A key failing of many organisations often includes not spending time with users to really understand their behaviours and what they are looking for in a mobile application.\u00a0 While developing the features of the mobile experience that is being developed, users provide valuable feedback on what is going to be used in the application and what is going to be irritable.\u00a0 Including these groups should go well beyond the initial discovery phases.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Identify a minimalist viable solution<\/h2>\n

Many organisations have a large range of services and opportunities to provide contact points to their user base.\u00a0 It is important not to try to include everything at once.\u00a0 Not only does a large range of services take time to develop and implement, it increases the initial cost and possibly at the expense of the user experience.<\/p>\n

Consider that most smartphones release new devices annually, with new software versions coming out every 6 months.\u00a0 These cycles continuously change the expectations of users, as they demand that their applications make use of new features.\u00a0 A most recent example is the Apple Pay system included on the latest iPhone devices, which has seen more than 3 million users load their credit cards on to their phones in the first month of availability.\u00a0 Demand like this is not driven by a need to pay at a shop (users already had that); it was a need to make use of the latest features.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Plan for multiple releases<\/h2>\n

There are many statistics to support the view that with each release, users will reengage with a mobile application with new features.\u00a0 By offering key functionality over a range of releases, users will grow with the application and become familiar with its operations and remain engaged.\u00a0 Releasing too often however reduces confidence in the application, indicating to users that you are constantly releasing a beta program with bugs and shortcomings.<\/p>\n

There is also a significant opportunity to grow an application and its features in new directions as the user behaviours change, and more feedback on the application is provided.\u00a0 There is considerable value derived by including that feedback into the next development iteration.\u00a0 Resolving common user issues and feedback also generates goodwill between the organisation and the user base when they feel that their concerns are being addressed through the latest releases.<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Balance your users and your business<\/h2>\n

Two vastly different approaches to applications development are user centric design, which considers every nuance of the application from the perspective of the user, which many users will love.\u00a0 Conversely, a business value approach considers the needs of the business first above the users.\u00a0 Activities such as this seek to drive transaction outcomes and position functionality to extract maximum returns on the applications investment.\u00a0 User studies, expert opinions, technical and feasibility studies should all be considered in the application development strategy to derive the best outcome.<\/p>\n

7.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Know what is already out there<\/h2>\n

The best way to grow the knowledge pool is spending time on applications.\u00a0 This includes downloading apps, using the latest stuff and building a collection of applications and functions that enables a strategic roadmap. Some will provide the knowledge of essential functions that users are expecting while other applications will make it clear which are the cutting edge ones that you can consider later on.\u00a0 Most mobile technologists will have a pool of applications on their devices that they monitor \u2013 just to see what is coming in the next hottest application.<\/p>\n

8.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Bring your Technology teams to the discussions early<\/h2>\n

The biggest challenge of any mobile application, for any business period above all things is to integrate the application and its services with the organisations technical infrastructure.\u00a0 This will vary from every organisation, and it is the one major challenge that almost every mobile developer misses.\u00a0 The fact is that the front-end development is easy to build.\u00a0 User experience and functions can be hard to get right, but even school children are now cutting their teeth on coding for a mobile application.\u00a0 The real difficult part is getting the integration right with the back end technology.\u00a0 Without bringing the services available in the organisation to the mobile device, the application is nothing more than a brochure.<\/p>\n

9.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Decide on a technology you can live and grow with<\/h2>\n

Mobile technology is forever evolving and has done so (from an average consumer perspective) for the last 20 years with even the first Motorola phones.\u00a0 New functions, features and operating systems have emerged and within each of them, they have grown in new directions.<\/p>\n

Choosing a platform to develop on is needed and regardless of the offerings of some organisations that make the claim that they can easily \u2018port your app\u2019 between two operating systems \u2013 it never happens that easily.\u00a0 The platforms for Apple, Android and Microsoft are very different and while the basic features, functions and style can remain consistent, the code behind them has different requirements.\u00a0 For example, while each will include fingerprint security, there is a separate piece of code required to implement that function for each platform.\u00a0 (The best developers will also have their favourite platforms too, and while they are excited to build on one platform, they are almost definitely just doing the others to accommodate a request and this often is demonstrated in the coding behind the application).<\/p>\n

So why should an organisation care about choosing a platform?\u00a0 Certainly not just to placate a developer, but the functions that are made available via the platform will be reflected in the development path.\u00a0 Platform stability, reliability and consistency is important to the business as much to the developer as an unstable, unreliable and inconsistent platform will impact the cost of development, frequency of bugs and ultimately the end user experience.<\/p>\n

The four pillars of choice include:<\/p>\n

–\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Apple
\n–\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Android
\n–\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Microsoft
\n–\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0HTML (mobile web)<\/p>\n

10.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Plan to Analyse<\/h2>\n

Analytics provide two important functions on the application and the development lifecycle.\u00a0 While the measure of success is often indicated by the number of downloads, some other valuable metrics should include:<\/p>\n

–\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0How long people are in the app for
\n–\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Most visited areas
\n–\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Most used functions
\n–\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Typical paths
\n–\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0User deletions of the application
\n–\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Versions of operating system and device type<\/p>\n

These can influence the roadmap and the next steps of the application development journey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The consideration to build applications for mobile devices has largely become mandated for all businesses wishing to engage their users.\u00a0 With the proliferation of mobile devices globally, Australia has ranked…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n