How does Cloud Testing help Product Designers?

Designers play an important role in converting meaningful business opportunities into billion-dollar tech companies. They create the design of the software application, which includes the user interface, layout, and overall look and feel. In addition, designers are also responsible for creating branding and marketing materials.
According to a study by the Software Usability Research Laboratory, designers can improve the usability of a software application by up to 58%. Furthermore, another study by IBM found that good design can lead to a decrease in development costs by up to 50%.

In addition, designers also collaborate with other teams to ensure that the final product meets the user's expectations. Using cloud-based tools for testing purposes has allowed teams to work together in a real-time collaborative mode, let's explore further.

Stages of application design & development

Designing an application entails understanding the purpose of the application and the needs of the users. The design process begins with understanding the problem that the app will solve and the users that will be using it. Only once the design is finalized, the development process begins. This includes coding the app and testing it on various devices to ensure it works as intended.
In a conventional team setting, you will have a business analysis team which works closely with the business leadership in identifying relevant business opportunities. The business analysis team documents the expectations and goals of the business leadership and hands them over to the design team.
The process of business analysis leads to design requirements by identifying the needs of the business and determining how those needs can be met. It includes identifying the goals of the business, determining what the business needs to do to meet those goals, and identifying the resources that the business will need to meet those goals.
Business requirements are communicated to designers through a variety of methods, including business analysis, stakeholder interviews, and document analysis.
The overall process can be understood by breaking it down into the following steps:

• Planning: this starts at the level of business leadership, then through business analysts, documented requirements are passed on to the designers. Designers work with technical leadership to create a plan for the project. This includes defining the scope of the project, setting timelines, and identifying the resources that will be required. This is also the start of a long-term documentation and maintenance process. This can be done through brainstorming sessions, user research, and competitor analysis. Popular tools for this stage include Excel, Trello, and Asana.
• UX Design: This is the stage where designers create the initial designs for the software application. This includes creating wireframes, prototypes, and mockups. Many powerful third-party tools are available which can help. The way it is applied in the context of websites and web applications is different from the way it works on mobile devices, wearables, smart TVs etc. This involves creating a style guide for the app that includes things like colors, fonts, and other design elements. This can be done using a tool like Adobe Photoshop, Balsamiq, Sketch. If you are creating a prototype of the app, it can be done using a tool like Adobe XD, InVision, MS PowerApps etc.

• Development: During this stage developers turn the designs into a working software application. This step starts with designers handing over assets and design specifications documents with page layouts, user flows and other important details like color codes, illustrations, icons, fonts etc. This stage involves providing support to the developers who are working on the app and resolving any queries they have. This can be done through communication tools like Slack and email.
• Testing: Once the software application is developed, designers work with the QA team to ensure that it meets all the necessary requirements. Any new feedback which requires updates to the design is incorporated. This stage involves regularly updating the app and testing it to make sure that it is working correctly. This can be done through tools like BrowserStack Live, TestFlight and Crashlytics.
• Deployment: Finally the deployment of the software application, including creating installation and user guides, as well as providing support to users during the rollout.
• Maintenance: It involves creating and maintaining documentation and logs at various levels, testing new features and bug fixes, and providing feedback to developers. Also working with user groups to gather analytics and present valuable feedback. This can be done through tools like Google Analytics, SpeedLab, AppScan and Veracode. Output formats for this stage include performance reports and security audits. The number of steps and the task related to each step could vary for different business use cases but the overall theme of bringing design thinking methodology into the software development cycle is widely adopted as the way to go forward There are a variety of product management methodologies and paradigms that are used by web and mobile application teams. Some of the most popular ones include:
• Agile: The Agile methodology is a popular choice for web and mobile application development projects. It is an iterative and incremental approach that emphasizes collaboration, customer feedback, and rapid delivery.
• Waterfall: The Waterfall methodology is a traditional approach to software development. It is a linear and sequential process that progresses from one stage to the next in a linear fashion.
• Lean: The Lean methodology is a newer approach that focuses on efficiency and waste reduction. It is based on the principles of the Toyota Production System and has been adapted for use in software development. The role of designers is multifaceted and involves constant back and forth between business and development teams. Among all these activities, it is natural to encounter a few challenges and obstacles.

Common challenges

There are a variety of challenges and problems that are commonly reported by designers while working with various teams and verticals:

• Validation across platforms: Even with a QA team performing manual or automated functional and visual testing of the application, designers still have to sometimes help validate the implementation of the user experience on a variety of platforms. The more platforms you have access to the better and more efficient the debugging process is going to be. It is a very common scenario to find developers and designers using high-end platforms where their user base in reality will be running the application on a range of budget devices. So having the ability to test features like responsiveness, speed and accessibility across a wide range of devices is a must have for all tech teams. BrowserStack live and app live platforms provide access to more than 3000+ devices and browsers so that you can easily make a list of the relevant devices and start testing your application. You can even automate the process with the automate and app automate features. We understand that implementing a complete test strategy takes time and it is usually implemented by developers and quality assurance engineers. For a designer, a task could involve testing the application behavior on a specific test environment for various business applications. Because of this we recommend you try these tools first:
• Responsive: Just go to the URL, enter the web address of the application you want to test and run the check to see how the responsive layout functions on a range of platforms as shown in the illustration below.
• SpeedLab: Apart from the functional aspects of an application you need to have strong metadata and performance optimization-related validations run on the application before deploying it to production. Speed lab gives you an in-depth report which contains vital metrics and recommendations for improvements to help you deliver a fast and efficient user experience without compromising on speed, reliability and SEO friendliness. You can change the location, network conditions, device type and browser. What makes this exceptional is the fact that the report contains visualization, tables, comparisons and suggestions which can be evaluated by different stakeholders from different perspectives, helping you optimize your application with an uncompromising technical depth. Also, this is a free tool which allows you to run parallel evaluations across a selection of devices.
• Screenshots: This is a powerful tool which allows users to generate screenshots on a range of device browser combinations and share it with other stakeholders. You can test your local host websites, share results over email, test on different resolutions, change device orientation etc.
• Lack of communication: One of the most common problems reported by teams is a lack of communication between the design and development teams. This can lead to misunderstandings and errors in the final product. This can be resolved by effectively using communication tools and ensuring that all the necessary documentation is being shared across the teams.
• Misaligned goals: Another common problem is that the goals of the design team and the development team are often misaligned. This can lead to frustration and conflict between the two teams. This is a very bad situation to encounter as it means that two of your most important teams are working towards slightly or completely different goals. It can lead to resource bleed and unnecessarily delayed timelines. To ensure this never happens the leadership has to make sure that all the challenges faced by design and development teams are taken into consideration so that any conflicting scenarios can be spotted and avoided. Once development has started a very simple and practical advantage of using BrowserStack platforms is that without having to interact or wait for signals from the development or QA teams, others can see all new changes that have been pushed and the effect it is having on the existing workflow.
• Lack of feedback & consistency: A third common issue is that designers often do not receive enough feedback from stakeholders during the development process. This can lead to designs that do not meet the needs of the users. Especially working under the agile model it is very common to see updates coming in from time to time and both the designers and developers having to adjust on the fly. Business and technical leadership have to be very careful with long development cycles, because in the last decade, short feedback loops have proven to be of critical importance even if the projects are very broad. Once the development has started on one set of agreed upon documents, any new change has to be a critical improvement and adding new low impact functionality should be avoided. 
• Unrealistic deadlines: A lack of judgment on the time required and the kind of work needed to finish a task is a very common scenario both for designers and developers. It is commonly observed both sides underestimate the work required on the other side. This can lead to rushed and poor-quality work. Because designing and coding are very different kinds of disciplines and they involve very different working methodologies, it is difficult for designers to gauge the implementation side complexity of anything they are proposing. Hence it is suggested that technical leadership points out all such instances of complexity and adjust for them in the sprint planning. It is also important to make sure that the task allocation within the team is happening with the consideration for the skill set and experience level of each team member. Especially while dealing with micro services and Apps with multiple interfaces, the success of development efforts is directly dependent on the way sub-teams are structured in a semi-decentralized work environment.
• Lack of resources: A fifth problem that is commonly reported by designers is that they often do not have enough resources to do their job properly. This can include things like access to the right software or enough time to do the job properly. In the context of a rapidly growing startup, it is a common occurrence to find leadership trying to make the most of a limited set of resources. Because design is a creative endeavour, sometimes under limited timelines and resources it gets difficult to work and the outcome might not be optimal. This is only a human problem, with the advent of low-code/no-code application development management and testing paradigms in the coming years you will see the amount of resources needed to complete the software development cycle is going to shrink drastically. Although there are more than one ways to solve the problem but making the right decision will help you be future proof. Any rapidly evolving landscape of technologies requires a sophisticated technical judgment from the leadership to ensure that the teams are doing the best work that they can.