Our CEO, Chris Cera, recently attended the AI Engineer Code Summit, where industry leaders gathered to discuss the rapidly evolving landscape of AI-powered software development. As an AI-first healthcare product studio, we’re deeply invested in understanding how AI tools are transforming how we build digital products. The insights from this summit reveal some critical inflection points for the entire industry.

Here are the four key takeaways that are shaping how we think about AI-assisted development at Arcweb. Links to the full presentations can be found at the end of the article. 

1. The 90% vs 100% Problem: Why Complete AI Adoption Matters

Dan Shipper from Every Inc. presented perhaps the most thought-provoking concept of the summit: he demonstrated how a single engineer can now build and maintain four separate, complex production products using AI tools.

The real insight extended beyond individual productivity to organizational transformation. Shipper highlighted a critical distinction: there’s a fundamental difference between a company where 90% of engineers use AI and one where 100% do.

Why this matters: When only some of your team use AI tools, you create a two-tiered system with mismatched expectations, workflows, and output quality. The engineers who do not use AI become bottlenecks. Communication patterns break down, code review processes don’t align, and the team can’t fully optimize around AI-assisted workflows because they’re still accommodating traditional approaches.

The Arcweb perspective: This is the issue of our time in software development. As we build AI-focused solutions for our clients, we’re seeing AI adoption trends play out in real time within our own teams and when working closely with clients and partners. 

Organizations that commit fully to AI-powered software development demonstrate measurably faster delivery. GitHub’s research on their Copilot tool found that developers achieved up to 55% productivity increases and reduced cycle time by an average of 3.5 hours These gains require organizational commitment beyond just providing access to tools, however. As McKinsey’s 2024 State of AI report notes, while 65% of organizations now use generative AI regularly (double the previous year), most still struggle with integration challenges and scaling across teams.

In healthcare innovation, where time to market can literally save lives, the real value lies in delivering impactful solutions efficiently and at scale. This is why our positioning as an “AI-First” studio is a fundamental commitment to building our processes and culture around these tools from the ground up.

2. Moving Away from Agile: Rethinking Team Structure in the AI Era

Martin Harrysson and Natasha M. from McKinsey & Company presented fascinating research on how AI is forcing organizations to reconsider established software development methodologies, including the sacred cow of Agile.

Key observations:

• Large teams are increasingly splitting into smaller, more autonomous units
• Traditional Agile ceremonies and structures are being questioned
• The problem of large pull requests is becoming more acute as AI generates more code faster

Why this matters: When AI can generate substantial code blocks in seconds, many Agile practices need to be reconsidered. Rituals like stand-ups, sprint planning, and story pointing were built around development at human speed.

The Arcweb perspective: We’re already adapted our processes to accommodate AI-powered software development. Smaller, more focused teams can be even more efficient when empowered with AI tools. We haven’t abandoned all Agile principles, but we have evolved them. 

Compliance, security, and quality aren’t negotiable in healthcare development. We structure projects around small, autonomous teams, paired with rigorous code review protocols explicitly designed to maintain clinical-grade standards while capturing AI’s productivity gains. Speed matters, but not at the expense of the ethical, safety, and regulatory requirements healthcare demands.

3. The Mixed Reality of AI Productivity Gains

Perhaps the most sobering presentation came from Yegor Denisov-Blanch from Stanford’s Software Engineering Productivity Research Group, who asked the critical question: “Does AI Actually Boost Developer Productivity?”

The answer? It’s complicated.

Key research findings:

• Results are mixed when you measure real-world productivity gains
• “Reviewer burden” is increasing. Humans need more time to review AI-generated code
• “Rework” is becoming a significant issue, which is code that needs to be fixed or rewritten after initial AI generation
• Recent changes in code quality are raising important questions

Why this matters: The industry narrative around AI development tools has been overwhelmingly positive, but rigorous academic research is revealing a more nuanced reality. Yes, developers can write code faster with AI assistance. But if that code requires extensive review and frequent rework, have we actually gained productivity?

The Arcweb perspective: This research validates what we’re seeing in practice. AI tools are incredibly powerful, but they’re not magic. The real productivity gains come from:

1. Strategic AI use: Knowing when to leverage AI and when human expertise is more efficient
2. Strong review processes: Investing in thorough code review becomes even more critical, not less
3. Training and expertise: Developers need to learn how to prompt, review, and refine AI-generated code effectively

For healthcare applications where errors can have serious consequences, we’re particularly focused on quality and review. Our approach isn’t to blindly accept AI-generated code, but to use AI as a powerful tool within a rigorous quality-assurance framework, where human developers always have the final say.

4. Anthropic’s Ethical Leadership in AI Development

Throughout the summit, one company stood out not just for its technical capabilities but for how it’s approaching AI-powered software development: Anthropic.

Key observations:

• Anthropic is gaining significant traction among engineers, particularly for code generation, where Claude holds 42% market share which is more than double OpenAI’s 21%. Developers cite the company’s focus on security, privacy, and ethical AI development as key differentiators for enterprise applications.

Why this matters: As AI tools become infrastructure-critical to software development, the companies behind these tools matter more than ever. Developers are increasingly evaluating AI platforms on factors beyond raw performance. They’re considering the values, safety practices, and long-term vision of the companies building these tools.

The Arcweb perspective: As a B Corporation working in healthcare, we appreciate Anthropic’s early leadership in bringing ethical considerations to AI development. When we’re building solutions that handle sensitive patient data or support critical healthcare decisions, we need AI partners who prioritize safety, privacy, and ethics.

This perspective guides our platform-agnostic approach as we explore the breadth of AI tools such as Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude (especially Claude Code and the Agent SDK), and other specialized platforms for our own AI initiatives. We recognize that different providers bring different strengths to the table, and the combination of technical excellence and ethical foundation across the ecosystem enables responsible healthcare innovation and AI-first solutions that scale.

Check Out the Talks

Didn’t get a chance to make it out to the summit? Interested in diving deeper? Check out the full talks on YouTube: 

• Full Stream (8+hours)
• Shipper Presentation
• Harryson/Maniar Presentation

What This Means for Healthcare Innovation

These insights from the AI Engineer Code Summit have direct implications for how we approach healthcare innovation at Arcweb:

1. Clear alignment with AI  is our competitive advantage
   We are building our entire development culture around AI tools, enabling faster and more efficient delivery for our healthcare clients. This lets us move faster and more efficiently for our healthcare clients.
2. Quality processes are more important than ever
   AI speed without quality controls is dangerous, especially in healthcare. We’re investing heavily in review processes and quality assurance frameworks designed for AI-assisted development.
3. Ethical AI partnerships matter
   Working with AI providers who share our commitment to safety, privacy, and ethical development is foundational to responsible healthcare innovation.

The Road Ahead

The conversations at the AI Engineer Code Summit confirm what we’re experiencing firsthand: we’re in the middle of a fundamental transformation in how software gets built. The developers and organizations that will thrive in this new era will be those who thoughtfully integrate AI tools while maintaining high standards for quality, security, and ethics.

For healthcare innovation specifically, this transformation represents an unprecedented opportunity. AI-assisted development can help us build better clinical tools faster, deploy wellness protocols more efficiently, and ultimately improve patient outcomes at scale. But only if we do it right.

At Arcweb, we’re committed to leading this transformation responsibly: building AI-first solutions that honor the trust healthcare organizations and patients place in us.

Want to discuss how AI-first development can accelerate your healthcare innovation project? Get in touch with our team to explore how we can help you build better healthcare solutions faster.

Check out Arcwell, our open-source platform for delivering wellness protocols and clinical research—built from the ground up for accelerating and empowering clinical trials management and driving better outcomes for patients.

The post AI Engineer Code Summit 2025: Key Insights on the Future of AI-Powered Development appeared first on Arcweb Technologies.

“Imagine a world where patients can access free, evidence-based wellness protocols from their phones in a completely secure, private environment,” says Arcweb CEO Chris Cera. “That’s the world we’re building with Arcwell. We’re reaching out to vision-aligned clinical leaders at healthcare providers and contract research organizations to co-create the future of low-cost care delivery.”

As launched today, healthcare organizations can use Arcwell to design, build, and deploy clinical trials and wellness protocols, taking advantage of the robust rules engine to facilitate autonomous clinical operations and decision support. Planned updates include SDKs for developers to leverage when integrating Arcwell in their applications and a FHIR-compliant electronic health record (EHR) system for cache, local record, and integration with health systems.

For healthcare organizations of any size, Arcwell improves cost and speed to market. It enables organizations to conduct Electronic Clinical Outcome Assessments (eCOA) and collect Patient Reported Outcomes (ePRO) within an Electronic Data Capture (EDC) system, confident that their study can easily graduate on the same infrastructure. And, since Arcwell is released under the Apache2 open-source software license, vendor lock-in and total cost of ownership are drastically reduced.

In addition to making the source code freely available on GitHub, Arcweb has two successful Arcwell implementations with two healthcare institutions:

• Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania used the Arcwell platform to power a clinical trial evaluating the effectiveness of a patient navigation tool for antepartum anemia. “When we designed this clinical study, we needed a clinical research platform that made being part of the study easy and appealing for participants and that allowed us to securely and privately collect, analyze and report on findings,” said the study’s lead author Natasha Kumar, MD, a former fellow in Maternal Fetal Medicine at Penn. “The platform also needed to be flexible enough to support the study without too much overhead. Tools like this are vital to researchers.”
• “Our custom decision support tool, built on top of Arcwell, enables us to stay on the cutting edge of neonatal resuscitation,” says Tom Reynolds, Business Manager. “It handles our 4,000+ custom clinical rules with ease, which is crucial to ensure our clinicians have the right information at the right time.”

Arcweb is actively soliciting input from clinical champions to inform Arcwell’s development roadmap. “We want this effort to be as inclusive as possible,” says Cera. “We want to hear from any provider, clinical research organizer or pharma innovator with a promising new intervention they’re trying to test. We envision a future where Arcwell is leveraged across a broad range of use cases, including those we haven’t even thought of yet, from developing AI-driven applications and digital companions, to enabling digital diagnostics, identifying digital biomarkers, supporting remote patient monitoring (RPM), advancing telehealth solutions, and driving real-world evidence (RWE) initiatives. Our goal is to create a flexible platform that can power the next generation of healthcare innovations. We want real world use cases to inform the finished product, so it has the greatest impact possible.”

Arcwell is distributed under the open-source Apache 2.0 license, and is available to download at https://github.com/arcweb/arcwell

To find out how you can help shape Arcwell’s future, visit https://arcwell.health

See the press release on PR Web: https://www.prweb.com/releases/arcweb-technologies-unveils-open-source-clinical-research-platform-arcwell-302281989.html

The post Arcweb Technologies unveils open-source clinical research platform Arcwell appeared first on Arcweb Technologies.

This is where AI comes in! 

I’ve discovered 5 game-changing AI hacks that every software developer should know. Trust me, you’ll wonder how you ever managed without them. Here are my top tips with some real-life examples: 

1. Easily Switch Context

As contractors, we are constantly switching between projects, clients, and technology frameworks. ChatGPT can act as a teacher and save us from reading extensive documentation. Have your Chat GPT teacher provide you with only the key points needed to switch context quickly and efficiently – like lifecycles and hooks.

2. Pass off the Grunt Work

Let your AI assistant handle all the tedious and repetitive tasks. For instance, if you receive a chunk of HTML code that needs parsing to extract raw HTML for creating new components, simply paste it into ChatGPT rather than manually dissecting it yourself. 

You can always finesse how the code looks after it is generated, and you can repeat this over and over without retyping the commands. In other words, there’s no need to get bogged down in routine tasks when you have AI. Pass off the boring stuff and focus instead on tackling more critical challenges for your clients.

3. Get the TL;DR

Don’t want to read 500 lines of code to understand a file? Don’t want to slog through code that isn’t descriptive enough or sift through big single line logic or complicated hooks? Paste the entire code into Chat GPT and ask it to summarize. It does an amazing job of pulling out and defining the important info in a bulleted list. You can even have it outline what each class does, its methods and their signatures, how it’s configured, and so much more. 

4. Fix bugs

Did you know chat GPT can even help you find a bug? In the example below, there was a bug preventing users from being able to expand the accordion by clicking on the line of text. Users could only expand the accordion by clicking on the tiny accordion icon. Instead of reading through all the CSS and fiddling with it to find the issue, I copied the code into Chat GPT and had it locate the bug. I have saved hours by leveraging the processing speed of my AI assistant!

5. Predict code

Ever wished for a magic wand to predict your code? Well, it’s not magic – it’s AI. 

GitHub Copilot knows where you are going and what you are trying to do based on names and comments in your work. Begin typing the name of the function you want and watch Copilot suggest your next code block and direction. This is particularly helpful when you are learning a new codebase or unfamiliar with a project. 

Let’s say you are returning to C# and .NET for the first time in a while. In the past, it might have taken hours to figure out the correct syntax for creating a new service or API call. Now, you can simply ask Copilot to “log the response” and it will remind you to use Console.WriteLine() instead of console.log().

Say goodbye to wasted time!

Using these time-saving AI hacks makes the challenge of software development easier and more efficient. With AI doing the grunt work and providing instant insights, you can focus on solving the more complex problems of your job and deliver high-quality results for your clients. Embrace the power of AI, and you’ll find yourself wondering how you ever managed without these game-changing tools!

The post 5 Game-Changing AI Hacks for Software Developers appeared first on Arcweb Technologies.

• • The User Experience (UX)
  • What is a UX Design Audit?
  • Who Benefits from User Experience Audits?
  • Why Should Your Business Conduct an Audit?
  • Best UX Audit Tools
  • The UX Design Audit Process
  • Industry-Specific UX Design Considerations
  • Ensuring Success in Your UX Design 

The User Experience (UX)

Imagine downloading a new mobile application to make an appointment with your healthcare provider. When you open the app, it takes 20 seconds to load. Once loaded, you notice the font is small, blends into the background, and is difficult to read. You also navigate through several pages and cannot figure out how to make the appointment. Would you continue using this app? 

The design and user experience of digital products directly impact your customers. If you neglect to audit your digital product design, users could be encountering a myriad of issues without your knowledge. The best way to avoid this is to stay proactive and conduct a UX design audit.

Arcweb Technologies provides UX audits and design services. Our proven process includes an in-depth design audit to help drive success for our clients and their users. Read on to learn more about what a design audit is, who it benefits, and how to conduct one.

What is a UX Design Audit?

A design audit from Arcweb Technologies provides a detailed analysis of your product’s existing user experience and feature set. Our audits focus on accessibility, cross-platform functionality, and UX design best practices.

However, there are several elements that a design audit will uncover:

• ADA compliance issues such as missing image alt text
• Illegible fonts
• Confusing user flow 
• Inconsistencies in branding across pages or devices
• Cluttered layouts 
• Missing navigational links 

In short, a design audit helps ensure that your users have the best possible experience with your digital product. Any business in any industry can benefit from conducting a design audit on their digital products. 

While the concept of an audit may strike fear in business owners, the changes made as a result will be overwhelmingly positive. Product design companies like Arcweb are well-versed in conducting and implementing fixes that result from design audits.

Who Benefits from User Experience Audits?

When conducting your audit, the primary objective is to benefit the users. Business owners can fall into the trap of building an app for their own business needs. Or, they think they know why visitors are using their digital products or software, and then build the design based on these assumptions. 

But the focus should be on delivering an experience that aligns with the users’ expectations and needs. The journey that users take when interacting with your product should be intuitive, streamlined, and efficient. 

Today’s users value quick, straightforward user interfaces (UI). About 50% of visitors will abandon a website or mobile application that takes more than 6 seconds to load. Product design UI that is slow, confusing, or overwhelming will do nothing but frustrate your users. 

The results of your UX audit will be mutually beneficial for your business and your clients. If your product design team is willing to take the necessary steps to fix problems that arise from your audit, users will enjoy a better experience with your product.

When users are happy with a product, they are less likely to seek alternatives. This can help with retention and referrals from satisfied clients, not to mention help increase your bottom line. 

Why Should Your Business Conduct an Audit?

There are several reasons that indicate when a UX design audit is needed. Even experiencing one of the concerns listed below should signal that conducting an audit is a top priority. If you resonate with several of these, it may be time for a complete product overhaul:

Reason 1: Your digital product is underperforming

Are conversion rates low? Do customers leave your application within seconds of arriving? Is your business losing profits as a result? An audit will reveal these issues and offer the next steps to help you meet your goals.

Reason 2: Users are complaining

Have your clients reached out with negative feedback about the product’s user experience? It’s not uncommon to get some complaints that you can easily debug. However, if you’re consistently receiving complaints, especially when it is about the same issue, it’s time to dig deeper.

By conducting an audit, you can find out if user complaints pertain to the entire product or just certain areas. That way, you can solve foundational issues before they snowball into something larger and more difficult to correct.

Reason 3: You’re updating your products or services

Maybe the products and services listed on your digital platform or website need to be updated. It may not be as simple as just changing what’s listed in your navigation. You will also need to check whether the content on all pages reflects your new offerings.

If all areas are not updated, your visitors will be confused as to what information is accurate. And confused users tend to leave a platform without taking further action.

Reason 4: Your target audience has changed

If your products or services have changed, it’s likely that your audience has as well. Has your business repositioned recently to serve either a wider or more niche audience? Different audiences have different needs and expectations when they’re using your digital product. 

By conducting an audit, you can ensure that your UI is set up in a way that makes sense to your new target audience. You can also identify individual pages and pieces of content that may no longer reflect the needs of your audience. From here, editing or completely removing inaccurate content will assist with your repositioning efforts.

Reason 5: You’re rebranding

Inconsistencies in branding across your digital presence are a huge issue. They can lead to your clients wondering whether the digital product is actually associated with your brand. 

If your business is undergoing a rebranding, it’s time to conduct a UX audit. This will ensure all fonts, logos, colors, imagery, and other visual elements align with your revamped brand guidelines. Don’t forget to update branding across all digital platforms as well, including other domains, products, and social media.

Reason 6: Your digital product needs a refresh

Has it been a while since you’ve conducted an audit? Your app design or functionality might need to be refreshed. The tech industry moves fast, and your team must move faster to anticipate your users’ ever-changing needs. Having a modernized product reflects your ability to do just that.

By staying on top of product issues and actively working to improve, you can demonstrate to current and potential customers that you value their experience with your brand.

Best UX Audit Tools

There are countless free and paid tools available that will help your business conduct an in-depth UX audit. The best tool for your needs may vary depending on whether you’re auditing a website, a mobile application, a computer application, or something else. 

Regardless of the platform you’re analyzing, these are a few of the most popular audit tools: 

• Google Analytics: Google Analytics is a free tool that offers extensive information about how users are interacting with your application or website. By adding a code to the backend of your digital product, you can uncover information such as average session duration, goal conversion rates, user errors, and more. 
• Crazy Egg: While Crazy Egg is not free, the information you get is incredibly valuable. It’s a heat mapping tool that provides a visual representation of how users are interacting with your website. You can uncover how far users typically scroll down a page, where they’re clicking, and what people engage with the most. 
• UXCam: This platform allows you to record, analyze, and share sessions and events to uncover mobile app usage patterns. Along with heatmap analytics, UXCam offers in-depth visibility into performance issues and where users are dropping off.
• Mixpanel: Mixpanel is a leading product analytics software company that tracks user interactions with web and mobile applications. Data is collected and used to build custom reports that reveal user engagement and retention.

The UX Design Audit Process

Step 1: Start with a heuristic analysis

“Heuristics” are broad rules of thumb and not specific usability guidelines. But a good heuristic analysis can provide you with a place to start, and a focused list of universal criteria to evaluate. If you’re unsure how to develop one that specifically fits your situation, Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design have been a helpful touchstone for almost 30 years.

Step 2: Look at your quantitative data

Your analytics will tell you where the most critical places are to review. Are users dropping off at a specific place in your onboarding? Is a particular feature critical to your business case being underutilized? Analytics will help you identify these issues.

Step 3: Look at your qualitative data

What are your users telling you? Do you have support requests or negative reviews? Those can be a great place to dig deeper, especially when coupled with quantitative data.

Step 4: Review your design system

One of the criteria of Nielson’s heuristics is, “Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform and industry conventions.” As a digital product iterates and matures over time, some inconsistencies are bound to work their way into production. Take some time to go through your product, and screenshot every instance of the various UI components such as buttons, forms, links, headers, navigation, footers, etc. You’re looking for two things: visual consistency and behavioral consistency. Be sure to pay extra attention to things like alignment, scaling, consistent padding and margins, etc.

Step 5: Conduct an accessibility analysis

With 55 million Americans living with a disability, considering web accessibility is a must. And in the U.S., digital project owners are required by law to make their digital products available to all categories of users. You’ll need to consider the things that impact a full range of disabilities, including: 

• Color and contrast
• Typography and font size
• Images, video, and other media (descriptive alt text, captions, transcripts, accessible video players)

Step 6: Do responsiveness testing

Does your digital product fit a variety of resolutions? Consider where it will appear  (computers, mobile phones, tablets), then identify and solve any issues that prevent your product from properly displaying.

Step 7: Do performance testing

How does your product fare when in action? Slow loading or any other unsatisfactory performance could blow your chances at what otherwise might be a great success. 

Step 8: Document and report your findings

Once you’ve run through the above steps, you may have a long list of possible issues to address. There are many ways to parse such a list, but we find that the quickest and most effective way is to plot the issues on a 2×2 matrix (also called an impact effort matrix) of impact vs. effort. Start with high impact/low effort, which will help you build momentum to tackle the rest of the issues.

Healthcare-Specific UX Design Audit Considerations

No matter what industry applies to your digital product, a UX audit is still a key part of its success. However, healthcare has specific concerns that should be considered during the design audit process.

The 21st Century Cures Act (Cures), passed in 2016, has generated key compliance requirements that must be addressed in the design and UX process:

• Interoperability: Due to regulations, health data needs to be seamlessly accessible for both patients and providers across geographic boundaries. Interoperability refers to the extent and quality of that data sharing and exchange between different computer systems.
• Information blocking: Information blocking is any practice that either intentionally or unintentionally prevents relevant parties from accessing, exchanging, or using electronic health information. This often interferes with a provider’s ability to successfully manage and treat a patient’s health. Data blocking also makes it more difficult to find treatments and cures for diseases and to make healthcare more affordable to the masses. Due to regulations, this must be addressed and eliminated in the audit process.

One of the most important UX considerations within the healthcare space is ease of access to important policy information. The CARIN UX Guide is an online resource that provides clear UX guidelines and examples of how to craft user-friendly digital experiences that empower users to access and share their healthcare information.

Ensuring Success in Your UX Design

With the countless benefits of conducting a UX design audit, we recommend getting started as soon as possible. However, audits can be a long process that requires both time and resources that you may not currently have. Our engagements have been built a bit differently than traditional approaches and ensure a successful outcome for your project. 

• At Arcweb, our methodology emphasizes flexibility and efficiency, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach like the ones provided by large consulting companies.
• With an Arcweb UX Design Audit, you’ll come away with more than just a list of issues with your existing product. Your Arcweb design team will provide solutions for identified UX issues by creating clickable prototypes. With an Arcweb UX Design Audit, you’ll walk away with the blueprint for your product’s success.
• All Arcweb UX audit experts  —  from project manager, UX architect to UI/UX designers, to QA testers — already have years of experience working together across a variety of projects. This translates to more efficient use of resources, faster scale-up, and more robust finished products.

By partnering with Arcweb Technologies, you can ensure that your audit is done the right way, by the right people, using the right approach. Let’s discuss your upcoming digital project and discover how we can work together to drive your success.

The post UX Design Audit 101 for Digital Products appeared first on Arcweb Technologies.

Inclusive Design is a methodology that takes into account the large range of human diversity. We use this methodology to make our digital products accessible and ensure our software is usable by everyone.

This means going further than just ensuring you don’t exclude someone. It means actively ensuring that everyone has the same digital opportunities. If your business hasn’t taken steps to maintain compliance with accessibility guidelines, you are likely missing out on chances to connect with and provide value to your customers.

At Arcweb, we are making inclusivity and accessibility the building blocks of our software design process. Read on to learn more about why it’s so essential.

Accessible Design is Good for Business

Accessibility efforts make our software more usable for everyone, regardless of ability or situation. 26 percent (1 in 4) of adults in the United States have some form of disability. So, designing for accessibility also makes our software available to a broader population. This means a broader potential customer base for our clients.

Also, not complying with accessibility standards can open our clients up to costly legal issues. If a business is found noncompliant with ADA guidelines, it can be hit with fines of up to $55,000 per occurrence.

As a trusted partner for our clients, we must be aware of this risk and diligently take steps to avoid it. We work in highly regulated industries such as healthcare and finance where this issue is likely to arise.

Accessible design is simply the right thing to do and directly aligns with Arcweb’s core values:

• Listen to Every Voice
• Do The Right Thing
• Be Passionate About Service
• Elevate Those Around You

Accessibility dovetails with our ongoing internal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts. In order to achieve B Corporation Status, an organization must consider the social and environmental impact of their decisions on their stakeholders. However, there’s no specific discussion about accessibility requirements. This is something that should change as such efforts are aligned with the ethos.

Changing Our Definition of Disability

“A mismatched interaction between a person and their environment is a function of design. Change the environment, not the body. For people who design and develop technology, every choice we make either raises or lowers these barriers.” — Kat Holmes, Principal Director of Inclusive Design at Microsoft

The previously accepted definition of a disability as a personal health condition is outdated. Why? Because software development decisions impact people who may not have a permanent disability. A person’s abilities can change depending on their environment.

Designs that help someone with a situational limitation can also help those with temporary disabilities. Microsoft refers to this range of conditions as “the persona spectrum.” Let’s break down each persona:

• Permanent Disability: Limitations that follow a person regardless of their situation. This can include being deaf, blind, nonverbal, or missing a limb.
• Temporary Disability: Short-term limitations such as an ear infection, cataract, broken bone, or the flu.
• Situational Disability: Limitations that change depending on an individual’s surroundings. For example, someone could experience severe anxiety if they’re in a loud or crowded environment.

How To Think About Software Accessibility

Don’t let perfection be the enemy of progress. Remember that it’s almost impossible to create 100% accessible software. That said, here are some steps that the Arcweb team takes on every new project to ensure we’re building with accessibility in mind:

1. Recognize exclusion. Designing for inclusivity not only opens up products and services to more people but also reflects how people really are. All humans grow and adapt to the world around them.
2. Solve for one, extend to many. Everyone has abilities, and limits to those abilities. Designing for people with permanent disabilities actually results in designs that benefit people universally.
3. Learn from diversity. Human beings are the real experts in adapting to diversity. Inclusive design puts people in the center from the very start of the process, and those fresh, diverse perspectives are the key to true insight.

Understanding Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are part of a series of web accessibility guidelines published by the Web Accessibility Initiative of the World Wide Web Consortium. This is the main international standards organization for the Internet.

There are 3 levels of accessibility compliance a digital product can meet:

• A – Bare minimum. If this level isn’t met, assistive technology may not be able to read, understand, or fully operate the page.
• AA – Ideal support. This level is required for multiple government and public body websites. This is the level we aim for at Arcweb in all our software development projects.
• AAA – Specialized support. This level is typically reserved for parts of websites and web apps that serve a highly-specialized audience.

WCAG guidelines require that web content is POUR: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust. Let’s walk through what each of these principles means.

WCAG Principle #1: Perceivable

This principle states that your audience should be able to distinguish content no matter how they perceive it. There are multiple ways this can be achieved:

• Provide text alternatives for non-text content
• Provide captions and other alternatives for multimedia
• Create content that can be presented in different ways, including by assistive technologies, without losing meaning
• Make it easier for users to see and hear content

By following these steps, you can ensure that users are gaining the same information regardless of how they interact with your software.

WCAG Principle #2: Operable

Your software should be operable and responsive to user interactions, including assistive technologies. Here’s how:

• Make all functionality navigable with just a keyboard
• Give users enough time to read and use content
• Do not use content that may cause seizures or physical reactions
• Help users navigate and find content

Essentially, your software design should be user-friendly and easy to navigate. If your users are confused, they will likely become frustrated and use another software.

WCAG Principle #3: Understandable

All designs should contain clear instructions and messaging to help users correct errors. If something goes wrong, people should immediately be able to identify how to fix it. This can be achieved by:

• Making text readable and understandable
• Making content appear and operate in predictable ways
• Helping users avoid and correct mistakes with pre-programmed error messages

WCAG Principle #4: Robust

Last (but not least), your design should be robust. It should be flexible enough to adapt to a variety of input methods. Even as technologies and users evolve over time, your content must remain accessible and compatible with assistive technologies.

How Do We Ensure Our Software Is Accessible?

Here are some simple steps you can take to get started on your journey of creating accessible software:

1. Include Subtitles:Make sure your audio and video content have accurate subtitles or captions, including descriptions of non-verbal sounds like laughter, rain, or footsteps. Automated video captioning is accurate, but it’s always a good idea to confirm that everything is correct. You can also provide videos featuring sign-language as well.
2. Provide Transcripts: A transcript is the same word-for-word content as captions, but presented in a separate document. Transcripts improve the user’s understanding of an audio or video by allowing them to read at their own pace and search within it. A transcript will even benefit your site SEO since it is findable by a search engine.
3. Make Content Flexible: Mobile technology like an iPhone or Apple Watch are important to deaf users. These devices are helpful for navigating and curating information. Your content should be flexible enough to fit all kinds of screens. Make sure you do adequate quality assurance on all screen sizes.

Tools to Enhance and Maintain Web Accessibility

Many of the standard Arcweb frameworks have built-in web accessibility support. For example, Angular and ReactNative both have higher level accessibility support that uses or adds to the support of their underlying technologies, web, and mobile.

We have multiple tools at our disposal to drive accessibility compliance for our clients and their users. Here are just a few that we recommend:

• Axe Core: An accessibility testing engine for websites and other HTML-based interfaces. Axe Core integrates with existing test environments, allowing your team to automate accessibility testing with your other testing processes.
• Pa11y: A command-line interface that loads web pages and highlights any accessibility issues it finds on a daily basis. Pa11y scans the markup of each page and reports whether the markup passes their test cases.
• ESLint: An open-source analysis tool that helps your team locate and fix problems within your JavaScript code. ESLint addresses code quality and coding style problems on a given page.
• Bug trackers for assistive technologies (e.g. Chromium Bug Tracker and assistive tech screen readers like JAWS and NVDA): Public bug databases that contain clear and detailed descriptions of bugs on a given platform or website. These include screenshots of what the error is, the console output the bug was found on, and other helpful information for users.
• axe DevTools: A free testing browser extension that helps web and mobile developers catch accessibility issues while coding. This reduces the time and costs of manual accessibility tests.
• ‘Stark’ plugin for Figma: Stark Suite is a powerful combination of integrated tools like a Contrast Checker, Alt Text Annotations, Vision Simulator, and more. It allows you to find accessibility issues in a design before it reaches production.

Do not try to reinvent the wheel. There are a plethora of options to choose from that will guide you on your journey towards WCAG-compliant content.

How QA Ensures Accessible Software Design

At Arcweb, our software design and development teams diligently keep up with accessibility tools and use them in our QA testing. We test while always being mindful of accessibility.

Our testing process addresses multiple disabilities, including color blindness, hearing impairment, and more. In addition, we verify that the application flow is usable by any person and follows common software practices.

However, inclusive design has not always been a part of our process. So, our team has devoted time to auditing past projects to assess whether they met A and AA WCAG checklist items. If not, we discuss how close we were to meet these guidelines and how far we have to go to reach our goal.

As we move forward, each team member will be educated on all relevant accessibility requirements. And, all processes have been updated to promote accessible design as a priority.

Our Path to Success

Accessible software design is a team sport. It’s not just a QA, Design, or Engineering team task; everyone has to be on board. Otherwise, results will be inconsistent and ineffective.

We’ve adopted an accessibility mindset at Arcweb to help us succeed and deliver the best results for our clients. And we didn’t start from scratch. We will continue to leverage the variety of compliance tools available to our advantage.

Our upgraded software design and development processes were built to help our clients reach their clients regardless of disabilities. Software is meant for everyone and should not exclude those with physical limitations.

Reach out to Arcweb Technologies today to learn more about accessible product design.

The post Intro to Accessibility in Software Design appeared first on Arcweb Technologies.

Colin and Len shared processes, best practices, and experience from Arcweb’s decade-plus of successful product design and strategy, and shared the steps that we use to help our clients build winning product strategies and position their products for a successful development process, go-to-market, and sustained growth.

Some of the topics we covered include:

• How to validate a product idea
• Identifying risk and technical challenges
• Building internal buy-in
• Customer and market research
• The power of design prototyping

Are you ready to take your own product to market? Contact our team to find out how we can help.

The post Digital Product Strategy: How To Turn A Business Idea Into A Product appeared first on Arcweb Technologies.

The post 21st Century Cures Act Infographic appeared first on Arcweb Technologies.

Here are a few of Arcweb’s favorite design tools that we’ve used to stay effective and deliver top-tier results in our new hybrid work world.

Figjam: Hybrid Design Collaboration

Figjam is a relatively new feature in Figma, and it is a game changer for hybrid design collaboration. A group of people can be in one file all at once, see each other’s pointers and exactly what they are doing, and perform brainstorming activities just like we would do in a design studio.

We can sketch ideas with a pencil tool, create post it notes and sort them into collections collaboratively, paste in images, react to ideas with emojis, and best of all we can voice chat directly in the app so we can talk to each other as all of this goes on without having to also open Zoom and fumble between the two. It really is the next best thing to being in-person for collaborating with your team.

Figma Commenting: Instant Feedback

We usually post a Figma link in Slack to get attention to something that needs design feedback. If other team members have simple, general feedback, it works fine to reply in Slack—but things really start getting lost in translation when the feedback is specific to a specific part of the design. That’s why we love the Figma commenting feature, which lets you post a comment directly on a design element and even tag the person it is intended for.

This is actually better than live verbal feedback, because it is documented for everyone to read and join the conversation, whether they are in the office or at home. Best of all, the conversation can live exactly where it belongs. This completely eliminates the confusion around what part of the design the feedback is intended to reference.

Slack: Team-Building And Hybrid Collaboration

We have always loved Slack, but during the pandemic Slack became our lifeline to connecting with our coworkers. We started using it for celebrating things that used to be in-office events like birthdays, anniversaries, and life events. But most importantly, we used it to spark the same kind of spontaneous interaction that we missed about being in person and to check in on each other and make sure no one was sinking too low into an isolation hole. We did this by utilizing Slack apps like “Donut” to ping everyone to spark a fun random topic of conversation, “Water Cooler Trivia” to bring some fun competition to our days, and a lot of specific channels to fit into lots of people’s different personal interests.

Now that we are hybrid, we still make a point to put important information, exciting news, and project milestones on Slack. A new way we use slack is taking polls on when we plan to come into the office so others can see how populated a specific day of the week will be. The more we share on Slack, the more we feel connected. No matter how many people are working remotely or in the office on any given day, we make a point to use Slack to support our hybrid teams by ensuring everyone has the same access to all conversations.

Jira: Workflow Co-Ordination

Once you have worked all of your design magic, Jira is the tool for ensuring you effectively communicate your designs with the dev team and make it really come to life. It works great for hybrid design teams because you can also integrate Jira with Slack so everyone on the team will see notifications when a task is complete, giving us back that team unity feeling we had when we were all together in the office. Designers use Jira as the final step of the design process, where we make sure to write out the acceptance criteria to ensure the design works as intended.

As an added benefit, we find that the act of writing acceptance criteria is incredibly helpful for making sure all loose ends are tied up. We always think of something we didn’t think of before, and it makes the design better and more complete when we go through this process.

Zoom and Zoom Whiteboard: Hybrid Meetings and Collaborative Design

Zoom has become more used than ever before thanks to the pandemic. In the depths of the pandemic we used it for everything from daily chats to completely remote holiday parties—but now that we are hybrid, we have new solutions. For big company meetings we have the office set up with a TV and a big table with lots of microphones spaced around it so that a group of people in the office can all talk to the remainder of the team who is remote. In other scenarios, hybrid design team meetings consist of the people in the office sitting together, but with each person having their computers open so that everyone’s face is equally seen on Zoom.

Zoom seems like a simple, straightforward tool, but there are a lot of useful things about it that are widely underused. Did you know it has a whiteboard? When you share your screen and have to choose a screen, you can choose “whiteboard” and everyone in the meeting can add annotations and collaborate together! It is not as robust as Figjam, but it is really great for situations where you want to spontaneously make the conversation more interactive but do not want to interrupt the flow to move everyone to another tool. It’s just one more way to give hybrid teams that sense of togetherness.

Hybrid Design Is About Staying Flexible

Changes in how we work will always require changes in how we collaborate, and as we continue to adjust to a post-pandemic hybrid world we will undoubtedly find even more ways to refine and improve our design process. But with a little flexibility, some useful tools, and team spirit, teams like ours can continue delivering the same high quality results.

The post UX Design In a Hybrid World: Our Favorite Tools for Collaboration appeared first on Arcweb Technologies.

Arcweb Technologies knows what makes a good product. We have more than a decade of experience bringing successful digital products to market, and we’ve turned that expertise into a flexible digital strategy engagement model that provides a range of services to ensure successful business decisions for your new product or software system.

In a condensed time frame, our expert team can identify the right technology, user experience approach, and software architecture to satisfy your business needs, while also guiding you through build vs. buy decisions, utilization of open source components, and cloud computing deployment and management.

When you partner with Arcweb, we work closely with you to tailor our engagement to your exact needs and build a team that provides the right services and expertise. Each team is assembled from our roster of full-time software and product design experts to meet the specific requirements of your project, and typically includes a combination of project management, software architecture, UX architecture, and UX design expertise.

Digital Product Strategy Services

Arcweb’s digital strategy engagements are built to ensure a successful outcome for your project, and are ideal if you have identified a business challenge but not how to solve it. We use our years of software and product expertise to go deep on your challenge—understanding business needs, user needs, and technology needs, while asking the right questions to drive a successful outcome.

We can provide a variety of different types of strategy engagement, each designed to solve a particular business challenge—whether that is due diligence, early product strategy, or high-level technology leadership. Arcweb provides the precise expertise and outcomes that you need to succeed.

1. Technical Due Diligence Consulting

Designed for venture capital and private equity clients, a due diligence engagement provides an in-depth analysis of an existing digital product or software platform. Our team scrutinizes every aspect of both the product and company, including organizational structure, skill set and composition, and long-term stability and scalability.

Our software experts then provide a detailed report that will alert you to any issues and provide in-depth recommendations about potential partners, growth plans, and infrastructure or software architecture improvements.

2. Technical Leadership Consulting

A technical leadership engagement provides a small and focused team to think through your problem space and identify the technology risks, opportunities, and requirements—while making smart recommendations to ensure success.

Arcweb can also provide a variety of leadership services, which may include management of an existing team, the establishment and direction of a Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), and CTO-level recommendations and hiring oversight.

3. Product Prototyping Consulting

The Arcweb team has over a decade of experience creating successful product prototypes. Combining product strategy with design and architecture expertise, a prototyping engagement will help take your project from a rough idea to a well-scoped, development-ready strategy, with detailed deliverables to ensure organizational buy-in.

4. Design Audit

A design audit from Arcweb Technologies provides a detailed analysis of your product’s existing user experience and feature set, with a focus on usability, cross-platform functionality, and design best practices.

Flexible strategy engagements

Each strategy engagement is built around a flexible team that is based on the specific needs needs of your project, from project management and UX design to software architecture and CTO-level guidance. We can also provide specific domain expertise in areas such as healthcare and fintech.

Digital product strategy experts

Arcweb has over a decade of experience designing, building, and launching successful digital products. We have expertise across a variety of industries, for companies ranging in size from startups to the Fortune 500. Our proven track record of success and flexible engagement models have made Arcweb the partner of choice for more than 80 companies, including global leaders in their fields.

To learn more about how Arcweb can ensure success for your next digital product or technology project, and how we can make your next project a success, contact our team today.

The post Digital Product Strategy Consulting appeared first on Arcweb Technologies.

Last summer, CMS began enforcing the Patient Access rule, a new healthcare data rule that requires most payers to grant access to a wide range of claims, pharmaceutical, and clinical data through a standardized API. This is a sea change for healthcare data, representing the first time that third-party companies will have access to patient data outside of HIPAA and under the auspices of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

First in the Series:

Patient Access API: Introduction Webinar

Did you miss our introduction to the US’s Patient Access rule? Catch up with this high-level briefing that explores how it’s impacting app developers, payers, and the pharmaceutical industry.

The post Patient Access API: Q&A with Industry Leaders appeared first on Arcweb Technologies.