Mobile phones have advanced and have turned into a vital tool for different kinds of businesses. From transportation, retail, hospitality, marketing, healthcare, manufacturing, education and some more, industries are winding up evidently very reliant on this developing innovation. With the rising of the quantity clients who associate with mobile devices, there has been an exponential development in innovation, application improvement, user friendliness and troublesome advancement.
The mobile applications are now preferred by many business leaders. The soul goal behind developing a business mobile app is to maximize the reach with more user engagement. The most effective way to run a business is to reach your target audience where they like to spend most of their time. Here smartphone plays an important role in both customer acquisition and interaction.
Smartphones and mobile applications have given a great opportunity to entrepreneurs to drive their business in a predictable way. Today customer’s expectation is increasing, so it is essential to have an effective mobile strategy.
A Mobile Application for a Business is not just a technological innovation. You need business knowledge and skills to develop a highly engaging and user-friendly application. In this blog, we are going to highlight few key points which every business owner, app developers as well as service providing company should remember before developing a mobile app for any business.
Platform Selection
The basic idea behind developing a mobile app is, it should reach a wide number of audience. The platform plays a very vital role while building a mobile app. Before choosing a platform, you need to analyse few factors like the country you are targeting, age group, type of business or industry etc. For example, if you are targeting the US, you should be focusing mainly on iOS and then Android. These two are predominantly used in the US. You can give less importance to Windows.
One of the most important thing which you should consider before developing your mobile app is that initially how many platforms do you wish to launch your app? It is always good to become a master of one platform first and then you can get into other platforms.
In order to decide the best-suited platform for your mobile application, you need to keep certain things in your mind like app brand, target audience, app features and most importantly pricing strategy. After that, you need to choose development methodology for your business app; Native, Mobile Web or Hybrid. Native applications have many advantages, but it may be slightly expensive.
Native or Hybrid
Native apps are mobile applications developed precisely for a specific mobile operating system. For iOS, usually swift is being used and Java for Android. As native apps are for a specific platform, they can take advantage of operating system features. It has the ability to use device-specific hardware, software, and it can use the latest technology available on mobile devices such as a GPS, camera, one touch pay and figure print.
On the other hand, Hybrid apps are basically a combination of native and web apps. It is an application in which the same app can be deployed in various operating systems like android, iOS, Windows, etc. and even can run in various browsers (Chrome, Mozilla, IE, Safari etc.). It works on “write once and deploy everywhere” principle. Hybrid apps are cross-platform and can be distributed between app stores immediately without several versions. Most of the hybrid apps built using cross-compatible web technologies (HTML5, CSS3, jQuery Mobile, Titanium, Phone Gap and JavaScript etc.).
Both have Pros and Cons. Going with a native application can be costly and time-consuming but at the same time, it will give a faster User Experience. Likewise, going with a hybrid app will cut costs and time considerably but mobile app developers will have to play around with its Cons. So, before choosing native or hybrid, look into your preferences and priorities and then choose the one that will suit your needs.
READ MORE : “Pros and Cons of NATIVE vs HYBRID Mobile Application Development”
Backend
This is again a perceptive choice to be made before developing an app. Most of the apps today are API-driven. At the same time, not all the apps you develop require a custom backend and also connect to the mobiles using APIs. You can handle the entire app with a local database and these apps do not require any kind of backend support. In the perspective of a developer, you must analyse the need for a backend, keeping other constraints like cost and time in mind to setup a backend and take a decision.
Mobile Analytics
Analytics is a very important part of any technological innovation. You need a tool to check how things are working. But when it comes to mobility, analytics is yet to be used completely. If you choose to implement analytics, you need to keep it in mind that it should be relevant to your business goals, and can help you to understand and enhance the performance of the app. Mobile analytics data can be captured, stored and utilized for better user interaction and engagement. The overall user experience can be strengthened significantly and functionalities can be modified. Before implementing analytics, you should be clear on what kind of data you want to track & store. You have to plan it well ahead in the development phase, so that analytics can provide you the right results.
You can begin with straightforward combinations of Google Mobile App Analytic and monitor user behaviours in your app It’s anything but difficult to enhance your user interface when you see what your users really do.
UI/UX Design
If you ignore this aspect before start developing the app, your entire app is a failure for sure. UI/UX is holding a very important role in today’s mobile app world. It is so important that it is one of those factors which will decide the future of your app. You need to understand the difference between UI & UX. UI is the interface design and UX is the user experience. A good UI with a poor UX won’t work. This part of a business app development is very crucial because 99% of times users don’t come back to the app if it is not user-friendly or appealing.
User experience is an increasingly crucial feature when it comes to the digital landscape. An app defines how a user feels and think about your business and services. It is about making something valuable, easy to use and effective for your target audience. Don’t make your app confusing or complicated.
A well thought mobile application offering seamless user experience can translate into several key benefits. The functionalities and content that are delivered to your app must be in line with your target audience. The end product must provide a superior quality customer service. If you are unable to provide a quality mobile application, it may harm your brand image.
Target Audience
Identifying your actual users is very important. Always remember to focus on your audience while creating an app. Factors like the country which you are targeting, age group of your targeted users, occupation, gender, and interests of the people should be taken into consideration for app designing. For example, if you are developing a shopping app, you should put more pictorial illustrations and less content. This will get your audience connected with the app. Even if your app is very sound technically, the long-term success depends on how it satisfies the user base.
Questions like who are going to use my application and how it can add value to their lives, should be asked before starting development. If you meet the expectation of your users, definitely your app is going to get popular and it will help you to generate more revenue.
Competitor App Analysis
It is always good to see what your competitors are giving. Try to use similar apps which you want to develop for your business and think, analyse as a user. You will get to know what you expect as a customer. It is always useful to provide an extra feature or an enhanced version of a feature to the users, rather than what is already available in the market. There are hundreds and sometimes thousands of apps available in the market, from which you can pick top 10 apps of your competitors and analyse them fully. Once you get to know what your competitor provides, you can plan how you can provide it better. That extra mile you cross could be the deciding factor.
Development Method & Guidelines
There are certain development methods and models which you need to follow. App development method usually depends on the quality of information you have before start developing. It is always advisable to follow the agile method of development when you have an overall idea about what you want to put in your app. The agile method of development usually involves a number of iterations before arriving at the end product. On the other hand, if your requirements are very clear, you can go for the waterfall method of development.
You must follow all the guidelines of the specific platform you chose. If you follow the same approach for multiple platforms, it will never work. You need to put the placement buttons at the right place as per the guidelines. If you failed to put it in the right place, it can give you a negative user experience.
Size & Screen Density
An application is designed in a manner that makes it fit into the devices. There may be variations depending on the screen size. In some instances, it may be hectic making sure that these apps fit into these screens quite well. Among the most popular screen sizes are 1920X1080, 1200X768 and 1280 X 720.
Screen density may vary among devices and this will determine the look and feel of the app. In some instances, an app may have a freezing look at a certain resolution range and look great with another device. Texts may also vary considerably in size.
Conclusion
Today around 2 billion people are using smartphones. It is expected to reach around 4 billion by 2020. The number of mobile devices are more than PCs. Around 70% of the people spend time on apps and 80% of the people use mobile applications for purchasing, payment, and booking. Irrespective of any industry, mobile applications are proving out to be an essential tool for business growth and reach. The opportunity is huge and market potential is large. So, while developing an app for your business you should keep the above things in your mind.
Apogaeis is a trusted mobile application development company. Apogaeis earned special understanding about mobile app development methodology across security, data management, resource optimization, UX after delivering many research projects across the industries. Our aim is to deliver the mobile apps to our partners that can actually bring high efficiency for their business and generate brand awareness of their offerings. Either you need hybrid or native mobile apps, android or iOS apps, we equip your business with the most user-friendly applications. Let’s collaborate and change the way you work- Contact-Here
