Doing mistakes is part of life as nobody is perfect. Mobile app developers are no exception but some of these experts make mistakes that are more severe than others. Whether it costs you time, money, or both these errors are annoying.
No app development company intends to make a mistake during the development process. 99% of the mistakes could be easily avoided if the developer knew about them in advance. Before you start a new development project, you need to review these common blunders. By avoiding app development mistakes, you have the chance of building a successful app.
1. Ignoring User Needs
You have a business plan, and an engaging idea but still not getting appropriate results. Unfortunately, engaging mobile apps isn’t sufficient to be successful in the mobile world. One of the major mistakes a business owner commit is not clearly understanding the target audience’s needs, and doing proper research to know what are their requirements.
2. Poor Budget Management
Not managing the budget in the right manner is another common developer mistake. There are a few reasons behind it:
- Inaccurate budget estimation.
- Failure to plan the cost of the project.
- Unexpected expenses.
It’s important to have a rough idea of the Android app development services cost from the start. You can use tools and consult different companies to get an accurate estimate. But the initial development isn’t the only parameter you need to consider. Other phases need to be taken into consideration as well when you’re creating an mobile app budget.
3. Missing MVP
Going straight into the final product is another common blunder made by mobile app programmers. A minimum viable product will help to test the app and analyze its performance. During the MVP development, the app will include only essential features. An MVP is not an experiment for your app. This is another common app mistake. So if you’re building a mobile app for improving employee efficiencies, a dating app isn’t a feasible MVP.
Instead, you need to focus on the mobile app’s core components. Such as building individual employee log-in functionality and the facility to send push notifications for any sort of announcements. As development moves to the next phase, new features like access to payroll information and benefits can be added.
4. Neglecting UI/UX Build
Sometimes the developers focus on the development process and keep other parameters aside. Neglecting the mobile app UI/UX design of an app is a mistake that needs to be addressed on an urgent basis.
People have expectations from the app’s home screen. Most of the successful apps have smooth navigation, a search bar, and a home menu. Sometimes developers try to make UI too creative, which ultimately impacts the user experience. Technically, that’s not incorrect. People can design an app however they want to. But the users become annoyed with the design since it’s not what they are expecting.
5. Building for Multiple Platforms
Depending on your app’s purpose, you want to make it available for different target audiences. While this has benefited from the marketing purpose but it can create challenges for the developers. If you’re following a traditional native mobile app development approach, creating an app for a different OS will double your budget. Rather than going for multiple platforms, stick to just one platform if you’re building a native app.
Alternatively, you can opt for the cross-platform mobile app development services. This will reduce the development costs and time duration while giving the functionality that a mobile app development company provides without writing the same code again.
6. Lack of Communication with Internals
One of the major reasons for mobile app failures is the lack of communication during the development process. Experts suggest that effective communication is extremely important to build a successful mobile app. Make sure if you hire mobile app developers, try to communicate with them on a regular basis for the best results.
The only way to address this mistake is by improving communication from the beginning. Keeping your partners, colleagues, development team, or whoever else updated with the project’s progress is important. You need to be clear at every stage of what your expectations are with the mobile app developers. Unhappy app users can cause a serious dent in the brand’s reputation.
Depending on the size of the app development work, you can have daily, weekly, or bi-weekly meetings with the concerned team. A quick status update from each member of the team is usually enough to get the job completed.
7. Designing Complicated Navigation
Your Mobile app should be smooth in navigation and engaging in design. Not only you want a mobile app to look engaging, but in addition, you want proper conversion. If your mobile app navigation is confusing, features are difficult to find or some features are not working properly, users will get frustrated and go to a different app. People prefer using a mobile app having smooth navigation with features that are engaging & unique. Integrating unique features within the mobile app is highly important to engage new and retain existing users.
8. Overuse of Functions & Features
Today applications serve all the daily work of your everyday life, they are unimaginably making things easier with the use of these applications. However, on that note, this does not mean that an application should have all functionalities or features. Often developers tend to incorporate all features and functions while building an application.
Including too many features can slow down your application’s run time. And also it will maximize the application’s page loading time. Whenever you try to integrate too many features, it can cost you more and exceed your budget. Apart from these factors, too many functionalities on an application can welcome susceptible bugs and unexpected errors.
9. Mirroring your mobile application with the website
Businesses now believe in having a mobile application alongside their websites. If you already have a website for your company, creating a mobile application will be an added advantage to reaching maximum users. Most of the time mobile app developers make mistakes in cloning the business app with your website. Because whatever functionalities or features can be incorporated into a mobile app, might not be added to a website.
A mobile application performs much better than a website, because of its enriched features. Therefore, mirroring your website with your brand application will be a waste of resources and probable opportunities. You can keep a bit of similarity of your website with your application such as theme, brand logo, and color scheme. However, an application should not be mirrored because users have different expectations of an application.
10. Inappropriate testing of the application
Testing your mobile application is the most crucial step of the entire development process. Testing assists you in improving the overall user experience. Also, after the development, testing helps in detecting bugs if it already has hit the application during the development process. Once the error on the application has been detected, it will help you resolve the issue immediately. However, there are a few challenges that make barriers in the testing process.
To resolve the most common testing barriers and errors, you can consider the following mentioned best tips:
- Provide a proper definition of your testing procedure.
- Hire an expert testing team and try making use of outsourced and in-house mobile application testing experts.
- Include proper testing tools to facilitate your tests.
- Fix in advance a time for testing your application.
Testing your mobile app with internal and external expertise is essential. A developer or development team that works on an app daily will have biases. They are aware of the functionality and intended use of the software. If an internal tester participated in the design process, they might not think the user interface needs to be improved.
Wrapping Up
Like any big project, app development is also annoying at times. Mobile app development mistakes occur multiple times and are common. But if you have the knowledge, you can easily avoid them altogether. Whether you’re designing an app on your own, or looking to hire mobile app developers, avoiding app development mistakes will save time, money, resources, and headaches in the long run.
FAQs
1. What are the steps that I should follow when I tend to hire mobile app developers?
Hiring a mobile application expert is the primary step in the development process. The skillset of the developers should match your business requirements, timeframe and expectations.
2. What does a mobile app developers do?
Application developers create software for use on mobile devices running Apple, Android, and Windows operating systems. Application developers are in charge of testing their creations when they are finished and supplying updates as needed.
3. What skills do app developers need?
The required skills of mobile developers are:
- Computer proficiency
- Programming language skills.
- Back-end computing.
- User interface design.
- Cybersecurity skills.
- Cross-platform development skills.
- Product management skills.
- Internet of Things (IoT) skills.
