DEVOPSdigest

Developers must navigate a wide variety of challenges, from creating seamless software performance across an increasingly diverse array of devices and platforms to defending against sophisticated bot attacks. Developers can't afford to provide a subpar user experience — more than half of consumers said they would stop using a brand after just one bad encounter.

Yet the proliferation of devices and platforms, each with its own operating system and hardware specifications, creates many compatibility issues. Meanwhile, already sophisticated cybercriminals now have the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to launch their automated attacks.

Device intelligence helps developers rise to these challenges by providing critical insights into real-time performance, usage patterns, and device and application health. It monitors and analyzes device behavior to discern how users navigate applications, where they encounter problems, and when they behave suspiciously. This information allows developers to address bugs and detect and challenge untrusted traffic while personalizing the experience for trusted visitors.

Device intelligence stacks additional techniques on top of traditional device fingerprinting to create a more robust visitor identification strategy. Combining signals such as VPN detection and IP geolocation, device intelligence solutions create a unique, highly accurate, stable visitor identifier for every user, regardless of browser, location or device type. This technique enables DevOps teams to identify returning users for months.

Harnessing device intelligence empowers DevOps teams to thrive amid a dynamic tech landscape.

1. Fraud detection

Fraud detection is more critical — and difficult — than ever. Fraudsters use advanced AI tools to power their automated attacks and disguise their identity. Device intelligence equips developers with additional support to fight increasingly complex fraud attempts.

Accurate visitor identification secures accounts by requiring new and untrusted visitors to provide additional authentication before accessing their accounts. The step validates legitimate users and provides a safety net for phishing victims by preventing the use of stolen credentials or credit cards.

Behavior analysis exposes users exhibiting suspicious behavior, such as unusual login attempts, excessive account creation or atypical transaction patterns, potentially preventing account takeovers, payment fraud, and promotional abuse. By analyzing user behavior patterns, network traffic anomalies, and device characteristics, a device intelligence solution uses logic rules to detect and block automated scripts, scrapers, and other malicious bot activity. Device identification can also fight friendly fraud. Behavior monitoring alerts developers to repeat offenders with a history of chargebacks, failed payments, and fraudulent activity.

2. Enhanced application performance

Device intelligence can provide valuable insights into device-specific usage patterns, resource utilization, and performance bottlenecks. Tracking metrics like page load times, interaction delays, and error rates can reveal issues experienced only by certain devices or browsers. For example, an Android phone may encounter crashes on a checkout page when an iPhone does not. Variations in screen sizes, operating systems, software versions, and hardware capabilities can also create compatibility issues.

The granular data generated by device intelligence allows developers to identify specific problems, optimizing code and performance for a consistent user experience across platforms.

3. Customized user experience

Tailored online experiences reduce bounce rates, improve conversions, and increase revenue. But while new privacy regulations and browser features make most web traffic anonymous, personalization is still possible. Brands can leverage device intelligence to recognize the devices using their site without gathering personal demographics or requiring users to log in. These identification capabilities allow developers to deliver customized browsing experiences.

Device intelligence reduces login friction by verifying legitimate users and permitting them to bypass security processes like two-factor authentication. Even first-time visitors benefit from this technology, which identifies device type, screen size, and operating system to present content optimized for the user's machine. A stable visitor identifier allows the site to remember returning visitors' preferences regardless of browsing mode.

More than half of online shoppers are more likely to return to a site that recommends products. E-commerce sites can associate a visitor identifier with its previous on-site activity, allowing them to present a repeat user with recommended products, past search history, and cart inventory even if the shopper isn't logged in, making it easy for the customer to immediately resume their journey. Brands can even assign special promotions to unique visitor identifiers based on visit behavior, such as offering 10% off to an anonymous repeat visitor.

4. Improved user insight

Device intelligence enables marketing attribution and informs future software design. Businesses can assign credit for conversions and adjust strategies and features to facilitate the user journey by:

■ Analyzing user behavior.

■ Linking separate visitors together.

■ Associating sessions from within social media app webviews with browser sessions on the same device.

Developers can determine how users prefer to navigate the site and use this information to guide new design iterations. Brands can also identify experiences in the customer journey that lead to conversions. For example, a company might learn that the promotional code associated with a specific user behavior led to more sales, informing the design of future coupon strategies.

Device intelligence is poised to become a cornerstone of DevOps, equipping developers to build better software, elevate user experiences, and safeguard against fraud in the ever-evolving tech landscape.