Tuesday, May 1, 2018

5 Tips That Can Help You Master Your Voice User Interface Design

Voice User Interface design (VUI) at a full swing is gradually turning advanced and popular these days. Digital personal assistants such as Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri, Google Now and Microsoft's Cortana, are regularly advancing to become the best available voice assistant in the market.

Since, the launch of Echo, the voice assistant device by Amazon in December 2014, till today approximately 8.2 million devices are sold, and the return of voice search continues to scale. MindMeld's Internet Trends Report of 2016, stats that 60% of people last year started using voice search, and in the last six months 41% of people started.

A prediction by BCC research asserts that at an annual growth rate of 12.1%, the global market for voice recognition technologies of $104.4 billion in 2016 will rise to $184.9 billion in 2021.

This wave is being driven by technological advancements and deep learning, which lets the developers build systems that have outstanding accuracy for the tasks like speech recognition, language and image analysis.

Microsoft, in 2016 announced that its most recent speech-recognition system reached equivalence with human transcribers in identifying human speech.

The pace at which voice technology is advancing, it's changing the way we interact with our devices. Still, several common UX design methods still are in practice - which includes user research, persona making, user flows, prototyping, usability testing, and iterative design - a few differences for voice UIs should be noted.

If you're planning to begin your first project of voice user interface design, below are five essential tips that will help you throughout -

Conversational - Talking vs typing

It's essential to ensure that a voice UI recognizes natural speech and should accept a broad range of various inputs.

Typing and speaking one same thing is different, rather using few keywords, use complete sentences or questions.

Visualize your Sunday morning, when you type "brunch nearby" on your phone. A list of all relevant places will appear on your screen. But, when we communicate with a voice service, you'd be more likely to request in a manner like, "Alexa, what are the best places to brunch nearby?"

Ensure the machines are capable of recognizing and reacting to thousands of various commands to simply be successful.

Make recognition intuitive

Nobody likes to learn a hundred of commands to execute particular tasks. Be mindful not to create a system that which is complex, not user-friendly and takes too much time to be familiar.

Machines should be capable of remembering us and becoming more productive with each use.

For suppose, you ask your device for directions, which is like,

"Alexa, can you give me directions to home."

"Sure, where is your home?"

"You know where my home is!"

"I'm sorry, you'll need to repeat that."

This scene creates a disappointing experience for the user which is neither satisfying nor successful.

However, if the system would have retained information about your home address, quickly a list of all the directions would have been provided. Possibly a brief voice response with a visual element like a map and directions. Delivering an experience like this is quickly rewarding and satisfying. Intuitive design, as with GUI or graphical user interfaces, must be done right by the designers.

Approachability - Analyze what users need

Two essential things that make Voice Interactions successfully are the device recognizing the person speaking, and the speaker understanding the device. The designers must always acknowledge potential speech checks, auditory impairments, and every element that can influence the interaction, like intellective disorders. Even language, accent, or voice tone affects how the device interprets them.

As a designer, you should be intelligent about where and how to use design and voice in a manner that anyone can use it, irrelevant to how they speak or how they listen.

Consider the user's environment surroundings

Saying something on your phone with a loud, busy train in the background is an example, why it's necessary to recognise how different conditions influence the type of interface you designed. If the primary application is for driving, it is an excellent choice then - the hands and eyes of users are busy, but their voice and ears are not. If you use the app somewhere in a noisy place, it's better to request on a visual interface, for the surrounding noise makes voice recognition and hearing more challenging.

If the usability of your app is both at home and on a public conveyance, it is essential to provide an option to switch between a voice and visual interface.

Feedback - two side interaction

In a normal conversation one to let another know, that he/she is interested in a conversation by nodding heads, smiling, and some other gestures. Similarly, it should be delivered to the users who interact with your machine. It's essential to respect this with your design, so the user grasps their device is switched on and pays attention to them.

The system must always inform users about what is happening. Furthermore, it's critical to regard how your user will understand that the system is conscious in a non-invasive manner. You can feature it with a sound effect or flashlight as per your choice.

Should You Collaborate With Managed Services? Here's Why

Managed Service Provider, or MSP, includes services associated with daily tasks of managing IT departments. Depending on the nature and size of a business, an MSP acts as the IT department for a firm. Of late, MSP is widely used because it lowers operational costs, provides better security solutions, improves the operational performance of businesses, and maintains stability. But, how would you know whether your business needs MSP, of whether it is the right time to call for it?

Read on to know when it is the right time to work with MSP:

#1: Low Spirits and High Work Expectation

IT departments are demanding. As such, employees suffer due to lack of confidence despite their hard work. If this is the scenario at your business place, it is a sign you need MSP. MSPs can help you to offload some busywork, thus giving relief to your employees. Mundane tasks like system performance monitoring, user communication tracking, maintaining system backup with latest patches, and routine IT tasks can be outsourced. This step instantly releases pressure of overworked IT employees and helps you to provide a healthier and happier work environment, which eventually contributes to the ability to lure IT talent.

#2: Not Having a Viable Long-Term IT Planning and Strategy

For a team, it is important to work synergistically and be prepared for more. If your team were not in synergy, they would fail to answer basic questions for the future. So, do not push future planning aside. You may survive now, but not in the future. MSPs step in to alleviate these issues so that the IT staffers refocus on planning and strategizing for the future.

#3: Using Temp Staff from Time to time

If your business needs temporary workers from time to time, you are understaffed. This may be the result of higher turnover versus lower morale, or because your business is growing exponentially faster than you can hire. As a result, you must find top IT talent, especially in your areas of expertise like developers, security specialists, analysts, and mainframes. MSPs provide you easy access to necessary skills and experience your business needs, thus releasing you from your dependence on temporary staff.

#4: Extra Employees Required for New Projects

If your business has long-term projects, it can be tricky at times. Usually, long-term projects have varied workload. There may be times when you would have to hire more IT people to deliver the job on time. Managed service providers can help you with timely delivery and ensure that you are able to meet your deadlines without failing your commitments.

#5: Failing to Maintain Countless IT Vendors

Juggling multiple vendors, IT services, and contractors is a burden. It is high time to consolidate your vendors with MSPs. MSPs can provide different services on a monthly basis for a nominal charge. Instead of taking up new services, contracts, and vendors, you should collaborate with a dedicated MSP.

#6: Frequent User Complains

If users are complaining about your service - delays, fussy, or poor, it's time to consider providing a top-notch service to your IT department. MSPs take over mundane tasks and service requests to deliver prompt services to customers.

The Twenty Minute War

Jannsun Rader had started work for Matrix right after he tired of trying to write the great American Novel, which was about five years ago, right after the war. He was old for a Web Zone designer but who knew? Who cared? His work was all done via satellite and as long as his work was good, his online brokerage account kept growing and growing.

He grabbed his sat phone, his digital companion, and headed topside. The wind had settled down and he was making 5.5 knots over the surface of the water according to the GPS. He gained some sort of comfort in thinking of the cloud of satellites overhead keeping track of his exact location anywhere upon the surface of the globe. Single handed sailing was surely not what it used to be. Now the isolation was more illusion than reality. If he should encounter serious trouble, his position would be marked from satellites and a hover craft would be on site within two hours. Hell, they probably would even have a photograph of his terror stricken face. Of course the insurance bill would be hefty, but it was the law. The illusion was fine though, he could really feel himself to be the last (or the first) man on earth. From horizon to horizon for days on end, not one sign of human habitation.

He walked to the rear of the cockpit and sat behind the wheel as the auto pilot silently turned it ever so slightly in accordance with the next way-point previously set into the Global Positioning System software. Through the fog, he could see the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance, or what was left of it, since the earth changes had started. It would be good to get back to San Francisco or San Frantasia as it was now called since it had been pretty well destroyed by the Richter 8.9 quake the previous year.

On his radar, Jannsun could see the blip of a large freighter coming over the horizon. These cargo carriers were absolutely huge. As he got closer he could see the helicopter lift off and turn back toward land. That would be carrying the crew. These new ships were totally robotic once they reached the twenty five mile limit. Then the crew was choppered off and the ship sailed on controlled by the auto pilot and the overhead satellite array. Since they were so large they could not turn to avoid a small craft such as Jannsun's, so their defense was an ungodly loud alarm horn which woke Jannsun up on more than one occasion. The klaxon would be triggered at five miles separation if the ship's radar suspected a possible collision. Once the horn was sounded it was the smaller craft's job to move out of the path of the floating city of steel. Still there was no guarantee. Many a large cargo ship had entered port with the debris of smaller vessels caught in the anchor chain and smeared across the steel bow.

As Jannsun watched the sails pull his boat along over the small waves he had to laugh when he thought of the recent War and the rumors about the war. He had been between the Marshall Islands and Hawaii when it happened. It was supposed to be a secret but it seemed the older he became and the more connected he became, the more secrets he was becoming privy to.

He heard it from a guy, who heard it from a guy, who knew a guy, who was actually involved. According to this guy, The War lasted twenty minutes, give or take a few seconds. The computers told each side who would win, by how much and the outside limits of the overall devastation. But the losing side was new to computer war and insisted on firing a real nuclear salvo. That mistake would not be made again.

Jannsun had been aware of the holo-projection of soldiers and implements of destruction on and over battlefields and street corners but he hadn't been aware of the Time Benders, the Mach 50 anti-gravity machines. Machines that were so fast they could actually intercept an enemy missile before it's physical body could completely lift off its launching pad. Machines so fast it was said they literally--bent time. These Time Benders were said to be able to move from a base in the states to a foreign battle field before a hostile combatant's hand could cycle a round into the firing chamber of his rifle. So fast, they could be there before an enemy tech's fingers hovering over a computer keyboard somewhere in a subterranean bunker could even reach the "Enter" key. Two seconds, maybe less. Some even went so far as to say that the newest stealth, skunk works stuff was so fast it could actually bend time and travel slightly backward so as to be there looking over the enemy's shoulder as the hostile idea first seemed to occur in his mind. Time Benders. San Frantasia to New York in two seconds, maybe four. The time delay was to give the controller on the ground a chance to gather his thoughts. No passengers allowed.

These craft were not piloted by human beings. It was found way back in the nineties that human pilots could not take anything above 12 "G's" before slipping out of their bodies. This was called "G-lock" and it spelled the end for super high performance manned fighter planes. These robo-drone super planes were now all flown remotely by teenagers from underground bunkers. It was the ultimate synchronicity that children (future warriors) had been training for years on very sophisticated and ever evolving 3-d video games. The athletic pilot/engineer of the 20th Century was a thing of the past, just another artifact. Technology was on the verge of time travel, and American teenagers would be the ones with their grimy little fingers on the buttons.

In the case of the Twenty Minute War, five enemy nucs blew about ten feet off their own launching pads. "No Nucs Today", was the glad news on CNN that evening. At least not on American soil. The media, fed by the government machine, made it appear the enemy was so incompetent that all their missiles misfired and exploded in their silos but both sides knew the truth. Jannsun knew the truth, or as much of it as his personal data net was aware of. Who really knew anything for sure anymore? It looked like the technology of perception had finally outrun the technology of verification.

Maybe there was no truth. Things had become so strange that sometimes Jannsun suspected that everything had already happened and we were just toying with selective memory.


Usability QA With Smart Home Devices

Smart Home devices are still a relatively new form of tech, but the market is now being flooded as the demand for Smart Home products is increasing at an exponential rate. While many such products are innovative and of high quality, many are lagging behind their competitors. While the actual "smart" device may be well designed and manufactured, the accompanying web or mobile apps are often severely lacking in several key areas. This negatively impacts the end-user experience and can be the deciding factor between a product's success or failure.

Smart Home devices range from light switches, thermostats, security systems and even fully functioning robots. Smart technology is being implemented pretty much everywhere in the home right now, and this trend shows no sign of slowing. While the diversity of Smart Home products varies quite considerably, a key factor in its overall success must be "usability". In a highly-competitive market place, any product that is not intuitive to use, the customer will simply switch to a competitor's product... fact!

Traditional usability testing will be isolated to a specific web app or mobile app. However, with smart home devices, usability testing must encompass the entire product, i.e. the device itself and its accompanying apps. For smart home devices that have been usability tested to a high level, this will result in the user having a positive experience while using the product.

A good QA company will evaluate a smart home device and its associated web or mobile apps along with any supporting documentation. From there, appropriate test approaches and methodologies can be defined and documented into a formal test plan. An optional suite of test cases will then often be designed. Many usability issues are often seen during the on boarding process. As this is the area that is used to typically set-up a new smart home device, it is of paramount importance that the user has a positive experience here.

By methodically working through not only the on-boarding, but all end-user workflows, user scenarios, supporting help/documentation etc. the testing can discover all usability issues which can be clearly documented for all product stakeholders to evaluate. The development team can then work with the usability defect reports to resolve the issues. Usability testing should ideally be performed before the product is launched, however as most smart home devices and their associated apps can be upgraded with new firmware/software updates, usability testing can also be highly effective after the product's initial launch.


Bring In Magento Expertise With IT Staff Augmentation

Many business organizations face various technical deficiencies while running their operations. Instead of struggling with such challenges, it is a good decision to meet those missing capabilities and skills by hiring some expert resources from any reliable and efficient service provider. Since with every passing second, a latest technology is developed, it becomes very difficult for the business owners to hire in-house professionals to manage the demands of the project. Staff augmentation is a popular solution that most companies are now using to effectively meet their specific requirements.

Magento is a popular ecommerce platform and companies are getting more and more creative and feature rich when it is all about delivering service and products to the customers. With new growth opportunities, maintaining experience staff workgroups, staying within the budget, reducing the risk exposure during economic slowdown, business owners often look for solutions that can help them to remain competitive in the market. Magneto website owners can gain more benefits through staff augmentation as this helps to find the right expertise for the job.

Why choose Magento staff augmentation?

Pay as needed: If you are not willing to hire Magento experts in-house, then hiring resources from a Magento development company can prove to be beneficial. Employing temporary staffs helps the company to escape the lengthy hiring process and the additional payroll expenses. Having staff augmentation allows to implement the "Pay as needed" model for some highly skilled personnel. The low cost will also help the companies to concentrate on growing their market share.

Immediate contributions to a project: Hiring Magento skilled resources often gives the company a great opportunity to include specific skill sets quickly and make positive contributions to the project without any waste of time. It offers an ability to adapt and also increase the nimbleness that aligns perfectly with the expense management process.

Implement new applications cost effectively: As new projects come up with business expansion, having the right people to do the job helps to increase the productivity. To survive in the marketplace, it is vital to roll out new applications using latest technologies without any extended delays or downtime.

Offers great flexibility: Reducing the organization's risk exposure to the economic fluctuations, is one of the biggest advantages of staff augmentation. It allows the company to adapt to the unforeseen variables and offers great flexibility that will help to save a good deal annually and also reduce their financial stress.

Offers temporary cover for crucial positions: With any employee having to take an emergency leave for several weeks, the organization must have some back up plans to perform the crucial project tasks. Since the company cannot afford to hire a full time employee for a short time period, hiring resources temporarily is the best thing that can be done, rather than a full time replacement.

Expedited development: All your skilled resources may be busy on various projects and suddenly you get the opportunity to work on another huge Magento project. You have excellent people, but all of them are tied up. It is here that you need extra hands and this is an excellent application of Magento staff augmentation. You have no lead time and want immediate coding and design experts. Hiring temporary skilled resources works well here.

Magento staff augmentation enables a large or small company to easily sustain its competitive advantage. Companies will continue to approach this due to the uncertain economic environment, to maintain flexibility and manage tight corporate margins.

Why Do You Need Blu-Ray Replication Services?

What is Blu-ray?

Blu-ray can truly be considered the next generation of the optical disc, which allows for great advancement not only in optical media capacity but quality as well. Truth be told, it's got the great potential to take HD video to greater heights. This replication is a process many people in Australia have been emphasizing on.

The disc has a capacity which is 5 times greater than a conventional DVD at 25GB. In fact, there are more than 200 companies dealing with consumer electronics, recording, computer games etc. that support this format.

Why should I opt for it other than DVD?

As mentioned above, Blu-ray is the next step in optical media - it offers not only a portable and commercially practicable but a durable media for both High-Definition (HD) video and rich media content, including video games. If you're a part of the entertainment industry and have a large quantity of (complex) content, using this format will be the smartest move you'll make.

Blu-ray replication is a technical manufacturing process considered for ROMs. This process seems only reasonable as a means for manufacturing many DVDs, say more than 2,000 units.

What can be the most feasible solution to your HD content delivery problems?

Blu-ray is the leading standard for HD (High-Definition) delivery as well as publishing that allows you to offer your video, audio as well as images that will look as clear and stunning as they did in the studio back then.

In fact, it's been in tough competition with HD-DVD. The former offers full HD at 1920*1080p. Not only that, it also offers frame rates of 24 or 29.97 frames per second (of course depending on your actual content). Sometimes referred to as BD, it can store a lot more than HD-DVD.

Looking for a reputable Blu-ray replication company?

If conducting an online search, you'd find several leading companies offering premium replication services to customers like you at affordable prices. These companies create retail ready Blu-ray discs with their packaging. They work with other firms that are extensively into selling retail grade products.

All of the projects handled by a professional Blu-ray replication company are replicated from the customer's master content. The turnaround time is approximately 10-12 working days.

Replicated discs have the same level of quality as the originals. Moreover, they can be pressed time and again provide a way for the regular flow of materials. If you're wanting to have HD video on your disc, look no further than Blu-ray - truly the best option there is. And hiring a professional company will provide you economical services you're looking for. Need we say more?

Wrapping up...

Many private businesses and individuals are largely relying on such a unique process. It enables them to produce media in bulk. And this process employs up-to-date technology.

Siddharth S Sehrawat is an expert writer and has great knowledge of replication and duplication services as well.

Thursday, April 12, 2018

Laptop PC or Tablet: Which Is Appropriate for You?

Laptop PC or Tablet: Which is appropriate for you? We will help manage you through all the different preferences and limitations of the two, Laptop PCs and tablets to help you to settle on a cognizant choice on your next gadget. So check out our guide to choose between laptop computer or tablet, and go forth as an informed consumer into yonder bloated market. By and large, tablets are 7-11 inches, while portable laptops are 12-16 inches, which right away suggests that the previous will be easier to bear. On the off chance that you are going for one of the bigger tablets or a cross breed like the 18.4-inch Galaxy View Tablet, you may like to consider whether getting a small laptop computer is going to work out better for you.

Portable PCs are better when thought about than tablets, primarily due to their size and the capacity to store more hardware. Multitasking is less demanding on a Laptop PC than on a tablet, in spite of the fact that tablets are progressively offering better multitasking arrangements. The top of the line iPad Pro has 4GB of Memory and capacity choices beginning at 32GB, while Google's new leader Pixel C tablet has 3GB Memory, with interior stockpiling beginning at 32GB. While you will pay in any event $679 for the iPad Professional, you may get a Lenovo Yoga 500 convertible portable workstation 4GB Memory with the choice to expand that to 8GB, and 1TB of inside capacity for $399.

In the event that you are searching for something that will empower you to complete more top to bottom errands requiring different projects, at that point a Laptop PC in all likelihood is the approach, however a portion of the higher end tablets including the iPad Pro and Surface Pro 4, will offer superior execution over less complex tablets like the Amazon Fire Hi-def 8 or iPad Air range. It is only a question of not having an, or as large a screen, which enables the smaller gadgets to keep up a more drawn out charge than a laptop. In any case, more expensive Laptop PC's can last longer, however, once more, you should pay more to get a Laptop PC that holds its charge nearly as long as a tablet. Laptop PC's offer less battery life than tablets, so in the event that you are searching for something which doesn't have to complete complicated assignments, at that point a tablet may be the best decision. In general, an ultimate conclusion will significantly rely upon your particular needs. For some, the tablet will get the job done, and for others, the Laptop PC is an unquestionable requirement.