Wrong!

At Cheesecake Labs, we believe that a project manager is vital to successful project workflow and product development. They’re the connective tissue that makes everything else possible. 

In this post, we’re going to pull back the curtain on Cheesecake Labs’s methodology, revealing how and why we prioritize project managers. 

Let’s start with the why!

Why we take project management seriously at Cheesecake Labs

It’s no secret that project management is critical when developing software. And one of the core ingredients to successful project management is a strong project manager. Below are a few of the ways a project manager can help your team achieve success. 

Setting the scope—and sticking to it

At the start of a product development cycle, we work with you to build out the Statement of Work (or SOW) together. An SOW encompasses your timeline, budget, goals, motivations, milestones, and more. This is the groundwork that guides the rest of the development cycle. 

To successfully guide your cycle, though, someone needs to convert the SOW into an actionable plan. That’s where a project manager comes in. 

Experienced project managers can take all of your notes, requirements, and expectations and turn them into a clear point-by-point plan. This begins by establishing what you want to accomplish each week, breaking that down into daily tasks, and assigning these daily tasks and weekly goals to your team. 

By outlining the project in this level of detail, your project manager can translate your initial expectations into a realizable goal. 

A good project manager can help you mitigate risk

Your project manager isn’t just a meeting scheduler. They work to ensure that your entire project is in sync, preventing disruptions, delays, and unexpected obstacles. 

This helps ensure that your workflow stays on track. The right people are brought on at the right times, maintaining a steady stream of work and progress on your project. 

A reliable project manager can balance all of this work because they’re the central point in your project. They know everything that needs to occur, how it needs to happen, and when. This allows them to orchestrate everything with precision, preventing issues and reducing stress. 

Protecting the health and happiness of your team

Lastly, a project manager is key to protecting the health and happiness of your team. They’re a constant touchpoint for your team members, someone to check in with for support, advice, and guidance. 

Don’t underestimate this benefit. Keeping morale high is crucial to your project’s success. Team members that feel supported and passionate are more productive and efficient. 

Project managers understand this and can manage all of the minutiae of a development cycle without losing sight of your team’s needs. 

Plus, clients want to work with happy teams! Keeping your team happy will also help you keep clients happy. What’s good for morale is good for your books!

So how does our project management methodology meet these goals?

Of course, the benefits of a project manager listed above don’t amount to much if you can’t realize them. So how does Cheesecake Labs ensure that we set our project managers up for success?

Unsurprisingly, we do rely on Kanban tools like Atlassian Jira, and Microsoft Azure. These are great platforms that make all of the work we’ve listed above possible. It makes it easy to create a timeline of tasks and to match these tasks to team members. 

But managing a board is just step one. Once everything has been outlined for your project, a manager can act on the benefits we described. They can keep track of everyone’s progress, spot potential risks, solve issues, fill in, and capitalize on opportunities. 

Ceremonies are an opportunity for a project manager to shine

One of the best opportunities a project manager has is setting up ceremonies. Ceremonies are important to creating a project management process that feels consistent and engaging. 

These ceremonies are a space to collect information, build relationships with team members, and ensure that everyone is on track and motivated. 

Here are the types of ceremonies we use at Cheesecake Labs which are flexible and can be tailored to your needs.

Daily meetings with the internal team

Daily meetings are short check-ins that take place at the beginning or end of a workday. During these meetings, project management will see how each person feels, what they’re working on, and check if they’ve encountered any obstacles. 

In addition to providing emotional support, this is an excellent space for a project manager to determine if someone is falling behind or needs help overcoming a challenging problem. Without these meetings, it’s easy for a person to quietly fall behind, leading to unexpected slow-downs later on. 

Weekly review meetings with clients

Cheesecake Labs project managers also conduct weekly review meetings. These face-to-face progress reports occur at the end of each week and serve to keep clients in the loop on how the project is being executed against initial expectations. 

These meetings provide opportunities to show off demos, development progress, and any other tangible progress that’s available. These meetings also establish what the client can expect to see at the next meeting. 

Project meetings with the client every two weeks

We also make sure to hold meetings where project management and clients or sponsors can discuss the big picture of your development cycle. Topics can include budget burndown vs. progress, opportunities, potential risks, limitations, requirements, and goals. 

Project meetings will, of course, occur at the beginning of a development cycle, but it’s also good to have follow-up project meetings with clients whenever you reach a significant milestone. 

These meetings usually occur roughly every two weeks and are a space to cover changes in scope and goals that naturally occur as a project takes shape. 

Staying on track with retrospectives

Every month, our project managers meet with internal team members to hold a retrospective. In retrospectives, we reflect on what has and hasn’t been accomplished, how effective each member has been, what we can improve and learn from, and so on. 

These meetings are great because they allow you to rework your project’s workflow without changing the scope or timeline. By acknowledging and analyzing “learnings and insights”, you can avoid repeating them. Likewise, you can see what went well and take steps to expand on this. The entire team must be present during a retrospective. 

One-on-one mentoring when needed

At Cheesecake Labs, we like to stick to around ten people per team at the most. This balances productivity with the bandwidth of our project manager. 

Once a month, a project manager will meet with each member of their team for one-on-one mentoring. This mentoring can be related to the progress this team member is making on the current project, but the meeting often addresses deeper goals. 

In one-on-one meetings, our project manager will discuss things like career goals, growth, and productivity. It’s a space for deep support and guidance to take place, building stronger team relationships while also encouraging productivity. 

Adapting to project management changes with ease and experience

When you invest in your project management, you see that ROI pays off in spades. You build talent that can roll with the punches, embrace change management, and foster similar talent in your team. 

At Cheesecake Labs, we employ these strategies in each of our projects. We set ourselves apart by staying hands-on every step of the way, leading to success for every client, manager, and team member.

The post The Cheesecake Labs approach to project management appeared first on Cheesecake Labs.

Voice search is on the up. And If you’ve read our previous post predicting what may happen in the future of voice technology, you’ll know that we’re pretty excited about the possibilities.

But there are plenty of situations where voice search can create challenges for users, as well as your business. That’s why it’s important to evaluate the risk/benefit relationship voice search presents for your organization and then truly define your product before you dive in. 

In this article, we’re going to go through the cases where voice search can help (and where it can’t yet) so that you can make the right decision. 

What goal will voice search help you achieve?

This is the first question we’d encourage any voice-curious clients to ask themselves: why voice? 

The way we see it, there are two distinct goals that investing in voice can help you achieve — both are worthy ventures, so it’s less a case of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and more what’s right for you.

Voice technology can give you an edge over your competitors

First is a goal that most companies can identify with: you want to get ahead of your competitors, and you believe that voice search can help you do that. 

Voice search can indeed give you a competitive advantage. Not only is it more convenient and modern for your users, but it can also make your business a more viable option in certain situations. 

For users who rely on accessibility features or are frequently in situations where they can’t reach for the phone (driving, cooking, etc.), you can position yourself above other businesses in your sector — using innovation to serve customers better. 

Voice technology could open up new revenue channels

Perhaps you’re not only looking to improve your UX, but voice-assisted search represents new sources of revenue for your business?

Voice search can unlock further revenue by opening up new ways for customers to interact with your business. In the same way that having an online shop helps you reach a wider audience, voice search can bring new audiences to your store. 

Your voice search goal will inspire the development process

If you’re trying to achieve one of the two goals listed above, then you’re ready to start shaping what a voice feature might look like for your business. And to do that, we’re going to take your “why” into consideration again.

Why? Because the goal that drives your voice search development is also going to shape the path that process takes. 

If innovation is your key driver…

For organizations that are investing in voice search to drive their innovation, then you’re going to be looking at a development cycle that embraces a little risk. You don’t want to replicate something that others in the market are already using: you want to push the boundaries and take brave steps forward. 

Businesses that go this route are likely to create a voice search product that is unique against anything that your customers/users may have encountered before. Creative problem-solving is key here — as is making sure you’re not innovating just for innovation’s sake (more on this later). 

If voice search represents a commercial opportunity…

For businesses where voice search is less of a nice-to-have and more of a strategic sales tool, we need to seek a balance. You want to be innovative enough to stand out, but not so innovative that you scare your users off! 

What are your competitors currently doing that you aren’t? And what are they not doing that you certainly could? This will help you create a voice search product that feels familiar and yet unique — all at once. 

Moving towards ‘Definition’

By this point, you should have an idea of your overarching goals and the roadmap you want to follow. Now, it’s time to define your voice solution more clearly.

It sounds counter-intuitive, sure, but try to forget for a moment that you are building a voice assistant at all — and think about a pain point your users have that you can fix. 

Below, we’ll outline what the Product Definition phase will typically look like for a voice search build. But the crux of it is this: explore the problem your users have (that voice search could help solve), look at it from varying angles, and consider the different strategies and concepts you can implement to make it right.

By the end of your Product Definition process, you should have a vision of the problem you want to solve with voice search that is so clear it can be used to influence your decisions, design, and end result. 

This exercise is every inch as essential for voice assistants being built with innovation in mind — it avoids that “voice search just for voice search’s sake” problem we flagged earlier.

Building a voice assistant: the Product Definition process step-by-step

1. Understand the business context

The first task in the Product Definition process is to explore the business components of your voice search project. This goes a step beyond the ‘why’ of your voice mission (although that’s important too) considering the key metrics of success and who in your business acts as a key stakeholder.

If innovation is the motivating force for voice search, then your R&D, branding, product, and tech teams will be very involved at this stage — alongside your software development partners, of course. What experience do we want to provide to voice users? What will that mean for the tech we plug in later? 

Here, user journey maps can highlight unexpected or not-yet-explored opportunities for voice tech to create a point of difference.

2. Research the market and look for gaps

Where innovation-led teams will really double down in phase one, it’s the revenue-seeking clients who should spend the most time in phase two. Why? Because it’s here that we really start to investigate the market.

Working with your software development partner you’ll outline personas, assess competitor propositions, and then define the user experience. Working closely with your marketing team is crucial for this stage. You want to empathize with your market so that the product adapts to them rather than the other way around.

Any future revenue potential relies on getting the product-market fit correct.

3. Validate the tech

After the Product Definition phase comes Product Design. So in order to brief your designers fully, we need to pin down some details related to what we’ve found. Which features will be required for a voice search solution to solve the user pain points we’ve explored? Is this something that your team can build — and for how much time and money?

Does the investment required make sense for your business and is the tech viable? Then we may be on to a winner: innovation-led, revenue-producing, or both.

Defining and seizing your voice search opportunity

Ever heard the saying “Fools rush in”? That couldn’t be more true when it comes to innovation. Yes, you might want to claim first-mover advantage. Yes, you may be sitting on millions of dollars in revenue potential. But if you don’t take the time to explore and assess the opportunity from all angles, you risk rushing in and messing up.

The smartest way to seize the opportunity is step-by-step with an experienced voice search development team by your side. So let’s take that journey together, starting today.

The post Understanding the opportunity that voice search presents for your brand appeared first on Cheesecake Labs.

But voice search isn’t without its challenges.

In many ways, voice search is an inherently unintuitive medium for user interaction. There are little to no visual cues and that in itself can undermine the years of UX theory we’ve all worked so hard to build.

So what does usability look like in the voice search era?

Voice search usability: lessons from the front line

As we said before, voice search is an emerging and exciting digital trend. So you can bet the Cheesecake Labs team has an opinion on it — and the experience to back that opinion up.

One of our recent development projects allowed us to get up close and personal with the challenges that businesses face when embracing voice search. And here are the key lessons we think you’ll find useful…

You need to understand the tech available on the market

First, we learned that you have to understand the current state of voice search tech. There is far more to voice search than the surface level “Command > Wait > Reaction” cycle most of us are familiar with.

Succeeding in this sector will require dedicated research to understand the tech, the associated best practices, and the latest advancements being made.

Here are the three components that make up every voice search as we understand it today.

Intent

The first component of a voice search experience is intent. This is the goal a user has when they initiate the voice search in any form. It’s independent of how they phrase their intent or how the voice application responds.

It refers specifically to what the user wants, and that’s it.

Utterance

The second component is the utterance. Although this is the first interaction a user has with the voice application, it’s the second component of the voice search process — and that’s an important distinction.

The utterance is the phrasing the user employs to spark the action that will satisfy their intent.

Slot

Third, we have the slot. The slot (or slots, depending on the request) is the variable component of a person’s request. For example, if a user says, “Show me cute dog pictures”, the slot would be “cute dog”.

The action aspects of the phrase stay the same with each request to see pictures. However, the slot “cute dog” could be interchanged with “angry cat” or “scary rollercoaster” or “beautiful mountains”.

Every voice search (and nearly every voice command) will contain at least one slot.

Next, ask how you can create a great UX

Once you understand the basic components of a voice search — and have researched the latest tech in this sector — it’s time to start ideating a great voice search experience.

Building a voice search UX is unique in that it exclusively includes the user’s voice. There are no other components to the experience of using a VUI (voice user interface). This should radically change your approach to design. The responding voice’s persona will be key to getting this right.

Privacy is another key consideration when building a great voice UX. We’ve seen in recent history how important privacy is to users, especially with the vulnerability associated with vocal interactions.

When users are being listened to, they want total confidence that the listening party is being as responsible and respectful with their privacy and data as possible.

Then you need to build the user’s journey

The user’s journey through a voice search interaction is probably the most complex facet of creating a voice search experience. That’s because it needs to appear as (and in many ways is) a completely fluid and natural interaction.

Simultaneously, the interaction needs to be very precisely orchestrated and predicted. You should consider all of the options and possibilities that could occur during a voice interaction. Unlike a graphical user interface (GUI), where you create the environment that your interactions take place in, VUIs present a far more amorphous and haphazard interactive plane.

Sometimes, you’ll be crafting this interaction with a concrete design process. You’ll be pulling on research, experience, and strategies. And other times, your team will be sitting around a table, spitballing all of the different questions, phrases, and requests that could be thrown at your voice application.

Don’t skip this stage. An ill-thought-out user journey for a voice search application will fall flat on its face.

After that, you’ll create the “copy” for your voice search experience

The “copy” of your voice search experience is the flow that your VUI conversations will follow. This includes the request and the reply, and the following requests and replies that come next.

Again, this is a complex process — and each project will have copy unique to itself — but we do have some pointers:

• Remember that a VUI is based on communication, which is one of the most fundamental components of the human experience. Before creating artificial conversations, you should start by studying natural ones.
• Speech is filled with idiosyncrasies. Users will combine words in ways that don’t fit grammar conventions, they will expect non-verbal implications to be understood, and they’ll get frustrated when they are not understood very quickly. A frustrated user isn’t a returning one, so make sure you explore this thoroughly.

Don’t forget to perform user testing on your voice search

It should come as no surprise that user testing is critical to building a voice search interface. This is not like testing a GUI, where you’re testing layouts, clarity, and checking for bugs.

You will be doing those things (or similar), but you will also be running into countless issues that you cannot anticipate. Again, this is a result of the fluid, uncontrolled, and improvisational nature of communication.

Lastly, iterate on your design and prepare for launch

As you go through testing and gradual deployment, be prepared to iterate. The “finished” version of your VUI might be very different from the version that your testers see. And, like any application, you should continue iterating on your VUI after its launch.

Metrics are key here! Measure the performance of your VUI using KPIs before and after launch.

Voice search might be new, but data and analytics haven’t been replaced yet.

Voice experience design is a totally new challenge — but we’re ready for it

Voice search is unlike anything else we’ve built in the digital space. And despite being mainstream for nearly ten years, we — as a design and development community — still know very little about working with this tech.

This newness means that the challenges of voice search design will be difficult to anticipate.

There are inherent difficulties built into voice search. After all, we’re visual creatures, which makes VUIs challenging to design and use.

There are external difficulties as well. You won’t know how your users are going to use your VUI until you see them use it. And you don’t know how they’re going to converse with it until you monitor these interactions.

Even still, these challenges shouldn’t dampen your excitement for or eagerness to invest in the future that voice search will bring. Already, we’re getting a glimpse into this future with the growing popularity and efficacy of smart home speakers and automation.

As new devices like AR glasses and smartwatches become more powerful and realistic, the role of voice search will grow exponentially. We may be on the verge of a future where our voices will become the new touchscreen.

By embracing and attacking these challenges — and embracing the opportunities — you can not only push voice search forward but remain ahead of your competition.

Start building your VUI with the digital experience experts

The team at Cheesecake Labs has hands-on experience with the challenges and opportunities that come with voice search. We’re ready to step into the future, if you are?

The post Usability challenges in voice search — and how to overcome them appeared first on Cheesecake Labs.

That’s where outsourcing your development work comes in. Staff augmentation makes it possible for organizations to access the tech talent they need, when they need it, to fill immediate and long-term skill gaps.

We’ve compiled five of the most popular countries for offshoring and outsourcing app development across the world, based on current facts and figures. So, in no particular order…

Popular places to offshore app development in 2021–2022:

• Poland
• Ukraine
• India
• The Philippines
• Brazil

Where to offshore app development: Poland

The need-to-know facts:

• Political situation – Stable
• Good USD buying power – as Poland retains its own currency (and doesn’t use the Euro)
• Pandemic situation – Decreasing
• Time zone – 8-hour difference compared to US Central Standard Time.

Poland has become Europe’s biggest economic success story since it transformed into a market economy in the early 1990s.

Currently, the country is enjoying political stability as part of the EU and NATO. However, despite being an EU member, they have not adopted the Euro as their currency. This proves advantageous to US businesses that are looking to Poland for offshore staff, as the minimum wage per month works out at $761 as of January 1st 2021.

Poland’s COVID numbers are currently holding steady after a big decline in April 2021. As of July 1st 2021, their 7 day average for new cases was just 96 with hospitalization down to under 1000 patients for the first time since the pandemic started, thanks to the country’s well-handled vaccination rollout.

In terms of tech talent, Poland boasts the most competitive IT sector of all 23 countries of Central and Eastern Europe, according to a landmark new report from Emerging Europe and Tech Emerging Europe Advocates. Meanwhile, Harvard’s Business Review placed Poland 5th among the most tech-skilled labor markets worldwide, thanks in part to the shift to cloud-based technology.

Where to offshore app development: Ukraine

The need-to-know facts:

• Political situation – Stable (with a risk of instability)
• Good USD buying power
• Pandemic situation – Decreasing
• Time zone – 9-hour difference compared to US Central Standard Time.

Ukraine hasn’t had it easy over the past year or so. Politically, it experienced a cabinet reshuffling and a local election run by proportional representation for the very first time. There is also an international concern regarding Russia’s potential to occupy more Ukrainian territories as they have with Ukraine’s Autonomous Republic of Crimea and other areas. This could escalate into further problems if the country decides to step up its response.

Back on home soil, Ukraine has much to be proud of. The country’s rich farmlands, well-developed industrial base, exceptional labor, and strong education system all suggest major economic potential. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be giving the Ukrainian economy the boost that you may expect. In fact, Ukraine is the second-poorest country in Europe with a per capita GDP of $2,639 and minimum wage set at just $221.36 a month.

COVID case numbers have seen a dramatic decrease in the country. Their 7-day average for new cases has dropped under 1000 for the first time since July 2020, despite having less than 2% of the population vaccinated as of July 1st 2021.

So what does this all mean for software development?

Well, despite the pandemic and shaky political situation, Ukraine’s IT sector is one of the fastest-growing in the region. And Ukraine is where you’ll find the largest number of C++ programmers in the world. Altogether, this makes Ukraine a top contender for offshoring prospects — especially in C++.

Where to offshore app development: India

The need-to-know facts:

• Political situation – Increasingly unstable
• Economic situation – Unstable
• Pandemic situation – Decreasing but still dangerous
• Time zone – 11.5-hour difference compared to US Central Standard Time.

The United Nations is predicting India will emerge as the world’s fastest-growing economy in 2022. But the country will need to navigate a “highly fragile” 2021 first.

The coronavirus pandemic has decimated India’s citizens. The death toll has officially crossed 200,000 people — a figure many experts claim to be inaccurately low. Political decisions have played a huge role in the surge of COVID-19 among Indian households. In January, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated that they’d contained “corona effectively”. A few months later, he loosened restrictions and allowed mass public gatherings and the country fell victim to a brutal new wave, with record-breaking infection figures and patients struggling for hospital beds and emergency air.

In the face of such adversity, India’s tech industry has remained incredibly resilient. The tenacity of large enterprises and small start-ups alike has made India one of the strongest digital markets — expected to see a record positive growth of 2.3% in 2020, reaching $194 billion.

Where to offshore app development: The Philippines

The need-to-know facts:

• Political situation – Unstable
• Good USD buying power
• Pandemic situation – Decreasing
• Time zone – 14-hour difference compared to US Central Standard Time.

2020 was a year of upheaval in The Philippines. An increase in violent attacks on left-wing and environmental activists, as well as journalists and lawyers, has made many Filipino areas unsafe to visit.

On a more positive note, increased public spending on infrastructure, social assistance, and COVID-19 vaccination efforts has helped pave the way for a steady economic recovery. The Asian Development Outlook believes the Philippine economy will grow by 4.5% in 2021 and 5.5 in 2022.

The Philippine average monthly salary is higher than other countries on the list, sitting at just shy of $1150, while the minimum wage per month is below $300. And as 92% of Filipinos speak English, this is a pretty attractive market to do offshoring business with.

Where to offshore app development: Brazil ????????

The need-to-know facts:

• Political situation – Stable
• Pandemic situation – Decreasing
• Time zone – 1-4 hours difference compared to US Central Standard Time, depending on where in Brazil your outsourced team is based.

Brazil is enjoying a period of political stability thanks to President Jair Bolsonaro’s substantial support in Congress. Threats of impeachment are unlikely to come to fruition, leaving it down to the upcoming election to offer any change in government.

Brazil’s economy has also returned to pre-pandemic levels. The Brazilian government has worked hard to keep its economy afloat, spending the equivalent of 8.3% of its annual economic output on stimulus packages. The average salary for Brazilians works out at $1693.17 a month, but the minimum wage is drastically lower at just $174.06.

Unfortunately, Brazil’s quick economic bounce-back has come at a price. The pandemic has taken a heavy toll on the population as the government has favored economic support over scientific recommendations. However, the situation is poised to improve with almost 13% of citizens fully vaccinated as of July 1st 2021.

Alongside its economic growth, the Brazilian information technology and communications market is set to grow 7% reaching US$ 64.4 billion in 2021. Security and public cloud infrastructure are among key areas of focus, according to analyst IDC.

It’s worth noting that time in Brazil is calculated using standard time and the country (including its offshore islands) is divided into four standard time zones: UTC−02:00, UTC−03:00, UTC−04:00, and UTC−05:00. So you may find some teams only one hour behind the US, while others are half a day.

Looking to offshore in a stable, tech-driven market?

… then talk to the Cheesecake Labs team today.

Our team of 60+ designers, engineers, project managers is based out of Florianópolis, Brazil, and we’ve got the years of experience your business needs to make your app visions a reality.

The post 5 popular places to offshore app development in a COVID world appeared first on Cheesecake Labs.

After all, Flutter is backed by Google and used by some of the biggest apps in the world. In this blog post, we’ll explore what’s so powerful about Flutter as a cross-platform framework and which apps you can draw inspiration from for your upcoming development project.

What is Flutter?

Flutter is a cross-platform mobile app development framework. It includes a set of tools to help developers make high-quality apps for iOS and Android with great ease and speed.

Flutter was released by Google in 2018. It’s still one of the newer cross-platform development tools, but it has quickly gained traction — and is now what powers many of your favorite apps.

Its speed, simplicity of use, and flexibility make it a popular choice for developers and app owners alike.

What makes Flutter a great choice for mobile app development?

Google created Flutter with a single-minded goal: to provide a toolset for developers to build cross-platform mobile applications easily. In its short time since launch, Flutter has continued to grow and has released even more features to improve and streamline the app development process.

While other cross-platform frameworks like React Native can also provide this functionality, there are a few things that set Flutter apart from its competition.

You may also like:
Getting you up to speed on Flutter vs React Native vs native development

Flutter compiles to native code (rather than interpreting)

Cross-platform frameworks empower developers to quickly and efficiently create mobile apps. And while that’s a huge benefit of cross-platform development on the whole, Flutter and its fellow cross-platform framework — React Native — does so in different ways.

Many cross-platform frameworks, like React Native, use an interpreter to run applications. An interpreter is like a medium between your application code and a smartphone. It translates your application’s instructions in real-time to a smartphone, so it functions correctly for your users.

As you can imagine, this is an additional step — and comes at the cost of development speed, however negligible but impactful on time to market.

Flutter, on the other hand, compiles its code directly to a smartphone’s native code. It skips the interpretation step, and as a result, you get a faster application. While you can get similar performance with other cross-platform tools, you have to do some extra work to get there.

Flutter keeps your options open in terms of cross-platform UI (user interface)

You know how important a seamless, consistent digital experience is — no matter what device your user has in their hand. With Flutter, you’ve got options for how you make this happen. You can roll out the same user interface across Android and iOS, or you can create different designs from one platform to the next.

Having the same user interface on every device means you know for sure your brand is consistent everywhere. It doesn’t matter how old a device is or what operating system your users are working with — your UI and experience will always appear the same.

That said, sometimes it makes more sense to have custom experiences for Android users and iOS. And in those instances, Flutter is still a great choice for your development framework.

Flutter has plugin infrastructure

The Flutter framework supports a large plugin ecosystem, providing developers access to add native functionality by importing code to their projects. These features can be anything from Bluetooth access to GPS locations — improving your app’s experience and delivering more value to your users (and business).

Many of these plugins are created and maintained by Google too, so you know you’re getting great quality software for your app.

Flutter goes beyond mobile

For many cross-platform development frameworks, mobile is the stopping point. If you want to build on desktop computers or another platform, you’ll need another codebase. But that’s not the case with Flutter.

Google’s newest version of Flutter gives developers the ability to use their Flutter code on other devices, including web. You can now use one codebase for mobile, Windows, macOS, and Linux devices — further adding to Flutter’s cost-effectiveness and flexibility.

6 of our favorite apps built using Flutter

More than 100,000 apps use Flutter, reaching millions of mobile devices. The question is, how many big-name companies use Flutter to make their software run? And what can we learn from them?

Below are just a few of our favorite examples of Flutter in the wild…

1. eBay Motors

The first app we’ll take a look at is eBay Motors.

eBay needed a way to provide a great shopping experience for its users looking to buy cars online. Sure, a web browser may have been the first choice a few years ago, but now — with the rise of mobile — that’s not what users are after. Instead, the app needed to utilize a smartphone’s in-built features; managing listings, uploading media, and finding vehicles to purchase on the fly.

Flutter allowed eBay Motors to provide a seamless vehicle shopping experience online. eBay Motors put the pedal to the metal with Flutter 1.0 — delivering the first beta version of their app within just three months.

Download eBay Motors for Android here, and iOS here.

2. Nubank

Nubank has been a mobile-first company since day one. At their start in 2013, they relied on Kotlin and Swift to create their mobile experiences. But as the company grew, it needed to expand its capabilities.

Nubank turned to Flutter to meet the growing demands of its app. Flutter allowed Nubank to expand on its app’s capabilities without writing the whole app from scratch. As time goes on, most of the codebase will migrate to Flutter as the rest of the codebase phases out.

Download Nubank for Android here, and iOS here.

3. Grab

Grab is a platform that allows local restaurants to deliver food straight to their customer’s doors. Users head to the app to order their food online and wait for a delivery driver to deliver their meal. But we don’t need to explain the online food delivery model to you — with a year on year growth of 20.2%, there’s no doubt you’ve experienced it for yourself.

To help merchants take advantage of this growing market, Grab needed to create a mobile app that gave restaurant owners control over their delivery business.

Powered by Flutter, merchants can track orders, view reports, add team members, and everything else needed to manage their deliveries with ease.

Download Grab for Android here, and iOS here.

4. Topline – Abbey Road Studios

Topline is an app developed by Abbey Road Studios to help musicians save song ideas while they’re on the go — whenever inspiration strikes! Just a few taps on the app and lyrics, audio, and other files are saved instantly on the cloud. Once there, these thoughts and visions can be shared and synced across their team.

Abbey Road Studios took advantage of Flutter to build their app in just 10 weeks. It was featured in Google I/O 2018 and won two awards in the UK App Awards 2018.

Download Topline for Android here, and iOS here.

5. Hamilton

Broadway theatre and emerging tech doesn’t always go hand in hand. But the app for stage-sensation, Hamilton, is an exception to the rule. The stage show’s official app connects theatre-lovers to exclusive content, merchandise, and even daily giveaways.

Speaking about how Flutter improved the process, Hamilton’s digital design partner said: “Flutter made it possible to deliver more and at a higher level of quality. If we had developed two independent fully native apps, we never would have shipped the feature set we had at launch.”

Download the Hamilton app for Android here, and iOS here.

6. MGM Resorts

MGM is one of the biggest names in US hospitality, with venues and experiences in Las Vegas, Detroit, Massachusetts, and elsewhere across the States.

In a sector where speed and seamlessness are key ways to outshine the competition, MGM’s Flutter-built Android and iOS apps support digital room access, personalized entertainment recommendations, and real-time dinner reservations.

Download the MGM app for Android here, and iOS here.

Start your next Flutter application today — and count on Cheesecake Labs to deliver results

In a world where being nimble and adaptable is essential to stay competitive, you can’t afford to work with older, slower development methods. Flutter won’t only help you launch your next app in less time, but it will also help you maintain your app in the future.

Are you thinking about using Flutter to build your new app? Reach out to the Cheesecake Labs team and talk to the group of experts who can make it happen.

The post Apps built with Flutter — 6 great examples appeared first on Cheesecake Labs.

But in case you need a quick recap, staff augmentation is a type of outsourcing strategy where employees are hired in to fill gaps on projects and products to push the agenda forward. It’s a convenient way for companies of all sizes to boost their output without needing to go through a lengthy, expensive hiring process.

Staff augmentation in 2021

Staff augmentation is a huge business and is a great example of a sector that thrived during the pandemic. The global outsourcing market was worth $92.5 billion in 2019 — not a bad figure, right? But as of today, and likely as a result of the pandemic, the IT staff augmentation market has grown to $132.9 billion.

As a concept, the idea of staff augmentation is pretty solid. You, the business, have a talent gap that needs filling. They, as a potential staff member, are skilled in a way that you need. Put the two together and everyone is a winner.

Except that staff augmentation practices have been less than ideal recently. With remote working becoming the norm, workers risk being commoditized and used like faceless robots rather than the valuable assets they are.

Staff augmentation can also cause issues for product managers. Using staff augmentation may bring in the right people for the job, but there may be a QA expert from one place, a designer from somewhere else, and a programmer from a third location. That means you have your “team”, but it’s not really a team that can work together easily — leaving the product manager with a lot more work to do.

This is why Cheesecake Labs are standing against the status quo of staff augmentation, offering our ‘dedicated team’ service instead.

If you are still interested in contracting Staff Augmentation services, you can find Top Staff Augmentation Companies on Clutch, or contact directly Resourcifi – a Top Staff Augmentation Company.

The Cheesecake Labs ‘dedicated team’ approach

When a potential client approaches Cheesecake Labs with a talent gap that needs filling, our first question will always be “what are your needs?”. Some clients only require a single engineer or a couple of extra hands on deck, and that’s fine but it’s not how we like to operate.

Loaning out a solo engineer puts them in a strange and often uncomfortable situation. It can feel like they’re stranded on an island without their usual team, support network and collective intelligence.

That’s not a great environment to work in. It starts to feel like they’re just an interchangeable cog in the machine rather than a person who brings value to the product and business.

Cheesecake Labs runs on teamwork, that’s why we offer a full package deal. Once a client has communicated their needs, the CKL dedicated team comes forward as a unit (varying in size) — including a project manager, a tech lead, engineers with different expertises, and a quality assurance expert.

This team is a tried-and-tested, well oiled machine. They’ve been interviewed, onboarded and verified; they’ve collaborated together already; have all the tools needed in place; and they have access to collective intelligence from across the Cheesecake Labs family.

With typical staff augmentation, you may get an individual who can help you get to where you want to be — but the risks and responsibilities are many. It’s an altogether different experience when working with a dedicated team.

What are the benefits of a dedicated team versus staff augmentation?

Working in a Cheesecake Labs dedicated team helps foster an environment of collaboration, innovation and engagement. That leads to positive knock-on effects for our clients, too. Let’s take a quick look at how a dedicated team from Cheesecake Labs can benefit your product and business.

The right tools

When it comes to application development best practices, there are tons of methodologies on the market. Worse still, each of them can seem like a silver bullet or magical path to deliver both on time and on budget… which one do you choose for your augmented team?

It’s here that a Cheesecake Labs dedicated team really makes a difference. We are addicted to improving and overcoming our expectations and limitations. And that’s not just a mindset, it’s an approach to tooling and methodologies, too.

Over the last 8+ years, we’ve honed and tightened our approach to developing custom applications. We’ve built shopping experiences, gaming networks, and even an app to book helicopter taxis. We’ve incorporated IoT, voice search, and other emerging technologies. We’ve tried and tested all the main methodologies and tools to work out which is best. And, as a result, we’ve cemented a thorough understanding of the processes and tools that increase our efficiency and maximize value — value that we pass on to you.

Our exclusive recipe is comprised of many quality assurance measures and efficiency boosters. But here’s a quick taster of what you can expect:

• Clear and streamlined communication between all stakeholders and the team (by that we mean the whole team, not just a subset of it!) using Slack, plus various stand-up and weekly meetings.
• A well-defined management process with a transparent control and monitoring report, shared weekly, to see the status of the budget burndown vs. effort and progress, etc.
• We use JIRA as the tool to manage milestones, releases, and tasks, including a custom-crafted Kanban board to give everyone full visibility over project progress.
• Each of our developers follows a strict Git-flow with clear quality guidelines and peer code review.
• We deploy infrastructure as a code using Terraform to develop and maintain applications and have environments up and running.
• Strict continuous integration and deployment pipelines to ensure that the code delivered is high quality and free of critical bugs.
• Development and code metrics using the most innovative service and tools in the industry.

Peace of mind

Using traditional staff augmentation practices, product managers have to spend more time and effort micro-managing an individual or group of individuals. Meetings and check-ins can become more complicated, ideas can be diluted and you’re guaranteed to lose value (plus time and money).

With a dedicated team, you simply tell us what your objectives are and we’ll take on the responsibility of achieving them. Cheesecake Labs will handle everything you need — keeping you in the loop constantly and providing you with a great product packed full of value for your end users.

Mitigate risk

We’ve built our reputation by producing delightful digital products time after time. By choosing our dedicated team over regular staff augmentation, you know the final product is going to be excellent — crafted and carried forward by a team that truly cares about shared success.

Our teams are made of people with multiple competencies, which means you can get the help you need when you need it. Suddenly need to pull a UX or UI designer into the mix? No problem. They’re already in the CKL family, and we’ll quickly have the right talent for you. No disruptions, no lengthy searches for the right person, it’s all included in a Cheesecake Labs dedicated team.

Expertise and experience

Quality, efficiency, style, standards, and velocity — you’ll experience a boost in each of these when working with a dedicated team.

Following the staff augmentation model, you have no choice but to hire a set of individuals and patch them together. How well they’ll work as a group, how similar their standards are, what each of them deems as quality… it’s all coming down to guesswork. And if your assumptions are wrong, then you’ll be facing costly rounds of rework and falling behind schedule.

Not to mention the fact that you’ll have to spend time (and therefore money) finding, interviewing, and hiring these people for yourself.

With the CKL dedicated team, however, you can take advantage of our expertise and experience, our tools and processes, our quality and efficiency. And that’s how you get ahead.

Move quickly and claim your competitive advantage

Hiring a great team of individuals can take weeks, even months, of work to put together. Not only is that draining your budget and slowing you down, it’s allowing your competitors to gain traction and take over the market gap that you’re trying to fill.

By choosing Cheesecake Labs, you can get started with our tried-and-tested dedicated team right away! Our employees all share the same workflow, so they can work seamlessly on your product with no conflicts when sending work between team members.

The Cheesecake Labs dedicated team in action

Cheesecake Labs has successfully partnered as a dedicated team with several clients over the years — and we’re happy to tell you how well it’s worked.

Global WiFi hotspot manufacturer Skyroam was facing scalability challenges when they first contacted us in 2016. Their current Shopify platform was holding them back and they needed a custom eCommerce solution to reach their full potential.

Read more at Forbes: Five Tech Innovations That Will Shape The Future Of Shopping Experiences

We started our dedicated team engagement with 2 engineers plus a project manager, and, together, they helped Skyroam design and develop an eCommerce platform capable of global expansion. Mission one, complete.

Later, we increased the dedicated team to 4 engineers, a project manager, and a quality assurance expert to squeeze more value out of the, now global and highly successful, eCommerce solution. Our team worked closely with the marketing team at Skyroam, ensuring that the product roadmap was totally aligned with the business’s KPIs and goals.

After 4+ years together, Skyroam’s eCommerce revenue from digital channels had increased from 5% to over 70%. All that was left to do was execute a perfect handover to Skyroam’s internal technology team and let them take the lead.

What could a Cheesecake Labs dedicated team do for you?

Using a dedicated team in place of standard staff augmentation is better for workers, better for creativity and better for your business. Our partnership could go on for months or years, depending on what you need.

No matter how long you work with us, Cheesecake Labs can work seamlessly with your in-house team and keep you ahead of the competition. Contact us today to see how Cheesecake Labs can bring added value to your product.

The post The CKL view on Staff Augmentation appeared first on Cheesecake Labs.

And for good reason, too. Working with an MVP brings a whole host of benefits — it creates a framework for releasing new products quickly, without getting bogged down in the features that are nice, but not necessary, for your initial release.

An MVP is a fantastic learning opportunity; a chance to stress-test your app’s concept, relevance and — yes — viability with genuine users.

But it’s the word ‘viable’ that also leads a lot of app owners and developers to stumble. Here’s why.

Is ‘viability’ really what we should be aiming for?

When ‘viability’ is your goal, you risk setting the bar too low. You risk straying into subjective territory, too — what you’re sure your app needs to succeed might be different to your co-founder, or to the people you’re actually designing for.

Let’s unpack each of those challenges in a little more detail…

‘Minimum’ + ‘viable’ = a lackluster initial release

There’s a delicate balance to achieve when designing your MVP. Yes, you want it to be minimal — that’s how you get to market quickly and gather feedback. But you need to understand what ‘minimal’ means in this context.

When used alongside ‘viable’, many app owners mistakenly assume a barebones app that simply “gets the job done” will suffice. But it won’t.

Think of it this way: your MVP needs to be picked up, used, and enjoyed by your audience. You don’t stand to learn very much at all if no-one comes back after their first session. And focusing too much on viability is an easy way to lose track of what really matters: shipping a product that users want to engage with.

“If I was using this app, I’d want…”

It’s easy to go overboard when developing your app’s MVP. You want to make sure your users have everything they need, but remember: you don’t need to deliver everything at once.

We’ve seen clients in the past who hesitate on launching their MVP, for fear that they’ve overlooked a “viable” feature. That’s where the hazy definition of ‘viable’ causes trouble again. Yes, it’s viable and we could build it now — but should we, and why?

Reset your compass to its true north: your users’ needs.

And you’ll find that process much easier when you stop thinking so hard about viability, and start assessing the value of each feature instead.

The Cheesecake Labs approach to minimum ‘valuable’ product design

Your app’s goal is simple: solve a user need, and do so in a way that’s engaging and delightful.

Focusing on value allows Cheesecake Labs to achieve that straight out the gate with your MVP. Our team looks at your users, what they want, and the issues they have. We learn this during our Product Definition Phase, where we explore your app idea in the context of your users, your business goals, and the market.

We’ll ask:

• Who exactly are your users?
• What problems do your users have?
• How do they want to solve those problems?
• What product features accomplish those goals?
• Are people willing to pay for a solution?
• Are there enough people who will use your product?
• Why is this app important to your business?
• Are your competitors doing anything similar?

Knowing this helps us create a strategic product roadmap for your app — a roadmap that starts with your MVP.

We get an understanding of what features are most important and how best to deliver those features. What you get in return is an MVP that’s not just the simplest version of what you have to offer — it’s what’s essential for a successful launch.

What your business stands to gain from a value-led MVP

Every successful app is user-centric and provides value to those users. Lose sight of who you’re designing for and why, and you’ll quickly stray off-course. But at Cheesecake Labs we build delightful digital products that add value for your business, too.

As we said before, a ‘minimum viable’ product offers little by way of learning opportunities or business-critical benefits. Starting with value in mind, however, unlocks so much more:

Value-based products mitigate risk

Risk is inherent when launching a new app. Risk of failure — financially, reputationally, or otherwise — is something to consider and mitigate against.

Focusing on value is how you do that.

When you strive to add value above all else, you’ve got a better chance of resonating with users. You aren’t throwing ideas or innovations against the wall and seeing what sticks. You’re launching your app with a plan and feature set that’s been well-explored and validated, at least in part, during your Definition phase.

Work smarter, not harder

The value proposition of an MVP is pretty simple: start small with your app and provide the features your users would value most. That, of course, is the first step of a much longer journey.

Once you release your value-driven app into the wild, you’ll start learning right away. User feedback and behavior will tell you if your initial release hit the mark or not — and why. This is all essential insight, and will continue to add value in the total lifecycle of your app.

Think of your ‘minimum valuable product’ as a V1 of your ‘final’ product, not as a precursor or something altogether disconnected. It’s the foundation from which you’ll keep on building; eliminating guesswork and progressing with a more informed, more accurate, budget and runway.

Change doesn’t have to mean disruption (or disappointment)

We get it: your app is a labor of love. It will be for us too, if you partner with Cheesecake Labs. And when you’ve poured your heart, soul (and months of effort) into a product, you want it to be everything you had imagined.

Or do you?

Trying to deliver everything, right away, is the enemy of the ‘minimum valuable product’. It can paralyze your progress; overwhelming your roadmap and requiring your launch date to be pushed back (and back, and back…).

But when you focus on what’s essential to deliver value, then everyone’s a winner. Your users get the app they need to solve their problems today. Your investors and other stakeholders know why we’ve shipped what we’ve shipped, and have a clear vision of where we’re headed next.

And, guess what, when things do need to change — as they will — those changes are painless to make. Your MVP can respond to changing user needs, new entrants to the marketplace, new technologies that become available, and so on. Better still, you can do it from a place of positivity — you’ve overcome any fears of failure, because you launched ready to learn.

Let the why inform what you need in your MVP

You could say that your MVP sets the tone for your product’s future success. Start off on the right foot — by prioritizing value for your users and your business — and you’ll carry that ethos with you throughout the rest of the journey.

Because application development is a rinse and repeat cycle, you should always build, measure, and learn. Even half a decade later, your app will never be static; there will always be pivots and potential to Optimize.

“Why?” is a question we associate with value: “Why should our MVP/our app have this feature, today or in the future?”

Asking “What?” first risks too great a focus on what’s possible or what could be built, rather than why that matters.

If you’re ready to ask “Why?” and put the ‘value’ in MVP, then so are we. Get in touch with the Cheesecake Labs team today and let’s discuss first steps for your app development.

The post Screw the minimum ‘viable’ product, let’s talk about value! appeared first on Cheesecake Labs.

Well, commonly, skills are divided into  “Hard Skills” and “Soft Skills” and we are normally assessed based on a combination of them. Sometimes, it is hard to see how soft skills are seen in practice, especially when engineers are not used to paying attention to them. In this article, I’ll show you a few attributes, methods and tools that an engineer can apply to better connect soft and hard skills in day-to-day assignments.

See more than tasks

Each activity, each task, and each development story is involved in a much broader environment. They did not arrive at your desk to simply be “coded” and never seen again. In order to help you understand all of this better, I draw an ideal line of thought in eight steps. They can either be taken as a method or as a simple reference.

Understand and buy the idea
The first step should always be to understand, but in addition, it is extremely important that you agree with how the task will be developed. It’s likely that developing against your will won’t bring good results.

Raise the acceptance criteria
This is one of the most overlooked steps in development. After all, you already know what to do, so why waste time writing the criteria down? It’s simple, how can you ensure that your understanding is the same as other stakeholders’?

Abstract and materialize
It’s normal to make some modifications to the original idea while transferring it to code for a set of reasons: ease of understanding, performance and feasibility. So on this step you see through things like how to model it in the database, how to make the logical models in the code, how they interact and how to insert/consult the information that the application requires.

Plan and architect
You might have heard that there is more than one way to solve the same problem. This step is when you select which solution will be applied and should be followed. Document, design and compare different solutions to achieve the best result.

Develop (code and tests)
Now it is the time for actual code typing: follow the development standards, do the necessary tests and apply your knowledge.

Review and analyze
Doing code review is an awesome practice, not only to increase code quality, but also to share knowledge with your peers. Pay close attention to cognitive complexity and redundancy and involve other team members.

Approve
Now that everything is ok, you must seek the approval of the PO/client. It is very important to correct/adjust whatever is necessary before you consider this task done. Even if you are not blocked to start another task, try to have the tasks approved – even better released – and do not accumulate things to be approved, because in the future this can lead to a big refactoring.

Look at the whole project
Always keep in mind how the backlog is doing: what has already been done, what still needs to be done and what the deadline is. Now you must reflect if the planning is going as planned or if it needs adjustments.

With this flow in mind, we can think of the characteristics that a developer must have to perform better.

Be authentic

Technology is an ever-evolving field, so there’s an important role in the tools we programmers, use and the things we learn in our careers. Good engineers understand what is good for them and what is good for the project; they do not accept easily, but also do not deny everything; they are virtuous and are aware of their choices. However, there are a few types of behavior that happen very often and catch my attention:

• New libraries and frameworks being responsible for better code: a folder structure, separation of responsibility, use of Design Patterns are some of the items that should govern the quality of what you write. I use libraries and frameworks wisely as a tool and not as a dictator;
• External libraries for every simple feature: with a stronger open-source community each day, we have tons of libraries to use. This does not mean that you should adapt every part of your code to fit them in. Readability, code scalability and vulnerability exposure matter, balance benefits and caveats, and don’t let a library guide your code structure. It is not because you are using a third-party library that you should outsource the responsibility. Be aware of the impacts it brings;
• Courses are didactic and just that: many of the video classes and courses that we have available make us believe that we do and develop things quickly and easily with “new technologies”, but don’t forget that developing is much more than just “typing the right words in an editor” as mentioned at the beginning of the article. So when taking a course, learn the content, but also learn how to insert it into your own world and not the other way around;

Be thorough with your deliverables

Many engineers don’t see all the edges of what’s being developed and sometimes we need to try to sabotage ourselves to discover these limits. When developing, we often only take into account the acceptance criteria raised in advance, but forget to evaluate the different ways a user can interact with the application. Do not only think about the ideal path, but also in all these alternative paths that a user may experiment with.

A few argue that this should be the job of a UX/UI designer. Delivering a top-notch, high-quality product is a team effort. Although the initial requirements and specifications are the go-to guide for the application implementation, we just find out many details on the go. So pay close attention, be open-minded and thorough with deliverables.

Understand project management concepts

Coordinating, planning and executing a project is the job of a Project Manager. You must be thinking that a developer shouldn’t even be concerned with this, and you are kind of right, but even if it is not your main concern you are co-responsible. It is very naive to not even know what a PM does.

In the relationship between PMs and engineers, there are times when an engineer should delegate functions to their PM and vice-versa, but how do you do this if you don’t know what they do? Or even if they are available for you? Ask! Help! You are also able to assist them or even delegate tasks that can help with any project.

Release and team management skills can be reflected within your code: branch naming, commits format, git flows, etc. Know how to use this in your favor.

Track your time

During years of work, I have noticed how hard it is to keep track of time:  “I need to ignore people to stay focused and meet deadlines”,or “I didn’t even notice the time passing”.

Always keep in mind that you need to divide your time to perform all development steps and not just time to “type code”. Each person is different, so it works better if you find your own way around it, either by setting goals, or using time tracking tools, just be creative. Don’t focus all your time on just one thing, otherwise the others will become your weaknesses.

Adapt

Technology develops very fast. It’s amazing how software development has changed in such a short time, so we have to accept that the way we work today may not be the way we will work tomorrow.

But keep in mind that not everything new that comes out will become the new standard. Be aware of the tools you choose to work, apply critical thinking on their pros and cons, and avoid choosing them just because they’re new.

Since we need to adapt to the tools we choose, why can’t we also adapt the use of what we choose to work with? For instance, here at Cheesecake Labs, we wanted to follow gitflow together with tracking done by Jira’s smart-commits. In this case, we changed the way to name branches and we also developed an open-source tool to help us add the smart-commit information in a more agile way. This does not mean that we are doing it right or wrong, or that we do not follow the gitflow or smart-commit guidelines, but rather that we adapt our reality and what we believe in so it becomes the best way to make it work.

Take a step forward

All the points above are soft skills. I wanted to highlight how they have a direct impact on our day-to-day job tasks – and even on interviews – and that many engineers don’t take them into account. Problem-solving, systemic vision, adaptability, resilience and patience are the most common words that we see, but they are not always known or have exemplified how they reflect practically.

Making it happen just depends on you. Evolution is never sudden. To grow, just take a small step a day and over time you will be better. Always take a step forward!

The post More than hard and soft skills for engineers appeared first on Cheesecake Labs.

This article is not a tutorial on how to create your applications but it is intended to share my interpretation on how to best use this amazing methodology.

First, what is Atomic Design?

A methodology created initially by Brad Frost, in which he took inspiration from chemistry and brought it to applications and the way to develop. Initially, it focused only on the design and eventually reflected and “revolutionized” front-end architecture as well. In Brad’s own words:

Atomic design is methodology for creating design systems. There are five distinct levels in atomic design: atoms, molecules, organisms, templates and pages.

Atoms: are the basic structure of matter, applied to web atoms are like HTML tags, a label, an input or a button.

Molecules: They are a group of atoms put together with basic fundamentals of a unit. They serve as the basis for the design system. For example, a label, input and button together making a form element.

Organisms: They are blocks of our system, where we can group molecules together to form relatively more complex components, a section of the application.

Templates: They are mostly a group of organisms put together to form a final structure, this is where we begin to see the layout in action.

Pages: These are instances of templates where “gaps” are filled with content, resulting in the final view that the user will see.

Problems

I know there are several examples of atomicity out there, so I want to focus on the problems I encountered during my experiments while working with React, showing some concepts and an example of code that you can find linked at the end of the article.

* Duplicate Behavior (mainly between molecules and atoms)

* Inability to reuse code between projects

* Lack of visibility and understanding of component state

* Great impact on development time by creating more components than needed

* Difficult code maintainability due to lack of standardization

Well, let’s talk about each item separately, starting with: Duplicate Behavior. What I’ve noticed looking at various projects is that even though they are different code, components often have the same behavior. As in the case of forms components, where we tend to create a component for each form of the application (form-client, form-company, form-xxxx,…) and they perform the tasks in a similar way. Why not create a single, more detailed and worked form component that can abstract all of these components? It’s easier to avoid abstraction and simply implement specific behavior in duplicated components, and that’s what greatly impact reusability within a project.

Inability to reuse code between projects is a very important thing for a company and its developers. Does rewriting all the code with each project mean your code is not good enough to use again? The problem I see here is related to where to put your application’s business rule. Continuing with the forms example above, your component should not be aware of the backend API let alone fetch the data. As stated earlier, components are “dumb” elements. Your entire business rule, functions that are “injected” into your components, must come from the business rule layer (pages, containers, services). This way you can move your code between projects, taking only what interests you.

The lack of visibility and understanding of component state is very particular and will vary widely among developers. Using a list of users as an example,  I want to highlight that it may be hard for another developer to understand the component’s usage and behavior just by its name if you add other things to the component, like API requests to fetch users information and/or handling the Redux state for it. At that point, we lost all the intuitiveness of the component as it became a piece of application, no longer a simple component.

Considering that you develop your components by duplicating behavior or injecting business rules into them, at some point on the project you may have a big impact on development time by creating more components than necessary. Why do I say this? Because there are situations, that happen more often than we want, in which small fixes impact in  changes on dozens of components or even API changes to break the entire application, and that can cause a giant rework during the fix. In addition to it, if your projects are reusable, planning will give you much more accuracy on time and scope management.

Last but not least, difficult code maintainability due to lack of standardization is something that happens all the time, since every project gets refactored, and every week there is a new library available, a React update (now all components have hooks, now each one has useState), etc. Don’t get me wrong, code must be updated, but before that, it must be thought through, standardized and then evolved.

OK! What tips can I share?

1. Firstly, while reading the Atomic design components definitions, the first thing I realized is that Pages are not components, as these are just instances of Templates, and the pages should be closer to the service layer of your application, so:

2. Speaking of components, I believe they should be “dumb” and should not be aware of your application’s business rule and only render what they were asked to do. Don’t use Fetch/Axios, properties that can’t be overridden or anything related to your application inside the component.
3. Inject the dependencies of your project. A very common thing is to use high impact external libraries within components, such as:

import {Link} from ‘react-router-dom’

Avoid this within its components. It may be that you won’t use the sample library above in every project and you will lose component reusability.

4. Start the component small, but once you get the chance to improve it, do it! And don’t duplicate the same behavior in different components, like the form example mentioned previously.

All the items discussed above are very conceptual. I am sharing this link: https://github.com/natamvo/rethinking-atomic-react where I started a React application (react-app) and created some sample components in order to make the points raised above clear.

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