6 Keys for Successful Mobile App Development

When creating a mobile app, as a customer you might face challenges at every stage of the development process. Based on our experience and best practices in mobile app development, we’ve come up with several practical tips for you to succeed.

Conduct market research

In case you are thinking about a consumer app, market research will give you a deeper insight into who your users and competitors are and what they want. Understanding current and predicting future market needs helps not only achieve your short-term objectives but also plan for future growth in this massively expanding mobile market.

Market research can be a strong foundation for your mobile strategy. So, first of all, consider consumer needs, timing and trends to make sure that you are going to build a mobile app that users really need. Second, identify and study your competitors to understand better how to outwork them.

Ensure proper gathering and analysis of stakeholders’ needs

Even with a clear vision of your future enterprise app, you need to ensure its consistency across the entire organization. A vendor’s business analysts and your stakeholders should discuss every nut and bolt of the app to rule out any mismatch between the expectations and the result. Moreover, by tapping into the vendor’s experience in developing similar apps, you may come up with some new ideas of how to create even more value for end users. It‘s crucial that your stakeholders’ feedback is addressed properly and timely along the entire project, especially when user needs might change frequently. All this will help you avoid costly reworks and stay within budget and schedule.

Choose the right development methodology

While Waterfall works best for projects with defined scope, the Agile methodology provides the needed flexibility when requirements are likely to change in the course of a project. Agile development allows your stakeholders to involve actively in the development process and propel new requirements while having full visibility into the already implemented functionality.

Think about UX from the start

Since outstanding user experience is what defines a successful mobile app in the first place, it is something to work on from the very start. Design represents the first impression, and should the user get confused with the app’s logic or speed; they might abandon the app forever. If you leave UX unattended at the beginning, later you might have a hard time deciding on future functionality and even get bogged down with cumbersome reworks.

Choose the right platform

When choosing the platform for your mobile app, we recommend to take it from your objectives. What are you trying to achieve with this software? Will it be a performance-intensive app? Then, native mobile app development is probably your best choice. On the other hand, if you adopt a BYOD policy in your company or target consumers with a wide range of devices, then go for cross-platforming to cut development costs. Anyway, don’t listen to your gut feeling, turn for professional advice to technology consultants that know how to develop mobile apps.

Consider performance

Failing to think performance before starting a project may also turn out disastrous. One day you might realize that the app lags ferociously, and you can do absolutely nothing with that but revisit the entire code from scratch. The budget, the schedule – it’s all ruined now. Sounds awful, huh?

To wrap it up

It all comes down to understanding the end user needs and communicating regularly with the vendor. This way, you will minimize unexpected troubles during the project. And should some arise, you will be more likely to deal with them quickly and efficiently in close cooperation with the development team.