Making websites seems like a lot. We need to think about the design, technologies, hosting service, all the logic that is besides every action or transaction the user is making. So, how can we make it even more agile and low cost?
We are currently living in a very volatile industry. It is expected that we ship excellent quality software in the minimum time possible and with the lowest cost, we can have. This, of course, gives us a business advantage in the market. There are no limits on what we can achieve; there is always room for improvement, every time we get better frameworks and tools to develop and ship products.
Deadlines and project costs are still challenges in the industry
Yet, with all the advances in technology, with higher-level programming languages, there are still many failures in software projects. The Standish Group did research named The Chaos Report. In large companies, there was a success ratio of 9%. In small ones, the success ratio gets increased, but they don’t outgrow the limit of 30%. So how can 4Geeks outcome a positive success ratio to have success in every single project?
Small teams are one of the critical values of the success of 4Geeks. Everyone knows what needs to be done and how to accomplish it. With technical experience and customer-centric development, there is no room to hesitate with the features or needs of the project, which gives the development team and the client enough confidence to develop a full product that meets the requirements and deadlines.
So, how can we keep improving and break all expected and known boundaries? Technology is growing really fast and with open source-oriented projects, we can be part of important investigations and also make our own tools based on principles that are available in realtime collaborative repositories. In this case, we are going to talk about new ways of merging the design process with the coding technical process to reduce time and make a better understanding of the client’s needs.
Artificial Intelligence can be part of the team too!
Deep learning is a type of Artificial Intelligence. Deep learning is a way in which with a computer, we simulate the way our brain works and process information and make a response to it. It is focused on the creating of networks of nodes that can achieve results together as they pass information of each other to understand what they are doing well or what they are doing right, based on repetition.
We are not going to be focusing on the core of what makes Deep Learning works the way it does, in this case, the importance relies on the improvement that Artificial Intelligence can make to the projects that sometimes goes unnoticed. Because there is a public inherent understanding that Deep Learning is a scientific only resource.
This time we are going to talk about a product created with the core investigation of Pix2Code. It’s a research about a deep learning model with the ability to learn a way to create code based on a graphical user interface sketch. And with that as an inspiration, there is also a project to create a simple draw into mockups. So we can know that deep learning has the full potential to work with a lot of daily problems.
So, how can deep learning models such as Pix2Code be part of our development team? The idea of reducing time and automatizing tasks so that the team can focus on complex problems and imaginative solutions can be made with the integration of Artificial Intelligence. This gives us a lot of advantages and business value such as:
- Better communication channels between the team and the client requirements
- Reduce intermediaries in the process to avoid information loss or misunderstanding
- Avoid unnecessary meetings to focus the team resources
- Delete repetition tasks and focus on the complex solutions
Actually, there are a lot of projects using this type of technology and succeeding in the market. Airbnb is currently using this idea to increase its team productivity testing ideas or solutions. In this case, we are analyzing a very new tool that is available in the market to achieve a similar solution in realtime.
Uizard: An alternative to the fast interface-frontend development
Uizard is a new Deep Learning tool available in the market. It’s really young and still in the development process. But it’s a great case of study to analyze and understand how much Artificial Intelligence can make our projects go beyond agile and meet unimagined near deadlines with the fewest team resources so that our developer can focus on the substantial technical boundaries.
The main focus of this tool is to create mockups and view code automatically based on an image that we provide to the system. From there, you can add, edit, or improve the result to personalize the solution and meet your own product requirements. With this, the resources needed to start a project is reduced to a simple draw that anyone can make without a design background.
Let’s make a test!
I am a software developer, even I have entirely and professional notions of design processes and user interfaces and experience, I don’t work daily with the designer tools to make mockups or prototypes. It is actually essential to the first steps of the project to be oriented in the design, to receive feedback from the client, and also to keep up the team in the same development line.
So, what if instead of having an intermediate between the client’s thoughts and the technical solution of the project (the designer), we include the client into the development process. In the first meeting of the project, we draw the specification of the user interface to meet the requirements and to enhance the client’s confidence in what will be the result of his own ideas.
I made the draw below in a few seconds of what would be a simple user requirment with buttons, images and words.
It’s a really minimalistic view, and I don’t have all the information about it. What image will I put, what will be the functionality of the buttons, how many lines of sentences will I need to match the goal of the view? That in this first iteration really doesn’t matter. We are working on a design center solution in our first approach to the client’s needs.
After uploading the file to the system and making some taks running, the solution within minutes is the following:
The mockup is done automatically in minutes with only the image above as a resource! That’s actually incredible. But that’s not all, we can also have the core coding project in React within minutes to start working on the functionalities of the system. Imagine being on the first meeting with a new client, and in the same meeting that you are understanding what the client needs, also have the design of the solution and the code done to show to your client.
This process is done with the help of the tools that we review early on. Of course, there is still room to improve and the result is not 100% accurate. But it is a good overview of what can be done with open-source tools available in the market.
Optimizing your team resources to meet deadlines
One of the core values of fast driven development is the absence of intermediaries. In this way, the information doesn’t filter and the solution doesn’t get compromised with bad understanding or vague communication. When you include the artificial intelligence layer to your team, you are optimizing the project process to deliver what your developers actually need to start working on the progress of the product. Think of the artificial intelligence process as the tacit coordinator that connects the needs of the designer and the developer.
Without this aid, there is room for misunderstanding leading by the difference in the technical abilities of the design and the development teams. So the solution gets late because there is the need to make design meetings and front-end meetings to understand what are the main features that are the ones the client needs. Or even worst, the team doesn’t actually know if what they are doing is what the client wants or more important, what the users needs.
Imagination is the boundary, what can we make with these assets to make new tools?
Some years ago, we never even thought that creating mockups and frontend code just with an image was possible, today there is room to full new game-changing tools to standing out in the business. Computer vision, Deep Learning, and Pattern Recognition are changing the way we interact with our clients and with the project. It’s letting us communicate and integrating our client to the full development process of the product.
All of these Deep Learning tools are available for free and can be modify or used as they currently are in your own projects or ideas to improve the results, automate the tedious and repetitive processes and end with a disrupting product that no one has in the market!
Want to make something awesome beyond boundaries? Get in touch with 4Geeks and let’s talk about your own idea. As you can see, you can integrate Artificial Intelligence into your own project to give an outstanding value in the market with unimagined features.
About 4Geeks
Founded in 2012, 4Geeks is a global software engineering and revenue growth consulting firm for Fortune 500, Global 2000 and fast-growing SMBs. Provides top solutions to multiple industries including Retail, Healthcare, Banking & Financial Services, B2B SaaS, Manufacturing and Education. HQ in the USA, and delivery centers across Latin America.
