest CMS’s out there for the price.

How likely are you to recommend each platform for a user to build their own DIY website?

Drupal – 3

WordPress – 4  

If you’re going to build your own website, and you have zero technical skills, you might want to look into a Weebly, Wix, or something like that. There is a need to know how to do site-building if you use Drupal or WordPress. Somebody has to configure it and understand it.

How would you rate your overall satisfaction collaborating with each platform?

Drupal – 5

WordPress – 5

We implement on both of them regularly, and they’re really great. They solve the need for a lot of our clients to migrate from much more expensive legacy systems.

Clutch.co interview: https://clutch.co/website-builders/expert-interview/interview-mobomo-drupal-wordpress

• Read more about AFCEA Announces Best In Government InnovateIT Finalists

InnovateIT Awards Announced

“The 2017 AFCEA Bethesda InnovateIT Awards recognizes the best in Government-wide InITiatives celebrating individuals or groups whose contributions in information technology have significance beyond their organizations. These contributions represent achievements that advance business and citizen interaction, leading to improved effectiveness, cost-savings and leadership that meet national priorities and serve as a model of excellence government-wide.”

Mobomo has been working alongside many federal agencies over the years, helping to integrate the latest technologies to ensure the federal government has the most secure systems while being cost effective, saving millions each year. We are pleased to acknowledge two of our long term partners have been named as finalists and award winners for this years 2017 InnovateIT Awards. Tim Woods, Web Re-Engineering Project Lead from USGS, won the Technology Trailblazer Award and Ian Sturken, Web and Cloud Services Manager, Enterprise Application Architecture Co-Lead from NASA, was the award winner for the Mission Excellence Enabler Award.

Tim Woods, the Web Re-Engineering Project Lead, along with his team (WRET), is the visionary with a unique capability to combine deep technical understanding with executive stakeholder and business needs. He was able to work with executive leadership to define the vision and business needs of the new system, unite stakeholders and end users across multiple USGS regions and offices, and lead a user-centric design and agile software development team to deliver on a very aggressive project timeline.

The challenge faced by the US Geological Survey’s (USGS’s) Web Re-engineering Team (WRET) was to make the vast amount of scientific data and research easily accessible and searchable for the general public through an agency-wide website. This information included natural hazards, natural resources, ecosystems and the environment. The information impacts important business decisions, from infrastructure (e.g. impact of water erosion on bridges) to agriculture (e.g. predicting droughts or floods in specific locations) to hazard response and mitigation (e.g. improving ability to predict tornados, earthquakes and other natural hazards).

Previously, this information was stored in siloed databases, servers, spreadsheets and other resources, and there was no true understanding or inventory of what was available and no way for anyone outside of the agency to find or use this information. By making this information more readily available and centralized it allows citizens, industry, and other government agencies to make informed decisions about the world around them and to develop innovative solutions for preparing for potential threats and changes that impact human lives. We needed to launch the site within 6 months.

USGS WRET worked with a team of experts across the agency to develop the content, technical and mission-driven strategies for meeting this challenge. The website and CMS were built using agile methodologies, open-source software (Drupal) and hosted in an Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud environment. USGS worked with an AWS-certified vendor that also provided Certified ScrumMasters (CSMs) for project and program management. The team launched USGS.gov in under five months, and the team continues to deploy new features in regular intervals based on USGS requirements using Scrum. An information architecture was designed to organize science information from hundreds of sources within one website and navigation system. A robust taxonomy structure allows content managers to use a “Create Once Publish Everywhere” (COPE) philosophy facilitating content distribution throughout the site.

To free up scientists to focus on science and minimize website-related tasks, the following tools were built: 1) an automated migration tool allows a new microsite to be set up rapidly by completing a simple form in the CMS and b) a custom ElasticSearch, LogStash, Kibana (ELK) module ingests data from multiple internal and external sources and can be configured within the Drupal CMS. The USGS team delivers in person and online training and maintains a training website with additional materials, updates and staff access.  

This project aligned with the agency mission and with what USGS was trying to accomplish as a whole. It provides a forward thinking approach that not only makes science provided by USGS easily accessible and searchable to the public, but also uses advanced technical solutions for keeping content updated and, in some cases, providing near real-time data for natural hazard events.

The cloud-based, Drupal framework solution has allowed multiple internal USGS departments to reduce costs on maintaining websites and data repositories that are now managed through the centralized content management system and AWS cloud infrastructure on the USGS.gov website. As additional science centers move into the new framework, those cost savings will increase.

Additionally, science centers are able to focus both funding and resources on their important research and initiatives and to more rapidly make this information accessible to the public from a central, easily searchable website. This information enables innovative solutions to problems that impact lives and livelihoods and empowers citizens to better understand the Earth and its processes from global, regional and very local perspectives.

For a complete list of award winners visit AFCEA.

 

• Read more about Mobomo Named As One Of The Best Places To Work In 2017

Best Places to Work Announced!

We are ecstatic to have been named one of the Best Places to Work by the Washington Business Journal! On June 22nd, the Journal had their annual event to honor and announce the rankings of the companies that were named as a best place to work in the greater Washington, D.C. area. Mobomo was named as the 12^th best place to work, out of 85 total companies.

The Washington Business Journal's 11th annual Best Places to Work program honors 85 Greater Washington companies that scored highest among hundreds of employers that participated in Omaha, Nebraska-based Quantum Workplace’s annual employee engagement survey.

The Best Places to Work results are quantitative, based on survey responses from employees themselves, rather than a panel of outside judges.

“The Washington Business Journal is owned and operated by American City Business Journals, the nation’s largest publisher of metropolitan business newspapers. American City Business Journals also includes Bizjournals, the new media division, which operates the Web sites for each of the company’s 43 business journal markets.

The Washington Business Journal has been Greater Washington’s leading source of business news and information for 30 years, providing over 150,000 business executives with comprehensive news on local people and their companies, as well as industry trends, tips and strategies and award-winning critical analysis. For more information, please visit www.washingtonbusinessjournal.com.”

Here at Mobomo, it’s fair to say that not one person is the same, we encourage creativity and thinking outside the box, we love hiring folks from different backgrounds and experience that’s what makes our culture ours.

We hire people who bring awesome to everything that they do, which in turn makes Mobomo awesome. Each employee brings something to the company which makes Mobomo a great place to work.

 

• Read more about NASA Wins Webby Award for NASA.Gov

NASA Wins Webby Award

NASA.gov, the agency's primary website, received its ninth People's Voice Award in the Government & Civil Innovation category!

NASA.gov, led by Brian Dunbar, NASA’s Internet Services Manager, continues to incorporate cutting-edge technology solutions to communicate the excitement of exploration to the global online public. NASA’s commitment to innovation has been the foundation for NASA.gov’s continued success and solidifies its position as one of the most visited website in the federal government.

NASA's Office of Communications has managed NASA.gov, the agency's primary home on the web since 1994, setting a high standard for government online communications. The site won Webby Awards in 2003, 2012 and 2014, and visitors to NASA.gov have voted it the winner of the People's Voice award eight times since 2002.

The site receives an average of more than 300,000 visits a day, and surges with major announcements, such as the discovery of the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star, which brought in 6.7 million visits in a week.

Mobomo has been thrilled to be part of an award winning team at NASA - we are excited to see what’s in store for the future.

 

• Read more about Our Project Management Process, The Mobomo Way

The Mobomo Way

You can think of your project manager as your liaison and main point of contact. Here’s what you can expect from them in terms of communication:

As project managers, one of the key concepts we discuss with our clients during the project kickoff is the “iron triangle”, or “triple constraint.” Both of these terms directly relate to the scope, cost, and schedule of a project. Think about the scope, cost, and schedule as the three edges, surrounding quality. If any one of these edges falls short, the entire quality of the project is affected. Thus, the importance of project management to keep all sides of your project on track!

Another key concept which we practice at Mobomo, we embrace Scrum — and, we’re all Certified Scrum Masters! If you’re unsure of what we mean by Scrum, we’re not talking rugby here.

Scrum is an Agile framework for completing complex projects. Scrum originally was formalized for software development projects, but it works well for any complex, innovative scope of work. The possibilities are endless.

Generally speaking, Scrum allows us to…

While it might sound too good to be true, Scrum is deceptively simple! Here are some key pieces of the Scrum process you’ll hear about and be involved in (if you’d like)...

Now that we’ve talked about the key pieces of our process and methodology, let’s chat tools! The following are tools that you’ll have access to with us throughout your project…

Do you have a project or a question about our project management process? Get in touch so we can get started!

 

 

• Read more about Clutch Names Mobomo as Leading Website Design Company in D.C.

Yesterday, Clutch released a new report highlighting the best website design companies in the greater D.C. area and Mobomo made their list! Their research was based on a proven record of innovative web designs and client satisfaction. The research report takes into account novel industry data and verified client reviews to rank the top companies in the greater Washington area.

The companies listed in the report were ranked on their ‘ability to deliver’, part of Clutch’s proprietary research methodology. Factors such as client reviews, market presence, and clientele were examined prior to this report. The companies are mapped out in the ‘Leaders Matrix,’ and full profiles and client interviews are published with the research online.

Mobomo is proud to work with some of the best startups, most distinguished enterprises and prominent federal agencies in the U.S. market place. Some of our website design work that has been most notably recognized is NASA, USGS, The Knot and Real Time Cases.

About Clutch

Clutch is a business to business research firm located in Washington, D.C. They are best known for connecting agencies and software solution companies in order to enhance business goals across businesses. Their methodology is unique in the sense that they connect businesses based on consumer reviews, the type of services offered and the quality of work.

• Read more about Mobile App Controlled Machine Folds, Organizes And Selects Outfits

ThreadRobe

The future of folding and organizing clothes is here! Matt Powell, co-founder of ThreadRobe reached out to Mobomo in hopes of turning his futuristic concept into reality. Our teams collaborated around the idea of using digital technology to control an appliance that folds and organizes clothing at the touch of a fingertip. We were able to successfully design and develop the mobile app which is a key functionality in their ThreadRobe. The purpose of the mobile app is to organize and store a user’s wardrobe, but an added bonus - it has the ability to offer outfit recommendations to the user. The app collects data from the garments such as the color, fabric, and pattern that the user adds to their inventory/wardrobe. The app can then conduct outfit recommendations by the use of matching algorithms which are based on color, fabric, pattern, etc. The app then communicates with a smart wardrobe which steams and stores all clothing items, then when the user wants an outfit they use the app which connects to the automated furniture which dispenses the clothing.

Phase One:

During phase one we started the design process, or in better terms- the look and the feel for the mobile app. The challenge we faced during the design phase was creating a custom made solution (the app) for a machine that was not yet built. We wanted to make sure that the design of the app reflected the attributes and establish the right controls and functionalities to correspond with the physical machine. We were able to work closely with the ThreadRobe team to work around the barriers to create a very sleek design that parallels the brand. Once the design phase was complete we moved to the build. We built out the front-end interface and backend server for Android only. For the mobile app, our development team worked directly with ThreadRobe’s IT team to streamline communication between the app (being built by Mobomo) and the wardrobe (being built by their engineers). We worked with their team to integrate the wardrobe API’s so that it would communicate correctly with the ThreadRobe app.

Phase Two:

Phase two consisted of enhancing the mobile app by adding new features. We updated and improved on the first version, integrated the app and its backend with the wardrobe server and designed and developed their website. The main goal of their website is to leverage it for marketing and brand awareness, so during the design phase it was important to find the right balance of fashion and clothing combined with cutting edge technology and innovation.  Even though the mobile app is not yet in the app store, we wanted to give you a quick step-by-step of what the process looks like from a user perspective.

Mobile App:

During phase one and two we used a hybrid team approach-maximizing our resources in different time zones so that their product was being worked on 24/7. Even though the app will not launch in the store until the fall, ThreadRobe’s website is live and we must say - it looks awesome!

• Read more about Design With Developers In Mind

Nothing in the design process is absolute. I am sure many designers can relate, it is frustrating when you create a design and then when you see the final product (after development) the design looks different than what was intended. It is fair to say not all designs translate in the development process but as a designer we should start designing with developers in mind. In a world that isn’t perfect and where you have little control, designers, it is time to be flexible.  Designer's take pride in layouts, making sure each element has a purpose and it’s own place. Crafting “pixel perfect” designs is an achievement that we strive for after years of hard work and practice. Because of the effort that’s put into designs, we have a tendency to get upset with developers when our layouts haven’t been transformed perfectly.

We should not fault the developer

Recognize that this is a glitch within the design process. Our static, “pixel perfect” comps will only ever truly be that...static comps. Once we bring a design to life through code we have very little control over how someone will view it. What we should be striving for is a deeper and closer connection with developers, working in tandem throughout the process. As designers we must be flexible and think of each composition no longer on the basis of exact measurements, but relative proportions. This applies to things like height and width in relation to other page level elements, i.e. margin and padding. The logic is quite simple, an element with a width of 400px over 1300px of visible area is perfectly reasonable, but on a small screen it will be cropped out.

The Solution

The solution here is either create a mobile based layout that accounts for smaller device sizes, or to ensure that the item being cropped out on smaller screens isn’t pertinent to the use of the site. Which ever route you take a certain level of foresight is necessary to ensure that proper design and development are accomplished. I know it can be frustrating to see developers work in non-absolute units of measure. However abandoning pixels and switching to ems, rems and percentages make for a more flexible and fluid layout. If designers start thinking about these more liquid and dynamic measurements initially, there will be an easier transition from static comp to developed website, allowing everything to remain harmonious and relatively intact on different device sizes.

Color

This adaptable mindset also applies to colors. We can’t predict the calibration of each user screen, something that varies according to style, manufacturer and specific light conditions. Websites and apps can’t be handled like a Pantone catalog on printed paper, making it common for subtle color variants - which may appear too dark, shiny or contrasted.

How do we combat the unknown here?

By selecting a broad range color palette that suits both the device that the product is being viewed on, and also the matches the tone of the business. Learning about the technical characteristics and limitations of a browser is vital in order to avoid unexpected surprises when the product is finished. After interpreting the HTML, CSS and Javascript the browser renders a product according to its capabilities. Sometimes forcing us to think beyond devices, and to start thinking in terms of which browsers. For years IE was the bane of a designers existence, limiting the boundaries that we could push, because it was so far behind technically. Knowing which browser your design has to be supported in will help you determine what and where you can push the limits. So, designers - let’s start working and understanding the development process so that we can all be rockstars when designing for digital media.

• Read more about Mobomo Named Winner Of Creative Muse Award

Muse Creative Awards Announced

We are honored to be named a gold award winner for the 2017 Muse Creative Awards. This year, we were pleased to submit the Pulse healthcare mobile application. Muse Creative Awards is an international competition for creative professionals who possess the unique ability to inspire with concept, writing or design whether through traditional materials or electronic media. They follow the spark of an inner muse, lighting the path to success with deep knowledge and shining originality.

The Pulse platform works with patients, providers and hospitals to optimize the management of post-operative care for hip and knee replacement patients. The platform connects patients and their doctors through the use of a mobile app. Providers are able to monitor their patients day-to-day activity, conduct virtual check-ins and instruct the patient of other post-care instructions to expedite the recovery process. Patients have the ability to keep their doctors up-to-date on their recovery, ask questions and report their post-op activities at the touch of a finger tip.

Since the application is geared towards healthcare it was vital that we provided a secure backend so that it abided by all HIPPA requirements - the app is available in both iOS and Android.

How the platform works:

1. Provider is granted access to their own personalized dashboard.
2. Provider will create new patients via the dashboard; upon creation, the patient will receive an email to download the app and sign up.
3. Provider will then customize the “Careplan for the Patient” -- tailoring each day’s story, check-in questions, and to-do items directly for that patient.
4. As a patient, when you login to the app you will see a homepage which contains all of your “stories,” “check-ins,” and “to-do items” for that specific day (each day has a unique set of content tailored to the patient).
5. As a patient completes their items for the day, the data is transferred and displayed on the provider’s dashboard. The provider will be notified if any of the day’s tasks or questions generated a red flag.
6. The patient and provider can also communicate via direct messaging between the dashboard and app.

Pulse transforms the entire post-hospital care episode for hip and knee replacement patients. Value-Based Care Initiatives such as the Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (“CJR”) model have prompted a long overdue attention shift to the post-acute services and care. With this new post-op healthcare model it allows for better patient management care at the touch of a fingertip, it is available in both iOS and Android.