Having a great idea to build an award-winning mobile application? That’s great! So, what would be your first step? What are the factors to consider while developing an application?
Well, these are the precise questions you need to ask yourself when it comes to building an app from scratch.
App development isn’t trouble-free work. It requires multiple considerations before you decide to build a creative, helpful, and friendly application. Thus, it’s vital to check out the crucial things and continue carefully to build a successful application.
Before that, let’s explore some statistics which are going to assist you in comprehending how quickly the mobile world is mounting.
Statistics for Better Understanding
- As of July 2020, Apple’s store was the 2nd largest app store with around 4.4M applications.
Image Source: Statista.com
- On the other hand, there were 2.96M applications released in the Google Play Store by July 2020.
- As per eMarketer, Almost 90 percent of mobile internet time is used while accessing apps.
Apps create revenue in numerous ways, including charging users a little money when they use a mobile application, access premium features, selling ad space, and more.
“In my opinion, the future of mobile is the future of everything.”- Matt Galligan, Co-founder of Circa
Now, as you know that mobile applications are ruling the world, you mustn’t compromise with the quality of an app. It’s high time that developers delivered effortless, feature-rich, and smooth functionality apps. Don’t repeat some of the common mistakes, like:
- Building an app when there is no real need
- Insufficient research work
- Setting unrealistic goals
- Developing an app having too many functionalities and features
- Paying too attention much to the appearance while ignoring the customer
- Creating an improper marketing strategy
The only way to avoid these mistakes is by having a proper strategy or planning.
Want to Know Some Proven Mobile App Development Hacks?
Highlights of Contents
11 Important Things to Consider Before Building an App
1. Dig Out Your Concept
Applications that look resourceful in theory may become ineffective in practice. It occurs when you don’t give sufficient thought to how you will assist your users. Before going ahead in turning your idea into a reality, ask the following questions:
- Is my app going to solve a real problem?
- Who will get benefits from it?
- How will you make their lives simpler?
These questions are going to aid you in preparing a tiny description of your application’s key concept, delivering its core objective in simple terms to assist you in interacting with others.
Here are a few questions to begin:
- What is the purpose of your app?
- How will you engage users?
- What are your goals?
- What will be the app’s core features?
- Will your app be useful for your target audience?
Figure out your application’s core idea and features before you start development. Doing so is going to assist you to stay on course during the project and prevent you from making expensive mistakes.
2. Know Your Users
Do you know your users well?
While understanding how your mobile app will assist them, do the required research, know as much as you can about their needs, objectives, technological preferences, and more.
Your app will have to deal with fierce competition on Google Play Store or Apple App Store. People don’t have much space on their devices, which implies that your mobile app requires being ground-breaking if you wish it to be installed and used.
Fortunately, comprehending your customers will assist you in planning and designing attributes that are going to answer their requirements directly.
Besides, it is worthwhile to create, as well as test the business perspective of your concept and your advertising message, sustaining your core interaction channels in mind.
Search for insights and reports, focusing on market trends closely. You can connect with users through polls or on forums.
Begin with an MVP to gather vital feedback, examine the speculation, and work out the concluding product’s vision.
3. Perform Market Research
Browse applications with the same idea as yours and other solutions aimed at your target audience.
- What sorts of applications are they?
- How do they resolve users’ issues?
- How do they draw users?
Keep a good chunk of time to discover other mobile applications on each platform you wish to support. You will not just figure out how to differentiate yourself from the opponents, but master their strategies, as well as tactics.
You are going to have a better knowledge of what every platform’s interface concepts are, what marketing language engages them, and what your target user-base is used to. Moreover, communicating with other mobile apps on your selected platform will assist you to know what resolutions you can choose.
4. Set Up Goals for the App
Planning forward with particular aims in mind is quite significant for app development. With this, you can stay on track, avoid feature creep, and aid you when you need to make a complicated technical or business assessment.
- Do you wish to authorize your users by resolving a definite obstacle?
- Do your company processes require more support?
- Do you desire to build new income streams?
There are several other purposes you might be intending for. The essential part is identifying them early and striving towards them from the beginning. Prioritization is critical to a vibrant, flexible development that adapts to variations on the business and won’t hinder your progress while you race against your opponent.
5. Ascertain Your App’s Business Value
The profit for users needs to be sufficient to prompt them to get your application and then to come to it again. Offer them a different value, including access to specific features unavailable anywhere else, the inexpensive service provided at a costlier value by your competitors, more.
You require leveraging innovation to deliver both consumer requirements and your business goals completely.
B2B applications can aid you:
- Manage user loyalty programs and time-restricted sales
- Perk up employee competence
- Offer better access to information and data
- Support your salesforce and improve your sales
- Advance employee satisfaction via successful support
B2C apps can assist you:
- Breakthrough a new market
- Customize user experience
- Enhance user retention via multi-channel interaction
- Collect information about users that will assist you to boost your business procedures
- Add a new channel to interact with your viewers
6. Build a Mobile App Flowchart
Visualization is a robust technique.
By developing a flowchart, it’s possible to make an effortless, comprehensible, and brief presentation about your application’s working and how your team will make it occur.
- Your good flowchart will comprise:
- The app’s idea, features, and workflow
- The budget of the project
- Your deadline
- Development process
- Stakeholders and team members
Moreover, it’s a good concept to keep things as visual as effectiveness allows. For instance, you can incorporate sketches of designs or specific screens.
The most excellent method to pursue it is to sketch out multiple screens your audience will go through, displaying how they stream into each other.
It will provide your team clarity, and assist you to describe the different paths users will be capable of taking in your application.
7. Craft App Wireframes
Wireframes are going to be a vast aid for the programmers functioning on your application. Their reason is to provide the application in a stripped-down system, presenting its key functions and setting up what communications will be present to users.
To develop wireframes that will accurately provide the project, connect the true folks, and influence their acquaintance. Business designers, experts, and external developers are a few of the experts you may wish to occupy in the procedure.
Several tools available in the market, including Balsamiq Mockups, Pidoco, Fireworks, Penultimate, Axure, and more that helps you to get world-class wireframes.
8. Authenticate Technical Feasibility
This is imperative if you are not a technology specialist yourself.
Several features and resolutions appear effortless on the surface. However, they need tremendously long development or use huge amounts of assets, which interpret straight into elevated development or maintenance costs.
At times, it is enough to utilize an easier resolution instead, and there is no way around. You need to become conscious of the risks and costs ahead of time.
Converse your application’s technical possibility with your development team or your technology partner. Ensure to cover the below-mentioned topics:
- Devices
- Platform capability
- Security
- Maintenance and support needs
- Connections and integrations
9. Strategize to Examine
This may appear like a faraway idea initially in the project. Nevertheless, you need to set up metrics through which you are going to calculate your application’s success. It’s hazardously simple to observe your mobile app produce and build assumptions on how it’s performing.
To prevent making insignificant assumptions, execute good analytics in your application to gauge key KPIs. If you are not certain what should be calculated, the following factors of your company can be a good beginning:
- Transaction volume & revenue
- Customer onboarding
- Customer retention
- Brand loyalty and recognition
- Functional costs
- Incorporations with current processes
After you describe the KPIs for your mobile app, it will be up to your coding team to execute sufficient tools to determine them.
You can track several projects stats automatically with utilities like Firebase.
Unluckily, such default KPIs don’t offer several helpful insights on the way the application is performing. Thus, you should build custom KPIs, as well as tracking solutions, particularly your application and business.
10. Sketch to Advertise Your App
Marketing is crucial for the success of your app. A common delusion is that it’s too advanced to market your concept before you’ve commenced development. However, with a great marketing strategy that’s untrue.
Develop your users’ enthusiasm for your app’s release, take their feedback to examine your idea, and claim your position on the market.
Doing it in the right way will get a community of faithful early adopters and extra word-of-mouth advertising.
Pay attention to your PR, web presence, and branding by including branding strategy, content creation, a communication channel, and outreach planning.
11. Focus on Your Resource Management
Consider some modifications to the project approach that may happen during development, and speculate the promotion and continuous maintenance after your application releases.
You’ll not just need to control the expenses of your infrastructure (including your licensing and hosting provider). Nevertheless, even support and extra development of your mobile application. This will include:
- Crash logs
- Monitoring
- User feedback
- Frequent updates since technologies change and build.
Figure out early what resources are going to be accessible to you and when. With this method, you will have a simpler time succeeding difficulties, avoid emergencies and obstacles, and keep your mobile app attractive to users.
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Wrapping Up
Building an app is fascinating! But, there are specific factors that must be taken care of before you start the development part.
From picking the right platform to hiring the perfect team to strategize a result-driven plan, you can’t ignore anything.
Rather than doing extra, needless, and costly work to develop every element of your mobile app from scratch, influencing utilities at your clearance will be much simpler.
It is going to keep your costs down and make sure that your application is built as quickly as possible.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1: Do you need a mobile app?
A1: To find the answer to this question, you need to do a self-assessment and ask several questions, including how will it assist in providing the long-term objectives of your business? What impact will it bring on your revenue? What is your target audience?
Q2: What platform should you pick, Android, iOS, or both?
A2: The selection of Android and iOS depends on multiple aspects. These four key regions can help you to make the right choice- monetization, project timeline, audience, and budget.
Q3: When to plan the release of your app?
A3: If you are developing an app, then you may have a launch schedule. You can tell your developers if you would like to have various releases. Consider your target audience, objective, development, testing, app store submission, and more to decide.
