With the increasing downloads of mobile apps and evident use by a growing number of consumers and mobile phone users, tech companies are pouring in more money and talent into mobile app development. For starters, here are some pitfalls to avoid in mobile app development.
Top 6 Pitfalls To Avoid In Mobile App Development
- Jumping Right Into An Idea
- Not Creating A Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
- Loading Too Many Features And Functionalities
- Not Considering User Accessibility
- Not Testing The App For Different Environments
- Requiring Updates Before Use
1. Jumping Right Into An Idea
Every app inventor or developer can become very invested in their app which is understandable. They tend to think that they’ve stumbled upon the next big thing. Most app inventors or developers with this mindset would possibly become too persistent in completing their app idea from the beginning. But this is a mistake.
No matter how creative or groundbreaking you think your app idea is, you should make it go through an honest-to-goodness and objective test to determine if there’s a real need for it. It’s important to involve other people and solicit unbiased opinions about your app idea before you invest your funds in the project. Before speeding up your app development, you should find out if there are interested users before launching the app’.
2. Not Creating A Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
The next pitfall you should avoid is forgetting or refusing to create a minimum viable product (MVP). An MVP can save you a lot of time, money, resources, and effort. It’s the earliest and limited version of your product and an excellent way of testing your app idea against the responses of actual users. This saves you from investing too much effort and money in developing the final version from the get-go. So, before you go at full throttle with your app, you can launch an MVP to test if your app is something people need.
As of this year, there are already more than two million downloadable apps available in app stores. If you want your app idea to be noticed by would-be users, you’ll have to identify the supposed market gap your app is going to fill. Making an MVP is one way of pinpointing this market gap.
3. Loading Too Many Features And Functionalities
Another pitfall that you have to avoid in mobile app development is loading too many features and functionalities. While you can do this with desktop apps (even this isn’t recommended), you should avoid making this same mistake when making mobile apps.
People use their mobile phones for lots of things, and using your app would just be one of them. So, it’s better to make an app that gets the job done efficiently based on the expectations of your prospective users. This is more ideal than incorporating too many features that your users would either not have the time to explore, or worse, confuse them and give them a bad experience. It would be better to focus on giving them one or two things that other apps can’t do for them.
There are apps, especially those used for payments and fund transfer, that can be quite too strict with account security. They’ll not only require the user to activate two-factor authentication but also have a time limit for non-activity in many instances. This is understandable. They just want to protect the user accounts from potential unauthorized use or hacking. It’s also possible that they’ve received several complaints about unauthorized access which resulted in lost funds.
But as the app inventor or developer, you also need to take into account the reasonable or comfortable amount of time the users can use the app before requiring them to log their passwords in again or getting another token for the two-factor authentication. There’s no hard-and-fast rule on this one, and you’ll just have to put yourself in the shoes of the users to figure out how much time to give them before their session expires.
When making a mobile app, make sure to test the same for different environments. Remember that the way an app would look on a desktop and computer support could be very different from the way the same app would look on a mobile phone. There are also differences in the functionalities a desktop computer can offer from the features a mobile phone can support. You should give this aspect your full attention since this can make or break the success of your app.
When your app looks inaccessible and unorganized since the design was merely rehashed from the desktop version, the user might uninstall it without thinking twice. You can check out December Labs and other similar sites for an overview of mobile apps and emerging technologies within the same industry.
For one, the home page might not fit properly on the mobile phone screen. There could be more serious dysfunctions that would give users error messages. This can give users a bad experience using your mobile app. So, never forget to test your app before launching it.
One of the things that could annoy your users and make them uninstall your app is when they’re required to load frequent updates before they can even use your app on their phones. There are quite several apps that require their users to load periodic updates—otherwise, they won’t be able to use the app. This could put off some users especially when they’re in a hurry and they need to use your app right away for an urgent task.
Another pitfall related to this is making the app take up larger memory space with each update. Some apps take up significantly larger space when updated, which awhichmpels users to delete some of their other useful apps. This could result in a bad user experience, and they might uninstall your app next time if they have to choose among the apps to keep on their phones.
Remember that apps are meant to be simple problem-solving tools. This is what your imagined or potential users expect when they download your app; that they’d have a fairly easy-to-use but powerful problem-solving tool in their hands. Keep this in mind when designing and developing your app, and you’d be able to come up with one that your users would love to invest in and keep.
4. Not Considering User Accessibility
There are apps, especially those used for payments and fund transfer, that can be quite too strict with account security. They’ll not only require the user to activate two-factor authentication but also have a time limit for non-activity in many instances. This is understandable. They just want to protect the user accounts from potential unauthorized use or hacking. It’s also possible that they’ve received several complaints about unauthorized access which resulted in lost funds.
But as the app inventor or developer, you also need to take into account the reasonable or comfortable amount of time the users can use the app before requiring them to log their passwords in again or getting another token for the two-factor authentication. There’s no hard-and-fast rule on this one, and you’ll just have to put yourself in the shoes of the users to figure out how much time to give them before their session expires.
5. Not Testing The App For Different Environments
When making a mobile app, make sure to test the same for different environments. Remember that the way an app would look on a desktop and computer support could be very different from the way the same app would look on a mobile phone. There are also differences in the functionalities a desktop computer can offer from the features a mobile phone can support. You should give this aspect your full attention since this can make or break the success of your app.
When your app looks inaccessible and unorganized since the design was merely rehashed from the desktop version, the user might uninstall it without thinking twice. You can check out December Labs and other similar sites for an overview of mobile apps and emerging technologies within the same industry.
For one, the home page might not fit properly on the mobile phone screen. There could be more serious dysfunctions that would give users error messages. This can give users a bad experience using your mobile app. So, never forget to test your app before launching it.
6. Requiring Updates Before Use
One of the things that could annoy your users and make them uninstall your app is when they’re required to load frequent updates before they can even use your app on their phones. There are quite several apps that require their users to load periodic updates—otherwise, they won’t be able to use the app. This could put off some users especially when they’re in a hurry and they need to use your app right away for an urgent task.
Another pitfall related to this is making the app take up larger memory space with each update. Some apps take up significantly larger space when updated, which awhichmpels users to delete some of their other useful apps. This could result in a bad user experience, and they might uninstall your app next time if they have to choose among the apps to keep on their phones.
Apps As Simple Problem-Solving Tools
Remember that apps are meant to be simple problem-solving tools. This is what your imagined or potential users expect when they download your app; that they’d have a fairly easy-to-use but powerful problem-solving tool in their hands. Keep this in mind when designing and developing your app, and you’d be able to come up with one that your users would love to invest in and keep.
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