If you already have an online business or planning to start one, you must have a website. We all know that. But if you want to stand out from your competition, you can also consider building a mobile application for your business too.
Of course, when it comes to creating a mobile app for small businesses, it could mean shelling out a considerable amount of money.
Although you can find many app developers & companies who can help you to build a mobile app at an affordable cost, but the cost to develop a mobile app is still comparatively higher than building a website.
Considering the high cost of mobile app development as compared to a website, it makes complete sense for the business owners to make sure that their apps have all the necessary ingredients to make it successful.
And if you want to build a successful mobile application, you do need to take care of all the important aspects that make minor or major differences in terms of its usability, design, development & marketing.
In this blog post, I’ve shared 13 points checklist that you can follow to make those minor & major differences in your app to get an intuitive, user-friendly & marketable mobile application.
Let’s get started!
#1 Simple navigation
A simple navigation allows your mobile app users to move between different screens easily & hassle-free. In other words, a simple navigation helps your users to find their desired piece of information or product quickly & intuitively.
Recommended post: 9 Tips to create UI designs that your app designer must follow
#2 Appropriate font size
The font size of your mobile application shouldn’t be too big or too small. The texts & links of all the screens of your app must be easily readable by all age-groups.
Similarly, the font style of all the screens must also be standard. Your app designer shouldn’t try out-of-the-box font style just to impress a specific category or age-group of users.
#3 Clutter-free design
The design of your mobile app screens must be clean yet elegant. Having a lot of elements on any single screen can make your app design look cluttered and can turn away you users.
Before even your app developer starts building your mobile application, you must review each and every screen’s design carefully.
Perhaps, it would be a great idea if you can take print-out of all the screens and brainstorm with your team members or app designers and seek their suggestions.
#4 Consider the touch area
All the important elements like links, buttons, form fields etc. on your mobile app must be easily accessible to the users. Therefore, the touch area of each screen must be designed considering different types of fingers (thin, thick, small and big).
Inappropriate touchable areas may annoy your users when they are not able to tap and perform the necessary action seamlessly.
#5 Simple & short forms
If your app has a form like signup, login etc. you must make sure that the form is simple & short enough to fill quickly.
Show dozens of fields on a single screen and you are surely on the way to get high bounce rate & uninstall rate. If you really want more users to subscribe and keep using your app, don’t force them to fill lengthy forms.
However, if the nature of your app requires the users to fill several fields in order to signup, you can ask your app developer to split the form in various screens and show a progress bar.
#6 Design consistency
If you already have a website and now creating an app, you must make sure to follow the same design elements such as colors, logo, font style etc. in order to provide design consistency on both the platforms.
Design consistency also helps your business to enhance its branding.
#7 Ensuring safety of app
Is your mobile app builder able to take care of the security of your mobile application?
Especially, if your app has some sensitive features like online payments, banking information, access keys, medical, personal data, etc., it becomes even more important to ensure the safety of your app.
Here are but some important tips that your app developer can follow to ensure the safety of your app:
- Proper encryption of sensitive personal data
- Token validation for sessions
- Implementation of safety standards such as certificate pinning in the case of HTTPs.
#8 Robust testing
Testing is perhaps one of the most important part of your mobile app development. Not only during the app development, but you must keep testing your app throughout the lifecycle of your mobile application.
Here are 3 major reasons to test your app:
- To ensure the cross-platform consistency.
- To make sure that all the features are intact and working as expected.
- To ensure that there are no design discrepancies.
#9 Regular enhancement
Mobile app development is not a one-time thing. We do need to maintain it & keep adding new features to enhance the usability of our app.
It is therefore necessary to engage only reliable mobile app developers who can work with you not just as a hired employee, but they must act like a technical partner.
Believe it or not, a mobile app developer or an app development company is among the most important factors that determine the success of your application.
#10 Seek feedbacks
As I already mentioned above that a mobile app is not a one-time thing. You can’t simply set it up, shut it and forget it. You need to enhance it regularly. And seeking feedbacks from your existing users can really help you to enhance your app.
There are 2 major reasons for seeking feedbacks from your users:
- You get to know about the first-hand experience of your users.
- Your users feel that they are an important part of your business/mobile app because their opinion matters to you.
Therefore, you must ask your mobile app developer to add a section of ‘Feedback’ on your mobile app.
#11 Update software
Updating the core software, modules and all plugins of your app will always ensure a seamless browsing experience for your users.
You do need to update software regularly to:
- Install new patches in order to maintain the security of your app.
- Take care of existing bugs.
- Ensure that there is no glitches in features of your app.
Hiring a full-time app developer could cost you a lot, so you can consider engaging a mobile app developer under annual maintenance contract.
#12 Work on user retention
High user retention rate is perhaps the most important signal of any successful mobile app. Therefore, after you create your app, test it and launch it, you must work on enhancing the user-experience on your app so that the user retention rate is higher.
Here are but some of the important ways to make your app intuitive & user-friendly:
- Taking care of basics
- Keeping it simple
- Taking care of operating system
- Thinking from the users’ perspective
- Focusing on smooth navigation
- Design for human fingers
Recommended post: 10 Tips for your mobile app developer to build an intuitive application
#13 Plan for app marketing
App development is not enough to run any business. It must have active users to make it successful. Therefore, you must focus on your app marketing after you launch your mobile application on the Play Store or iTunes.
What are your plans for your app marketing?
If you are on a budget, you can choose some of the best yet affordable marketing mediums such as:
- Facebook Marketing
- Facebook Ads
- Google Ads
- ASO (App Store Optimization)
You can also hire a website developer to build a basic landing page to showcase different features & benefits of your mobile app. This landing page should also have links to download your apps. You can then promote your landing page too.