How Much Does it Cost to Build an Event App?

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The event industry is evolving at the speed of light and one of the best ways to capitalize on its explosive growth is building event apps. Building an event app could be a bit expensive depending on the features you add. The typical price for an event app ranges from $5000 to over $500,000 but, as the saying goes, you get what you pay for. To make things easier for you, we’re letting you get an estimate on the price of your event app here.

Over 85% of event planners will make use of event registration software to facilitate faster registrations. It’s all about giving audiences an unforgettable experience while maximizing the event ROI – the best of both worlds.

At least 75% of event professionals who don’t use event applications plan on adopting them sometime in the future. Your competition as an event professional will increase; the sooner you have an event app ready, the faster you’ll capture your target audience.

And before you get started on Facebook for your event planning needs, take note that it only serves as a valuable promotional tool to create awareness about the event. The actual registration, planning, coordination, and scheduling will be done through the event.

Problem is, it’s not easy to build a fully functioning event app. Even a ‘normal’ business app with fewer endpoints will cost anywhere from $100,000 to $140,000 depending on their features and functions. The risks and variables involved when planning and developing an event app are simply greater. There is a ton of information that has to be managed in real-time, requiring developers to exercise precision and accuracy – both of which take time and money.

Most event planners will incorporate the following set of features in their event app:

  • Information on the list of speakers
  • Constant news updates about the venue, etc
  • Report briefings
  • Accurate event scheduling
  • Interactive maps for the venue
  • In-depth information on event sponsors
  • Integration with social media tools
  • Ratings
  • … And much more

Depending on the event planner’s needs and budget, the event app may also come with messaging capabilities that allow participants to communicate with each other. Some speakers also like having the ability to ask attendees questions for constant feedback, which is best done with polls.

Every extra feature will add to the amount of time spent developing the app which, of course, adds to your total costs. Below are the main factors that will affect the cost of creating an event app.

Which Platform Should I Choose for My App in 2020?

What will you choose? A web-based platform or a mobile app? Or maybe both?

If you plan on porting the event app to various platforms, including iOS and Android, the development cost and time will increase based on your needs. For instance, the Android platform development efforts will take at least 200 to 3,100 hours. This may be expensive for some businesses especially if they plan on adding all the bells and whistles.

For the most part, event planners will likely settle with hybrid application development because it is far more affordable and allows at least 70% of the code to be reused on other platforms once it has been developed for one.

GPS Connectivity

Smartphone users are becoming increasingly dependent on GPS connectivity to guide them through busy roads and streets as they struggle to find their destination. This is why event apps must also incorporate map-based GPS services to help users. While users can just as easily swap out the app with a more dedicated tool like Google Maps or Apple Maps, doing so only adds to the hassle.

The best way to maximize user interactivity is to provide them with GPS connectivity built in the app. This obviously increases the development time needed to implement the new feature in the event app.

Event Agenda

Think of event agendas as the heart and soul of your event app. Event agendas are a great way to help your guests get to the event on time. This is an essential feature that your guests will use and depend on. Most events such as conferences and seminars are characterized by multiple breaks that often occur at the same time. Attendees need to know which ones they can attend and which ones they should cancel in case it conflicts with their schedule.

An event agenda gives your guests the ability to save sessions that they are interested in. It also gives them an easy way to view their favorite schedule. The last thing they want is to revisit an event or session that they already skipped before during their research.

Post-Event Surveys

Surveys help event planners measure the success of their event. Unfortunately, few event planners give due consideration to post-event surveys. In fact, at least 55% of event professionals believe they don’t properly measure the success of their events properly. This is where post-event surveys or feedback forms come in.

59% of event professionals listed down feedback surveys as the most important way to measure the success of their live event. All event planners want to know what features worked, what didn’t, and what went wrong. This is where post-event surveys come in. They let you collect honest feedback from guests who will be more than happy to voice their concerns and complaints if something goes wrong.

Once you have identified which areas of the app need improvement, you can start fixing themes right away. Most event professionals miss out on collecting this information because they send requests for surveys long after the event was held; at this point, fewer guests are willing to share their suggestions and feedback. To make your surveys quick and easy, give your guests the ability to send their reviews in real-time. It should ideally be done with a few taps instead of combing through long and drawn out questionnaires that waste their time. You can always add an optional section for longer reviews to let users share as much or as little of their feedback as they want to.

Social Features

No event app can survive without being well-connected with social media networks. This is the primary way to maximize user engagement and reach a large chunk of your target audience. Once again, users can always open another tab, window, or app to check their social media. But as mentioned above, most smartphone users would rather do this within the app to save time.

The best part about social media is that it is completely free of charge unless you are running ads. Adding social features to your event app will increase development costs and time. But this cost is definitely worth it since users will find it much easier to share information and post what they did at the event.

If possible, try adding support for multimedia features too such as photographs, videos, gifs, and more. Adding support for social media will increase your traffic as more users will download it out of curiosity.

API Interface Integrations

API interface platforms are extremely useful for event-based companies if they plan on selling tickets, merchandise, and collecting donations. APIs are responsible for point-to-point integration for the exchange of data, including payments. Once again, the idea is to provide access to users. This is best done by adding digital payment gateways so guests can purchase tickets without ever having to leave the app.

Adding this feature will obviously drive up the costs because of the extra number of additional hours and resources that your development team will put into API integration. The ideal event app should be compatible with most major payment processors including PayPal, Visa, bank transfers, and even cryptocurrency.

Offers and Discounts

Who doesn’t like having generous discounts that cut down the price by a significant margin? Most users love the instant gratification that comes with small discounts and the potential freebie. Instead of sending offers and promo campaigns into their inbox, you can send notifications directly through the event app. You’ll soon notice that customer loyalty will increase as users utilize more of your event services.

Conclusion

Can you make an event app at an affordable price while getting all your desired features? Yes, you can! The trick, however, is to find the right team to develop your apps at an affordable price that fits your budget.

If you are looking to create an event app for your business and wonder how much it will cost, then get in touch with our development team at NS804. We will offer you the best possible price while delivering superior event applications that will maximize your ROI.

 

8 Benefits of Enterprise Application Development

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Businesses that develop mobile apps are becoming increasingly efficient. From payment banks to e-commerce businesses and health care, almost every single industry will improve its market value with the help of mobile applications. Success in today’s highly interconnected world is all about leveraging big data and existing business processes. Developing enterprise apps is one way to become more effective.

Below are 8 benefits of enterprise apps:

1. Enterprise Apps are Improving Worker Productivity

Any competitive business must invest in enterprise mobility if they want to increase sales, improve inventory, and incur fewer operational costs. Efficiency in all three areas can be improved by developing enterprise apps with data analytics.

Mobile developers also have the task of pairing analytical tools with the mobile app to maximize productivity. One particularly well known software application that to track important analytical data is Kumulos. It enables businesses to monitor the developmental life cycle of their app and make suitable adjustments throughout for maximum benefit.

2. Company Apps Empower Employees

A large number of companies have employees out there in the field, including delivery services, airport mechanics, and truck drivers. Subtle improvements in their everyday operations can drive up productivity and with it, profits. Enterprise apps give these workers access to real-time data and insights related to their processes.

This data is then fed back into the cloud in the form of business intelligence. This can be particularly helpful to the sales team because they can tap into a variety of available data, including press releases, finical reports, market analysis, research papers, and more. Bonus points if the application is powered with algorithms that can procedurally generate insightful information based on data from third party sites.

The best part is that most enterprise apps can be configured to integrate with important business processes. You will notice that the more users you have on the mobile app, the better your productivity. Enterprise apps maximize productivity by ensuring the following three:

  • Accessibility to work anytime and anywhere
  • Encourages work-life balance
  • Easier communication between different departments

3. Enterprise Apps Save Time

It is not easy to store or retrieve data from your laptop or desktop while you are away from them. Not to mention the fact that employees won’t stay on their desks all the time. Going back and forth between their computers and laptops increases the time that employees could have spent being more productive.

For example, in an organization of over 200 employees, it would take around 10 minutes for a worker to go back to their desk, retrieve data, and then share it with each other.  And while they do this, they are also shifting the attention of other employees from the job they were previously working on.

But using enterprise apps can save your employees’ time since they can just as easily retrieve the data or report from the cloud from their phones.

This also raises another important issue: employees will no longer have to fill up large and tedious forms that take up too much of their time. Instead, the enterprise app allows you to generate reports from drop down lists and menus that are much easier to use and generate. This makes it easier to process sales, generate invoices, and speed up marketing efforts.

4. It is Cost Effective

There are many operations in a single organization, and implementing technological tools for each department would be extremely difficult.

It doesn’t make sense to implement various tech tools for each department for two reasons, i) it would take time to teach employees how to use the tool ii) maintenance will eat up your profits. An enterprise app is a far more effective solution because it can be used by all departments at the same time.

Not only is this more cost effective, but it also lets you make decisions faster and more precisely.  The use of apps will also cut down on the use and dependence on paper. You can hire a cloud service to store and process the data, this is a far more effective solution than to spend money on hardware and other tools. Using agile cloud technology also means you won’t have to use expensive tools at the workplace.

5. Creating New Opportunities

One of the main benefits of enterprise apps is that key stakeholders and decision makers in your organization can know and respond to new opportunities at a moment’s notice. This allows your company to stay ahead of market trends, address reputation management problems, tackle supply chain problems – and a lot more from a single app that you control.

6. Developing Enterprise Apps is Cheaper

Developing a new app on Android and iOS has become significantly more affordable over the years. The best part is that you don’t have to hire a team of developers to build an app for you. The development and maintenance of enterprise apps can be sourced to an app development agency instead. Since they are generally more experienced at app development, app development agencies can build new apps in a shorter period of time using fewer resources.

The best part about app development is that you can always add or remove features based on popular demand and analytical surveys.

7. Improve Customer Experience and Satisfaction

Developing an enterprise app becomes all the more important if you want to improve customer experience. Good customer service depends on how fast your employees can respond to queries and feedback of customers. The speed of your response can play a big role in improving customer satisfaction.

Once again, this is not possible to do since employees are not always available at their desks and getting to and from the computer will delay their actions. Moreover, being able to make responses to customer queries on an enterprise app in an instant is the best way to improve customer engagement. The presence of instant support enriches the user experience and leads to higher revenue and sales.

8. Stay Ahead of the Competition

The cutthroat industry does not favor businesses that are slow to move and respond to changes. Enterprise apps are usually always on the bleeding edge of technology. They create a sense of belonging among employees since they can just as easily log in to their systems at the time of their choosing. This allows employees to optimize their talent pool in the most efficient way possible.

Businesses that don’t take advantage of enterprise apps will find themselves severely short-staffed. This may be true even though they may have more employees than their immediate competition. It’s like bringing a knife to a gun fight.

Conclusion

A large number of businesses are using or plan on using enterprise apps in the near future. Furthermore with Enterprise apps, you can provide a more comprehensive customer experience, increase productivity and make better decisions while pooling your entire talent pool together. NS804 can help you control and transform your systems rapidly. Our team of expert app developers can help with Android app development and iOS app development based on your specific requirements.

For more information, feel free to reach out to us by clicking the link here and leave your feedback.

How to Build an App That People Want (in 8 simple steps)

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It’s official: most online users have an attention span of fewer than 8 seconds; that’s less than that of a goldfish. People want a solution to their problem and they want it now, like an impatient child at the toy store. It’s why Uber, Doordash, and Airbnb are so ridiculously successful because it takes mere seconds to make a booking and get stuff done!

All three apps reduce otherwise long and drawn out processes into a relatively straightforward booking; whether it’s a long commute, food cravings, or renting a place to crash for the night. The biggest indicator of success for any idea is instant gratification; because who has the time to wait?

So if your app can satiate the growing demand for instant gratification, then you have a market. But not all mobile apps become instant sensations. Users adore some apps and despise others. So, how can you build an app that people will want to use? In this post, we’ll unravel the thought process that goes into designing and building an app from the ground-up.

How to Build an App that People Want?

Step 1: Come Up with an Idea

Every good app must start with an idea. The app doesn’t have to be clever or reinvent the wheel. As long as it builds and improves upon an existing solution, it will resonate well with the target audience. Bonus points if it leverages instant gratification and speeds up an existing process.

Use a pen and paper to draw up a rough sketch of your app and what it should look like. Next, prepare a list of features for the app and divide them into ‘must-have’ and ‘nice-to-have’ categories. The ‘must-have’ features are essential for your app. The ‘nice-to-have’ features serve as a plus point, but they are not crucial to the overall user experience.

Step 2: Create an MVP

Once you have determined which features to include in your app, you can create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). The MVP essentially focuses on the problem-solving features and the overall functionality of your app. All other items can be stripped or let out of the MVP to gain market exposure and gauge user demand. The MVP is the most basic concept of your app and lets you collect feedback early on. This will save you time when planning your next move.

Step 3:Design a Functional Prototype

It is good practice to make mockups or functional prototypes of your app to test with users on their phones. Simply put, a mockup contains the user interface, layout, and navigational flow of the app. It does not contain UI elements or complex color schemes. It merely gives you an idea of what the final app should look like without creating any distractions.

At NS804, we always use prototyping to help clients gain an idea about user journeys and to deliver a preview of what a final product may look like. No matter the scope of your project, having a functional visual reference makes life a lot easier. We often use Adobe Xd, Invision, and Balsamiq to create high-fidelity prototypes that look and work exactly how you envisioned.

Step 4: Get into Graphic Design

Once your project kicks off, it’s time to give more serious consideration to UX and UI. Both of these are often confused together in terms of app design. Simply put, UI stands for ‘user interface’. It is the graphical layout of your application and consists of the buttons users will tap to get from point A to point B, the text, images, text entry fields, sliders, and everything else the user may interact with.

This includes transitions, animations, layouts, and every tiny interaction on the app. This is mostly the job of UI designers who decide what the app is going to look like. They brainstorm ideas for the color scheme and button shapes, line width, and font size used.

In other words, UI is all about aesthetics.

UX stands for ‘user experience’. It defines how users interact with the app and all its assets. Is it a smooth and intuitive experience or clunky and cluttered? UX designers make sure that people efficiently accomplish the tasks they want to achieve without struggling. Success really comes down to how intricately woven the UX is with the UI – in other words, how easy or difficult it is for users to interact with the UI elements that the designers have created.

Improving UI and UX means going out of your comfort zone and investing time and money into graphic design. Your app should have high-quality graphics, crisp visual details, image assets, and even motion design- if needed. If you’re not very comfortable with graphic design, consider hiring an expert or using a graphics template.

Step 5: Hire an App Developer

Now that you have laid the groundwork for the app, it’s time to start building it. You can build iOS apps with Xcode to code in Swift or Objective C. You build Android apps with Android Studio. Consider using cloud-based servers like Kumulos Firebase to store data. Alternatively, you can seek a development company that has the right team to help you bring your ideas to life.

Step 6: App Analytics

Use Kumulos app analytics to measure your app’s performance. App analytics improves ROI in every aspect of performance because they allow you to create personalized, customer-centric apps. How users engage with menus, the time they spend on your app, the services that they like best, etc will help you optimize your app to drive up user engagement. There are many free and paid analytical tools that let you measure different user metrics such as the total number of downloads, app usage, bounce rates, etc.

Step 7: Conduct Market Research for the Perfect Launch

Like all products, your app will need a detailed analysis of your target audience. You’ll need to learn about their spending pattern and preferences. Even the most extraordinary of all apps will be of no use without if it doesn’t have an audience. Here’s what you need to ask yourself:

  • Who are my competitors?
  • Are there any alternative apps for potential customers to use?
  • What should I charge for the app?

Once you have the right information, you can optimize your app around your users’ pain points.

Step 8: Launch the App, Get Feedback, and Update

Prepare a suitable title for the app and submit it to the App Store and Play Store for review. Once Apple and Google approve your app, you go live. Now, your potential customers are ready to download and install it.

However, this isn’t the end of your app’s journey. You will still need to promote the app on social media and through PPC campaigns. Also, take user feedback into consideration and update the app accordingly. The best way to obtain feedback is by conducting surveys and interviews.

Building an app is an on-going journey and you will run into your fair share of ups and downs. The important thing is to stay on top of the latest trends and optimize your app based on user preferences.

Get in touch with the app development pros at NS804 to learn more!

 

Five of the Best Places to Find a Freelance Android Mobile App Developer

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The industry for freelance Android mobile app developer is vast. It is hard to identify the right resources that can convert your idea into a speedy, user-friendly app. Here are five of the best places to find a freelance mobile developer.

1. Gun.io

Gun.io helps organizations expand their existing teams in a short period. On average, it can connect you with a reliable developer within 48 hours. The platform sources, vets, and compares the credentials and skills of numerous applicants for your team. It is an ideal platform for North American companies because 90% of its freelance community lives in the U.S. This means that you don’t have to worry about the common time zone issues associated with other platforms. You may have to pay somewhere around $75 and $150 per hour to an Android developer on Gun.io.

2. Hired

Hired is a job marketplace where employers compete fiercely to hire mobile developers. Due to the strict vetting process of the platform, only the top 5% freelancers managed to get hired. The platform saves a great amount of time for companies. It matches the skills and talent of developers with the job description. You can find several senior mobile developers with sufficient experience and expertise. Additionally, it provides freelancers for project-based, contractual, and full-time work. Overall, hiring is quite efficient and saves close to 50 hours for a job role. Additionally, you get to work with professionals who are well-versed in meeting deadlines.

3. Toptal

Toptal stands for Top Talent, and it allows only the top 3% of aspirants, who apply as freelancers, to join the platform. If you need the best developers, you can reach out to a pool of professionals who can deliver premium-quality work. Usually, Toptal is known to provide value for money—at times, you get more than what you paid for. There are two fronts for which Toptal has received positive feedback. Firstly, the platform is highly transparent, whether it is the fees or any other aspect of the platform. Secondly, it stands out due to its exemplary customer-oriented model. For example, a Toptal representative is always on the lookout to track the progress of your app. For part-time app developers, you need to pay $1000-$1500 per week while mobile app developers might ask for $2000-3000 per week.

4. Fiverr Pro

Fiverr is a well-known platform for developers looking for freelance work. It connects vetted software engineers with companies. Freelance Android mobile developers with the topmost ratings are given the ‘Pro’ status. This means that only 1% of candidates go on to achieve Pro status. Typically, employers post jobs worth $1,400 or more on this platform.

5. X-Team

On X-Team, you can find both Android and iPhone application developers for your projects. It screens programmers based on coding quality and performance, especially how fast they execute projects. Also, it evaluates if these professionals can tackle a wide variety of problems. This way, you can use the platform to form a talented and agile team. Moreover, with developers available for eight different time zones, the platform can serve organizations all over the world.

How to Boost User Acquisition and Retention for Your Mobile App

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In 2018, only 0.01% of all released apps were financially successful. Mobile apps don’t get popular based on their performance and user experience alone. You need a strong marketing plan to join the elite list of successful app developers. Here is how you can increase user acquisition and retention for your mobile app.

1. Optimize App Store

App Store optimization is all about updating your app keywords, icon, title, description, preview videos, and screenshots so they always appear fresh and continue to attract new users. For instance, you can use the holiday season to your advantage, such as adding a new discount in the Christmas season.

2. Invest in Paid Advertising

With paid ads, you can increase your reach to a large audience while at the same time; you can build extra touchpoints to connect with the existing user base.

  • Create multiple CTAs and ads. Pay attention to users across different funnel stages to make them download and purchase your app.
  • Leverage audience targeting and utilize interests, demographics, and behaviors to design personalized ads. However, avoid going too specific and target at least an audience of 100K.
  • Focus on designing a series of landing pages for your mobile app. Include the features and a meaty value proposition for conversions.

3. Focus on Reviews and Ratings

A significant chunk of users assesses the reviews of an app to decide whether it is worth downloading. Reviews show users what they are missing out, encouraging them to download the app. Therefore, it is important to get as many positive reviews and ratings as you can to increase your user acquisition. Also, add a feedback section so users can contribute and let you know about their opinions. Here are some tricks to get positive reviews.

  • Use push notifications to ask for feedback.
  • Incentivize positive reviews.
  • Share your app on multiple review platforms.

4. Develop a Website

Build a website that serves as the guide for your mobile app. Post videos showing the importance of your app and demonstrate how it works. Furthermore, you can take advantage of tools like smart banners to connect your site to the app store and upload screenshots. Taking your website traffic to your mobile is a productive method to boost native app users. An effective website is also an excellent channel for brand awareness.

5. Formulate an Incentivization Program

You should provide your users with incentives to increase retention. This is done via mobile-specific rewards, special offers, coupons, and specialized content access. Usually, the nature of the app dictates your incentivization model. For instance, if your app supports in-app purchasing, you can implement time-sensitive discounts. On the contrary, freemium apps can benefit their users and boost retention by offering usage-based rewards. For example, take a look at the Starbucks App. Users are rewarded with loyalty points every time they buy a cup of coffee.

6. Integrate Push Notifications

Push notifications can increase user retention from 56% to 180% improvement. Users who approve of them are known to have a higher engagement rate with apps. This strategy is used for essential and particular functions. With the right implementation, you can ensure greater app usage by utilizing behavior data and preferences with targeted messaging on your push notifications. If your app offers extremely specific use and is unlikely to be used daily, you can compel users to return with push notifications via a promotion or discount on a service or product.

Consider These 4 Things Before Using an Offshore Team for Mobile App Development

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The landscape of mobile applications and the cost of apps are growing at an astronomic rate. This development has sparked the creation of an extensive list of mobile apps all around the world. Every company is looking to develop a mobile app to connect better with its customer base.

Many businesses rely on offshore teams to create an app. The biggest reason behind the use of an offshore mobile development team is a steep reduction in the cost of an app. Although offshore software developers can turn out to be cost-effective, it is important to remain cautious of the pitfalls too.

1. Talent

One of the most common risks with offshore mobile app development is the uncertainty with talent levels. At times, you do get in touch with a coding genius, but in other cases, the developer might not turn out to be a klutz. Therefore, it is tricky to determine the talent of a mobile app developer residing in another country.

You may even come across a developer who recently went to a coding boot camp. Online learning is an excellent source of knowledge, but an app developer is not worth hiring if they lack sufficient experience in the field.

2. Schedules

The difference in time zones might occur as a minor hiccup in the beginning, but it can affect the project deadline in the long run. An overlap of work hours between offshore and onshore teams can range from two to four hours.

When offshore developers fail to contact with the onshore team, it does not bode well for the project. All teams require the opportunity to get to know each other and ask relevant questions. If schedules are not aligned properly, the focus is lost and teams stray towards bad communication.

3. Poor Communication

When offshore developers cannot communicate effectively online or on the phone due to linguistic barriers, it can severely diminish the chances of your app’s success. Make sure that, before you hire any offshore mobile app developers, you have a lot of conversations with them on different topics over the email, phone, and direct messaging.

4. Control

Frustrations are likely to run amok when you work with offshore mobile developers. It is hard to bring the customer and the offshore team on the same page. Deadlines, demands, and expectations are often set incorrectly. The onshore team might identify an issue with an offshore developer, but the offshore team may have reservations against such decisions. As a result, a developer might succeed in staying on the project even if the project owner is against them.

Moreover, legal action is a leading challenge. Laws and regulations might work differently in the country of your offshore developers when compared to the laws of your country. Therefore, in case of legal action, you can be at a disadvantage. Hence, certain risks are inherent offshore mobile developers who live in a separate jurisdiction.

Final Thoughts

Hiring offshore mobile developers is not as easy as some people think it is. There are many factors that you need to take into consideration. Although there are some triumphant cases too, they are few and far between. Therefore, it is recommended to have your app designed via a US-based development team. As such, you can send us a message to develop the next big app.

What Are the Best Practices for Enterprise Mobile App Development?

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Enterprise mobile app development ranks as one of the most competitive spaces around the world. The increase of tablet and smartphone penetration has led businesses to recognize mobile apps as a powerful channel for marketing. Numerous apps are released in the app store daily as companies compete to create faster, lighter, and more intuitive mobile applications. Here are some of the best enterprise mobile app development practices worth mentioning.

Focus on User Experience

User experience is the most crucial factor to consider, whether you want to create an app for your employees or customers. Due to the different mobility technologies, screen sizes, OS, and hardware restrictions, building and maintaining high-quality user experience can be a tough nut to crack. By implementing the best UX design practices, you can ensure that your app is more engaging, fun, and interactive than your competitor’s. For instance, a user might have two free hands in a restaurant, but they might be clutching a pole in public transit. Making sure your apps have a user-friendly interface in such circumstances is the job of your UX experts. By integrating AR/VR, you can enjoy even more benefits.

Align the App with Business Strategy

Having a solid mobile app development strategy is not good enough to boost the online presence of your organization. You have to keep your business objectives in mind. Entrepreneurs need to make sure that their app aligns with the short-term and long-term goals of their organization. This also includes assessing the strengths of your competitors and your current position in the market. Mobile app developers should receive information on these areas and design an app that ticks all the boxes of their organizational business strategy.

Consider App Sizes

You have to ensure that the size of your app is optimized. It should not be too large and should not take a lot of space on the device of your user. If your employees use several apps at once, it is important to stop them from eating all of the memory of their mobiles via an app. You can do this by providing the necessary functions only.

Make Use of Sensors and Form Factor

Most modern devices come with 3G/4G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, camera, and NFC sensors. Therefore, it is best to include these connectivity options in your enterprise mobile app development. Sensors can help with optimizing the app performance. This way, you can improve the efficiency of your features.

Apply Iterative Design

It should come as no surprise that mobile app developers prefer an agile development process. This is a major advantage in enterprise mobile development as it empowers the management to review the user feedback and update the app continuously in a short period. Rather than rolling out bulkier changes in a single deployment, you can improve your app to fulfill the requirements of users without sacrificing performance and speed.

Secure the App

An enterprise mobile app will store and process sensitive data, be it the personally-identifiable information of all employees or the company’s financial records. Encourage users to use security features like authentication, encryption, and handling of their private information to protect themselves.

Final Thoughts

These days, companies are heavily reliant on enterprise mobile apps. These apps streamline and automate processes, simplify workloads, and improve communication seamlessly. Send us a message to create an enterprise mobile app for your organization to boost your productivity in a short period.

Where to Find the Early Adopters for Your MVP?

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So you’ve recently designed an MVP, but what’s the next step? What should you do next? Now is the time to look for early adopters or your first groups of loyal users. However, most users don’t embrace innovations easily. Early adopters, also known as lighthouse customers, only make up 13% of the total user base. They offer valuable feedback that helps entrepreneurs refine and improve their apps in various aspects. Here are a few ideas on where to find the early adopters for your MVP.

1. Landing Pages

People who visit your webpage or connect with you through another online channel are often directed to your landing page. You can leverage this marketing strategy to explain the features of your products and compel your target audience to sign up. This way, you can use them to test your MVP.

Traditionally, landing pages get a bad rap. In many cases, marketers merely utilize them as email capture pages. On the contrary, when appropriately designed, they carry the potential to test your MVP thoroughly. For example, you can use them to find out which of your features are more popular between the two and how do your users view your pricing plans.

Kate Rutter, the Co-Founder of Luxr, believes that landing pages are an excellent means to “sell first, build later.” Although there are many promising analytics tools, Google Analytics is a smart choice. Use this tool to collect the visitor metrics of your landing pages.

Afterward, you can perform A/B tests to monitor the changes in your product. Observe how users react to your product specifics, such as when you add a specific feature.

2. Fundraising

Not many people are aware that Indiegogo, Kickstarter, and other crowdfunding websites are terrific platforms to attract prospective customers to your MVP. Many users determine the market response of an MVP by measuring how much funds did the company raise.

Pro-tip: Successful fundraising campaigns often involve rewarding people with incentives.

3. Explainer Videos

The correct use of text and images work wonders, but modern-day digital consumption is highly biased towards videos. According to HubSpot, 81% of companies use videos for marketing. Seek inspiration from the cloud storage giant Dropbox. Dropbox generated a lot of buzz when it sold its MVP via an explainer video. The 3-minute video demonstrated the functionality of Dropbox with easy-to-understand content. As a result, it spread across 70,000 viewers overnight. What made Dropbox’s MVP standout from the rest was that its video was more of a step-by-step guide than a marketing gimmick. As a result, user engagement soared.

4. Blogs

Blogs are one of the most popular tools to validate ideas of your MVP. You can flesh out your ideas and earn support from a community of readers and followers. This participation can help you gain further momentum and obtain customer feedback on your MVP development.

5. Digital Prototypes

Today, you can design prototypes, mockups, and wireframes on the web to showcase your MVP’s intended functionality. Make a dummy app and share it on your digital marketing channels. This tactic can allow your target audience to know what your MVP is all about.

Final Thoughts

The process of building an MVP is an intensive one due to its iterative nature, and it requires a great deal of energy and time. Therefore, it is essential to avoid getting bogged down because of irrelevant details and maintain your attention to create a high-quality MVP. Once you develop it, the methods mentioned above can allow you to acquire your first adopters.

What Will Make the Users Happy? Five Key Elements of Great UX Design

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As a mobile app developer, your goal, like everybody else, is to create the best app without spending too much of your time, effort, and money. The same goes for users who expect their apps to be responsive, quick, and efficient.

Thanks to the free market, competition has soared. The increasingly cutthroat market is unforgiving to companies that churn out boring and shoddy apps. To keep your head above the water, you need to pass the bare minimum requirements. One of these is having a highly responsive UX or user interface.

An intuitive UX is the backbone of any app. It focuses on structuring an app’s components and elements appropriately to enhance the user flow. If your app doesn’t prioritize the end-user experience, it won’t last for long.

The problem is that user needs and expectations have drastically changed during the past decade. The need of the hour is for app designers to anticipate these changes to stay ahead of the curve. Let’s cover the five basic elements that make up great UX design.

1. Simplify the User Journey

Users engage withmobile apps with a specific goal in mind, which they want to achieve in the shortest time possible. Apps that have a good UX simplify a user’s journey by saving their time.

Here’s the rule of thumb: if it can be simplified, then it should. The idea is to reduce the number of steps users must take to perform their intended action.

Apps with a good UX do this by presenting information in a clutter-free dashboard that provides a smooth navigational flow. Some of the key things to keep in mind include:

  • Linear design: Linear design gives users an idea about the time it will take to complete their task. It gives users the ability to complete one action at a time, which is important for consistency.
  • Progressive disclosure: This strategy manages the complexity of user information by only showing the vital pieces of information to users when they need it. The idea is to reduce the overflow of information on their screens.
  • Anticipatory design: This fairly new UX pattern seeks to create a delightful user experience by eliminating needless choices and responding to user needs one step before they express those needs.
  • Visually-rich content: Visually-rich content can captivate users, simplify navigation, and inspire users to explore further.

2. Organize Content

Try to organize the content so that it appeals to users. Your goal should be to ensure that nothing gets in the way of the user’s exposure to your app’s content. This means eliminating unnecessary distractions and any visual clutter, shining the spotlight on the essence of the message you want to convey. Visual cues such as contrasting colors for CTA links are good at guiding users from point A to point B.

Try to eliminate irrelevant information that only seems to get in the way. This allows users to effortlessly pick up on useful information.

3. Personalize the App

Personalizing an app can be a time-consuming task that is also overwhelming, but one that ultimately pays off. Recent trends are shifting from generic experiences to personalized experiences because the latter save time and get more user attention. Researchers from McKinsey found that businesses that deliver personalized experiences can boost their sales by more than 10%.

Advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning make this a walk in the park. Most companies do this by asking their customers to take style quizzes so they can obtain more information about their lifestyle and preferences.

4. Biometric Authentication

Many mobile apps are adopting biometric authentication because it minimizes the risk of getting hacked and makes it convenient for users to verify their identity. Moreover, biometric technology is becoming increasingly available because devices can recognize a person’s identity based on particular characteristics.

Instead of having a laundry list of passwords for different apps, biometrics allows users to verify their identity with fingerprints and even voice or facial recognition.

5. Minimize Data Input

Another important area of app UX is to minimize the amount of user input required. Most users have an attention span of less than 8 seconds, which leaves a very short window for designers. The more data a person must enter into an app, the more likely they are to abandon the app and move on.

It’s no big deal to fill out a form with three or four fields on a desktop, but expecting the same on a mobile app turns users away. Most apps do this by giving users the option to use one of their existing accounts (such as a Google, Twitter, or Facebook account) instead of signing up from scratch. The only thing users now must do is to tap on authorize access for a new registration.

Do keep in mind that some users are a little skeptical about linking their accounts and would rather take the time to fill out the form.

Are you ready to develop your app? We offer UX/UI design and development services with expertise in native apps for Android and iOS. Reach out to us on our website here!

How to Achieve a Good Product-Market Fit

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So you think you’ve got an idea for an enterprise app that addresses your client’s pain points? But have you determined how bad the problem is for clients to buy your product?  Is it just a mild inconvenience or something that triggers a fit of rage?

To ensure your enterprise app survives and thrives in the marketplace, you need to find the right product-market fit.

Is there a demand for the enterprise app?

When it comes to consumer apps, or even low-cost, low-effort projects like the Flappy Bird, your risks are inherently low. You can go back to the drawing board and start over. There’s an element of flexibility for you and your team.

When enterprise apps fail, however, you can’t mitigate your losses in a jiffy. Starting over requires another round of highly dilutive venture capital, more research, and lots of surveys.  Many companies fail because they haven’t achieved a good product-market fit before getting into app development.

Enterprises move at a snail’s pace, and they hardly, if ever, change their course. This is because every tiny change involves lots of hours and money spent not only on the product, but integrating it into their software ecosystem and training personnel. Getting enterprises to adopt your app is a fool’s errand, unless, they’re actively searching for a solution.

Finding the Right Product-Market Fit

Before you pour manpower, time, and money into your new enterprise app, you have to determine whether you have a market for it. The last thing you want to do is build an appthat nobody asked for.

Although there is very little consensus on how to measure the product-market fit for enterprise apps, experts posit the following three questions as a baseline to help you with research:

  1. What is the problem the client faces?
    2. Is the problem large enough for people to search for a solution?
    3. Does the proposed app solve this problem?

If the answer to all these questions is ‘yes,’ you can then start a more thorough, in-depth research.

A good way to start would be to conduct surveys. To get a measure of the product-market fit, you want to find out the percentage of users who would be disappointed if they could no longer use your product. This famous method, hypothesized by Sean Ellis, states that the ideal product-market fit is when you have at least 40% of disappointed users if they could no longer use your product.

Below is a sample of what a product-market survey should look like.

 

If you’re a new business and don’t have a long list of clients, it can be a bit difficult to get responses to surveys. But even if some people respond with ‘very disappointed’ when they could no longer use your product, you’re getting somewhere.

This is when you should double down and learn everything there is to know about the people who think your product is this useful.

Other questions in your survey should help you understand why they consider your product to be a must-have, the key benefit they will receive from your app, and more. This information can help you improveyour app to make it more useful to the end-user.

Don’t Make These Mistakes When Establishing a Clear Product-Market Fit

There are many horror stories of enterprise apps failing despite extensive user surveys. Sometimes, what the client says isn’t a good indication of whether they are prepared to spend on the app when it is finally released.

Here are a few of the most common mistakes you should try to avoid when before measuring the app’s product-market fit.

1. You haven’t spent enough time talking to the user.

Product owners and internal stakeholders are not the people you should be surveying. Talk to the end-user who will be using the app.

2. The need is there, but it’s not overwhelming enough.

Companies and clients have other priorities that need solving. Your solution is probably too niche. In this case, move on to the next big problem and start over.

3. Your enterprise app looks identical to what is already out there in the market.

If this is the case, your problem just got worse – you’ve got competition. Consider undercutting it to attract new buyers, and you’ve still got a chance here.

Once you’ve understood what it is that you’re selling and who you’re selling to, you’re good to go.

If you’ve got ideas for enterprise apps, NS804 has got the right team to help you develop it. Get in touch with us today to learn more.