49% of users open any of their preferred apps ten times or more every day. So the dominance of mobile apps across all walks of life is already established. This is also the reason why building a successful app has become highly competitive.
No wonder there is increasing stress on following the best development practices. Developing mobile apps can be an incredible journey if you have full command of the development processes and practices. Based on the experience of the app developers in successful app projects, we here provide the most time-honored practices for app development.
Carry out extensive research
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Any app doesn’t have any chance of success if it is not founded upon research. You need to carry out extensive user and competitor research well ahead of time. There are lots of aspects that you need to explore and analyze.
To begin with, you need to know the target audience for the app project. You need to have a clear understanding of who these users are and the ways they interact with the app. This will make decisions for the app project easier in a developer’s capacity.
After knowing your prospective app users, you can easily figure out the ways the app product can address their needs. You can just have a clear understanding of how the app is going to make the lives of users better. This is the foundation of success for any app project.
Embrace the right development methodology
It is quite understandable that every app is built in a different way. So, for your app project, you need to decide whether you want to develop a native app, a hybrid app, or just a web app. Now all these methods have their respective pros and cons.
This decision has something to do with the app niche type or audience for the app project. For instance, if you are going to develop a gaming app with unique features and a powerful gaming experience, it is always advisable to choose native app development.
On the other hand, native development is always great. But they have the downside of being more expensive to develop, and they are going to consume more development time as you can just build one platform-specific app at a time. If you want to roll out the app on both Google Play and App Store simultaneously, this will not be a great option. For such app projects, cross-platform app development can be a great option, especially as cross-platform apps offer a nearly native user experience.
Finally, a hybrid web app will be the right option if you want to target a web audience with the same app. Now this decision will largely depend upon the kind of tech skills you have at your disposal. So, there are several factors and considerations for making the right choice.
Make A Well Articulated Technical Documentation
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Just like creating a requirement document for your app project, it is also important to document the entire development process and all aspects. This becomes a source of relevant insights and information to shape an app project through updates and value additions. Meticulous documentation of an app project can guide the developers for all future changes and other app projects.
Detailed documentation will help you change the code of an app project without errors. When you build an app of your choice, you may need frequent value additions and changes based on user feedback. For all these subsequent updates and iterations in an app project, documentation offers great help.
Follow the app store development guidelines.
Successful app projects should always adhere to particular platform-specific guidelines and design principles to ensure a great user experience. You need to follow Material Design guidelines and Android Developer Guides for Android app projects. For iOS app projects, you need to follow Apple Human Interface Guidelines (HID) and Apple Developer Program guidelines.
On top of these, you also need to understand the platform-specific regulations and best practices that go well with the apps in the Apple App Store and Google Play. Over the years, certain practices have almost become established for iOS and Android, and you need to have a good knowledge of them.
Give QA testing a priority.
The practice of testing the app at the end of the project is already outdated. Now the app projects should not wait until the app is fully developed. Even if you are not following Scrum or agile development methodology, you should always carry out certain QA testing processes simultaneously with the development. At least you should test the finished features and components periodically or after reaching every milestone.
As for pre-release app testing, it is always advisable to opt for beta testers. Certain platforms help you get access to app testers. These beta testers will give you the right and unbiased feedback and provide you with recommendations to improve the mobile apps.
Plan for updates and maintenance
From the very beginning of the app project, you should keep app updates and maintenance in your mind. Most app projects these days prefer incremental or MVP development approaches to reduce the initial cost and ensure a high feedback development approach. You need to keep a well-articulated plan ready to ensure frequent and timely updates based upon user feedback.
Conclusion
Developing a Mobile apps product is not easy if you do not follow the tested and tried practices that help other apps succeed. Over the years, the above-mentioned development practices remained as the cornerstones of successful app development.
