App Development

Factors to Consider When Developing a Mobile App

Mobile application development today, is crucial for many reasons. Smartphone usage has developed fast enough and they replace the PC for a number of tasks, except process intensive, professional ones. If you are developing a mobile app and want it to achieve any degree of success, you need to consider the following:

Intended User Base

Many times app developers decide what it should look like and go about building it. Before you even begin writing a single line of code, you should know what the target audience is. You need to understand what they want and how they use their devices. This basic research will direct nearly all your decisions, during the development and deployment.

What is important?

If you don’t make a checklist of what features are truly important for the users in the app then you may spend a lot of time fine tuning the smallest details. Many developers often focus on these unimportant aspects of their app as a way to avoid working on the really difficult problems. Always put the big rocks in the place first and then work on the smaller, peripheral features.

No Perfect Product

Many professional have the idea of a perfect app that will do everything right the first time. The reality is that:

You don’t know exactly how users will use your app until it is in their hands
You can’t predict what features they will need in future
You won’t know what is wrong with your app unless it is extensively used by customers

Therefore, focus on experimenting with your features and design shipping them. This does not mean you can ship an unstable app. Decide on a feature and complete it and let users tell you (with usage data) about what more or less they want.

Simple vs. Simplistic

There is an increasing trend in app development towards design minimalism. This is a good idea, but some tend to take it too far. Whatever feature your app has, make it visible and easily accessible. There is a difference between an app that work in a simple manner and one that has the bare minimum. Workflow is more important than hiding UI elements.

It is also very important for you to consider what difference it makes for customers between a web app and a native app. If your app functions are simple enough, a web app may be more appropriate for your users.