Data443 Risk Mitigation Development Blog

by Damien O., Advanced Platform Developer at Data443

Over the past few weeks the Data443 Developers have been working to increase the user-friendliness of the ARALOC Web Publisher system. Historically a closed loop system with fixed OS-level application only, we opened it up to mobile and other platforms.

We started with making some small changes to allow the typical user to select the type of content they want to post, with the click of one button. We are also providing more options and features to the more advanced user by adding a new section not visible right away, but only accessible once a user gains a certain level of experience.  

After our developers were working on this, we concluded that there are some inadequacies with the current UI such as not being supported in some older browsers and not being reactive to mobile. Due to these problems we have decided to work on a complete UI rewrite of the application to bring a cleaner and more user-friendly interface to the user. 

Through this process we have actually acquired a new tool in our arsenal to assist in this called Balsamiq. This piece of software allows you to rapidly wireframe and design application very effectively. One of the greatest things about it is that it doesn’t allow you to get too caught up on colors and images that you are going to be using but really focus on the user experience and layout of the application.

We have also found that using completely custom CSS/JS for the application was not the best option. Using a framework called Bootstrap, developed by Twitter, we can create an incredibly high responsive application across all platforms. For fellow developers, examine their “grid system” – you might be very interested.

Over the next few weeks keep a look out for updates and new features being announced. We are working heavily on ARALOC and bringing a facelift to the valuable features it offers and expanding on the mobile-first footprint capability it has led with for years and years!