Day: July 24, 2018

A couple of years ago, if we asked around, every business would have expressed interest in developing a mobile app. Even today, businesses are eager to develop mobile apps, motivated by a number of factors. With more than 3.5 million Android apps and close to 2.5 million iOS apps, it might seem like you are missing out on a lot of things by not offering an application to your users. Yet, more than just getting a mobile app developed, assessing customer needs, your market strategy, and industry scenario are all more important factors to consider. A successful mobile enhances user satisfaction and brings value to your customers. Sometimes, enhancing a website for mobile use may be a better option. Even more important is the task of finding the right agency which will help you to develop a winning mobile app. To make your mobile app a success, spend some time assessing your needs, market situation, and your customer requirements. In this article, we help you do just that by listing 7 important questions you need to ask before getting a mobile app developed. Do you really need a mobile app? What started out as a game-changing development soon became a trend, leading to businesses developing mobile apps whether they needed it or not. Playing catch-up, or doing what everyone else is doing, is not the way to go when it comes to technology adoption. There may be a good reason why your business does not need mobile applications. If your product or service is more likely to be accessed over a website, investing in mobile-optimised responsive web development might be a better solution. Progressive Web Applications (PWA) and Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) may prove to be better solutions for your need than a mobile app developed for iOS and Android platforms. Progressive Web Applications are also great when your users are located in places where the internet connection is unreliable or slow. Flipkart’s Flipkart Lite is a great example of Progressive Web Applications. Hastily developing a mobile app to impress your target audience or your competitors may have just the opposite of the intended effect. What is the purpose of your app? If you think you do need a mobile app, and that is a matter of concern for your profitability, competitiveness, and customer experience, explore what the purpose of the mobile is going to be. The app could serve the purpose of selling a product or service, or it could simply enhance customer experience. The purpose of developing a mobile can greatly vary. Sometimes, a mobile app may serve multiple purposes. Spend time deliberating on why you want the mobile app, which problems it is going to solve, and what its long-term purpose is going to be. Developing a mobile app without a purpose may cause long-term damage to your brand, and may result in the wasteful expenditure of resources. Many studies indicate that people uninstall or stop using a majority of mobile apps after downloading and installing them. Who is your target user? For a mobile app to be successful, it should be developed with the target user in mind. Always try to understand your audience deeply, and use data insight to do so. Data analytics helps you to test and retest your ideas for efficacy so that your investment in mobile development is not wasted. A mobile application should suit the lifestyle of your target users and should be intimately tied to their personal identities. We recently developed a mobile game for a US veteran who lost his eyesight and wanted to launch a mobile game for people who are visually challenged. There was a clear understanding of who the target audience was, and the challenges they may encounter while playing the mobile game. To compete with the millions of mobile apps that are out there, make sure that you understand your target user at an intimate level. Otherwise, your mobile app will risk being ignored. Will your app solve a customer problem? Every mobile app should not only help you make profits, but also solve a customer problem. If not solve a problem, it should enhance the user experience. If your mobile app is not going to add value to your target users, then it risks being ignored after being downloaded. To help develop a mobile app that truly solves your customer problems, understand their pain points and explore how your mobile app could address those pain points. If there are no pain points to be addressed, explore if you can bring a “wow” factor to the table. If your mobile app is going to present a revolutionary experience or concept to the user, then it is going to be successful. Sometimes, reducing the duration of certain processes and making your customers’ lives simpler are reasons enough to develop mobile apps. However, you will need to back up your reasons with deep data insights. What kind of app do you need? Before you decide on developing a mobile app, consider how and where it is going to be used. You will have to choose between native mobile apps and cross-platform mobile apps. Native mobile apps are developed for iOS and Android (usually) using programming languages that are native to the device’s OS, such as Objective C and Swift for iOS devices, and Java for Android devices. Native mobile apps offer a better user interface and excellent user experience. They also make use of all the features a platform has to offer. However, they tend to be more expensive, challenging, and time-consuming projects. Cross-platform mobile apps can be used on both Android and iOS devices, and multiple versions of the code need not be written, leading to reduced expenditure and saved time. However, the user experience will not be as great as that of native apps and your mobile app will not be able to make use of all the features that each platform offers. How do you plan to monetise your app? A successful mobile app needs