Avoid These Top 10 Mobile App Development Mistakes

Projected to generate over 185 billion dollars by 2025, apps can be a very lucrative part of your business. However, developing the perfect app can take considerable planning, time, and financial resources. Many companies rush their app development and push it to launch before it’s ready, and some lousy development processes like poor UX design can stop an app in its tracks. If you’re considering building an app, or have already started, check out these top 10 mobile app development mistakes and plan to avoid them during your own app-building process.

Building For Multiple Platforms At Once

While developing an app for multiple platforms can help you reach more consumers, it might not be the best starting tactic. Building two simultaneous apps is a lot of work and can be a severe financial drain. You will need twice the finances, twice the team, and twice the time to create two successful apps. When you start your app, pick a single platform and stick to it. In time, if that app is successful, you can move into another platform with the knowledge of what works and doesn’t work with your first app to guide you. The iOS platform is the most restrictive platform so building for Apple first can make building your Android app a much easier process later.

Perform Proper Market Research

A successful software application starts well before the first line of code is written. It begins during the many hours of market research. Performing this market research is the first step in building out your successful app. This research provides insight into your customer demographics, user personas, and customer buying patterns. Creating an app to solve their problems is much easier when you know exactly who your target audience is.

Know Your Competition

Coupled with your user research, you should also be able to identify competitors within your market. Researching and identifying the competition will help you discover what is and is not working within your market. The more you know about your competition, the more prepared you are to build out the perfect app that can provide a unique solution within the market.

Stick To Your Budget

Customized apps can be a complicated and pricey job. With so many opportunities to add on custom features, the building process can sometimes grow outside the scope of the project and the budget. To avoid getting off track, create a budget and stick to it. Make sure that you have some wiggle room in your budget for deviations in your original plan – but try to stay on track.

Skipping An MVP

The Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is the best way to validate your market research. Utilizing an MVP is the best way for you to measure how your app performs with real users. An MVP will help you gather real-time data from your first set of users, and their feedback can help you with any unforeseen issues missed during the development process. Using your user audience is a great way to help you fine-tune your app and keep features updated and any unexpected bugs or hiccups out of your program.

Forgetting To Scale

When you begin building your app, don’t plan on creating the biggest app on the market. It’s best to start small and focus on the basics. Not only does a smaller app take up less space, but overcomplicated apps can disorient users and cause adverse reactions. Stuffing your app full of fancy features and extraneous products is not the way to get noticed. Instead, start small and focus on precisely what you want your app to do within your target market. When you start simple, you allow your app to develop organically and naturally find areas for growth and scalability.

Poorly Designed UX

With thousands of apps downloaded daily, the first impression is paramount to the success of an app. In fact, good user experience design is vital if you want to attract attention and increase retention. For example, suppose your app is built without regard to navigation or the customer journey. In that case, there is a possibility you will overwhelm your audience with misused fonts, features, or even slow download speeds. These are all reasons potential users can stop using your app.

Not Testing Properly

Test, test, and test again. When your app is finally released to the public, it should be very stable and work as promised. As an extension of your brand, your app needs to be firing on all cylinders. It needs to be lacking bugs, hiccups, or spelling errors. To accomplish this, you should complete a multitude of testing situations – and these should be completed by more than just the development team. From beta tests performed by paid app testers to peer review and UX testing – you need to make sure every level of your app is functioning correctly from top to bottom. The testing step should be completed well before you launch, so you have plenty of time to fix any errors before going public.

Not Marketing Your App

After spending so much time, research, and attention on your app – you must have a plan to introduce it to the market! No matter how great your product may be, if customers do not know about it, the chances they will find and use it are slim. If you have created a great product and want users – you need to find them. Make sure that you create a strategic marketing plan to introduce your app to potential users. For the best results, your plan should include both pre and post-launch tactics.

Utilizing Offshore Development Irresponsibly

Many businesses seek offshore development options to build apps with a lower price tag and promise a quicker turnaround than US-based companies. While some offshore developers can accomplish those two goals, it’s typically not that simple. Additional complications from offshore development companies create other cogs in the process that might make keeping the project local the better option. From time zone differences, language barriers, and potential testing delays, moving your app offshore isn’t always the magic answer.

Customize Your App With Flint Hills Group

Creating the perfect app is all about customer engagement, growing your business, and excellent ROI. To achieve these steps, you must know your customers, keep it simple, and provide an app for them that not only benefits them but keeps them coming back. If you’re looking to create the perfect custom app to represent your business, Flint Hills Group has years of experience doing just that. From our entirely US-based team of developers to our attention to detail, FHG can work with you to build out the perfect app for your company. For more information or to speak with the team, contact us today!