Ensuring stability in the online courses mobile app | How we do IT #3

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When talking about application stability,

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we can't just ask if it works properly or not.

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Every error, every lack of response,

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every element that takes too long to load may affect user

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satisfaction and consequently damage the company's reputa.

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Reputation.

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I'm Aleksandra,

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Senior Content Marketing Specialist at Merixstudio and

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this is how we do it.

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In this series, we present you specific design and development challenges and

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explain how we deal with them at Merixstudio.

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Every case is based on our own experience and projects we've

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worked on so far.

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In today's episode,

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we are going to take a look at an American mobile application

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that teaches users how to manage their funds.

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Financial literacy is a big problem, especially in the US.

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The number of people who are unbanked or who do not have the

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knowledge or confidence in how to manage their savings is astonishing.

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The app in question aims to address this issue.

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Like any other application developed at Merixstudio,

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it must be stable and there are at least three reasons for that.

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One, users should want to use it, obviously.

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Two, it should cement the organization's reputation and credibility.

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Three.

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Employees should be able to introduce and develop it

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without any difficulties.

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The most important features of this application are sign up

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for a multi stage course, participation in webinars,

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integration of the stock market interactive elements and

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gamification.

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How have we ensured its stable operation?

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What do we focus on when creating reliable applications?

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See how we do it at Merixstudio.

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Let me start with the things that may be problematic from

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the stability point of view.

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Let's begin with stable operation on the back end.

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That's where we begin to prevent further problems,

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but that's also where some less predictable things may happen.

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Maybe users are reporting issues,

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the rating is going down, or we want to release an update,

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but we do not know what to fix.

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These scenarios are far from perfect.

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Then there is user experience.

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Many factors influence users' perception of the application,

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so we need to tailor it to the potential customers' expectations.

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This involves determining the arrangement of elements,

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animation times, the amount of content, and so on.

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But mind you, user experience is not only influenced by the looks,

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but also by the app's operation in various scenarios.

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The final challenge is to ensure stability during

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maintenance and further application development.

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It's an educational platform with lessons and progress

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records, so users expect developers to expand the course

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library regularly.

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Imagine the user tries to launch the application,

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but it doesn't load because it requires an update.

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Once the update is installed,

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the user sees that some of their favorite features have been changed.

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What's even worse, the application is now slower.

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And you know what the user will do next, don't you?

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They're on the verge of uninstallation,

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and that's just because of a single update.

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Now that we've discussed the challenges,

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let's see how we can cope with them in this case.

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Aydin, our Senior Mobile Developer,

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has some pro tips for us.

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So Aydin, what can we do to ensure stability on the back end?

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First of all, we keep our code clean and simple.

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So everything is readable and maintainable.

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Thanks to that, we quickly make necessary changes and handle problems

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that users encounter.

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Analytics and error reporting tools also shorten the time

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spent on inspecting and fixing these problems.

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Such tools provide technical details about errors, crashes,

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timeouts, or various other metrics.

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Just by going through these reports,

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we easily know the sources of problems and save up the

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valuable development time.

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Another important thing is the backward compatibility.

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There is literally no app that doesn't need regular updates.

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Those updates could be for maintenance, cosmetic changes,

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new features, you name it.

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So at this point,

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we must also think about the old users with various other

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versions of our application,

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because some versions of the application may refer to old

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endpoints of the API, store an outdated data structure,

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or contain outdated implementations.

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So there has to be a safe way to handle this.

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So the lack of backward compatibility can negatively

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affect the user experience.

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What other steps can we take to enhance user satisfaction?

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First, we ensure the smooth operation by wisely managing the phone's resources.

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There are tons of different devices with different

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processing power, amount of memory, screen sizes, and so on.

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Regardless of these differences,

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the application shouldn't cause overheating, skip frames,

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or greedily use battery.

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Also, cached content shouldn't take as much space when videos are streamed.

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Of course, users are free to download the content if they need to.

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Another cool thing we've done in this project is conducting

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tests to check when the application takes longer to

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load or which animations last too long or too short.

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After fixing bugs and adjusting the animations,

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we can proceed to ensure they are at high frame rates,

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so that the app doesn't feel slow on certain devices.

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Moving on to the last solution,

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how to ensure stable operation during the maintenance phase?

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During the application's lifetime,

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users will often do things that we haven't even imagined.

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That's why we are tracking metrics that allow us to spot

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errors and identify areas for improvement.

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The error reporting I mentioned earlier also plays a role here.

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At the end, all this information we collect from various analytics and

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error reporting tools help us create these subsequent fixes.

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Staying on the topic, version history also helps.

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It creates a safety net for undoing the changes that aren't optimal.

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Sometimes, these are just cosmetic changes that users do not like.

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Sometimes, it's a minor bug that crept in with an update.

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Regardless of the reason, we can roll it back quickly.

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Lastly, we divide updates into optional and essential.

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Optional updates aren't required immediately and

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usually contain minor changes that won't affect the operation of the app.

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However, the essential updates contain important changes that are most

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likely to be breaking things.

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At this point, user is kindly asked to update the app,

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otherwise, application won't start.

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Thanks, Aydin, for your pro tips for increasing application stability.

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As you can see, the topic is wide,

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but I hope this video will help you keep your application stable.

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Thanks for tuning in,

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and don't forget to check out more of our mobile development related content.