It’s a symbol or object that communicates the company’s proposition about its products and services and differentiates it from its rivals. A brand encompasses:
Logos
Design
Advertising tone
Why website branding is important
Creating a strong brand for your client’s website can give them a distinct advantage over their competitors. With branding comes recognition. This leads to familiarity, which can earn a customer’s confidence and trust.
However, building this kind of loyalty may take time. A website visitor may need multiple exposures to the brand. So, put simply, by helping your clients deliver a consistent brand message, you can boost their chances of success. What is more, you will increase your opportunities of getting repeat business from them.
A website essentially serves to:
Sell products or services
Generate leads
Promote sales
Attract visitors or subscribers
Generate a healthy return on investment (ROI)
Through strong website branding, a company can deliver a clear message that achieves all of the above as well as building loyalty and trust from its customers.
To help your client develop effective website branding, follow these tips.
1. Color creates moods
Color is more than aesthetics; it can stimulate emotions and stir people’s subconscious in relation to the company’s brand. For example:
Red – symbolizes energy, excitement, energy, and passion. If your client is in the entertainment business, for instance, red will work well for their brand.
Green – symbolizes the environment, nature, health, money or profit. If you’re working for a hospital or clinic, using a pale green background would be appropriate for their site.
Orange – symbolizes fun and adventure. For example, detype.com uses orange liberally on its site from the background to headings, and links. As a web design company this indicates that it’s enthusiastic and outgoing.
Before choosing a color for your client’s site, consider doing some research about its effects and appropriateness to the brand. Also, remember that each culture may view the same color differently. So, you should check the target market’s reaction to the colors used in your proposed website design.
2. Brand personality
Injecting some personality into the website helps to zero-in or define what your client’s brand represents. One way you could introduce personality is using a character or persona to represent the brand. Twitter’s bird logo is a good example. People recognize the social platform’s mascot immediately.
3. Emotional connection
Creating websites that stir visitor’s emotions can help your client’s brand messaging. As you design the site, decide what kind of feelings or emotions you want visitors to experience? For example, DeType displays attractive imagery to showcase the creative talent of its web designers.
4. Uniformity
To make a brand memorable, you need to make the website design consistent. So consider keeping all the site’s colours, character, and emotions consistent on every page. Take a look at Skype’s website. Every page shows the same look, reinforcing its brand.
5. Reusability (code and visuals)
As well as using consistent visuals and layouts, you can reuse content such as style sheets or images. As the files are in the browser’s cache, this will consequently make your site load faster.
6. Make the logo highly visible
Considering placing the logo at the upper left corner of the site, since this is the spot where most visitors’ eyes will be drawn. Also, consider linking the logo image to the site’s page. As for size, ensure that it is big enough to be noticeable, making it at least the second or third object visitors see on the site.
7. Promote the benefits
Visitors won’t stay long on a site if it fails to grab their interest. It will only take seconds for them to find out if they have come to the right place. To convince them to stay, tell them what benefits they can get from using the brand’s product or service in a few succinct words. The best location for this message is next to the logo so that people can see it immediately.
8. Adopt and use the right tone
Even the website’s language can strengthen a brand’s appeal to your target market. For example, there are various tones and combinations of tones you can adopt:
Formal voice for a site catering to investors
Informal and fun voice for young audiences
Friendly voice with related industry jargon for a tech-savvy audience
Also, be mindful that some words can have different meanings, depending on the audience. Take the word ‘engine’, for example:
A Mechanical Engineer will describe an engine as “a device which converts fuel or heat energy into mechanical energy”. A Computer programmer, however, will associate an engine as being “software which generates source code in order to create automated processes.”
9. Make the site stand out
Creating a website brand won’t create any impact or differential if it is the same as other competing sites. As a designer, you need to include elements that will make your client’s site unique. After all, by making the site stand out you’ll improve the brand’s chances of attracting visitors and making them return.
Conclusion
Building a strong recognizable brand, even for small business or personal websites, is a must in this digital age. This is especially important, given the short attention span of visitors and of course the sheer number of businesses that have an online presence.
Strong branding can instantly demonstrate the attractive advantages of your client’s brand, its key differences to competitors and its unique personality and character. Getting across all of this can help clients in a big way, to not just win over customers but beat their competitors.
As you can see from the tips covered in this article, there isn’t just one single route you need to arrive at a strong brand but a range of directions. So, keep these all in mind when you embark on successfully branding your client’s site.
About the author:
Sam Sayer is the Creative Director of DeType, a creative agency based in Kettering, Northamptonshire, UK. His company specializes in web design, branding, motion, UX, and online design.
There’s no doubt that the latest internet revolution is throwing a number of industries for a loop, and the real estate business is as affected as anyone else. Real estate web platforms like Zillow and Trulia provide potential renters and homeowners with a wealth of new tools for their search, offering an alternative to traditional real estate brokers and agents. But that doesn’t mean that everything is hopeless for real estate agencies. By adopting these technologies themselves and moving beyond the traditional real estate website, they can compete with these more disruptive approaches to how we shop for homes. But regardless of which areas these clients come from, it’s fertile ground for people with mobile app development experience. Here are some common mistakes you should avoid when building out a real estate platform.
Neglecting
the Search Interface
When you really separate the process of real
estate app development down to its component parts, it’s not that dissimilar
from building a traditional marketplace shopping app. For the majority of
startups trying to create a real estate app, the service itself will operate as
a third party provider connecting supply to demand. It’s a model employed in
countless industries today, but whether you’re operating an airfare shopping
service like Expedia or a more traditional shopping app like Wish or eBay, the
core objective is the same. You need to provide the users with the tools they
need to identify their needs and receive accurately and appropriately filtered
results.
That means that the search engine is going to
serve as the core of any real estate app, and the options therein are going to
be what causes it to sink or swim. Regardless of the platform, there are a few
fundamental filtering options that tend to serve as the core of the real estate
search experience:
The location of the property. Many buyers will come to the home shopping experience with some understanding of their ideal neighborhoods, and that means that in addition to a functional map system (which we’ll address below), a simpler way to sort homes by location is integral. This could be broken down into neighborhood names, zip codes, or both.
Listing and home types. Whether a user is
looking to buy, sell, or rent their property, their needs are going to be very
different. You may want to integrate the selling process using a different interface,
but that will depend on how deep is a feature set you want to create for
sellers.
The number of bedrooms. A single college
student will have very different demands from a family of four, after all.
Pricing. This is a fundamental variable in any
shopping experience, and a slider is the most effective way to make it work
within your app.
Those are just the fundamentals. A number of
other filters like the number of secondary rooms, available amenities, floor
space, and smart home features can greatly improve the interactivity of your
app. If you’re putting a particular emphasis on renting, additional filters
that cover policies like pets and smoking can be of great use as well.
Choosing
Only One Listing Type
The search filters only provide half of the
story for shoppers, and that’s why more in-depth listings are a necessary
component for any app. The two predominant visualizations in apps of these
types are maps and paneled lists, and most real estate apps that want to stay
competitive will make use of both, normally in conjunction with each other.
Listings allow your sellers or landlords to
put their best foot forward. Photos can make a huge difference when trying to
find a renter or buyer for a property, and that’s why it’s important to make
these options as interactive as possible. Setting standards for resolution,
size, and a format is critical here, as it creates a level of consistency with
your platform, and you’ll want to make sure that your retailers have access to
a simple interface that allows them to upload images easily, manage their
galleries, and edit the write up for their listings. On the other end of the
equation, the ability to like, bookmark, or favorite listings is a quality of
life component that may seem simple but is a practical necessity for apps like
these.
Maps might not offer the same dense level of
information as listings, but they help the user get a good frame of reference
for their prospective properties. Location is one of the biggest determinant
factors in the home shopping experience, and it shouldn’t be neglected.
Fortunately, the Google Maps API is easy to integrate into most platforms, and
there’s a decent level of customization that can be used to create your own
brand identity. Another advantage of implementing Google’s map function is that
it offers a street-level view, a useful choice for customers who don’t want to
rely on the listing galleries alone.
Used in conjunction with one another, these
two listing formats allow the users to shop how they want, and it essentially
creates two layers of immersion into the experience: a top-down view in the
form of the map and a more focused perspective in the form of the paneled
gallery.
Focusing
Exclusively on Buyers and Renters
If you’re a third party designing a real
estate app, it can be easy to look at the people trying to rent and buy a home
as your direct consumer. That would be a mistake. As the endpoint in the
transactional relationship, the owners and landlords will ultimately be the
consumers for your product, and appealing to them should be a top priority. You
should strongly consider putting a feature rich interface in for agents and
independent sellers.
Monetizing the option to place listings can be one of the best ways to keep your app in the black, but that means that you can’t lag behind the big names in the industry. A calendar constitutes the bare minimum here, and it should absolutely be a part of your infrastructure. If your agents and sellers can’t effectively share information on open houses and showings, your app could be dead on arrival. As with maps, there are a number of options that can be easily implemented via API here, from Google Calendar to Outlook.
But you should consider map functionality a
bare minimum here. Many sites offer priority advertising for premium customers,
and some even incorporate full-blown customer relationship management platforms
directly into their interface. Exactly how far you want to dig in here is going
to depend on the ambition of your app, but you should at least build your
application with the opportunity for expansion into CRM territory. Marketing
tools, landing page integration, and dynamic communications options like chat,
voice, and email are all reasonable goals to set for your app’s development
process.
In
Conclusion, Pace Yourself
Real estate apps may occupy a comparatively small part of the overall software marketplace, but they can be highly lucrative. As with any development cycle, coming in with a strong proof of concept and direct goals for development. By setting a blueprint from the start and determining how your app is differentiated from the variety of other services on the market, you can carve out your own unique niche. Just don’t neglect the fundamental necessities in pursuit of the next big thing.
Editor’s note: This sponsored post was provided by Victor Osadchiy.
Victor is a creative writer who formerly worked in the Ed Tech industry. By day, he’s a writer about app development for business. By night, he’s an online gamer and a big fan of Esports. You can find more posts by Victor on the Yalantis blog
WebProfessionals.org is proudly training the U.S. competitor for web design and development for SkillsUSA. Matt Vreman will be competing at WorldSkills in Kazan, Russia later this year. He won the competition among individuals who have won our national web design and development contest over the past few years. WorldSkills competitions happen every two years. WebProfessionals.org has been involved in these competitions since 2013.
As part of his training, we were able to participate in a series of meetings in Minnesota last week. Matt received some mentorship from two individuals who are part of the team responsible for 3m.com (Laurie and Ashley). They provided a number of useful insights and observations which should help Matt as he continues to prepare.
We hope you enjoy this quick overview of some of the events which happened last week. If you would like to help with Matt’s training (or help with our national web design and development competition, please indicate in the comments section.
30 years ago this week (March 11, 1989), Tim Berners-Lee submitted his proposal for an information management system. A lot has happened since that initial proposal. Without a doubt, the WWW has had a significant impact on our society. Personally, I have been learning about web technologies since 1992 (27 years). I am amazed at the scope and scale of changes I have witnessed in nearly three decades. Our organization was founded in 1997 (this April will mark 22 years for us). And, we have witnessed profound changes over that time as well.
Renew our focus on core principles
In the past 30 years, the WWW has morphed into what we know today. There are growing divides and these have been discussed in the open letter written by Sir Tim Berners-Lee on March 11, 2019.
We believe it is time for governments, companies, and citizens to formally commit to the principles outlined in the Contract for the Web. The key points outlined in this contract are cited in the bullet points below:
Governments should:
provide access to the web and Internet for everyone,
make certain the web and Internet is available all the time and all content is available,
recognize and respect the fundamental right to each individual’s privacy.
Companies should:
keep the web and Internet access affordable and accessible to everyone,
respect the fundamental right to each individual’s privacy (and personal data),
support technologies which put people first.
Citizens should:
create content and collaborate,
foster strong communities where everyone feels safe and welcome,
do their part to keep the web open and public.
We signed, did you?
As a member supported organization helping aspiring and practicing web professionals, we have always adhered to the core principles discussed in the above letter. We have signed the Contract for the Web to reaffirm our commitment. We signed as an organization and we encourage members and others reading this to sign as well.
The WWW has created many opportunities and we are at a key point in the evolution of this medium. As an organization, we support continued efforts to create the web we want. We encourage all to do their part.
Best always,
Mark DuBois
Executive Director and Community Evangelist
Personally, I have been working with web technologies for almost 3 decades (started in 1992 – yep, 27 years at this point). It was quite easy to view the source code on a web page to learn how the author had developed the page. It was easy to build a solid foundation regarding these technologies. Of course, when I first started, CSS and JavaScript did not yet exist. Fast forward to 2019. Now we have JavaScript frameworks (minified, of course), CSS pre-processors, and much more. View the source code on most sites and you will not be able to fully understand what the author has done in constructing the site.
Barriers to Entry
At one point, individuals could learn the fundamentals and enhance their knowledge as they worked through code snippets. It seems that many today are relying on frameworks for simple tasks. I first asked this question a few years ago in my article – Are we relying too much on JavaScript? Since 2016, it appears these issues have only grown. Of course, many professionals have specialized (as they must). Whether the discipline is UX, or UI, or server side development, it is still important to have a solid understanding of how all the pieces relate. Sure, one can take classes; but many at various institutions seem to cover out of date materials. This seems to force students to learn on their own. We see the results every year with some individuals participating in our national web competition. It seems that many have decided to focus on a specialty or framework from the start. Rather than developing a solid understanding of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, it seems many focus on learning a few frameworks with the intent of then landing a job as a developer. Time and again, I see social media posts demonstrating a lack of understanding of CSS fundamentals (such as float or the box model). Likewise, I have seen instances where a large amount of JavaScript code is developed where a simple paragraph tag would suffice. It seems that many are now focused on learning a subset instead of developing a solid foundation and then branching out. Perhaps this is because there seems to be so much complexity in web sites these days?
Content management systems
I have also seen the rise of content management systems (such as WordPress which now accounts for roughly 30% of new websites). I listen in various meetings where individuals speak of a language (such as React) when they mean framework. I also hear many conversations demonstrating a lack of knowledge of the fundamentals of CSS (and the proper separation of presentation from content). I also see many sites where there is no consideration for accessibility (or it seems an after thought). Certainly, Content Management Systems make it much easier to get your content online. However, I believe one should still have a solid foundational understanding of the technologies involved. There may well come a time when a minor change is needed to make a page display as one intends. Without an overall foundational knowledge, this may be nearly impossible to achieve.
Return to the basics
Personally, I believe it is time we return to the basics. This message is particularly directed at those who teach web technologies. It is important to keep up with trends, but it is also important to make certain aspiring web professionals are grounded with a solid foundation of how to build web pages (with a good understanding of semantic markup [and why it is important], CSS, and vanilla JavaScript). Only after they have a solid foundation should they specialize (and learn frameworks).
I am stepping off my soapbox now. I am curious as to your thoughts? Are we neglecting the fundamentals and not providing a solid foundation for students? I look forward to your comments.
Best always,
Mark DuBois
Executive Director and Community Evangelist
If you are a practicing web professional, I have a simple question for you. What are you doing to help the next generation of web professionals? We are a member supported organization and we do our best to help aspiring web professionals learn what matters in our industry. We do this through our School Of Web initiative, our Web Professional Academies and Education Alliances and through our annual web design and development competitions. Your membership matters a great deal.
We will hold our 17th annual national web competition in Louisville in June (as one example). Of course, all of this is made possible by member support. People just like you!
Our web competitions promote best practices
We often hear that there is a skills shortage and employers simply can not find enough individuals with the knowledge and skills to meet their needs. As an organization for aspiring and practicing web professionals, we like to think we are making a difference, particularly by promoting industry best practices at our competitions.
If you have been thinking about joining us, now is the time. We are about to start another round of competitions. You can also help us with competition judging. You do not need to be physically present (all materials are available on a secure server).
Of course, you receive many other benefits (such as a free class at our School of Web, access to curated resources on many aspects of web technologies, and access to a community of like minded professionals using Slack).
Now is your time to pay it forward
When others ask you what have you done to help the next generation, you should be able to say that you “paid it forward” as an active member of Web Professionals. Your membership matters.
Best always,
Mark DuBois
Executive Director and Community Evangelist
Recently, I was asked to document how we develop our certification exams. I thought it might be helpful for visitors to this blog to better understand the process as well. We always try to keep our certifications in line with what is happening in the industry. We offer a number of certifications (ranging from novice to professional levels) in web design, web development, mobile and app development and a number of related areas.
Background
We have been offering our certifications for roughly two decades. Obviously, our processes have changed over that time. For example, when I served as Director of Education, we met in Las Vegas (in person) for several days to identify specific areas of focus in our certifications. Nowadays, we hold most of our discussions via email and teleconferences. Here is a bit about our internal process. Frankly, I have personally been involved with many certification efforts over my many years of experience in this field. I have worked closely with companies such as Adobe and Microsoft. Given what I have observed, I can attest that our certifications are comparable and follow roughly the same set of processes. Of course, there is one key difference – our certifications are vendor neutral.
Anyone working in this field understands that technology changes rapidly (and this churn means we need to keep our certifications up to date). This is why those who have earned a certificate from us need to have it renewed every two years.
Our process
Essentially, the process involves periodic review of the current domains and subdomains we cover by individuals in business, industry, and education. We also use this information to keep other initiatives (such as our national web design competition) up to date. Once we have identified that changes need to be made, we have individuals with significant experience in writing questions develop appropriate questions (which include distractors and other features to help confirm individuals really understand the technology). These questions are then reviewed/ revised and eventually end up in question pools. We pull questions from these pools when an individual takes an exam. Obviously, different questions are developed for novice and beginning certifications and for professional certifications. As an aside, we also ask anyone taking a professional level certification to provide documentation they have worked in the industry for at least two years.
We believe it is important that individuals who work in our field consider holding a professional level certification. We believe it is also important those aspiring to work in our industry hold entry level certifications. This is confirmation you have a base level of knowledge and skills for our industry. Of course, we also believe individuals in our industry should be part of a professional organization and collaborate with others. We also ask members to sign a code of ethics. We even include a link to agree to our code of ethics for non- members [it is posted near the bottom of our home page.] It is only through our combined efforts we raise the bar of professionalism in our industry.
Become involved
If you would like to be part of the group which periodically reviews our domains and subdomains, please leave a comment below. By providing your email address, we will know how to contact you. We encourage you to consider helping us (and our industry) by providing your insights periodically as to what matters in today’s rapidly changing field.
I look forward to your comments (and hope you consider assisting us and providing your insights into our process).
Best always,
Mark DuBois
Executive Director and Community Evangelist
The hype around voice search has been building up ever since it was introduced around a decade ago, from the time when users were required to dial in a number and verbally state their search queries.
Since then, various companies have made gigantic leaps in the development of voice-search, thanks to superior machine learning algorithms and the influx of data derived from search engines. Currently, the market for voice search has expanded into a multi-billion-dollar enterprise with the biggest players, including Amazon, Google, and Apple, all competing for a piece of the pie.
The profound impact voice search has on search engine optimization (SEO) means that it affects everybody and anybody on the internet. Professionals directly linked with the Internet, and digital marketing in particular, need to stay one step ahead of the curve to ensure they are ready when the tide changes.
Why Is Voice Search Important For SEO in 2019?
Amit Singhal, the head of Google SERP ranking team stated in 2013, that “the destiny of Google’s search engine is to become that Star Trek computer.” If anything, that explains the direction voice search has taken in the last few years, and where it is headed in the years to come.
As a component of speech recognition technology, voice search uses voice commands to perform online searches. The core idea behind it was the facilitation of the consumer experience; people would find it more convenient to speak – and let the computer transcribe the search query – than manually typing it in.
This simplistic view has been expanded upon through the gradual growth in technology. Innovation, such as personal voice assistants have proven revelatory for voice search advancement, offering the much-needed personalization and customization when catering to users’ queries.
Voice Search Is the Future
Such developments were the reason why back in 2014, Andrew Ng – the Chief Scientist at Baidu – was confident enough to predict that by 2020, 50% of all searches would be conducted through voice search.
As of 2017, 41% of online adults were conducting at least one voice search a day and the numbers have only increased since then. Voice search has already become the fastest growing search type, and the trend’s trajectory doesn’t seem to be fading anytime soon in the foreseeable future.
By January 2018, 1 billion voice searches were being carried out a month. These numbers aren’t surprising as people look for faster, more efficient alternatives to typed searching. While people can only type about 40 words per minute, they can speak 150 in the same amount of time.
As a web professional, voice search adaptability is a necessary accessory for your toolkit as you prepare to take on 2019. 58% of consumers are already utilizing voice search features to find information on local businesses. As the number of voice searches increases, businesses need to implement sound SEO techniques to reap the benefits i.e. increased organic traffic.
How to Optimize Your Website for Voice Search
Does voice search have any benefits at all? For sure. Don’t take our word for it, ask Amazon. A study reported that the implementation of voice search technology on its eCommerce platform resulted in $1.8 billion of the tech giant’s revenue in the last year – a figure that is expected to reach $40 billion by 2022.
Let’s face it, creating an attractive and relevant website can be a real challenge so outsourcing web professionals can be a great solution. However, they also need to stay relevant and continually grow to be able to deliver a valuable service to their clients. Here are some of the ways web professionals can optimize a website to maximize results derived from voice searches:
Focus On Featured Snippets
Appearing at the top of SERPs, featured snippets aim to present a concise answer to a user query. With this feature, Google aims to present the most relevant content at the very top of the user’s search result for a smoother experience.
In addition to ensuring high-quality content that justifies its relevance and quality to the search engine, you can go a step further and include a brief summary of the crux of your content above the fold.
The average voice search result is about 29 words long, so keep that in mind when devising content summaries. Additionally, long-tail keywords are a prominent feature of the “snippet” and should be included for added visibility.
Include Long Tail Keywords Using Conversational Tone
When optimizing your site for voice searches, it is imperative to keep in mind that the way we speak is inherently different from the way we write.
While typed queries are very short and concise, conversational search queries make use of more words. This translates to the emphasis placed on long tail keywords, which sound natural, and are more likely to be used in voice searches.
This helps in traditional SEO, and keywords that contain multiple words face less competition and hold a higher chance to top the SERP rankings. It might require additional and extensive keyword research, but is well worth it.
Additionally, the easier your sentence reads – the better it is for your SEO. We speak less formally than we type, and that means reduced wordiness. In fact, a majority of the voice search software conform to 9Th-grade reading levels. You could be writing about genetic engineering, but it should be written in a way that makes it easier to comprehend.
Make Sure Your Page Loads Fast
The reason why people use voice search is a convenience, and what convenience does a slow loading speed provide?
Not only does Google’s algorithm tilt towards websites that load faster, and as a result, ensure optimal user satisfaction and reduced bounce rates; it also benefits the consumer.
This is basic on-site SEO in action, with a special emphasis on mobile responsiveness. With Google Mobilegeddon causing mobile-responsive sites to rank higher, it is vital that your website is compatible with smartphones as well.
Faster page-load speeds are achieved through the utilization of images that are optimized, compressed files, and website caching, to name a few. People already use voice search widely, and its acceptance will only grow drastically in the future.
Conclusions
Those who take voice search into account in their SEO strategy already have an edge over other players. Voice search operates by narrowing down results, only catering to the top three. Companies that capitalize on voice search integration early on will benefit from higher content visibility, which will only keep increasing.
While it may seem ominous now, the future is clear: voice search will form the core of SEO, and preparing for it now will give you a competitive edge above others as they try to catch up in the coming years.
Editor’s note: this sponsored content was provided by Antonija Bozickovic.
Antonija is an internet marketing specialist at Point Visible, a marketing agency providing link building and digital marketing services. She has a great interest in digital marketing and a soft spot for graphic design. She’s never tired of searching for new inspirations, listening to her favorite music and creating digital illustrations.
Technology has impacted our lives on a larger scale, including our health. From doctors to patients, everyone has adopted the digitization of health industry. And this adoption has given rise to healthcare mobile app development. Undoubtedly, the demand for mobile apps in the healthcare sector is constantly increasing. Medical apps or mhealth apps have brought revolution in the way patients receive care and how patients communicate with providers.
Healthcare mobile apps made patients empowered to take their own, fully-informed medical decisions. It not only provides them with more knowledge but also increases patients’ involvement. Whether it is the healthcare provider or patient, mhealth app developers took the initiative to level the playing field for everyone.
Let’s have a look at how mhealth apps are transforming the healthcare industry.
With the help of mhealth apps, healthcare providers can cater to medical emergencies as well as offer enhance patient care. These apps are slowly becoming a significant part of the patient-provider lifestyle. It comes handy in a lot of medical procedures such as viewing blood reports and medical prescriptions, tracking patient recovery, and monitoring disease symptoms. Digital prescriptions allow providers to treat and monitor patients on the go.
Benefits of Healthcare Mobile Apps
Some of the biggest concerns of patients while accessing healthcare services are the cost of medical and health insurance and keeping pace with the technology. Healthcare mobile app development addresses these concerns and improves patient-provider communication. Even though health is a priority for everyone, but visiting hospitals frequently for regular checkups or follow-ups doesn’t count as a feasible option. Mobile technology brought relief to this problem. Here are some of the benefits of healthcare mobile apps:
Easy care access: mhealth apps let providers communicate with the patients in a better way. It reduces the distance between them and improves the patient-provider relationship. Mobile apps let patients take consultation over platforms and visit only as recommended. This will not only save patients and providers’ time but also cut a significant cost.
Improved patient engagement: The long queues outside the doctors’ clinic leaves a very limited time for providers to treat every patient warmly. In addition to this, it lacks the transparency of cost and quality. Healthcare apps work the best for patients, as it informs them if there is any delay in the appointment or they want to fix an appointment in the real time.
Additionally, mhealth apps are beneficial for working professionals and elderly who don’t get updates regarding upcoming doctor appointments or pill schedule. These apps work as an assistant for patients, reminding them to take pills and scheduled appointments as required.
No More Medical Fraud: With healthcare apps, there would be no more Medicare fraud. Often, patients get mislead by brokers present in the hospital who fool them saying that they will fix their appointment and charge a hefty amount to the medical staff. mhealth apps let patients access healthcare services without any mediator. Additionally, patients are also able to book their appointments directly with the doctor through the app and get genuine bills.
Round the clock service: Healthcare mobile apps offers 24*7 assistance to patients and providers. Generally, when patients are done with consultations, they are left with paper, prescribed medicines, and recommended treatment. This way, there are higher chances that patients may miss the key points mentioned by doctors during treatment.
In such situations, healthcare apps come as a handy solution. It can help patients remember even the minute detail and the important instructions from providers such as taking pills, checking side effects, and contacting a doctor immediately in case of emergency.
Role of mobile apps in the Healthcare Sector
When it comes to healthcare, it becomes mandatory for healthcare providers to make quick decisions and implement those decisions timely to save patients’ lives. An efficient IT infrastructure is necessary for the providers to make prompt decisions. Here healthcare mobile apps can ease-down the decision-making process.
Mobile technology has proven helpful for doctors and nurses. It enables them to check patients’ health records in the real-time and patients can monitor their health conditions too. It also helps policy-makers to further improve as well as create new healthcare programs.
Here are some tips to develop a Successful Healthcare Mobile App
Determine your target audience: Determining who you are going to provide your services is one of the most crucial factors to consider while developing a healthcare app. Explore as much as you can on your targeted user-base.
Understand the need/problem: Once you know your target audience, determine what problems they are facing and how can you solve it. There might be many apps available in the market that claim to solve the same problem but hardly people find those appropriate. As a healthcare app developer, you must provide a solution that offers an easy-to-use experience to your users and solves their problems efficiently.
Customize as required: Your solution should be customized as per patients’ needs. It should provide information to the users, specific to their queries and with which they can relate to.
Direct Communication: Your healthcare app should offer a direct communication medium between patients and their doctors as it helps patients understand their health state. The medium can be in any form: messages or email.
Earlier, it was necessary for the patients and doctors to be in the same place for the treatment. With the advent of healthcare mobile apps, this limiting requirement has been addressed and solved as patients can take consultation, book appointments and tests, and take proper follow-up virtually within the app. These apps are like a blessing for the people living in rural areas and face difficulty in connecting with professional doctors.
Key Take Away!
As you have learned about how the intervention of technology with healthcare gave rise to healthcare mobile apps, its benefits, and a few tips to build a successful healthcare mobile app. It is evident from the above discussion that the upcoming years are going to be great for the healthcare providers and patients as there will be better solutions and many options to choose from, in order to solve a problem.
Whether it is a patient or a healthcare provider, there are numerous advantages for everyone. If you are thinking about developing your own app then it’s the right time to do it. All you need is a skilled team of an experienced digital healthcare technology partner, medical app developers, and digital marketers.
Editor’s note. This sponsored content was provided by Ritesh Patil.
Ritesh Patil is the co-founder of Mobisoft Infotech that helps startups and enterprises in mobile technology. He loves technology, especially mobile technology. He’s an avid blogger and writes on mobile application. He works in a leading mobile app development company with skilled Android and iOS app developers that has developed innovative mobile applications across various fields such as Finance, Insurance, Health, Entertainment, Productivity, Social Causes, Education and many more and has bagged numerous awards for the same. You can find him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
There are a number of reasons why internet privacy can be just as important in the workplace as it is in your personal life, and it’s not all about going on Facebook when the boss isn’t looking. In an era of instant message chats and endless email threads, conversations that might once have been had at the watercooler are increasingly likely to take place in logged, viewable exchanges.
Whether those conversations are complaining about a company policy or discussing personal details that could lead to workplace discrimination, most of us are keen to make sure that private discussions remain just that. But since the computers you use at work are your employer’s property, it’s not uncommon for internet connections to be monitored.
Around 78% of major US companies admit that they check up on their employees’ emails, browsing history, downloaded files and even online phone calls. With almost two thirds of workers admitting to using the internet for personal reasons during working hours, it’s not entirely unreasonable for employers to be suspicious – but if you’re concerned about snooping, it’s good to know how you’re being watched and what you can do to avoid it.
The rules on snooping
A crucial thing to bear in mind when conversing via your work email address or workplace instant messenger system, is that just as your device belongs to your workplace, so does your email account. So whether you’ve added two-factor authentication to your log-in or set your emails up to be heavily encrypted, it won’t change the fact that someone else is the overseeing administrator of ‘your’ account.
In the US, UK and Australia, employers are legally within their rights to monitor all activity that you carry out on a company-owned device. This is true whether you’re in the office or working from home, and can include the use of personal email accounts on company devices.
In the UK, staff are supposed to be informed if they are being monitored – whether that’s via email, in browsing history logs or otherwise. However, just because your employer is supposed to tell you that they’re monitoring you, this doesn’t mean they have to get your consent. And in practice, notification of web use monitoring is forgotten. In the US and most of Australia, no disclosure is legally required.
The financial sector is thought to be the most vigilant when it comes to staff surveillance, with more than 92% of firms participating in some kind of monitoring activity. The types of monitoring in place include:
Keylogging – from actual keystrokes to time spent at the keyboard.
Computer file audits – inspecting what is being downloaded to, and stored on, company devices.
Email reviewing – according to the American Management Association, an estimated 73% of US companies use automatic email monitoring tools, while 40% have individuals specifically assigned to read and review incoming and outgoing email.
Browsing history reviews – generally looking for inappropriate site surfing, from social media to explicit content.
Encrypting browsing data
The simplest way to keeping your browsing history and ongoing activity private is to encrypt your connection, using a Virtual Private Network or VPN. There are various VPN apps suitable for PC and laptop use, and they only take a minute to install. Just make certain you only install this on personal devices (if you use them at the office). [Editor’s note – we also employ a VPN on our equipment when traveling (typically this will require an administrator to install on a corporate device).]
When connecting to the internet via a VPN, in essence you create a secure ‘tunnel’ in which to undertake your activities. If your employer tries to access the browsing history of your particular device, anything you’ve been up to while connected using a VPN will be missing from the list.
As well as keeping your activity private, a VPN can also sidestep access restrictions to certain websites. So if you were trying to access social media, only to find that it was blocked by your workplace network, connecting to a virtual server elsewhere through a VPN client would be one way to bypass the block.
If you connect to your workplace Wi-Fi network in order to browse on a mobile device, it’s wise to install you VPN service there too. In theory, the activity on your personal device shouldn’t end up exposed to prying eyes – but browsing activity sent over an office network can still be viewed by relevant parties who want to know what you’re up to.
A mobile VPN can encrypt your traffic in just the same way as a desktop version, ensuring that if someone does try to see what you’re up to, all they’ll get access to are indecipherable encryption keys.
On and offline
It almost goes without saying that the best way to keep your online activities away from your boss is to steer clear of anything but work-related activity online in the office, and to have private conversations in person rather than over the web. But in practice, this isn’t always feasible.
Keep personal conversations and browsing to your own devices where possible, and secure it all with encryption to ensure it can’t be snooped. It’s also a good idea to familiarize yourself with any workplace monitoring policies that your employer has – as well as informing you of anything that could be deemed to be inappropriate conduct, they’ll also educate you on how you’re being watched.
This article was provided by Tabby Farrar, who works with organizations in a range of industries including VPN security and small business consultancy. If you would like to see more articles like this one, please let us know via your comments.