Trabalho como frontend desde 2017 e atualmente tenho me especializado em React. Antes disso, atuei como fullstack, tendo a oportunidade de trabalhar com Delphi 7, C#, C++, Angular, ASP.NET e algumas outras tecnologias. Nesse período, priorizei a entrega, sempre focando no produto final e em agradar o cliente, mantendo-me dentro do prazo estabelecido.

Com o tempo, conheci pessoas tecnicamente muito competentes que me inspiraram e apoiaram no meu crescimento técnico e profissional. Comecei a me interessar em compreender cada parte do processo de desenvolvimento de um projeto (frontend). Neste artigo, gostaria de apresentar alguns tópicos e subtópicos que considero de extrema importância, seja você um desenvolvedor com mais experiência ou esteja ingressando agora no mundo da programação.

Estes são os tópicos de maior relevância, na minha opinião. Se faltar algo, sintam-se à vontade para sugerir nos comentários. Afinal, o objetivo deste artigo é compartilhar e também aprender. Abaixo de cada sessão, vou deixar um link para um material onde você pode começar a estudar cada tópico.

Javascript

• Características e diferenças entre var, let e const;
• Primitive Types;
• for, while, map e foreach;
• Promise;
• Function e Arrow function;
• closure(avançado);

https://www.w3schools.com/js/

HTML

• Tags de elementos básicos;
• Acessibilidade;
• Local storage e Session Storage;

https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_intro.asp

CSS

• Flexbox e grid;
• Design responsivo;

https://web.dev/learn/css?hl=pt

Algoritmos e Estutura de dados

• Frequence count pattern;
• Sliding window pattern;
• Recusion;
• Pointers;
• BInary Search;
• Linear search;
• Merge Sort;
• Quick Sort;
• Hash Table;
• Graphs;
• Binary Tree;
• Singly linked List;
• Doubly linked List;

https://www.udemy.com/course/js-algorithms-and-data-structures-masterclass/

Design Patterns

• Singleton;
• Observer;
• Decorator;
• Factory;

https://medium.com/better-programming/javascript-design-patterns-25f0faaaa15

Agora, vou focar um pouco no framework em que estou estudando e trabalhando. Nessa seção, acredito que cada um possa escolher o framework que mais gosta ou está familiarizado, seja por ter iniciado por ele ou por trabalhar e ter um contato diário.

React

• DOM e Virtul DOM;
• React Hooks;
• Memoization;
• Typescript(aqui poderia ter um tópico próprio mas deixei como subtópico em react por acreditar que os dois estão bem ligados)
• webpack e vite;
• NextJs(SSR);
• Testes (Jest, Vitest ou outra lib de testes);
• Context API e Redux;
• Css in Js (Styled components);

https://react.dev/learn

Resumi em alguns tópicos assuntos que considero muito importantes para fundamentar e ajudar a compreender um pouco mais do que fazemos no nosso dia a dia. Nos próximos artigos, vou trazer informações e fontes com conteúdos detalhados dos tópicos acima, além de indicar onde estudar e praticar alguns deles.

The post Fundamentos do desenvolvedor frontend appeared first on ProdSens.live.

Written by Rahul Chhodde

Google utilizes a set of essential metrics called Core Web Vitals to assess the real-world user experience on web pages. These metrics directly influence website UX and search ranking, making them crucial to understand for developers looking to enhance user satisfaction, website usability, and search visibility.

Mastering and actively optimizing Core Web Vitals allows developers to ensure that their websites meet the ever-changing expectations of users and search engines. In this article, we’ll explore various Core Web Vitals and take a deep dive into the latest addition: Interaction to Next Paint (INP).

What are Core Web Vitals?

Core Web Vitals serve as benchmarks established by Google to evaluate a webpage’s UX. They’re not rigid rules like HTML or CSS — they’re more like Google’s ultimate yardsticks for measuring how user-friendly a webpage is. They focus on things that matter most to visitors, like speed, responsiveness, and visual stability.

Note that in this context, “responsiveness” describes a website’s speed and interactivity as measured by Core Web Vitals. It doesn’t refer to responsive design, or the site’s ability to adapt content to different screen sizes using media queries.

Here is a PageSpeed report for the Gmail website, with the performance section discussing Core Web Vitals metrics. The FID data has been omitted from the highlighted performance metrics, indicating its upcoming replacement with INP:

While not yet officially standardized across all browsers, Core Web Vitals are rapidly weaving their way into the fabric of the web, influencing how websites are built and experienced. Let’s dive into the three key metrics that make up Core Web Vitals:

FID is likely to be replaced by Interaction to Next Paint in the future. Let’s explore INP in more detail now.

What is Interaction to Next Paint (INP)?

INP improves upon FID by providing a more comprehensive assessment of website interactivity. While FID focuses solely on the time for the initial browser response to the user’s first interaction, INP considers all interactions during a user’s visit, including clicks, taps, scrolls, and other triggering actions.

Also, unlike FID — which only looks at the initial browser response — INP evaluates the entire response process, including script execution, content rendering, and visual changes on the screen. This broader perspective captures the complete user experience during interactions with a webpage.

INP is especially effective for dynamic websites with intricate interactions. It accurately reflects the responsiveness of elements like interactive menus and real-time data updates, which FID might not fully capture.

The Core Web Vitals algorithm reports a singular INP value for a website, representing the 75th percentile of all interactions across a representative set of user visits. An INP below or at 200 milliseconds indicates good responsiveness for your page.

When checking your website on PageSpeed, you’ll observe that the INP metric data is accessible in the general assessment report and is indicated as pending as of March 2024:

Why is INP replacing FID?

Interaction to Next Paint is scheduled to replace First Input Delay as a Core Web Vitals metric in March 2024. The rationale behind this change is evident from our previous discussion.

Unlike FID, INP provides a more comprehensive perspective on website interactivity by considering all interactions and the entire response process. This characteristic makes INP a more accurate reflection of the user experience.

Moreover, as highlighted earlier, INP is especially adept at measuring the performance of dynamic websites with complex interactions.

Some limitations of INP

While INP offers a more comprehensive understanding of website responsiveness, it’s essential to acknowledge its limitations for effective optimization:

1. Network sensitivity: INP can be influenced by external factors like user network conditions. Analyzing INP alongside metrics like CLS and LCP is crucial for a holistic performance evaluation
2. Device variations: Different devices may process and render content at varying speeds, potentially impacting INP scores. Prioritizing performance on user segments relevant to your target audience is a practical approach
3. Future refinements: INP is a relatively new metric, and its methodology and interaction weighting may evolve over time. Staying updated on changes and best practices for interpreting INP ensures efficient optimization efforts

Despite these limitations, there are still ways you can identify factors affecting INP on your website and optimize them to improve your score. Let’s go over some strategies next.

Improving the INP score

A website’s responsiveness, as measured by the INP metrics, is crucial in shaping the user experience. Slow clicks, delayed updates, and sudden layout shifts can lead to user frustration, negatively impacting their experience.

This section explores practical strategies to improve your INP score, facilitating a smoother and more seamless user journey. Note that a lower INP score indicates a higher-quality user experience, so our primary focus is reducing the INP score.

Reducing input delay

Achieving an ideal UX relies on minimizing input delay. Here are a few tactics to assist you in accomplishing that goal:

• Streamline JavaScript: Improve interaction responsiveness by up to 30 percent by reducing JavaScript on the main thread and optimizing existing code
• Manage third-party scripts: Prioritize or delay non-essential scripts to prevent performance issues and maintain smooth user interactions
• Navigate the DOM: Keep your HTML structure lean and streamlined structure to ensure swift rendering and enhance performance
• Prevent layout shifts: Minimize unnecessary DOM manipulations and CSS animations to prevent disruptive shifts in the user’s flow, which can lead to unnecessary input delays
• Beyond the frontend: While reducing frontend JavaScript is crucial, remember that server-side optimizations like database queries and backend code efficiency can also significantly impact INP scores

Overall, to maintain an optimal INP score, strive for swift responses across various input events and actions.

Minimizing presentation delay

We’ve covered the initial user action — so now, let’s concentrate on swiftly delivering the response. Here are a few methods that may help:

• Optimize the rendering path: Implement techniques like critical rendering path optimization and code splitting to help the browser paint the page efficiently
• Simplify CSS complexity: Avoid overly complex selectors and animations to ensure the browser doesn’t face rendering calculation bottlenecks
• Utilize pre-rendering: Anticipate user actions and prepare the site’s response in advance. Pre-rendering essential content enhances the overall UX, ensuring smoother and faster interactions
• Lazy loading: Not everything needs to be presented simultaneously. Load only visible images initially to promote smooth and responsive scrolling

Reducing the time between the user’s action and the action’s effect is the goal here.

Tools and techniques to support better INP scores

The right tools make addressing high INP scores more manageable. Consider the following ways to further improve your INP score:

• Real user monitoring (RUM): RUM tools identify specific interactions with high INP scores, helping you prioritize optimization efforts effectively
• Performance profiling tools: Tools like Chrome DevTools act as diagnostics for your code, uncovering bottlenecks and inefficiencies that can be streamlined for better performance
• Caching strategies: Implementing efficient caching strategies for static content reduces server load and enhances users’ perception of instant responses
• Content delivery networks (CDNs): CDNs bring your website closer to users globally, reducing load times and improving responsiveness

Implementing these strategies and using the right tools can enhance your website’s responsiveness, providing users with a smoother experience during clicks and interactions.

Where do I measure the INP score?

As mentioned in the sections above, you can utilize Google PageSpeed to assess your website’s overall experience and performance. This is particularly useful when you want to check a website’s Core Web Vitals metrics without actually visiting the site.

Another approach is to leverage the Chrome UX Report or CrUX dashboard to view the Core Web Vitals metrics in the CrUX dashboard. This allows you to check the metrics data without actually visiting the website.

If you want to access Web Vitals metrics on the go, you can utilize the Web Vitals Chrome extension. This extension provides metric data for every web page you visit, displaying the information in a neat and well-organized popup window: Alternatively, you can visit the website and utilize the Chrome DevTools Lighthouse tab. This method offers a slightly more detailed and interactive overview than the PageSpeed tool. You can evaluate a website on both mobile and desktop. Here’s a sample report:

Note that Core Web Vitals scores may experience slight fluctuations due to factors outside your control as a developer. Some of these factors could include server response, network conditions, user device types, dynamic content, traffic patterns, and differences between test conditions and real-time experiences.

When interpreting scores, make sure you consider these variables and focus on trends rather than individual checks.

CSS containment and CWV metrics

CSS containment doesn’t directly impact INP and other Core Web Vitals metrics. However, its capacity to enhance browser rendering efficiency and minimize layout shifts can indirectly positively impact these metrics.

Considering CSS containment as a valuable tool alongside other performance optimization techniques can lead to a more responsive and user-friendly website. Refer to this comprehensive guide on CSS containment for a more thorough understanding.

Conclusion

It’s crucial to prioritize real user data and concentrate on optimizing interactions that users engage in regularly. The key to sustained improvement lies in continuously measuring and iterating your INP score, allowing you to adjust your optimization strategies based on patterns in user behavior and data.

Continuous monitoring and iteration are also essential as you add new features and content to your website. Leveraging the strategies and tools outlined in this article can help you improve your website’s INP score — and more importantly, create a more responsive and enjoyable user experience.

Get set up with LogRocket’s modern error tracking in minutes:

1. Visit https://logrocket.com/signup/ to get an app ID.
2. Install LogRocket via NPM or script tag. LogRocket.init() must be called client-side, not server-side.

NPM:

$ npm i --save logrocket 

// Code:

import LogRocket from 'logrocket'; 
LogRocket.init('app/id');

Script Tag:

Add to your HTML:

<script src="https://cdn.lr-ingest.com/LogRocket.min.js"></script>
<script>window.LogRocket && window.LogRocket.init('app/id');</script>

3.(Optional) Install plugins for deeper integrations with your stack:

• Redux middleware
• ngrx middleware
• Vuex plugin

Get started now

The post Exploring Interaction to Next Paint, a new Core Web Vital appeared first on ProdSens.live.

Today, we’re going to learn about user engagement, share with you the 12 best customer engagement tools out there for SaaS, and highlight the best use cases for each.

Let’s dive right in!

TL;DR

• A customer engagement tool is software that facilitates your interaction with users and helps to improve customer experience.
• Customer engagement platforms are used for different types of engagement like user onboarding, self-service support through live chat, bots and in-app resource centers, marketing automation, and other types of personalized engagement.
• The best customer engagement tools let you collect customer feedback through surveys and micro surveys, analyze customer behavior, and communicate with your users in-app or through different communication channels.
• Best user engagement tools for different purposes include Userpilot, Heap, Mixpanel, Pendo, Typeform, Hotjar, Productboard,  HubSpot CRM Suite, Intercom, and Drip.
• Userpilot is the best all-in-one tool to drive engagement and adoption. Book your demo today to learn more.

Try Userpilot and Take User Engagement to the Next Level

Get a Demo

• 14 Day Trial
• No Credit Card Required

What is user engagement?

Customer engagement refers to the ongoing interactions between a business and its customers throughout the entire customer lifecycle.

It is the process of facilitating interactions with your SaaS users to improve customer experience throughout the entire customer lifecycle. Optimizing user engagement drives customer retention, improves customer loyalty, and customer experience and ultimately encourages your customers to engage with your product further and adopt your product.

What are user engagement tools?

Customer engagement tools aim to improve the customer relationship with your business through different types of engagement like user onboarding, customer support, customer success, self-service support, etc.

Using a customer engagement tool can improve your customer experience by making your customer interactions more contextual, personalized, and relevant.

Some common user engagement tools include:

• User onboarding platform: User onboarding platforms facilitate the process of introducing new users to a product or service, guiding them through key features and functionalities. They often utilize in-app guides, tutorials, and tooltips to help users get started quickly and effectively, ultimately improving user adoption and retention rates.
• Analytics platform: Analytics tools collect, analyze, and interpret data related to user behavior, interactions, and performance metrics. They provide valuable insights into how users engage with a website, application, or digital platform, enabling businesses to make informed decisions, optimize user experiences, and drive better outcomes.
• Email marketing tool: Email marketing tools enable businesses to create, send, and manage email campaigns to engage with their audience. They typically offer features such as email template design, contact management, automation, and analytics, allowing businesses to nurture leads, promote products, and maintain communication with customers effectively.
• Marketing automation tool: Marketing automation tools streamline repetitive marketing tasks and workflows, such as lead nurturing, campaign management, and customer segmentation. They automate personalized interactions with users across multiple channels, driving engagement, and improving marketing efficiency.
• Social media management software: These tools offer features such as scheduling posts, monitoring mentions and conversations, analyzing performance metrics, and engaging with followers, enabling businesses to build brand awareness, foster relationships, and drive engagement on social media.
• Communications platform: Communications platforms facilitate real-time communication and collaboration between businesses and their customers through various channels such as chat, messaging, and support tickets. They centralize customer interactions, streamline communication processes, and provide tools for managing inquiries, resolving issues, and delivering exceptional customer support.

Customer engagement platform vs customer relationship management system

While both customer engagement platforms (CEPs) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems are focused on managing interactions with customers, they serve different purposes and have distinct functionalities:

What features should customer engagement tools have?

When talking about customer engagement, we’re talking about listening to your users and responding. 

It’s all about the conversation you’re having with them.

In essence, there are three main components when it comes to customer relationship management. Some tools we’re mentioning may cover all three of these components, whereas some may focus on just one.

Analyzing customer behavior

Where are your users finding value in your product, what features do they use, where do they get stuck, and where do they fall off? The right behavioral analytics tool should help you dive into the data but also translate those behaviors into actionable feedback.

Collecting qualitative feedback

Getting direct, actionable feedback to improve your product experience is extremely valuable. However, this sometimes can be very time-consuming and requires you to survey users at the right time. Some of the tools we’ll mention below have in-app micro survey features to gauge customer satisfaction, which can be targeted towards the right folks you want feedback from.

Communicating with your users

Whether it’s in-app or using a third-party platform to facilitate customer interaction, staying proactive and keeping the conversation flowing is up to the product owners.

Depending on what your immediate product needs are, you may want to prioritize certain components more than others. We generally recommend getting your qualitative feedback systems in place after identifying the main pain points through your quantitative data.

1. Userpilot: Best customer engagement software for SaaS companies

Call us biased, but we think Userpilot deserves a mention on this list of the best customer engagement software for SaaS.

Sign up for a trial today and find out why users are so happy with Userpilot

Here are some Userpilot features you can use when engaging your users:

• No-code builder: Creating flows with Userpilot is as simple as installing the Chrome extension, selecting the UI patterns you’d like to use, and then editing the content/settings to suit your use case. You can also use templates to create modals, slideouts, tooltips, and driven actions.

• Native tooltips: Userpilot lets you create native tooltips that show up when users hover over an element or click on an information badge. Since these native tooltips attach to the element itself, they aren’t page-dependent and will show up on any screen where that element is visible.

• Funnel analytics: Userpilot’s advanced analytics lets you create funnel reports that track the onboarding journey. You can also add filters (like name, user ID, signup date, operating system, country, etc.) and monitor the total conversion rate from the first step of the funnel to the last.

• User segmentation: Userpilot lets you segment users based on the device they’re using, where they’re located, their engagement data, or which NPS rating they selected on the latest survey. You can then filter your analytics dashboards to see which segments struggle with onboarding.

• Survey builder: Userpilot’s survey builder lets you edit the content, update the widget’s style/placement, and set page-specific or event-specific triggers to ensure that users see the survey at the most contextual moment — all without writing a single line of code. You can also translate surveys into your audience’s native language.

• Survey templates: There are 14 survey templates to choose from with a wide array of different use cases. You can collect qualitative responses on how to improve the user/product experience or quantitative data for customer satisfaction benchmarking such as CSAT and CES scores.

• Advanced analytics: Userpilot’s advanced survey analytics will show you what the most common responses were, what percentage of users selected a specific option, and display open-ended feedback about your product or specific features.

• NPS dashboard: Userpilot’s NPS dashboard compiles response data from all NPS surveys so you don’t have to manually go into each survey and check its analytics. You’ll be able to view key metrics like response rates, total views, and NPS history and sort all the data by different segments.

Userpilot pricing

Userpilot’s transparent pricing ranges from $249/month on the entry-level end to an Enterprise tier for larger companies.

Furthermore, Userpilot’s entry-level plan includes access to all UI patterns and should include everything that most mid-market SaaS businesses need to get started.

Userpilot has three paid plans to choose from:

• Starter: The entry-level Starter plan starts at $249/month and includes features like segmentation, product analytics, reporting, user engagement, user feedback, and customization.
• Growth: The Growth plan starts at $499/month and includes features like resource centers, advanced event-based triggers, unlimited feature tagging, AI-powered content localization, EU hosting options, and a dedicated customer success manager.
• Enterprise: The Enterprise plan uses custom pricing and includes all the features from Starter + Growth plus custom roles/permissions, access to premium integrations, priority support, custom contract, SLA, SAML SSO, activity logs, security audit, and compliance (SOC 2/GDPR).

2. Heap: Best customer engagement software for analyzing customer data and user behavior

Heap offers several features to help you track user actions, behavior, and properties. It lets you dig deeper into how users navigate your product and interact with different elements on a page.

The particularly useful features include:

• You can track various user sessions and filter the data based on date range and other parameters. It’s also possible to export the data into a CSV file or Google Sheets.

Tracking user sessions on Heap

• You can use a variety of heatmaps (Clickmaps, Scroll Depth, and Attention Maps) to understand user intent, identify points of friction, and improve UI.

Heatmaps on Heap

• The Session Replays feature lets you visualize the exact journey a user takes when acting.

Session replays feature on Heap

• You can use the Funnels, Journey Maps, Engagement, and Retention analysis features for a more detailed look at user behavior.

Analytics on Heap

• You can segment users into different groups and filter all kinds of data for each segment. Loads of segment criteria are offered by Heap too.

Segmenting on Heap

• The Effort Analysis feature helps you quantify user friction and make immediate fixes to improve the user experience. It particularly helps with retention.
• The Pro and Premier plans also offer account-based analytics to help you monitor account health and churn. It’s particularly valuable for B2B companies and helps minimize churn.

Heap pricing

Pricing for Heap is available on request. You’ll have to contact the sales team for a quote. The final price will depend on various factors, including the number of sessions and integrations you need.

That said, Heap offers a free plan that lets you track up to 10,000 user sessions per month and stores your data for 6 months. Review platforms like G2 say that paid plans start at $3,600 per year. All paid plans come with a 14-day free trial, too.

You can choose from the following plans:

• Free – Ideal for teams looking to establish product-market fit.
• Starter – Suitable for startups looking to scale their business.
• Growth – Useful for companies that need advanced features, such as account analytics and report alerts.
• Pro – Tailored for enterprise businesses with robust security and compliance requirements.

It’s worth mentioning here that Heap offers a handy ROI calculator to help you get a clearer picture of whether it’s worth the investment.

3. Mixpanel: Best customer engagement platform for customer behavior and customer journey insights

If Heap is the new up-and-comer, then Mixpanel is the wise old hermit, and we mean that in the best possible way.

Mixpanel is an advanced analytics platform that was designed to help companies and organizations of every size to monitor and analyze customer actions. It measures the steps taken by people who enter your app and shows you everything they are doing in it.

Mixpanel has long been the leader when it comes to product analytics, and with good reason.

Mixpanel product analytics functionalities work based on:

• User segmentation: User segmentation is the bedrock of effective product analytics in Mixpanel. You can divide your user base into distinct groups based on attributes, behaviors, or properties and uncover meaningful trends and preferences among various user groups.
• Funnel analysis: Mixpanel’s funnel analysis feature allows you to create sequences of events that users should ideally complete. This helps you gain insights into where users drop off and where they progress.
• Retention analysis: With the retention analysis feature, you can track how often users return to your application after their initial interaction.

Mixpanel offers a free plan with very advanced product analytics functionality but no engagement layer or feedback features like that of Userpilot. Even though Userpilot may not support such advanced analytics as Mixpanel, it still offers enough to enable product managers to make data-driven decisions.

Mixpanel pricing

Mixpanel’s pricing plan is divided into 3 plans; the starter plan, the enterprise plan, and the growth plan.

Here’s an overview of the pricing plans and features of each plan:

• Starter plan: This plan features essentials to find product-market fit. It is free and allows up to 20M monthly events. In addition, you get access to all core reports for user journey analysis, templates to get started easily, unlimited integrations, and unlimited collaborators.
• Growth plan: This plan costs $20 per month for up to 100M monthly events. You get all features in the starter plan plus unlimited saved reports to monitor, update & iterate on KPIs, Mixpanel modeling layer, and group analytics & data pipeline add-ons.
• Enterprise plan: This plan empowers your team, especially if you have a large organization. You’ll have to contact their sales representatives for the cost. This plan features all the benefits of the growth plan plus advanced access controls, shared data views for collaboration, automated provisioning & SSO, and prioritized support.

4. Pendo: Best customer engagement platform for mobile

Pendo is one of the all-in-one customer engagement platforms, like Userpilot.

It has the usual onboarding features that are commonly included with similar solutions. However, those using Pendo Free will need to note that they’ll need to find a new onboarding solution once they cross 500 MAUs or upgrade to the paid version.

Unlike most product adoption solutions, Pendo works with mobile apps on both iOS and Android operating systems. For this reason, developers who are creating software for mobile platforms usually go straight to Pendo.

There are a few ways you can use Pendo to drive customer engagement:

• Guide Layouts: Pendo has layout templates for lightboxes, banners, and tooltips that you can use to build onboarding flows for new users.
• Flow Triggers: Pendo’s guide activation options let you trigger an onboarding flow when new users land on a particular URL, use a specific device type, interact with a tagged element, or match the target segment.
• Localization Settings: Localization settings can stop an onboarding flow from triggering if it hasn’t been translated into the user’s chosen language. Because Pendo has no AI-powered localization features, you’ll need to upload language CSVs manually for this to work.
• Onboarding Module: You can add the onboarding module to your in-app resource center in two clicks then change the color, text style, and progress icon to align it with your product’s brand palette.
• Dashboard Widgets: There are 26 different analytics widgets that you can add to your Pendo dashboard. These widgets can track feature adoption, guide engagement, user sentiment, and cohort data like which operating system is being used.

Pendo pricing

Pricing for paid Pendo plans is only provided on a quote basis and there are no listed price ranges on the solution’s website. That said, certain reviews have stated that prices start at upwards of $20,000 per year for a single product and more than twice that for higher plans.

Pendo has two paid plans and one free version that is limited to 500 MAUs which makes it accessible to startups but difficult to scale in the long run.

Here are the differences between each Pendo plan:

• Pendo Free: The free version of Pendo can accommodate 500 MAUs and has features like native analytics dashboards, feature tagging, event tracking, segmentation, NPS surveys (with Pendo branding), analytics reports, and in-app guides.

• Growth: Pendo’s Growth plan is designed to be used for a single web or mobile app but can accommodate a custom number of MAUs. It includes features like native analytics dashboards, in-app guides, NPS surveys and response tracking, and customer support.
• Portfolio: Pendo’s Portfolio plan is targeted towards customers who want to use the tool for multiple web and/or mobile apps. Features include guide experiment capabilities, cross-app executive dashboards, cross-app journey reporting, and access to product engagement scores.

5. Typeform: Best customer engagement platform for collecting customer feedback

One of the easiest ways to start collecting feedback is to send a survey out to your customers. There are plenty of customer survey tools out there, but one of the best is Typeform.

There’s something about Typeform’s surveys — maybe the clean and minimal styling, or the simple user experience they provide — that makes them stand out from the likes of SurveyMonkey and Google Forms.

While Typeform may be a bit more costly, you do get access to some useful features you can use to engage customers. You can, for example, create logic jumps to adapt the survey to a user’s answers. You can also use “hidden fields” to greet users by name and personalize their experience.

Typeform’s conversational approach can help you increase your response rates. It also tends to improve the quality of the feedback you gather.

If you’re looking for a high-quality customer engagement solution to collect customer data through surveys, then Typeform is one of the best.

Typeform pricing

Typeform offers several pricing plans to cater to different needs and budgets. Here’s an overview of the available plans:

• Basic: $25 per month (billed yearly).
• Plus: $50 per month (billed yearly).
• Business: $83 per month (billed yearly).
• Enterprise: Contact sales for pricing.

6. Hotjar: Best customer engagement platform for analyzing customer journeys

Of course, the kind of qualitative feedback you can get from surveys is only one type of customer satisfaction data you can collect from your users. Hotjar offers a way to collect even more data and translate raw user behavior data into actionable insights. Hotjar can help you see what your customers do, and understand why they do it. That’s why it’s on our list of the best customer engagement software and survey tools.

Hotjar’s user analytics mostly focus on the actions and behaviors that users perform/exhibit during sessions on your website or web application.

Here’s an overview of the user metrics that Hotjar’s session recordings track:

• Country: All session recordings will tell you which country the user was from so you can identify untapped markets and target your content localization efforts accordingly. Note that this geographic data may not be 100% reliable if your website visitors are using a VPN.
• Relevance: Each session recording is assigned a relevance score to help you figure out which recordings are worth reviewing. The score is based on multiple factors, including how long the user’s session lasted, how many pages they visited, the number of actions, and more.
• Engagement: Every session has engagement and frustration scores on a scale of 1-3. This will help you spot, at a glance, the engagement level and psychological valence behind the session (i.e. how positive or negative the experience was).

Hotjar pricing

Hotjar’s has a free version (Basic) while its entry-level paid plan (Plus) starts at $39/month. Its Business and Scale plans start at $99/month and $213/month, respectively, but incorporate a usage-based pricing model — which means your subscription cost will increase as daily sessions grow.

For instance, the Business tier will cost $789/month for 8k daily sessions, while the Scale plan will cost $827/month for just 2.5k daily sessions. Switching to an annual billing schedule can save you 20% on all of Hotjar’s paid plans.

Here’s an overview of Hotjar’s four plans to choose from:

• Basic: Hotjar’s free Basic plan can accommodate up to 35 daily sessions and includes automatic data capturing, unlimited heatmaps, and access to the HubSpot integration. Once your website passes 35 daily sessions, you’ll need to upgrade to one of Hotjar’s paid plans.
• Plus: The entry-level Plus plan starts at $39/month and can accommodate up to 100 daily sessions. It also includes features like filtering/segmenting data and an event-tracking API for custom user actions.
• Business: The Business plan starts at $99/month and can accommodate up to 500 daily sessions at the base price. It includes access to 25 integrations, the Identify API for tracking customer user attributes, and frustration/confusion signals like rage clicks or U-turns.
• Scale: The Scale plan starts at $213/month and can accommodate up to 500 daily sessions at the price price. It includes funnel analysis, trends reports, console tracking, a dedicated success manager, and direct access to the Hotjar API.

Note: The prices above are for Hotjar Observe — which includes heatmaps and behavioral analytics. To conduct surveys or interviews, you’ll need to pay extra for either Hotjar Ask or Hotjar Engage. Both tools have free tiers, but they’re quite limited.

7. Productboard: Best customer engagement platform for customer communications

One of the biggest problems with collecting feedback is that it often ends up spread out across different channels. If you’re looking for customer engagement solutions to consolidate all that data, check ProductBoard.

Productboard helps you consolidate all the feedback in one place, making it a great customer engagement platform.

With Productboard, you can link all your channels together. Email, social media, Intercom, Zendesk — all your feedback will be fed into one place. This makes it far easier to gain valuable insights and to identify any patterns or trends.

You can then link these feedback trends to relevant feature ideas. This enables your product managers and designers to understand what they should work on next.

You can also communicate any decisions back to your customers with the public road-mapping feature. This way your customers know what to expect from your product in the future.

Productboard pricing

Productboard offers three plans to choose from:

• Essentials – $25 per maker/month
• Pro – $75 per maker/month
• Enterprise – comes with a custom quote.

But remember that each offer is custom-made based on your needs, so use this only as a rough estimation.

8. HubSpot CRM Suite: Best CRM & customer engagement platform

If you’re seeking an all-encompassing customer engagement platform, HubSpot could be the ideal solution.

HubSpot operates as a comprehensive CRM offering a suite of products, including Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Service Hub, CMS (content management system) Hub, and Operations Hub. These products are strategically designed to consolidate all customer interactions onto a single platform.

With HubSpot’s diverse range of tools, you gain control over virtually every aspect of customer engagement. You can effectively manage customer communications, track support inquiries, nurture sales leads, create and manage a blog, orchestrate email campaigns, curate user lists, conduct A/B testing on landing pages and email content, access detailed reporting dashboards, and much more.

Businesses have the option to sign up for individual “hub” plans or leverage HubSpot’s CRM Suite, which includes access to all hubs, available for free. While the platform’s free plans offer considerable value, it’s essential to recognize that many advanced features are exclusive to paid plans.

You can also integrate HubSpot with Userpilot to be able to send highly targeted email campaigns.

HubSpot CRM Suite pricing

Here’s an overview of HubSpot’s CRM Suite plans:

• Professional Plan: Starts at $1,600 per month, billed annually at $19,201.
• Enterprise Plan: Starts at $5,000 per month, billed annually at $60,000.

9. Intercom: Best customer engagement software for in-app messaging

Intercom is a renowned engagement platform widely utilized by sales and marketing teams to proactively interact with potential customers through various channels such as in-app messaging, chat conversations, and surveys. Over the years, it has expanded its capabilities to encompass customer support functionalities like a shared inbox and knowledge base builder, making it a comprehensive customer communications platform.

In addition to traditional engagement tools like live chat and in-app messaging, Intercom offers features such as code-free product tours and in-app tooltips, which can be particularly beneficial for teams with limited developer resources. Users can also leverage custom chatbots to automate issue resolution and communicate with customers in multiple languages.

While Intercom provides a robust set of features, it comes at a premium price.

Intercom pricing

Intercom’s plans start at $74/month on the entry-level plan and use custom pricing for the Pro tier or higher. There’s no free version available, but Intercom does offer a 14-day free trial that lets you test all features on the Starter tier before upgrading to a paid subscription.

Intercom has three paid plans to choose from and different add-ons priced separately:

• Starter: Starts at $74/month and includes two team seats, and features like the messenger widget, automated chatbots, shared inbox, real-time tickets, help center, macros, and basic analytics reporting capabilities.
• Pro: Custom pricing based on the number of team seats and MAUs. It includes features like multiple inboxes, assignment rules, ticketing systems, localized help centers, and advanced automation/analytics.
• Premium: Custom pricing based on the number of team seats and MAUs. It includes features like a real-time dashboard, custom analytics, workload management, and a service level agreement.

In addition to the base subscription cost, you’ll need to pay an additional $199/month if you want to use the Product Tours add-on. This means that, even on the Starter plan, you’d still be paying almost $300/month in total if you get the Product Tours add-on to go with it.

10. Drip: Best customer engagement software for email marketing automation

Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to engage customers, improve the customer experience, and help your users down the customer journey. One email marketing tool worth mentioning is Drip.

Drip is a CRM software and email marketing automation platform that helps users customize and automate their email marketing workflows. Drip supports email campaigns that suit the different promotional and marketing needs of individuals, teams, and organizations. This variety provides them with the opportunity to send targeted emails to their subscribers.

With Drip, users can connect their favorite communication channels, applications, and solutions through the API or the built-in third-party integrations. This helps them expand the functionality of Drip and gain valuable insights to grow their product.

Unlike other email customer engagement tools, Drip focuses on segmentation and sending the right email flows to the right customers. This means you can automatically communicate with your customers based on their behavior.

Drip isn’t fully focused on email though. It also enables you to send targeted, personalized messages via social media, SMS, and even direct mail to your customer base. You can also split-test any messaging so you hone in on the right copy or imagery.

Drip is a great customer engagement software for when you want to keep customers in the loop and automate some of your communication.

Drip pricing

Drip’s pricing is based on the number of contacts in your list and you get all features in all subscription plans.

0-2500 – $39/month

It is incremental as the number of contacts in your email list increases. For more than 180K contacts in your list, they would want to talk to you and give you custom pricing.

It doesn’t have a forever free plan but you can get a 14-day free trial to access all the features.

11. Help Scout: Best customer engagement software for small businesses

Help Scout offers a wide array of reports that help your customer service teams monitor customer support performance and improve user engagement. For instance:

• You can track metrics, such as new conversations and conversations per day, across different channels, including email, phone, and live chat. You can even identify the busiest day of the week for customer support.
  

  Analytics on Help Scout.

• You can set custom date ranges to analyze these metrics over time and even compare data from different timeframes. Additionally, you can specify various conditions to create a new report view.
  

  Date ranges in analytics.

• You can check the Happiness Score to get an idea of customer satisfaction across different channels.
• Additionally, the Docs report offers an overview of how users engage with your knowledge base.
  

  Docs report.

It is, however, worth noting that Help Scout’s analytics is restricted to customer support metrics. You don’t get granular insights into in-app user activity or behavior. If you’re looking for more in-depth user analytics, a platform like Userpilot would be a better choice.

Help Scout pricing

Help Scout offers three different pricing plans, with the total cost based on the number of users.

The plans include:

• Standard: It starts at $20 per user per month (billed annually) or $25 per user per month (billed monthly). It includes 2 shared inboxes and 1 Docs knowledge base. Also, you’ll have to pay extra for in-app messaging if the total number of viewers exceeds 2000.
• Plus: It starts at $40 per user per month (billed annually) or $50 per user per month (billed monthly). It includes everything in the Standard plan, along with advanced analytics, custom reporting, AI features, and integration with popular apps like Salesforce and HubSpot.
• Pro: It starts at $65 per user per month and only offers an annual subscription. It includes everything in the Plus plan, along with concierge onboarding services, a dedicated account manager, and enterprise-level security and compliance.

Pricing for Help Scout.

While the Standard plan is suitable for small teams with limited budgets, the Pro plan is a good fit for large businesses. However, keep in mind that pricing is based on the number of users, and the costs can quickly escalate as your team grows.

Help Scout offers a 15-day free trial that allows you to test various features and tools and determine whether it’s the right fit for your needs.

12. FullStory: Best customer engagement software for collecting user experience data

FullStory is a user engagement tool that provides businesses with comprehensive insights into user behavior on their websites and web applications. It allows companies to understand how users interact with their digital platforms by capturing and analyzing user sessions in real time.

Here’s an overview of FullStory as a user engagement tool:

• Session Replay: FullStory records every user session, capturing mouse movements, clicks, scrolls, form interactions, and more. This feature allows businesses to replay user sessions to understand exactly how users navigate and interact with their website or application.
• Heatmaps: FullStory generates heatmaps based on user interactions, showing which areas of a webpage receive the most engagement. Heatmaps provide valuable insights into user behavior and help identify areas for optimization.
• Click Maps: Similar to heatmaps, click maps highlight specific elements on a webpage that users interact with the most. This feature helps businesses understand user preferences and optimize their website layout and design accordingly.

FullStory pricing

FullStory doesn’t disclose its pricing information publicly but offers a 14-day free trial.

Conclusion

There are plenty of great user engagement tools out there. The ones we’ve covered in this list will all help you to improve your relationship with your users. However, user engagement looks different for every Saas, so choosing the right tool for your product may depend on some research but also trying them out for fit!

If you’re looking for an all-in-one customer engagement platform to drive in-app engagement and product adoption as well as tracking user behavior and collecting feedback, get a Userpilot demo and see how easy it is to get started.

Try Userpilot and Take Your Customer Engagement to the Next Level

Get a Demo

• 14 Day Trial
• No Credit Card Required

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In this tutorial video, you will learn how to create a responsive space travel agency website using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Whether you’re a beginner or have some experience in web development, this step-by-step guide will walk you through the process of building a visually appealing and functional website. From designing the layout and styling with CSS to adding interactive features with JavaScript, you’ll gain the skills needed to create a seamless user experience. Join us on this journey to construct your own space travel agency website and take your coding skills to new heights!

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For a project to function properly and be delivered on time and within its budget, all the roles and responsibilities of everyone involved must be clearly defined and communicated. Everyone has their part to play in the process, which is orchestrated by the project manager acting on behalf of the project owner.

The project owner isn’t an unheard-of title, but it does have an air of mystery to it. What exactly is a project owner, what does the project owner do and so forth? These questions will be answered and in so doing we’ll reveal the critical importance of the project owner, their duties and responsibilities to the project and the skill sets that set them apart from the rest of the project team.

What Is a Project Owner?

The project owner is a leader who works with the project manager closely to drive the project to a successful conclusion. That relationship is so close that in some projects, the project owner is the project manager. However, there’s a difference and we’ll get to that later.

The project owner is the person who’s responsible for the vision of the project. They have the big picture and look at what the project is achieving and how it fits in with the larger strategy of the business or organization.

As their name says, a project owner owns the project. They’re accountable for the success or failure of the project. That’s why they’re the ones who set the high-level vision, and objectives and even get the funding from the project sponsors. However, their responsibilities don’t end with project approval. As it’s being executed, project owners are vigilant about identifying issues and, when found, resolving them.

To do their job and shepherd the project through its various life cycles, project owners rely on project management software to give them the data they need to make more insightful decisions. ProjectManager is award-winning software that gives project owners real-time data on the project to help them steer it to a successful end. One tool they can use is our reporting features that deliver customizable reports on status, portfolio and many more. Each report can be filtered to show only what you want to see and displays live data that leads to better decision-making. Plus, reports are easily shared in many formats to keep stakeholders updated. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

What Does a Project Owner Do?

The project owner oversees the project from a high level. They’re often the head of the business or business unit involved with the product or service. Therefore, they have responsibility for the project and its successful delivery.

In terms of what they do, we’ll get to the duties and responsibilities in a moment, but you can think of the project owner as the champion of the project. They, with the project sponsor, are invested in the project’s success. The sponsor financially and the project owner in terms of delivering the project on time and within budget.

Sometimes the customer can be considered the project owner and have a different role to play in driving the project. For example, the customer will define the project’s scope, goals and objectives, while making sure that the project is on track to meet their needs.

While one of the most important people in a project, the project owner often must report to the C-suite executives in the organization. However, this depends on the size of the organization. If the organization is smaller, they might report directly to the CEO or business owner.

Why Are Project Owners Important?

The buck stops with the project owner. They’re vitally important to the project because the project is vitally important to them. They’re the ones who bear the business responsibility for implementing the project successfully. If it fails, they must take responsibility.

They’re leaders of the project to an even greater degree than the project manager in that they’re the project champions and the face of the project. All its weight is on their shoulders. It’s the project owner’s leadership and management skills that will be tested by the success or failure of the project.

While there are other stakeholders, the project owner can be considered the key stakeholder in the project and, therefore, of utmost importance. They are, after all, defining the project’s scope, objectives and requirements, plus working closely with the project manager to ensure the project is delivered on time, within budget and meeting quality standards.

What Are the Main Duties and Responsibilities of a Project Owner?

We’ve established why a project owner is important and defined who they are and what they do, but that’s only scratched the surface. A project owner isn’t merely a figurehead, but what exactly are their duties and responsibilities?

A project owner must be a leader. This isn’t a skill that you can become certified for, but it can be learned if one is open to advice and the guidance of experience. Leadership is one of those slippery qualities that’s hard to get a hold of but everyone knows when they’re in the presence of a leader.

Leaders lead, of course, but they also inspire. Therefore, the project owner leads the project team, including the project manager, though more about that relationship soon. They’ll oversee the project activities to ensure that they’re being done properly and in a timely manner.

As mentioned, the project owner is the champion of the project and works with the project sponsor to motivate and answer questions. This includes assisting the project manager in leading the project team to complete all the project tasks.

The project owner is also there to get buy-in from the project stakeholders. While all these duties and responsibilities feel a bit broad, they’re supposed to be. That’s because a project owner isn’t dealing in the day-to-day operations of the project, but is on a higher level.

Project Owner Skills

In terms of project owner skills, we’ve already mentioned that leadership qualities are essential, but that’s just one piece of what makes a good project owner. The skill sets of a project owner are the normal suspects, such as an advanced degree in project management, business or a related field, years of experience and even certification.

But all those pale in comparison to the soft skills that are less easily quantifiable. For example, you can’t get a degree in enthusiasm, but the project owner must be enthusiastic about the project, its value and its deliverables. This can carry the project team through hard times as well if not better than methodology.

The skills of a project owner can be all over the map, depending on the role of the project owner. We’ve already stated a customer can be a project owner, but some can be a business analyst, strategic architect or any other number of professional positions. The skills vary, but the enthusiasm to champion the project’s vision will always be paramount.

Project Owner vs. Project Manager

The project owner and the project manager are closely intertwined in the project. A project manager can even be a project owner so it’s important that we explain their similarities and where they differ.

The project owner is accountable for the project’s success or failure, while the project manager is managing the team and the daily operations of the project to deliver it on schedule, on budget and meeting quality expectations. Their objectives are the same, but the project owner is looking at the project from a high level and the project manager is in the weeds dealing with the day-to-day responsibilities of managing the project.

As noted, the project owner is setting the vision for the project. The project manager is executing the project to achieve that vision. The project owner is setting the objectives, the project manager is achieving the objectives through the planning and execution of that project plan. The project owner secures the funds from the project sponsor while the project manager estimates the budget to determine how much the project will cost.

Another way to look at it is that the project owner is setting up the project. However, once that project has been approved, the project manager takes over the responsibility of taking the project from planning to closure. The project manager is more involved in the details of identifying tasks, milestones, risks, workflow, methodologies, reporting procedures, etc. The project owner is updated and helps guide the project, but the project manager is driving it to the final delivery.

ProjectManager Is Ideal for Project Owners

That doesn’t mean the project owner disappears once the project has begun. Remember, they’re accountable for its success or failure and want to stay informed throughout the project’s life cycle. We already talked about how reports that the project manager makes and delivers to key stakeholders, such as the project owner, are one way to stay abreast of the project’s progress and performance. ProjectManager is award-winning project management software that offers a full suite of features that keep project owners involved.

Plan on Powerful Gantt Charts

To ensure that the big picture is reflected in the project plan, project owners will work with project managers to schedule on Gantt charts. Our tool allows them to get an overview of the entire project on a visual timeline that links all four task dependencies to avoid costly delays, filters for the critical path and sets a baseline for tracking variances in the schedule and budget in real time. Our Gantt charts are easy to edit and share with stakeholders. Project owners can even track progress by the shaded percentage of the taskbar.

Monitor Progress With Real-Time Dashboards

The project owner is accountable for the success or failure of the project, as noted above, which means they’ll want to have intimate knowledge of its progress and performance whenever they need it. While reports are another tool they use to get live data, the project owner can toggle to the real-time dashboard when they want a high-level view of the project. They can track six metrics including time, cost and the overall health of the project like an instant status report. Unlike lightweight tools, there’s no time-consuming setup required with our software. It’s plug-and-play.

The project owner works with the project manager to ensure the project is delivered on time and our software has all the features to help achieve that goal. There are multiple project views from Gantt charts to kanban boards, task lists and calendars. Resource management features help keep the team’s workload balanced and risk management tools identify and track risks until they’re resolved.

ProjectManager is online project management software that connects everyone on the project team no matter where they work or when they work. They can share files, comment on tasks and more to foster better collaboration. Join teams at companies such as Avis, Nestle and Siemens who are using our software to succeed. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

The post What Is a Project Owner? Roles & Responsibilities appeared first on ProjectManager.

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Have you ever wondered how to maintain a unique instance throughout the lifecycle of an application and ensure that one class only has one instance?

Here’s the magic word for you – Singleton. Specifically, we’ll explore each twist and turn of the Singleton journey in C#. Ready to dive in? Let’s get started!

Understanding Singleton in C#

Singleton, as a design pattern, is quite the stalwart in the world of Object-Oriented Programming languages and definitely in C#. Let’s dig a little deeper into the rich soil of this concept and see what gems we can unearth.

Concept of Singleton Class in C#

A singleton is like a deck of cards; handy, compact, but up there can only be one Ace of Spades. Singleton classes are of utmost importance when only one instance of a class is to be created. In the bustling city of C# development, this intelligent design model finds usage in multiple scenarios – be it representing a single DB connection shared by multiple objects or reading a configuration file.

public sealed class Singleton
{
    private static Singleton singleton = null;
    private static readonly object singletonLock = new object();

    Singleton() {}

    public static Singleton SingleInstance
    {
        get
        {
            lock (singletonLock)
            {
                if (singleton == null)
                {
                    singleton = new Singleton();
                }
                return singleton;
            }
        }
    }
}

Got to say, C# sure makes things neat. In the above code snippet, we’ve got a Singleton class. Notice the sealed keyword? That’s how we ensure no other class can inherit from our Singleton, keeping it truly one-of-a-kind.

The SingleInstance method here acts like the gatekeeper, loyally providing only one instance of our Singleton, keeping sure it is safely locked and thread-safe. More on thread safety later.

Now, imagine you have a chocolate stash you don’t want to share (who wants to share chocolate, right?). Our Singleton class behaves kind of like that. By creating only one instance, it safeguards resources by keeping that instance locked away, only accessible via its very own property SingleInstance.

But let’s simplify this and get a better grip of Singleton by crafting another basic, yet illustrative, application.

Mechanism of Singleton Class

Singleton class, in technical terms, is a way to provide one and only one object of a particular type. But let’s illustrate this with an example that we can all relate to. Imagine you’re at a movie theatre. There’s only one projector that plays the movie, right? That’s exactly what Singleton is.

Let’s code a Projector Singleton class.

public sealed class Projector
{
    // Private object instance of the class initialized to null
    private static Projector instance = null;
    // Object for lock functionality
    private static readonly object lockObject = new object();

    // Private constructor ensures instances can't be made elsewhere
    private Projector() {}

    // Property to get the instance of Projector
    public static Projector Instance
    {
        get
        {
            // Locking the block of code where instance is created
            lock (lockObject)
            {
                // This will be null the first time this piece of code runs
                if(instance == null)
                {
                    instance = new Projector();
                }
                return instance;
            }
        }
    }

    // Some projector method
    public void Display()
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Displaying movie");
    }
}

In this analogy, we have a Singleton Projector class. Any cinema in our application trying to play a movie has to access this single projector instance. They can’t get another projector, or create a new one; there’s only one projector available, and the Singleton Design Pattern ensures that. Here’s how we call it:

// Get the singleton instance
Projector projector = Projector.Instance;

// Call any of its methods
projector.Display();

Just like in any theatre, once the movie starts playing, every audience is watching the same one. And our Singleton Projector ensures that.

Exploring Singleton Design Pattern in C#

So, you’ve heard about Singleton Design Pattern, right? We’re going to dive deeper into this fascinating topic right now. Just like a car, Singleton Design Pattern takes tiny pieces (our Singleton class) and builds a vehicle that drives our codes with efficiency and pace. Singletons ensure that we have one, and only one instance of a class throughout our application.

Application Scenarios of Singleton Design Pattern

Singleton Design Pattern is a useful tool in many scenarios, kind of like a Swiss Army Knife. Think of it like this, whenever a class needs to have only one instance, and this instance requires global access, Singleton comes to the rescue. Now that’s a superhero!

From logging services, thread pools, device drivers to configuration settings, and caching, Singleton powers an impressive range of applications. Let’s throw some light on how it helps with logging.

public sealed class Logger
{
    private static Logger instance = null;
    private static readonly object padlock = new object();

    Logger() {}

    public static Logger Instance
    {
        get
        {
            lock(padlock)
            {
                if(instance == null)
                {
                    instance = new Logger();
                }
                return instance;
            }
        }
    }
    public void LogMessage(string message)
    {
        //Code to log message
    }
}

In this code, we’re creating a Logger singleton. Imagine the Logger as a note-taker who writes down events happening in your classroom (program). You want to make sure there is only one note-taker. Otherwise, the notes might differ and cause confusion. The same principle applies here. Through Singleton, only one instance of Logger takes care of logging.

Now let’s introduce another Singleton instance, ‘Database Connection’. It’s costly and time-consuming to keep opening and closing database connections. Here comes our Singleton class to the rescue, manage only one connection at a time!

public sealed class SingletonDbConnection
{
    private static SingletonDbConnection instance = null;

    private SingletonDbConnection() {}

    public static SingletonDbConnection Instance
    {
        get
        {
            if (instance == null)
            {
                instance = new SingletonDbConnection();
            }
            return instance;
        }
    }
    public void RunQuery(string query)
    {
        //Code to execute the SQL query
    }
}

Here, Singleton ensures that only one database connection is active at a time, just like how using a single pen can help you maintain neat handwriting throughout your notes.

Adapting Adapter Pattern in C#

Sometimes, you might come across classes that are not compatible with each other, kind of like trying to put a square peg in a round hole. Adapter Pattern acts as a link to make these classes work together.

Adapter Pattern Vs Singleton Design Pattern

It’s easy to mix up Adapter pattern with Singleton. They’re both design patterns, but they are as different as chalk and cheese. While Adapter Pattern is focused on making different classes work together, Singleton Design Pattern ensures only one instance of a class exists.

Imagine the Adapter Pattern as a universal travel adapter that lets you use devices from different countries in one socket. On the other hand, Singleton is like that one golden ticket in a chocolate bar—there’s only one, but everyone can use it!

So, when should you use one over the other? You’d reach for the Adapter Pattern when you need to make incompatible interfaces work together, kind of like using a USB-C to USB-A adapter to connect your modern laptop with older devices. Singleton Pattern is more like your WiFi connection, there’s only one signal but everybody can use it (up to its capacity, of course).

The Composition of a C# Singleton Class

Imagine, if you will, a pizza. A pizza is great, but it takes more than just crust to make a good one, right? We need toppings, lots of them! Similarly, a Singleton class is comprised of several key ‘ingredients’ or elements. Let’s see how this pizza analogy applies to our C# Singleton class, piece by piece.

Breaking Down the Structure of Singleton Class

Just like how a delicious pizza has the right balance of crust, sauce, cheese, and toppings, a Singleton class in C#, at its core, is made up of three main components.

1. A private static instance of the class itself.
2. A private constructor.
3. A public static method that returns the instance of the class.

Let’s look at this in the context of a simple code example.

public sealed class Singleton
{
    private static Singleton instance = null;  // Private Instance
    private Singleton() {} // Private Constructor 

    public static Singleton Instance  // Public Method
    {
        get
        {
            if (instance == null)
            {
                instance = new Singleton();
            }
            return instance;
        }
    }
}

Think of it this way, the static instance is like the pizza crust, acting as the base of our class. The private constructor is like the sauce. It’s a key component, but you don’t interact with it directly when you eat the pizza. Finally, the public static Instance method is like the cheese – it’s what you interact with and helps hold everything together.

The null is initially assigned to the instance. When the Instance method is called for the very first time, it creates a new Singleton object. But for any subsequent requests, it’s like asking for a slice of already baked pizza – you simply return the same slice (or instance) you had before.

C# Singleton: A Practical Example

Think of a printer. Ideally, in an office, you would want all print requests to go to a single, centralized printer. There should only be one instance of a printer, and everyone gets their print jobs from this single source.

Code Walkthrough: Implementing Singleton

Let’s code this out and see how it works.

public sealed class Printer
{
    private static Printer instance = null; // This is our single printer. Initially, it doesn't exist ('null')

    private Printer() {} // This is where we set up our printer. But, note that it's private. 
    // Only this Printer class can setup the printer

    public static Printer Instance // This is how people request to use the printer
    {
        get
        {
            // This part checks if the printer exists.
            if (instance == null)
            {
                // If it doesn't, it sets up a new printer
                instance = new Printer();
            }
            // Whether it just set up a new printer or one already existed, it returns the printer
            return instance;
        }
    }
}

Just like requesting a pizza slice, whenever you want to print something, you call Printer.Instance. No matter how many times you call it, you are always returned the same, unique, single printer. It doesn’t create the printer anew for every request, but instead, it reuses the pre-existing one. Neat, huh?

It’s as simple as that! Want to print something? Call Printer.Instance and you’ll get the single, unique printer ready to serve your documents.

The Importance of Thread Safety in C# Singleton

Thread safety in Singleton design is a crucial cornerstone to grasp. It’s like making sure there’s only one captain steering the ship, no matter how choppy the waters!

Why Thread-Safe Singleton is a Must

In the world of programming, more than one thread trying to access a resource simultaneously may result in what we call a race condition – a chaos equivalent to letting two drivers control a car simultaneously! Therefore, when multiple threads could potentially create multiple instances of our singleton class, it violates the fundamental principle of the Singleton pattern – one and only one instance!

public sealed class ThreadSafeSingleton
{
    private static ThreadSafeSingleton instance = null;
    private static readonly object lockCheck = new object();

    private ThreadSafeSingleton(){}

    public static ThreadSafeSingleton Instance
    {
        get
        {
            lock(lockCheck)
            {
                if (instance == null)
                {
                    instance = new ThreadSafeSingleton();
                }
                return instance;
            }
        }
    }
}

In this simple yet effective code example, the ‘lock’ keyword is like the bouncer at the entrance of a club, admitting one person in (or one thread into the block of code) at a time. Even when multiple threads try to access it at once, only one gets through making sure the instance, once created, is the one and only.

Fine Tuning Thread Safe Singleton, The Double-Check Locking

Let’s make this example even better. Double-check locking is a technique that further optimizes our thread-safe Singleton.

public sealed class ThreadSafeSingleton
{
    private static ThreadSafeSingleton instance = null;
    private static readonly object lockCheck = new object();

    private ThreadSafeSingleton(){}

    public static ThreadSafeSingleton Instance
    {
        get
        {
            if (instance == null)
            {
                lock(lockCheck)
                {
                    if (instance == null)
                    {
                        instance = new ThreadSafeSingleton();
                    }
                }
            }
            return instance;
        }
    }
}

Twist in the plot! Why the double check, you ask? Because we want to avoid the costly lock operation when the instance isn’t null which would be most of the times after the initial few calls.

The .NET way: Lazy

But hold on, we’re in the world of C#, and there’s a simpler, more effective way to keep our Singleton thread-safe! The .NET Framework provides Lazy that makes laziness a virtue!

public class Singleton
{
    private static readonly Lazy<Singleton> lazyInstance =
        new Lazy<Singleton>(() => new Singleton());

    private Singleton(){}

    public static Singleton Instance
    {
        get
        {
            return lazyInstance.Value;
        }
    }
}

The Lazy provides support for lazy initialization. When multiple threads try to access it, Lazy ensures that only one of them can call the Singleton constructor. And the rest simply wait patiently and are then allowed to carry on using the instance once it’s been created.

Dependency Injection and C# addSingleton

Dependency Injection, you might compare it to a castle’s foundation. Just as a builder ensures that the foundation of a castle is solid so that the rest of the construction can be successful, Dependency Injection provides a solid base for our objects.

Let’s think of it like this – it works like your friendly neighborhood mailperson, delivering right what is needed (or should we say…dependencies)! Its job? It gives an object all the other objects it needs to do its job! So, how does addSingleton fit into this picture?

Think of addSingleton as our super special delivery guy who ensures everyone gets exactly the same copy of today’s hot off the press newspaper. Once addSingleton delivers a dependency, it stays consistent throughout the application run! Now, isn’t that neat?

Introduction to Dependency Injection and addSingleton

Imagine having a town mayor (also known as our application). This mayor interacts with many other townsfolk (also known as classes or objects), and she is very popular, so she doesn’t go to them directly. Instead, she has a message carrier who relays the news (or…dependencies) to everyone. This carrier is what we call Dependency Injection (DI).

DI follows a simple principle – it keeps related things together and unrelated things apart. It reduces the dependent code, makes the code more manageable, testable, and promotes loose coupling which is a good coding practice.

Now, the Singleton method is a unique pattern where an object is created only once – meaning everyone gets the same copy, and we use the AddSingleton method of .NET Core to ensure this.

Let’s get a bit practical and let C# do the talking!

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    services.AddSingleton<IMyService, MyService>();
}

This snippet is a shiny example of AddSingleton. The AddSingleton function tells the application to build an object one time and one time only, and use the same instance for every future request.

Consider IMyService like a newspaper and AddSingleton as our special delivery guy, delivering IMyService everywhere in the city (our application). Every time anyone asks for IMyService, they get MyService delivered to them, fresh from the press!

It’s like saying, “Hey! If anyone asks for IMyService, give them MyService, and always give them the same one!”

Now let’s extend our notion with another example. Imagine you have an application where you need to access a database (IDatabaseService) to get data.

public interface IDatabaseService
{
    IEnumerable<string> GetData();
}

public class DatabaseService : IDatabaseService
{
    public IEnumerable<string> GetData()
    {
        //Add code here to retrieve data from database
        return new List<string> {"Sample Data"};
    }
}

public class HomeController : Controller
{
    private readonly IDatabaseService _databaseService;

    public HomeController(IDatabaseService databaseService)
    {
        _databaseService = databaseService;
    }

    public IActionResult Index()
    {
        var data = _databaseService.GetData();
        return View(data);
    }
}

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    services.AddSingleton<IDatabaseService, DatabaseService>();
}

In this example, we first define an IDatabaseService which fetches data from a database. We have a DatabaseService class implementing this interface. We have a HomeController which needs access to the database and so, receives IDatabaseService as a parameter in its constructor.

This HomeController doesn’t care about who provides IDatabaseService or how it is created, all it knows is that it needs IDatabaseService to do its work, making the system more modular and testable.

Now, when HomeController requests IDatabaseService, instead of creating a new DatabaseService every time, the DatabaseService which was freshly created and stored by AddSingleton is supplied.

Singleton Pattern in Game Development: C# Unity

Get ready to dive headfirst into the world of gaming applications with Unity and Singleton! Unity is a powerful game development engine and learning Singleton within its context can unlock some superpowers to create more efficient game mechanics. Are you keen to learn? We’ve got a lot to cover!

Application of Singleton in Unity

In Unity, Singleton might wear a slightly different look, but it still carries the same purpose – to avoid multiple script instances from running. Now, this concept may sound a bit tricky initially, but let’s break it down and understand it better.

public class GameManager : MonoBehaviour
{
    // Static instance stored
    public static GameManager instance;

    // Called when the script instance is being loaded
    void Awake()
    {
        if (instance != null)
        {
            Destroy(gameObject);  // Ensures only one instance is available
        }
        else
        {
            instance = this;
            DontDestroyOnLoad(gameObject);
        }
    }

    // Remaining code of game manager
}

Imagine playing a video game where our character ‘GamePlayer’ needs to interact with the ‘GameManager.’ The ‘GameManager’ is a Unity GameObject that controls different aspects of the game, like keeping track of player’s life, loading different levels, etc. Now it’s a pickle if there are multiple GameManagers to manage a single GamePlayer, right?

That’s where Singleton comes in. It ensures that only one instance of GameManager exists throughout the game scenes. How does it work here? The script first checks if an instance of the GameManager already exists.

If it does, it destroys the new GameObject attempting to create a fresh new GameManager. If it doesn’t, it assigns the instance variable to the new GameManager.

Let’s say we have another GameObject in the game, say ‘Enemy’. Enemy needs information from GameManager to interact with the GamePlayer. How will it access the singleton GameManager?

public class Enemy : MonoBehaviour
{
    //Reference to game manager
    GameManager gameManager;

    void Start()
    {
        gameManager = GameManager.instance;     // Assigns gameManager from Singleton instance
    }

    void Update()
    {
        // Use gameManager to interact with GamePlayer.
    }
}

In the above Enemy class script, it’s seen that we can easily access the GameManager singleton instance. We first create a GameManager reference, and on Start(), we assign it with our Singleton GameManager instance. Now, Enemy can comfortably interact with GamePlayer via this singleton GameManager throughout the game. Isn’t it wonderfully simple once we understand the process?

Leveraging C# Services addSingleton

To round off our Singleton its quest in C#, let’s do a bit more digging into the addSingleton method under the services of C#. Remember the Singleton class we created before? We’re giving it a turbo boost using C# services!

The Power of C# Services addSingleton

The addSingleton method revs up our Singleton’s engine in ASP.NET Core by keeping it alive throughout the application run – exactly what a Singleton aims for.

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    services.AddSingleton<IEmailService, EmailService>();
}

In this code snippet, we’re ordering ASP.NET Core to maintain a single instance of EmailService throughout the lifespan of the application. Like a one-stop shop, every time IEmailService is requested, EmailService is at your service!

Now, let’s understand this better with a simple example.

Imagine you’re at a fast-food restaurant and ordering a meal. You ask for a burger (that’s your IEmailService). The restaurant (our application) only has one kind of burger – the EmailService. So every time you ask for a burger, you’re served the EmailService burger. Can you ask for a different one? Nope. There’s only one type, and it’s ready to be served as long as the restaurant (application) stays open.

C# Services addSingleton In Action: A Practical Example

Let’s take another real-life scenario: Let’s say we’re developing a blog website. For simplification, we will consider that the blog posts will be written by a single author. Hence, the author’s information remains consistent throughout the application, making AuthorInformation a perfect candidate for a Singleton service.

public class AuthorInformation
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string Email { get; set; }
}

First, we create an AuthorInformation class with a few properties.

Then, we register AuthorInformation as a Singleton service in Startup.cs file.

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    services.AddSingleton<AuthorInformation>();
}

Every time somewhere in our application if the AuthorInformation is requested, the ASP.NET Core serves the same instance we asked for.

Summing Up with C# Services addSingleton

In conclusion, the addSingleton method does just what we’d hope from a Singleton design pattern in ASP.NET Core: It gives us a single, persistent instance throughout our application’s runtime.

With that, we’ve explored how deep the Singleton rabbit hole goes in C#. While it seems like a lot to digest, remember – practice makes perfect! Keep coding, and you’ll turn into a C# Singleton maestro sooner than you think! The Singleton journey doesn’t stop here, however. There are many more voyages awaiting you in the vast ocean of C#, each one richer than the last. As always, code wisely, explore freely, and most importantly, enjoy the ride!

The post Singleton Design Pattern in C#: Full Guide appeared first on ProdSens.live.

As any business owner knows, product-market fit is one of the most challenging aspects of starting a business.

Predicting the right product to build – and investing in building prototypes, experimenting, and testing — is an exhaustingly long and expensive process, and oftentimes, business owners run out of money before they’re even able to test their products.

Fortunately, as AWS Senior Advisor to Startups and AI expert Deepam Mishra told me, “This process is about to be turned on its head with the newest advances in AI.”

I sat down with Mishra to discuss how AI will revolutionize every aspect of the product development process, and how startups and SMBs should prepare for it.

How AI Will Revolutionize Product Development, According to AWS’ Senior Advisor to Startups

1. Product-market fit predictions will be more accurate.

From Mishra’s experience, he’s seen many startups fail due to poor product-market fit.

This corresponds with wider trends. A whopping 35% of SMBs and startups fail due to no market need.

Fortunately, AI can help solve for this. AI-fueled data analysis can help startups collect a more accurate, well-rounded view of the quantitative and qualitative data they‘ll need to determine whether their product actually meets their customers’ needs — or whether they’ve even selected the right audience in the first place.

Leveraging AI when collecting and analyzing data can also help teams understand their customers on a deeper level.

As Mishra told me, “AI can make it easier to understand the real customer needs hiding behind known problems. Often engineers start building prototypes without a deep understanding of the quantitative and qualitative customer needs. Before generative AI there were less capable tools to analyze such information.”

2. AI will greatly enhance speed of iteration and time to market.

Creating mockups and prototypes of a product you want to test is one of the most time-consuming aspects of the product development lifecycle. It typically takes four to 12 weeks to create an electronics prototype, and one to four weeks for a 3D printed mockup.

“The time it takes to generate a physical incarnation — or even a 3D or visual incarnation of a product — requires some real physics behind it,” Mishra explains.

“It’s a fairly long process for product managers, designers, and software engineers to build a product into a three-dimensional model.”

In other words: All that time and money you put into creating and testing a prototype could end up costing you your business.

Imagine the power, then, of a world in which AI can help you create mockups and prototypes in just a few hours.

This speed is more than just convenient: It could be life-saving for SMBs and startups that don‘t have the time or resources to waste on product features that won’t yield strong returns.

For Mishra, it’s one of the most exciting areas of opportunity in the product space.

As he puts it, “The fact that you can create content from scratch with such rapid speed, and hit a higher level of accuracy, is one of the most exciting components of all this.”

3. AI will change how you collect customer feedback.

Once you have a prototype, or even a minimum viable product, you can‘t stop iterating there. You’ll need to test it with prospective or current customers to learn how to improve or iterate upon it next.

And, until now, product analytics has been largely restricted to structured or numerical data.

But structured data has its limitations.

Mishra told me, “Most enterprise information is unstructured, as it sits in the forms of documents and emails and social media chatter. I would guess that less than 20% of a business’ data is structured data. So there’s a huge opportunity cost in not analyzing that 70% to 80% of information.”

In other words, there aren’t many scalable solutions to collecting and analyzing quantitative data to analyze how customers are responding to your product.

For now, many product teams rely on focus groups to collect feedback, but focus groups aren’t always accurate representations of customer sentiment, which leaves your product team vulnerable to potentially creating a product that doesn’t actually serve your customers.

Fortunately, “Generative AI can help convert customer feedback into data for your business,” Mishra explains. “Let’s say you get a lot of social media feedback or product usage comments or chatter on customer forums. Now, you can convert that information into charts and trend lines and analyze it in the same way you’ve always analyzed structured data.”

He adds, “Essentially, you can figure out which features your customers are talking about the most. Or, what emotions customers have when it comes to particular product features. This helps you determine product-market fit, or even which features to add or remove from your product.”

The potential impact of being able to convert quantitative feedback into actionable data points is enormous.

With the help of AI, your team can feel more confident that you’re truly investing time and energy into product features that matter most to your customers.

4. AI will redefine how engineers and product managers interact with software.

Beyond developing a product, AI can also innovate the teams developing it.

Up until now, we‘ve had entire roles defined around getting people trained on a particular product suite. They’ve become the experts on a given software, and understand how each piece works.

In the future, we’ll begin to see how AI can help your team ramp up new employees without necessarily needing these software experts to host trainings.

Perhaps you have a junior programmer on your team with limited experience. To ensure she adheres to your company’s particular discipline of software coding, you can have a lot of it pre-programmed and systematized through AI code generation tools.

For more intensive processes, like prototyping, Mishra explains that some training duties could even be replaced by chat-based AI. “We have moved to realizing that more natural chat-type interfaces can substitute very complex ways of asking for help from software and hardware tools.”

Let’s say your company needs to design a widget. Rather than spending time and resources on mocking up a prototype, you could ask a chatbot to produce some design examples and provide constraints.

“You don’t need to even know what machine learning tools are being used,” Mishra adds, “you just talk to a chat interface, and maybe there are five different products behind the chat. But as humans, we care less about the tool and more about the outputs.”

5. AI will lift human creativity in the product space.

Machine learning has been around for almost two decades, and has already been leveraged for a long time in the product development space.

But it’s about to change drastically.

As Mishra explained to me, the old machine learning algorithms could learn patterns of transforming inputs to outputs, and could then apply that pattern to unseen data.

But the new generative machine models take this process a step further: They can still apply patterns to unseen data, but they can also get a deeper understanding of the thinking behind the creative process.

“They can understand how a software programmer creates software, or how a designer creates a design, or how an artist creates art,” Mishra told me.

He adds, “These models are beginning to understand the thinking behind the creation, which is both an exciting and scary part of it. But where this applies to pretty much all stages of product development is that you can now supercharge the human creativity component.”

In other words: AI will become any product manager, engineer, or designer’s co-pilot as they navigate a new terrain, in which rote, repeatable actions will be replaced by time spent designing and iterating on better, more powerful products.

Eventually, AI Will Change the Customer Experience Entirely

There’s a separate, deeper conversation to be had about the long-term ramifications of AI and the product space.

For now, product leadership has largely focused on how they can effectively enhance their products by adding AI into their existing features.

As Mishra puts it, “Most leaders right now are saying, ‘Let me swap what I had with generative AI.’ So you might think of these products as version 2.0 of a previous model.”

“But,” he continues,“the next generation of solutions, which some of the more ambitious innovators are starting to work on, are completely reimagining the customer experience. They’re not just saying, ‘We are adding AI to a product,’ but instead, they’re saying, ‘Let’s reimagine the entire product itself, with AI as its foundation.’ They’ll reimagine the interfaces between human and technology.”

Right now, consumers choose between a variety of streaming services, such as Netflix or Amazon Prime, and then the streaming service provides AI-based recommendations based on prior user behavior.

As Mishra explains, “The first wave of startups will say, ‘Okay, let’s make those predictions better.’ But the second wave of startups or innovators will say, ‘Wait a second … Why do you even need to be worried about just one platform? Why not think bigger?’”

“So we’ll have companies that say, ‘Let me generate content on various platforms depending on your mood and 10,000 other behaviors, versus the three genres I know you like.”

How does this fit into the current product development process? It doesn’t.

Instead, it flips it entirely upside down. And that’s both terrifying and thrilling.

Mishra suggests, “How do you reimagine the product experience? I think that’s where human creativity is going to be applied.”

How to Get Started with AI and Product Development

1. Start experimenting.

Mishra acknowledges that as much as it‘s an exciting time in the product space, it’s also a challenging time, and plenty of SMBs and startups are questioning whether they should even invest in AI at all.

Change is happening quickly, and it can be difficult to determine which aspects of AI you should invest in, or how you should approach implementing it into your current processes.

Mishra‘s advice? “Start experimenting, because you’ll find it a lot easier once you get started. And there are a couple of areas which will give you value regardless of whether you put AI into production or not, including analyzing customer information and feedback, or doing things like enterprise search — you’ll start to see eye-opening value from these experiments, which will guide you down the right path.”

Fortunately, you don‘t need to hire your own machine learning engineer to create something from scratch. Instead, you might consider tools like Amazon’s recently released Bedrock, which provides pre-built generative AI models that you can add to an existing application with an API. This enables you to forgo any AI training and limit the data breach risks, and be up and running in minutes.

2. Identify where AI can help your team.

Mishra recommends figuring out the right use cases that will have a positive ROI for your business.

Ultimately, it’s critical you take the time to determine which areas of the business could get the highest value from AI, and start there.

For instance, he suggests, “I’m seeing a lot of work in the areas of customer-facing activities because that drives revenue, so that’s potentially high-value.”

If you‘re unsure where to get started on your own team, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Consider reaching out to cloud experts or startups that can walk you through some common solutions already being explored by other companies.

3. Get stakeholder buy-in.

There’s another equally-vital requirement to experimentation: Stakeholder and leadership buy-in.

Mishra says, “I think cultural alignment and stakeholder alignment is an important area that companies need to start working on. If the top leadership is fearful for the wrong reasons, that could inhibit their growth.”

There are certainly privacy and data leakage concerns when it comes to AI. Plus, AI isn‘t perfect: It can hallucinate or provide inaccurate or biased information when it’s providing results.

Which means, when convincing leadership to invest in AI, it‘s critical that you emphasize that AI will not be steering the ship. Instead, it will be your team’s trusted co-pilot.

It‘s also important to note — if leadership feels it’s risky to invest in AI, they should also be considering the risks of not investing in it.

As Mishra puts it, “This is a seminal moment, and you can get left behind as other startups and enterprise companies begin to move faster in their product innovation cycles.”

The post How AI Will Revolutionize Product Development, and How to Prepare [Insights from AWS’ Senior Advisor to Startups] appeared first on ProdSens.live.

Using applications like ChatGPT requires some care.

Part of the difficulty is that ChatGPT’s human-like conversation abilities can be deceptive. Feeling like you’re talking to a real person encourages you to rely on conversational expectations that may not hold with a machine.

For instance, we generally expect that most people do not make up facts. Large language models, however, routinely violate this expectation by providing fluent answers that may be totally wrong. The metacognitive ability to know what you don’t know is underdeveloped in these applications.

Another expectation we have is that verbal fluency tracks other aspects of intelligence. We expect that someone who can spout lines from Shakespeare, explain quantum computing, and give a proof of the prime number theorem in rhyming verse would also be able to count. Thus, naively treating LLMs like a really smart and knowledgeable person is likely to backfire.

Those caveats aside, ChatGPT is clearly helpful for a range of tasks. Simon Willison suggests thinking of LLMs as a “calculator for words” — something that can do useful things with text — rather than as a general-purpose intelligence or smart person.

I tend to agree. The more we can distinguish the cases where LLMs work well from where they don’t (yet), the more we’ll be able to take advantage of the new capabilities without falling into unexpected traps.

Ten Useful Learning Strategies with ChatGPT
After receiving dozens of emails from my readers on how they have been personally using ChatGPT to learn, I’ve compiled some tips with some of the most common suggestions.

1. Create your own Socratic tutor.
By far, the most common use readers reported was using an LLM as a personal tutor.

Asking ChatGPT to explain tricky concepts, unfamiliar code or problems seems like an area where LLMs might do alright. And the only reasonable substitute (a human expert) is notoriously expensive and in short supply.

If you do this in conjunction with a class or textbook, the risks of mistakes also seem attenuated since you still have a primary source to compare against. Challenge explanations that don’t jive with what you’ve read in the book rather than taking everything the AI says at face value.

2. Practice chatting in new languages.
The next most common way people used LLMs to learn better was as a language tutor. This seems like a task LLMs are well-equipped for. Whatever their other flaws, they can produce grammatically correct text.

Many people set up their conversations with ChatGPT so that the AI could go back and forth between the language they are learning and English explanations when they got confused. Likely, those explanations may be imperfect, but human tutors also often give incorrect accounts of the grammar and vocabulary they manage to use proficiently.

Another use is rewriting texts to be at a more beginner-friendly level of reading comprehension. Graded readers and comprehensive input are great strategies for learning to read in another language. Unfortunately, learner materials are often sparse or uninteresting. You can use an LLM to transform a text you want to read that is written at a fluent native level into something appropriate for your current ability.

Duolingo seems to be getting in on the LLM game as well. I’ve been harsh on the drag-and-drop style of language learning used in earlier versions, but these new advances may force me to revise my opinion.

3. Generate summaries of longer texts.
Summaries are another area where LLMs seem to excel. Consumer applications already exist for generating summaries of journal articles or research topics.

Several readers said they were using these AI tools to provide digests of their substantial reading material, helping them keep atop new developments in their field.

Good summaries, especially those fine-tuned to your particular needs, might be a good way of navigating the large information loads we often face in knowledge work. You could use it to help prioritize which documents to read in-depth or do a first pass organizing unfamiliar material.

4. Dialog with long documents.
LLMs also can help you “ask questions” of longer texts. For instance, when reading a scientific paper you could quickly query the sample size or ask for the methodology or results. Consensus does this while offering references, so the risk of mistakes seems reduced when you can easily double-check the LLM’s work.

While there are more fanciful usages here, such as people asking ChatGPT to impersonate a given writer and dialog with them, I suspect the ability to ask natural-language questions of documents and receive replies with references is a useful tool for dealing with large texts.

That said, you must be prepared to fact-check the LLM’s answers. For instance, in the dialog captured below, I asked ChatGPT to list evidence supporting strongly-guided instruction, and it cited a review article by Mayer. But it falsely claimed Mayer’s work was a meta-analysis, which it isn’t. In fact, the paper isn’t even a comprehensive literature review but simply looks at three prominent cases of the failure of discovery learning. If taken at face value, this response can potentially mislead, but it’s relatively easy to “check” the AI’s work if you know what text it is transforming.

5. Rewrite texts at different levels of explanatory depth.
A major difficulty in following expert thinking is that most expert-level text is written for other experts. Concepts are unexplained, context is lacking and jargon abounds. This means that most people must rely on translators, such as general-market nonfiction or science writers, who present what experts think in a more readable format.

There seem to be two approaches to using AI tools here. One is simply asking an LLM to explain a popular concept in simpler terms, such as: “Explain quantum computing like I’m an eighth-grader.” The other is to provide ChatGPT with a text or explanation and ask the AI to rewrite it in a more digestible manner.

I tend to think the latter is a little more reliable since you have the source material to compare with rather than taking ChatGPT’s word for it.

6. Clear up unfamiliar jargon.
Several years ago, I remember reading Tyler Cowen’s Marginal Revolution blogand being perplexed by his frequent, unexplained use of the term “Straussian” to describe ideas or other thinkers. I Googled for an explanation, but none was forthcoming.

After a lot of research, I understood the term as meaning, roughly, “closely reading between the lines in prominent thinkers’ ideas, looking for what they really meant but couldn’t always express because of prevailing censorship and intellectual orthodoxy.”

Had ChatGPT existed during my confusion, I could have just gotten this:

Many readers found similar benefits in using LLMs to figure out jargon and terms used within a particular community in a way that dictionary definitions often fail to elucidate.

7. Create study plans and agendas.
This usage surprised me, but it showed up enough times among reader replies that I include it here. People seem to like using AI to tell them how and when to learn.

For instance, some readers asked ChatGPT to break down a complex learning goal and give them a curriculum. Others preferred to go even further, asking for ChatGPT to create a studying schedule for them, given their constraints for the day.

I probably wouldn’t trust LLMs to give me a well-designed curriculum for a subject. But if I was learning something completely new, it might be a decent starting point. Sometimes the hardest part of approaching a new field is breaking down what appears to be an insurmountable goal. Similarly, sometimes being told when to study can help overcome the inertia of getting started.

While skill breakdowns might be alright, ChatGPT still struggles with creating reading lists, confabulating books and references. Thus, while it might do well for decomposing an ambiguous learning task, I wouldn’t trust it to give me good resources (yet).

8. Provide refreshers on forgotten or infrequently used tools.
Programmers were the biggest professional group to reply to my query. I can’t say whether this is because programming is uniquely well-suited to LLMs or because programmers, as a group, are more likely to adopt novel software tools.

The productivity advantages for programmers seem obvious. I don’t write much code these days, so I haven’t made much use of this well-publicized feature of LLMs. But since a lot of coding is relatively routine, the ability to have a machine create the first draft for an algorithm clearly saves a lot of time.

While there are cases of people with zero programming knowledge relying on AI output to build applications, I suspect these might be tricky to debug and maintain. In contrast, an expert programmer can override ChatGPT’s output for a language he or she knows particularly well.

The place LLMs seem to work really well is at the fringes of a programmer’s expertise. Many programmers told me that they found AI helpful in getting starting hints in unfamiliar languages or tools. Their base of programming experience allowed them to make sense of and implement the output, but their unfamiliarity with the underlying language meant the AI saved them a lot of time.

9. Generate flashcards based on text. (Tentative)
Flashcards are a powerful learning tool. They’re also a pain in the butt to make.

Some readers said they were using ChatGPT to generate flashcards for subjects they’re studying. This seems well within the LLM abilities as a “calculator for words.” Thus, with the correct prompts, you could get fairly good results here — provided you’re inputting the material you wish to see transformed into flashcards and not expecting the LLM to get the facts on its own (see below).

However, given the difficulty of making “good” flashcards, I wouldn’t enter any into my Anki without reviewing them first. Nonetheless, making flashcards is tedious, so getting a first draft that I later review might speed up the process considerably. The risks seem relatively limited if you confirm the cards’ correctness before putting them in your deck.

10. Use it to organize your notes. (Advanced)
As someone who does a lot of research, I often waste a lot of time trying to locate my notes. Robert Martin finds the same problem. Searching via keywords is fraught because sometimes you can’t remember the exact term you used, even if the meaning is roughly the same.

Martin solves this problem by using the embedding feature of LLMs. While not strictly ChatGPT, this tool from the same family of natural language processing techniques allows you to find semantically-related notes rather than exact keyword matches.

Personalized LLMs that live on your hard drive and access your existing data may be a valuable application. I’d love to be able to search things I know I’ve seen but can’t quite recall where.

Some Things NOT To Do

1. Don’t expect AI to get facts right.
2. Don’t expect AI to get citations right.
3. Don’t expect AI to get the math right.

The post 10 Best Ways To Use ChatGPT (With Examples) appeared first on ProdSens.live.

Every Tuesday we round up the previous week’s top posts based on traffic, engagement, and a hint of editorial curation. The typical week starts on Monday and ends on Sunday, but don’t worry, we take into account posts that are published later in the week.

How to Get Your First Job as a Self-Taught Programmer

The mantra of “write more code” is accurate as the best way to learn to code and get a job, but can be difficult to translate into actual experience. Here’s some more direct and actionable advice that expands on @bytebodger’s original point.

How to Get Your First Job as a Self-Taught Programmer

Adam Nathaniel Davis ・ Mar 17 ・ 17 min read

#beginners
#programming
#career
#codenewbie

Git Fundamentals, a Complete Guide

If you already work with Git but are still a bit confused about what you’re doing, then this post is for you. @leandronsp wrote this complete guide to Git fundamentals with comprehensive tips to learn the internal mechanics.

Git fundamentals, a complete guide

Leandro Proença ・ Mar 15 ・ 18 min read

#git
#linux

What is the Future of AI?

Admittedly, artificial intelligence is shaping humanity’s future in nearly every industry. It is already the primary driver of emerging technologies and will likely remain a technological innovator for the foreseeable future. Explore more about what AI means for our future with @brownrita460.

What is the future of AI?

Rita Brown ・ Mar 17 ・ 5 min read

#discuss
#ai
#productivity
#programming

Everything You Need to Know About the Updated React Docs

After years of hard work and refinement, the former React Docs Beta have been promoted to official React documentation! With that, the original docs have been downgraded to legacy, although they are still accessible. @kathryngrayson goes through the most important changes here.

Everything You Need to Know About the Updated React Docs

Kathryn Grayson Nanz ・ Mar 17 ・ 6 min read

#react
#javascript
#webdev
#news

Advice from a Software Engineer with 8 Years of Experience

@ruizb is a software developer with over 8 years of experience. This blog post comes with some self-reflection both on the things they wish they had done earlier, as well as what they could have done differently.

Advices from a Software Engineer with 8 Years of Experience

Benoit Ruiz ・ Mar 14 ・ 22 min read

#career
#devjournal

JavaScript for Beginners: Data Structures

Data structures are an important topic in software development and they can be tricky to understand at first @catherineisonline goes through the common data structures in JavaScript and tries to explain them simply.

JavaScript for Beginners: Data Structures

Ekaterine Mitagvaria ・ Mar 15 ・ 17 min read

#javascript
#beginners
#programming
#javascriptforbeginner

Cryptographically protecting your SPA

Recently, @matpk’s app was put through a pentest. It was the first time their system was put through such a procedure, so this post covers the issues found along with the solutions discussed.

Cryptographically protecting your SPA

Matheus Adorni Dardenne ・ Mar 17 ・ 12 min read

#cryptography
#react
#node
#rsa

That’s it for our weekly Top 7 for this Tuesday! Keep an eye on dev.to this week for daily content and discussions…and be sure to keep an eye on this series in the future. You might just be in it!

The post Top 7 Featured DEV Posts from the Past Week appeared first on ProdSens.live.

In every company, whether it’s a Fortune 500 or a startup, product marketing’s success depends on internal stakeholders and senior leadership, and how they value product marketing.

With that in mind, in this article, I’ll be sharing the lessons I’ve learned over the past five years on how to bring product marketing, sales, and leadership into alignment with shared objectives and key results (OKRs).

Before we dive in, let me tell you a little bit about myself. I’m Div Manickam, and I’m a product marketing influencer who has recently embarked on a journey to live a portfolio life. These are my life values:

• Inspire trust and credibility,
• Influence extreme ownership, and
• Impact results and relationships.

I’m passionate about finding ways to solve the root cause of stress and anxiety with mindfulness and essentialism. Diversity and belonging are also very important to me. I recently published two books: A Broken Teacup, on my journey with stress and anxiety, and Fearless: Be the Authentic Leader you will Follow.

In this article, I’ll be answering the following questions:

• What does authentic leadership mean to you?
• How do you bring cross-functional alignment across product marketing and sales?
• How can product marketing influence the product roadmap and help with portfolio roadmap prioritization?
• What’s the importance of OKRs for product sales and marketing alignment?
• What does the future hold for product marketing?

Let’s dive in.

What does authentic leadership mean to you?

For me, authentic leadership means being your own true self and knowing that we are all human and we need to respect and care for each other.

During my time at Dell Boomi, I was inspired by our fearless leader, Steve, who was always there for his team no matter what and empowered us to be our best every day. This is the leadership style I want to take forward. If I‘m ever unsure what to do next, I just ask myself, What would Steve do? and get the clarity I need.

As leaders, we have to make tough choices and our teams may not always understand why we do what we do. This is where we need to be transparent and share to the best of our ability.

Our decisions impact their day-to-day work, and we need to be mindful and respectful of that every day. I’m privileged to serve my team and I will do anything to help them succeed in their endeavours.

How do you bring cross-functional alignment across product marketing and sales?

We all know that working with different teams is at the core of product marketing. As we collaborate with product, sales, and marketing, tight alignment is crucial, as is making sure that we communicate all our efforts so that there’s no duplication across teams.

We also need to consider how we can best amplify our core initiatives, on top of making sure that folks understand what product marketing can and cannot do.

It’s also crucial to work with the broader marketing team so that we can focus on our core competency and stakeholders and other teams can focus on what they do best.

In one of my previous roles, a lot of what we were asked to do was traditional marketing, and it took a lot of time and effort to explain and educate where we could bring our best value and make sure we prioritized the right actions and resources.

How can product marketing influence the product roadmap and help with portfolio roadmap prioritization?

We’re seeing a major shift towards companies diversifying their portfolios as opposed to focusing on a single product. However, the reality is that our customers are looking to solve a specific problem. Whether the solution requires one product, multiple products, or a platform doesn’t matter.

This is where I advocate for portfolio marketing as product marketing’s biggest strength. We can bring together products, solutions, and services across different industries and verticals.

As challenging as it can be, when you get the roadmap priorities right, you know you’re off to a good start. I like to think of portfolio roadmap prioritization as the crystal ball that guides us to make sure we stay focused on the right projects.

Prioritization is where we make trade-offs and decisions on which projects we want to take forward and which we want to hold off on until a later quarter. This is easier said than done, but when it’s done right, you know that all the teams are rowing in the right direction.

What’s the importance of OKRs for product sales and marketing alignment?

Because we wear multiple hats, it’s important to know which hats add the most value – in other words, which metrics and OKRs can help us make sure that we’re focusing on the right priorities, roles, and responsibilities.

While some of our initiatives might be focused on soft skills and therefore not directly measured, proper alignment on KPIs or OKRs is critical for defining product marketing’s success.

It’s important to make sure we have a good synergy across product marketing, sales, and leadership. That means we need to make sure our goals and objectives are aligned with the sales team and we’re prioritizing the right initiatives. We’ll never have enough resources to do everything, so having that lockstep is critical as we go to market.

I like to build our OKRs around my core values – inspire, influence, and impact – and the three pillars of success – the employee, the business, and the customer.

• Inspire the employee
• Influence the business
• Impact the customer

This way, we’re taking care of the three tenets that make sure that as a business we’re doing the right thing.

As outlined by Div, it’s imperative that product marketers appreciate the role that OKRs and metrics play in short and long-term success. During her appearance on the Product Marketing Insider podcast, Rebecca Geraghty, VP of Product Marketing at Publicis Media, outlined how to prioritize product marketing goals.

What does the future hold for product marketing?

Product marketing is becoming increasingly important. You’ll see that the first hire in new marketing organizations is now often a product marketer. Companies are talking more and more about the importance of Go-to-Market, competitive intelligence, buyer personas, messaging, and positioning.

Not only are all of these things great, but they’re also the recipe for successful product marketing. Mastering the art and science of product marketing is how I like to think of it.

Now, what would a rockstar product marketer look like? I like to think that this is someone who is empathetic to customers, stakeholders, and the team. We’re the voice of the customer and we need to bring forward use cases and business requirements just to make sure that we are aligned with all of the above.

Our focus is on driving customer advocacy and success stories. That’s why we need to consider the buyer journey all the way from discovery to advocacy.

A rockstar product marketing team is a mix of great storytellers who can bring different narratives together and tell a story that will make us feel and move from a state of complacency to making change happen. This is the beauty of product marketing and what makes the future of product marketing so exciting.

You’ve seen how many product marketers around the world have come together in the Product Marketing Alliance community. We all have our stories to tell and we’re all here to make a change. This is what excites me when I think about mentoring the product marketing leaders of the future.

I believe that product marketing is undergoing an evolution. The role is now more than just messaging and positioning. We are working with different stakeholders and marketing teams across the entire customer journey all the way from awareness to consideration to decision. And it doesn’t end there; it goes all the way to advocacy.

That’s why when working with marketing teams, whether it’s demand generation, your customer marketing team, or your content marketing team, you’re making sure you have tight alignment and are all working towards the same goals.

And then there’s product. As a product marketer, I work very closely with my product manager. When it comes to roadmap prioritization if you’re not in lockstep with your product manager you might be working on different priorities and not making the best use of the time and resources you have.

Then who could forget sales? My best successes have come when the sales leaders have been with me at every step. They’re here to make sure that we’re successful and we’re helping them be successful.

Product, marketing, and sales come together to make an amazing experience, and product marketing is the central linchpin. We have the opportunity to work cross-functionally and make sure we’re bringing forward the best ideas and projects.

There’s a wealth of tools available to product marketers today, but the only tool with the power to bring product marketing forward is cross-functional alignment. It’s thinking about teams and opportunities together. I encourage you to take this step forward and start thinking about stakeholder alignment today.

The post Internal stakeholders and senior leadership: Are we all rowing in the right direction across product, marketing, and sales? appeared first on ProdSens.live.