Caktus Blog
2018

When a Clean Merge is Wrong
Git conflicts tell us when changes don’t go together. While working with other developers, or even when working more than one branch by yourself, changes to the same code can happen. Trying to merge them together will stop Git in its tracks.

What is Software Quality Assurance?
A crucial but often overlooked aspect of software development is quality assurance (QA). If you have an app in progress, you will likely hear this term throughout the development life cycle. It may seem that coding is the brunt of the development work, since without code your app doesn’t exist, but quality assurance efforts often consist of up to 50% of the total project effort (1) (and part of the QA effort is coding). Without quality assurance, your app may exist but it is unlikely it will function well, meet the objectives of your users, or be maintainable in the future. QA is important, but what exactly is it?

Managing Sprint Reviews for Multiple Clients or Projects
Sprint reviews for teams working with multiple clients and managing multiple projects can be a challenge. At Caktus, we combine more traditional sprint review guidelines with some tweaks to fit our company and client’s needs.

Basics of Django Rest Framework
What Is Django Rest Framework?
Django Rest Framework (DRF) is a library which works with standard Django models to build a flexible and powerful API for your project.

Add Value To Your Django Project With An API
How do your users interact with your web app? Do you have users who are requesting new features? Are there more good feature requests than you have developer hours to build? Often, a small addition to your app can open the door to let users build features they want (within limits) without using more of your own developers’ time, and you can still keep control over how data can be accessed or changed. That small addition is called an application programming interface, or API. APIs are used across the web, but if you aren’t a developer, you may not have heard of them. They can be easily built on top of Django projects, though, and can provide great value to your own developers as well as to your users.

UX Research Methods 3: Evaluating What Is
In previous blog posts on UX research methods, I discussed techniques we use to understand how users think and feel, what they need and want, and why; and those we use to analyze and understand user behavior.

UX Research Methods 2: Analyzing Behavior
Previously, I explained interviews, surveys, and card sorting as techniques that help UX researchers understand how users think and feel, what they need and want, and why. In this post, I will review UX research methods best suited to understand user behavior and its causes.

UX Research Methods 1: Understanding Thought Processes, Motivations, and Needs
In a previous blog post, Types of UX Research, I discussed how UX research can be classified. I explained qualitative and quantitative, generative and evaluative, formative and summative, and attitudinal and behavioral types of research. Within each of these categories of research, there are several methods that can be used to reach specific project objectives.

Types of UX Research
Requirements gathering (or product discovery) is a part of every development project. We must know what to build before we build it, and we must refine our understanding of what we are building as we move along. Discovery workshops are a format well-suited for certain types of projects before development begins, although requirements gathering continues throughout a development project.

Quick Tips: How to Find Your Project ID in JIRA Cloud
Have you ever created a filter in JIRA full of project names and returned to edit it, only to find all the project names replaced by five-digit numbers with no context? The trial and error approach (deleting and restoring numbers one by one until the project you wanted to remove no longer appears in the filter results) is painful. So, how do you find the ID for a project?