7 Habits of Highly Effective Apps

A lot can go wrong during the development and release of a mobile application, from poor project planning to faulty APIs. Often, the biggest mistakes happen before the first lines of code are ever written. Poor planning and improper project management can result in a bevy of problems, all of which can be eliminated at a project’s outset with a bit of thought and organization. With more than one hundred successful application launches, we at Mutual Mobile have identified seven habits to get a mobile initiative started on the right foot and stay on track from concept through release to the market.

1. Understand the Potential of Mobile
Many of today’s mobile initiatives are born exclusively out of a company’s IT or marketing department, but mobile shouldn’t just be a fancy gimmick relegated to serving a marketing function. Ignoring the needs of the company’s bottom line business objectives excludes one of the most important steps in the process, which is identifying precisely where mobile can have the greatest impact within an organization. From training staff to streamlining operations, mobile can extend into every part of a company. Failure to bring every department to the table during the initial planning phases often results in applications that fail to meet critical business objectives.

Who here is your audience?

2. Target Your Audience and Their Needs
Smartphones and apps do not exist in a vacuum; their use occurs out in the real world with real people. Beyond the testing chambers are rural areas with poor internet access, elderly eyesight that makes small numbers challenging to read, and children demanding attention, all of which should be accounted for during the planning phase of an application. The functionality and design of your app must be informed by understanding your users and the environments they are likely to be in when using your app. Storyboards and user narratives are a useful way to imagine an app in the hands of an actual user and identify the challenges they’ll inevitably face.

3. Settle on an Objective
A mobile app isn’t a Swiss Army knife; it’s a carving blade. It should be designed to do a limited number of things extremely well. Many of the companies who have launched successful apps have recognized that an app can only deliver a portion of their full service list before it becomes prohibitively expensive to produce and unwieldy to use. Best Buy, for example, has at least five different apps, each addressing one specific functionality. Define exactly what your app’s objective will be and focus on those features that will directly address that objective.

4. Measure Success
You can only declare your app a success or a failure if you have some metric to measure its success by. There are a multitude of ways to quantify an app’s effectiveness. These might include metrics like number of downloads, amount of money spent through the app, or amount of time spent using the app. Although the metrics should be looked at as a whole, it’s important to decide on the most important measurements as early as possible to make sure your app is poised to deliver the desired results.

Test often to make sure your app isn't failing users.

5. Test Regularly
Many companies assume they know what’s important to a user and consequently waste a lot of time and energy on features that may not really matter. Effective feature lists should never be left to guesswork. Focus groups, surveys, and paper tests will all help you peer into the mind of your end user to get a better understanding of how he will ultimately respond to your app. Making decisions based upon data rather than conjecture is the simplest way to deliver an application that people will actually use.

6. Develop in Phases
There’s a reason app stores have an “update” option. App development is an exercise in iteration, and trying to pack every feature into your first release is both unrealistic and unnecessary. Release your app with the minimum it needs to be successful, then listen to what your audience loves, hates, and longs for. Think of the app’s release to market as the first step in an ongoing development evolution, not the completion of a product.

7. Be Ready to Roll Out
Post-release testing is not the ideal time to discover that your app is littered with problems. Early and sustained testing throughout the development process will prevent unplanned delays and keep production moving smoothly. This starts with integrating quality assurance from the project’s inception. Make QA proactive rather than reactive by anticipating problems before they happen and fixing small issues throughout the process.

Rachel Youens works for Mutual Mobile, an Austin, Texas-based company that empowers organizations to take full advantage of modern mobility. To learn more about mobile strategy, application development and design, follow us on twitter @mutualmobile.

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