Important Considerations in Mobile App Development

When it comes to the mobile app development, there are several factors, which one must consider before jumping in.
Here, in this guide, we will bring you face to face on several important considerations, when it comes to the development of mobile apps.

Considerations for Mobile App Development

1. UI Desigin and User Experience (UX)

User experience (UX) is an extremely crucial consideration in the design, and development of mobile applications. UX in mobile apps is much more than merely user experience, and extends to user input mechanisms and user interaction design.
A mobile app design strategy constitutes of a User Interface (UI) & User Experience (UX) design. UI usually compliments the UX and refers to the design and the way in which it interacts with the user. Whereas, UX details how the customer journey/experience would be like while interacting with the app. Both the elements are crucial and help a user decide whether a user would stay or sway away.

2. Mobile App Performance

A lot of effort and resources get invested in making a great mobile app design, however, if the mobile app performance is poor – it all will go in vain.
Mobile app development has to be done keeping in mind the future scalability requirements. Some ways that developers suggest to enhance the performance of apps are using cache images, compressing images, creating offline modes and loading data as needed.

Rapid response time, and stable performance without crashing are the key performance metrics by which the users rank a mobile app. Performance engineering aspects must influence the design of the mobile application and should not be viewed as an afterthought discovered during development or testing phases.

3. Security

The mobile app security is one important aspect, which the developers should consider at high priority.

- Don’t rely completely on built in security features: You must be aware of the fact, even the iOS, which is considered as the safest and closed platform, is not at all fully secured against the cyber attacks’ leave alone the Androids.

- Develop multi level authentication: Passwords are no longer the 100% safest assurance from malicious activities. Developing multiple level authentication should be helpful where not only the passwords hold the key. In this system, whenever the use processes for login, the app sends the code to the registered number and only upon entering the code, the users will be allowed to access the app.

- Preventing unsafe Data transmission: Encryption is an important scenario, when it comes to the prevention of the important data transmission. As a development agency, it is the responsibility of the company to install the best encryption methods to prevent the unsafe important data transmission.

- Limit Data Caching vulnerabilities: Since, the hackers have quite an easy access to the cached data, the mobile developers should look forward towards the limiting of the data caching and its vulnerabilities. Providing password to use a mobile app can help a lot and the process of programming the app to naturally erase off the complete cached data every time the mobile is restarted is one such step towards the better security regarding the caching issue.

4. Implementation Choice

One of the most important considerations is the choice of technology platform or mobile OS for which the application will be developed. There is nothing like a perfect choice and there are pros and cons associated with the various implementation choices available, which are briefly described below:

(i) Native:

A ‘native’ app is an application developed for a specific mobile operating system or device, and takes advantage of the interfaces or APIs exposed by the devices’ OS. The advantages of a ‘native app’ is that as it is written for a specific processor, it can fully leverage the features and services specific for the device or OS, where as the flip side is that the app wont be portable to any other mobile OS. For example, a ‘native app’ designed for Android can’t be ported to iOS or Windows Mobile, and vice versa. Therefore, an enterprise has to be absolutely sure about the predominant mode of its users’ mobile access, before embarking on a ‘native app’ development, which could be a very expensive proposition.

(ii) Mobile Web:

Most of the new generation mobile devices and smart phones are equipped with a pre-installed mobile browser, which functions to a large extent like standard web browsers, supporting applications developed using Java Script and HTML5. Applications that are mobile web-based are OS independent, and can run on multiple mobile browsers on different devices. For an enterprise with prior engineering skills in developing conventional web applications, transition to mobile browser based app development is fairly easy.
Disadvantage of mobile web applications is that they will be incapable of utilizing the device/OS specific features and services, and could lag behind a well-designed native app. Sometimes business considerations also play an important role in implementation choice, as with a native app you will have to go through an ‘app store’, where as with mobile web app, the user can directly access your app without any middlemen, making it easy to support, update, and maintain.

(iii) Hybrid:

Hybrid applications are a mix of native and mobile web based implementations. They are developed using industry standard languages such as JavaScript, CSS3, HTML5, and then linked to additional native libraries, making it easy to deploy them like native applications. Frameworks like Cordova and Phonegap facilitate the conversion of mobile web based apps into Hybrid apps for multiple devices and OS. Biggest advantage of a Hybrid app is that bulk of the application, which is OS independent can be easily reused and ported to other OS, making it much easier to maintain and support. Increasingly, the evolution of standard industry frameworks and protocols and ease of reuse is driving enterprises towards a Hybrid approach to mobile application development.

Finally, an enterprise must choose its implementation platform that is best suited for its application requirements and business landscape, which will further influence the choice of development tools and practices.

5. Mobile App Testing

Right after the release of your app, the app reviews determine whether your app rises or sinks into oblivion. And if you want the best shot at reviews, you cannot ignore app testing. There are numerous testing processes an app has to undergo to work as intended across all devices and networks. A mobile app should be rigorously tested for performance, security, stress, battery consumption, etc.

Most of the developers still assume that testing begins after the completion of development. However, testing should start as soon as the development has reached a logical stage. This helps in identifying issues at an early stage before they become too costly to fix.