Tag Archive for: Mobile App Development

Tips For Higher App Store Ratings

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Improving Your App Store Rating

To this day word-of-mouth is one of the most powerful marketing tactics available. This is because it offers the new potential customer an immediate sense of trust. Since the suggestion comes from a fellow customer, who gains no benefit from your business, it’s safe to assume there’s no ulterior motive. While the world is swiftly transitioning to work-from-home environments and remote operations, it may seem like word-of-mouth marketing is disappearing. However, it’s quite the contrary. Even in a virtual world, elements like app store ratings and yelp reviews serve as the vehicle for word-of-mouth marketing.

In viewing app store ratings as a version of word-of-mouth marketing, the value of a strong app store rating becomes apparent. Mobile app developers and producers understand that driving a strong app store rating yields a myriad of benefits. These benefits range from a larger and more loyal user-base to longer log-times, and even higher in-app purchase rates. Prioritizing a high app store rating is quickly becoming recognized as more and more vital to an applications long term success.

Tips To Improve App Store Ratings

Mobile app developers often create store-rating strategies before the onset of a mobile app project. This allows the team to focus on developing a unique application with a unique interface while still delivering undeniable value.

Market Analysis

Firstly, in approaching the release of any mobile app the first step is to conduct a market-analysis. Through this analysis the mobile app producer takes note of the competitors living within the same sub-markets that they’re targeting. Beyond the initial market-analysis, the mobile app producer looks at the specifics of each of the competitors already in the space.

This is where the developer can put their app-theory to the test. If the ideation of the new application is too similar to any of its existing competition, adjustments need to be made. This is the point in the process where a developer is able to pinpoint the value-proposition of their mobile-application. Additionally, this is also the stage that reveals the main differences between the new app and competitors solutions.

Prioritize User Experience

Prioritizing the user experience is a multi-faceted chore. Firstly, this means delivering undeniable value to the user. This goes back to the idea of a value-proposition. However, beyond offering users some type of solution; mobile app developers need to be prepared for iterations and updates.

In other words, consumers aren’t going to stay quiet about issues or unpleasantries they experience. Therefore, paying attention to user feedback, and especially negative user feedback, will help your developers address major issues with the application. Addressing user issues swiftly and confidently is a sure way to push your app store ratings higher.

Beyond that, build a feedback prompt into your mobile application, and solicit users to leave your team a rating and feedback.

Final Thoughts

The app store is a vicious place. Users are as fast to delete applications as they are to download them in the first place. For more information on achieving a higher app store rating, and how to drive user-loyalty, visit NS804.

NS804 is the premiere knowledge source for everything mobile app development.

How To Improve User Retention By Studying The Competition

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It’s tough out there. The app marketplace isn’t what it used to be due to incredibly high competition. Considering that there are over 2.8 million apps on Google’s Play Store and around 2.2 million apps on Apple’s App Store, app developers and publishers have their work cut out for them. And the same old strategies that worked in the past seldom work in today’s digital marketplaces. 

However, it’s not all doom and gloom if you adopt the right strategies for pushing forward the next generation of engaging apps. Firstly, you’ll need to accept that an app building competition isn’t a bad thing, as this creates new opportunities. Secondly, implement a solid ‘update app‘ strategy that causes the user to follow through. Thirdly, think about how to improve user retention since this will help in increasing your ROI.

Finally, never fear competition, as there are several effective ways to develop successful apps in the current climate. Below, we provide a few handy tips about studying the competition and using that to your advantage.

1. Better Understand Your Audience’s Needs

It’s no secret that you can’t tailor a user-centric experience if you don’t know your target audience. Thus, take the time to learn as much as possible about your current and future users. Find out their age, gender, language, location, occupation, devices, interests, and marital status. 

Of course, you can delve deeper by finding out more about their behavior, habits, personality, and values. All this data will help you compile accurate user personas, which will give you a clear understanding of your audience’s needs.

2. Improve Upon Features Users Don’t Like

Even your most well-made app won’t please all your users. You may have released a messaging app that runs smoothly and boasts a ton of handy features. However, some of your users may find the available emojis unappealing and start looking for alternative messaging apps. Check out what your competitors are doing, and implement the necessary improvements when your users click the update app button.

3. Improve Overall UI/UX Design

Your production values make a massive difference in how users perceive your app. The quality of all your assets and overall UI/UX design will make or break the final product. All your visual elements, which may include menu icons, fonts, and the update app button, to name a few, are vital to your app’s success.

Furthermore, you should implement these five key elements for your UX design: information architecture, interaction design, usability, prototyping, and visual design.

4. Release More Purposeful Updates

Always delve deeper into how to improve user retention. It’s common for many developers to focus primarily on bug fixes for their update cycles. While this is good for app stability, many users may grow tired of using apps that don’t offer significant feature upgrades. With these regular updates, you ensure that your app remains modern and secure and that you care for your users.

5. Study User Feedback For New Ideas

Any app building competition can be a game-changer. Your users aren’t just using your apps, but also those released by competitors. That’s why it’s important to gather user feedback and study it carefully. Find out what they’re saying about your apps and those made by the competition. After gaining this valuable insight, discuss it with your team, and plan your upcoming updates accordingly.

In Conclusion

Learning how to improve user retention by studying the competition is a step in the right direction. You’ll need to follow a few important steps, such as understanding your audience’s needs, improving features users don’t like, improving UI/UX design, release purposeful updates, and study user feedback.

The result is an app building competition while engaging users. With years of experience in app development, NS804 can help you achieve your business goals with professionally made apps.

Key Features of Enterprise Productivity Apps

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The Key Features of Enterprise Apps Focused On Productivity

Competitive companies constantly search for new avenues through which to conduct business activities. Additionally, executives, business owners, and decision-makers are always looking for new ways to save time in their days and weeks. The age old adage that time is money is still very true today. One of the main ways to go about saving time is through implementing business tech. Countless corporations today rely on the assistance of enterprise productivity apps, and other sophisticated tech, to operate their organizations.

Before going much further, let’s look at what enterprise productivity apps are. Firstly, it’s crucial to recognize that there is a huge spectrum of enterprise productivity applications. On top of that, different organizations simply have different needs. Therefore, many enterprise productivity applications are unique to the organizations that build them.

Another reason the individuality of enterprise productivity apps is important to note is because it speaks to a truth across all industries and markets. The idea that every organization will face slightly unique struggles, roadblocks, and set-backs. As such, this leads to the development of unique solutions and company-specific workflows or operations.

Enterprise Productivity Apps

The marketplace for enterprise productivity applications is roaring right now. With the current state of the world as it is, and many organizations transitioning to a work-from-home environment, the application market has been booming. While organizations continue shifting into fully remote-operations, companies are facing issues that they never have before.

In fact, this trend extends well beyond the business-application-segment, and is indicative of the entire mobile and web application market. As the regional shut-downs rolled out domestically and globally, more and more people were spending the majority of their days inside, isolated with their families or by themselves, and suddenly separated from the rest of the world.

From supply-chains collapsing all around the world, to major companies shutting their doors, and skyrocketing unemployment rates, the world-economy is in a state of disarray unlike we’ve ever seen it. As such, the companies that managed to keep their doors open and have already successfully transitioned into a work-from-home model have, in most cases, made use of a enterprise productivity application.

Enterprise productivity applications fall into a wide variety of categories. One of the most popular types of enterprise productivity applications, however, is project management software such as Asana, Basecamp, or Monday.com. These applications help companies, and managers, gain a more comprehensive picture of any ongoing project within the organization. This includes information on the initial timeline, the actual timeline, missed deadlines, current tasks, upcoming meetings, and much more.

Additionally, these softwares allow managers to track and record their employee progress. This additional oversight that enterprise productivity applications brings to your organization enables your management team to lead more effectively and drive impactful business metrics.

Addressing Employee Needs

When assessing your company and its need for enterprise productivity applications there are a few questions to start with. One of the most influential determinants in creating your enterprise productivity solution are the daily struggles that challenge your staff. Understanding what obstacles your employees are facing on a daily basis provides invaluable insight. This insight helps lead the direction of the enterprise application solutions, and should inform decision makers within your organization.

The logic behind gaining insight into employee obstacles is rather simple. Without this understanding, managers and business leaders would essentially be completely guessing at what solutions will benefit the company. On top of conducting their due diligence in order to invest in creating comprehensive and successful solutions, the information garnered from employees will prevent managers from investing in poorly-thought-out solutions that don’t address employee needs.

In addition, a poor investment in the wrong type of enterprise productivity application can actually have the opposite impact that choosing wisely does. In other words, the wrong enterprise productivity application will add bulky and inefficient redundancy into your operations. Ultimately, this makes it more difficult for the employees to conduct their daily activities. On top of that, it also drives unnecessary costs upward, and dismantles cost-saving techniques. Avoid a poor investment in the wrong enterprise solution. Conduct employee interviews to get to the root of the obstacles your staff faces on a daily basis.

An enterprise productivity application should aim to ease the daily burden of every employee in the company.

Automation In Enterprise Applications

As was just mentioned, the purpose of an enterprise productivity application is to ease the collective burden of operations on the business. One of the core functionalities in many enterprise productivity applications is the ability to automate menial tasks. Delegating daily activities to the software that would normally fall to a member of the staff, frees up additional labor and time that can then be reallocated.

For example, there are many instances in which an employee will spend their first hour of work scheduling their day. They’ll make adjustments to their plan based on shifting priorities and any new information gathered. However, with a sophisticated enterprise solution, all of this information is instantly available to the user. Since the platform offers anyone with the proper credentials to make updates on the project, tasks, deadlines, or anything else, all of that data is streamlined directly to the user who needs it most. Not only is the data accessible by the employees that need it, but it’s also available when they need it.

This is just one of many examples of how enterprise productivity applications can facilitate a streamlined workflow through automation.

Integration

Arguably one of the most important aspects of the enterprise productivity application is it’s integration capability. Pairing your enterprise productivity application with your enterprise software solutions leads to a robust and comprehensive solution. However, in the instance that your software and your productivity applications are incompatible, then we run into the same issue as outlined above; higher costs, lower savings, and a lower rate of operational efficiency.

In successfully pairing an enterprise productivity application with your additional enterprise software, the entire organization is improved throughout the entirety of the vertical. In other words, everyone should see the benefit; from executive management to the c-suite employees, down to the frontline workers and even the manual laborers.

Communication

Communication is one of the keys to a successful relationship. No matter the context of that relationship. This is true when it comes to business partnerships, intimate relationships, friendships, and everything in between. As such, enterprise productivity applications emphasize streamlined and widely accessible communication channels. This ties back into automation, as some internal team communications can be automated by the enterprise solution.

Additionally, however, most enterprise productivity applications include some level of communication platform. Whether this is in the form of an instant messenger or an email-substitute; it keeps team members looped in, and offers a single platform for project work and team-communication.

A Final Word

In our new world, communication and team collaboration has become absolutely invaluable. With the majority of businesses and organizations transitioning into a work-from-home and remote-work environment, our ability to maintain open and clear channels of communication is more vital than ever before.

Keep your teams on track, measure project progress, and open up the lines of communication by investing in a enterprise productivity solution that meets the unique challenges of your business. Visit NS804 today for more information on where to start.

Mobile App Usage During COVID-19: Mobile Apps Seeing a Surge in User Base

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COVID-19 And The Surge In Mobile App Usage

In March of 2020 the world began a period of rapid change. The COVID-19 pandemic swept over the globe, and society all over the world felt its impact. Not only that, but shortly after the onset of the pandemic, domestic turmoil erupted as well. With COVID-19 running rampant through cities and states all over the country, things shut down quickly. Additionally, unemployment rates began to skyrocket as businesses shut their doors to customers. Others still would transition to a fully-remote work environment. With businesses shut down, and the majority of people stuck inside, mobile app usage saw a massive surge.

The huge surge in work-from-home positions was just one of the significant shifts that the pandemic began. As companies realized it was no longer safe for employees to come into the office, those same businesses had to make adjustments to stay afloat in our new society. In order to keep operations running, many businesses got creative and found ways to serve their customers remotely.

Mobile App Usage Stats

In fact, in the second quarter of 2020 business app usage saw a massive increase of 220% compared to quarter four of 2019 in the United States. India, however, saw an even greater increase of 450% over the same time period. The significant increase in businesses app usage points toward a general trend in the way that businesses will be operating for the foreseeable future.

Businesses aren’t the only ones to see a huge increase in mobile app usage, however. In the last three months, July, August, and September, mobile app users spent 180 million hours on apps. The huge surge in mobile app usage is universal. In other words, it isn’t just businesses, or customers in a certain demographic that are spending more time on mobile apps.

Rather, it seems that the entirety of the mobile app market is experiencing one of the greatest volume-increases in history. Certainly, while some trends are just that, a trending phase or fad, the increase in the mobile app market seems like it’s going to be more sustainable than other phases.

This is because of two main reasons. The first is that the affects of the COVID-19 pandemic are going to stretch far into the future. The second is simply the versatility of the market. From enterprise level apps that businesses use to conduct operations, to educational apps that are powering remote learning, and of course, even the silly mobile-app games that provide people with a sense of community in these dismal times.

Capitalize On The Surge

While the onset of the mobile-app surge has already come and gone, the massive uptick in mobile app usage is here to stay. Now is a better time than ever to start taking your ideas for a mobile app from concept to reality.

NS804 is the mobile app developer of the ever day person. As such, we’re dedicated to making mobile app development services more accessible than ever before. Visit NS804 today and get in touch with the mobile app developer of tomorrow.

“After” COVID-19 – Preparing My Company for The Next Pandemic

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Learning From COVID-19

2020, if nothing else, has been a year full of change and lessons. Additionally, 2020 brought about a ton pof changes. Changes that businesses and consumers had to adapt to. Shortly after the onset of the pandemic many companies closed their doors. Other businesses still reduced their capacity significantly. However, the largest trend to emerge from 2020 is the move toward a remote working environment. Some organizations were ahead of the curve with their pandemic prep.

Companies need to prepare for the rest of the pandemic. Not only that, organizations also need to look ahead toward the next pandemic. Taking from the lessons learned from COVID-19.

Looking Beyond The COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic is far from over. Companies are still trying to recover from broken supply chains amongst other things. Not only that, but the global market is under an incredible amount of stress. Simultaneously, companies are still coping and managing social distancing practices. Ultimately, that limits the amount of business they can serve at any given time.

However, it’s never too late to prepare for the next storm.

Many companies have had to find new ways to operate. In many instances this has included shifting toward a remote-working environment. Working remotely has become the norm of 2020. As such, companies need to prioritize the various aspects that make it possible for businesses to function remotely.

One of the ways to do this is to equip employees with the proper software and hardware. This allows employees to run modern software and applications. Another vital element is communication. Robust communication channels empower staff members.

Without proper internal communication deadlines are missed, projects fall off track, and collaboration collapses. The result is subpar performance, and a culture that allows for miscommunications regularly.

Other Solutions

Beyond shifting to a virtual environment and a remote-working world, companies have continued to be creative in finding new solutions. In a time where companies are facing many unique and specific challenges, custom applications have started to emerge as source of many solutions.

Now more than ever before, companies are turning to AI and custom enterprise applications in order to collect and manage data on a larger scale. Not only will data related activities happen on a larger scale, but they will also occur in a more efficient manner. Bringing your business into the modern world means adjusting to the new playing field.

Understanding that the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over, and that another pandemic could very well hit us down the road, now is the time to start preparing for an entirely digital experience.

Going Totally Digital For The Next Pandemic

The customer experience of tomorrow is completely digital. With more businesses transitioning into remote working environments, and turning to custom mobile apps, and AI based solutions for data management and collection, the economy is recognizing the reality of this pandemic, and the next one.

NS804 is the mobile app developer of the everyday person, and is dedicated to making mobile app development services more accessible than ever before. Visit NS804 today to get in touch with a mobile app developer and start turning your idea into reality.

The BENE Mobile App – A Case Study

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The Development of BENE

It is a fortunate thing to be able to work on projects we’re passionate about. Often, the most successful projects stem from a place of passion and service. This is certainly the case with BENE. BENE is a mobile app that connects employees who rely on tips to the modern, cashless age.

In recent years, the average consumer has all but stopped carrying cash altogether. This has made it difficult, in certain circumstances, for professionals and consumers to easily tip staff. There are many situations in which tipping is necessary. Not only that, but there are even more situations in which tipping may not be necessary, but is acceptable and earned.

The Goal:

BENE aims to eliminate awkward tipping situations and was conceptualized by Anna Skvortsova and her husband, Mike.

Seeing The Problem

Both Anna Skvortsova and Mike are active travelers. As such, they spend a lot of their time on the move. However, with such an active lifestyle that seems to always be moving, they seldom carried cash.

Carrying paper cash is becoming a trend of the past for a variety of reasons. There is, of course, innate risk with carrying cash. Not to mention, that with the recent status of things, people are much more wary of passing things back and forth. Cash included. All of this paired with the rise of the virtual market place, ecommerce, and virtual banking apps, cash is nearly all but extinct.

While a cashless world seems more streamlined and more convenient, there are still a lot of market segments that rely on physical paper money.  One of the largest of these segments, is the service-worker segment. Workers and staff members that rely heavily on the tips that they acquire throughout their shifts.

The impact of a cashless society on the tip-based market was driven home to Anna and Mike one evening as they were traveling. After a meal out with colleagues and friends alike, the couple were waiting for the valet to pull their car around. As the valet approached – a moment of panic flew into the couples hearts. It dawned on them, in that moment, that neither of them had any cash on hand in order to tip the valet.

After 100’s of “I’m sorry’s” and a trip to the nearest ATM, the couple was able to tip the valet. Finally. With a sigh of relief, and the awkward moment behind them, they moved on with their evening. However, the moment stuck with them. So much so that the couple continued to discuss the interaction.

The problem:

As society continues moving toward a cashless era with the majority of transactions occurring electronically, service workers and tip-based employees suffer.

Conceptualizing BENE

After the interaction with the valet, Anna and Mike developed a hyper-awareness to similar circumstances that occurred along their trip. More and more they realized how many service workers and tip-based staff were missing out on significant portions of their funds due to a cashless era that they weren’t equipped to operate within.

Hence, the beginning of BENE. The name, BENE, comes from the french word for blessings, and its simple design offers an elegant solution to a real-problem faced by consumers, travelers, and tip-based staff all alike. This started the journey of bringing BENE from conceptualization to reality.

Development Roadblocks and Hurdles

Like with many great stories, they wouldn’t be worth telling without a little adversity. Before BENE was built and developed in part with NS804 and our mobile app development teams, it started in another development shop.

Excited about their new brain-child, Anna and Mike began work with a mobile app developer. As the relationship continued, it became clear that the fit wasn’t good. Not only was the developer missing deadlines, but suddenly, BENE didn’t feel like BENE anymore. At this point, the developer was over 6 months behind, and faith that BENE would ever be finished was wearing thin.

However, in a moment of serendipity, NS804 reached out to Anna about shouldering the rest of the development. Just like that, the project had new life, and there was an entirely new pool of hope for Anna, Mike, and BENE.

Additional Setbacks:

After conceptualizing BENE and bringing it to the initial development house, Anna and Mike were beyond disappointed by missed deadlines and continual delays. At the point of nearly losing faith altogether, Anna and Mike found partnership in NS804, and the project was revitalized. 

Finishing The Job

Once NS804 came onto the project, BENE had a totally new life. Suddenly, the project had completely new legs and was back on track in no-time. After only a few months of working with NS804 Anna and Mike had a real time-line for delivery on the application. Shortly after, NS804 finished developing BENE. Then it hit the app open-market.

BENE has been live for about two months on both the apple and google play store. Since BENE went live, it has quickly been integrated into the hospitality market. The application is a fit for the hospitality industry as it connects service staff, like maids and housekeepers, to the consumers they serve. This finally bridges the disconnect between consumers and the service workers that earn tips, but don’t get face-time with consumers.

The Nuts and Bolts

BENE is a mobile app that aims to eliminate situations in which consumers are unable to tip staff or employees who deserve it. The application takes the core functionality of other banking and fintech applications in order to create a streamlined consumer-to-staff channel. Similar to Venmo or Paypal, the staff member simply creates an account, links their bank, and receives a QR code.

The QR code is so that staff members can print the QR code on their business card or leave-behind. This is material that the employee leaves in the room they served, or with the consumer. With the addition of the QR code, the consumer can then use their smartphone to scan the QR code. After scanning, the consumer is lead directly to that staff members BENE account, and is able to tip them for however much they see fit.

On the consumer side of things, the transaction is just as simple. BENE understands that tipping shouldn’t be awkward in any sense, and that means it should be as streamlined as possible. After setting up an account and linking a debit card or bank account, consumers are ready to tip service workers with ease. Keeping that in mind, BENE allows consumers to tip staff and employees in as little as three taps.

BENE brings more awareness to the tipping culture in America. The application allows hospitality workers, and service workers to have easier, more convenient access to tipping channels. Not only does BENE encourage consumers and travelers to tip appropriately and generously for a job-well-done, however, it also helps connect service workers to the cashless era.

The Solution:

NS804, Anna, and Mike worked together to create BENE, the mobile tipping app that connects tip-based staff and service workers directly to the customers they’re serving, even in a cashless society or non-face-to-face transaction.

Bringing It All Together

NS804 is proud to be a partner on the development of BENE with Anna and Mike. The power couple who conceptualized the idea comes from humble beginnings, and is clearly passionate about giving back to the community, and helping everyone find fair opportunity in the modern world.

As a mobile app developer, NS804 is dedicated to making mobile app development services more accessible to the everyday person. Visit the apple store or the google play store today to download BENE and join the tipping revolution.

NS804 is the premier source for information and knowledge on every and anything mobile app development. Visit NS804 today and get in touch with the mobile app developer of the next generation, ready to take your idea to reality.

Unique Challenges Of Developing Both An iOS And Android App

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Challenges of Developing Cross Platform

During mobile app development, developers face many challenges. Evidently, obstacles spring up throughout the entire journey. Generally, roadblocks and challenges pop up from the very beginning all the way to the end. Developing a mobile app is already a hefty task. However, that task becomes more complicated with more stipulations. In other words, the more robust a mobile app is – the harder it is to develop.

Developing an application that is cross-platform, for example, brings about a whole slew of development challenges. A cross-platform application is one that is functional on both the ios and the android operating systems. The reason so many developers prefer to build cross-platform applications is because of the market appeal.

In other words, offering the application to both android users and apple users essentially makes the marketing strategy much more inclusive and wide-spread. Essentially, this exposes the application to a much larger potential user-base and amplifies its chance for success. Improving an applications chance for success on the open market is significant, as the mobile app industry is already unbelievably saturated.

Therefore, one way to stand out, is to develop cross-platform applications that include the entire population of potential users.

Defining The Obstacles of Cross Platform

One of the main challenges of cross-platform application development is the coding language. Code is the structural building blocks that create enterprise applications, websites, and mobile apps.

Just like human language, however, there are various coding languages. The different languages apply to different operating systems. In other words, the difference between developing a mobile application for ios and android is no small difference. While the app functionality, look, aesthetic, and feel will end up being identical, the structural building blocks composing the applications are completely different.

Understanding that developing applications for both ios and android simultaneously is much more than a copy+paste type of activity, brings developers to the reality that developing functional cross platform applications takes a dedication to learning and mastering multiple coding languages.

On top of developing applications that are cross-platform and available on both ios and android, developers also need to build for various devices. Many applications are accessed from multiple devices, such as smartphones,  laptops, and even tablets. This brings another slew of challenges into the development process as developers need to not only build for multiple operating systems, but also for varying screen-dimensions, and a wide spectrum of devices that consumers prefer.

Wrapping Up on Cross Platform Development

Cross-platform development is becoming the standard in app development. As both the ios and android markets are both soaring through the duration of the pandemic, it makes sense that app developers would want their applications to be as accessible as possible. This translates into taking the time to develop applications in multiple coding languages, and for multiple devices.

Get the help you need for cross-platform application development by visiting NS804 today. NS804 is dedicated to making mobile app development services more accessible than ever before. As a premiere source for information and knowledge on mobile app development, visit NS804 today and get in touch to start realizing your mobile app.

How User Experience Affects Your Mobile App

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The Effects of User Experience

Mobile apps don’t exist for the sake of the designer. Rather, mobile apps exist to serve a function. That function, however, can be virtually anything. Although, many of the successful mobile apps that exist aim to solve a specific problem for the end-user. The important note to take there is that mobile apps exist for the end-user. Therefore, optimizing the user experience is a priority.

The term user experience can refer to quite a variety of elements and aspects that a user encounters within a mobile app, or any application. These elements include visual design, interactive components, information architecture, and more. Because the UX is such a vast category when it comes to the design of a mobile app, its impact is also critical.

There are many reasons to prioritize user experience in mobile app development. From improving user-retention rates to a stronger user-acquisition strategy, the benefits of a positive UX speak for themselves.

User Retention

As is mentioned above, one of the key benefits of building and developing a high-quality user-experience within your mobile app is higher rates of user-retention. This is another pillar argument for prioritizing user-experience in mobile app development, as gaining end-users is the ultimate goal. After all, mobile apps don’t exist for the sake of the designers.

The mobile app market is super-saturated. That means that users have endless options to solve the same problem. Therefore, new users who have a bad experience with your mobile app, are very likely to jump ship and download a competitor’s app.

User Acquisition

In the same vein as user retention, is user acquisition. User acquisition actually comes before user retention in the mobile app lifecycle, as it’s the process through which new users first learn about, and join your mobile app. Since the visual design is one of the very first aspects of a mobile app that new users interact with; it makes sense that visual design elements are a significant contributor to user experience.

Build intuitive and user-friendly mobile apps that are aesthetically pleasing in order to reinforce your user-acquisition strategy.

Increased Efficiency

Beyond attracting new users or retaining existing users, strong user experience offers other benefits as well. Since a large component of UX is related to information architecture and usability, this furthers the argument for prioritizing well-designed user experience.

Building a strong information architecture means designing the mobile app in such a way that users get to their end-goal faster. This improves the efficiency that mobile app users experience.

Developing efficiency into a mobile app shows users that you respect them and their busy schedules.

A Final Thought

User experience has a wide variety of effects on mobile app success. From improving user retention rates, and developing a more powerful user-acquisition strategy, user experience is truly the backbone of any mobile app.

NS804 is the mobile app developer of the everyday person. Dedicated to making mobile app development services more accessible than ever before, and sharing the years of knowledge and expertise we’ve gathered. Visit NS804 today and start realizing your mobile app dreams.

MVP Development: Competitive Analysis and Feature Sets

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Developing a Successful MVP

Before developing a minimum viable product (MVP) developers conduct their due diligence to make decisions about the MVP prior to releasing it. That ensures the MVP includes vital features that display the core functions of the app. While there are many aspects to consider, two are especially crucial. Firstly, there is the competitive analysis.

The Competitive Analysis

The competitive analysis is a way to determine the specific competitive advantage of the mobile app. In other words, the comparison of mobile apps in the same market. Mobile app developers find valuable insight from these comparisons. Insights that highlight differences between mobile apps.

These differences then become differentiating factors. Enough of these factors form a competitive advantage. A comprehensive competitive advantage then informs the marketing strategy.

Another important aspect to consider when conducting a competitive analysis is the product-market fit. The product-market fit helps determine exactly where in the marketplace any specific app fits. Thus, leading to important insights that the marketing team leverages into different marketing tactics. In turn, forming the overall marketing strategy.

Feature Sets

Feature sets are also incredibly crucial in the development of a successful MVP. The feature sets of an app are the high-level pillars of what makes the app viable. In other words, feature sets make up the core skeleton of the app.

Another way to look at the feature sets of a mobile app is to define what solution the application offers the end-user. Essentially, what purpose does the app serve?

Defining the feature sets of the mobile app is an important step in the MVP development process for a spectrum of reasons. One of the most crucial is that some to many of the aspects defined as a feature set need to be included, to some capacity, in the MVP.

Moving Forward With The MVP

After determining the feature sets of the app the developer can begin designing and building the core of the application. Once the development process is a little further along, the app will be ready for the competitive analysis. Between these two components, an MVP is born.

While the MVP is being built behind the scenes, the marketing team surely is surely not sitting idly by. Once developed, the MVP needs groups ready to test it. These groups often include early adopters.

After the MVP undergoes testing, and the competitive analysis is complete, a mobile app is ready for it’s home-stretch.

At this point in the process, there is plenty of data readily accessible for mobile app developers to complete the app. Insights garnered from conducting the competitive analysis and the product-market fit. Additionally, extra aspects of feedback offered by test-groups from the released MVP.

Develop an MVP with NS804

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Product Market Fit Mobile App Checklist

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Conducting a PMF Checklist, Pre-Market

Market-research is arguably one of the most  how and when to launch a product, in any given market. No matter the market, or the product, entrepreneurs and investors should conduct their due diligence. This includes conducting a product market fit. In other words, this is a sort of another product-viability check. The product market fit checklist is one of the last steps to take before launching.

As such, the product market fit should be more definitive than the earlier product viability phase. Although the two phases will have some overlap in function. The product viability tests focus on developing a minimum viable product and finding investors. While a PMF is more about ensuring that the product serves the intended market.

Understanding Product Market Fit

To properly conduct a product market fit that yields powerful insight it’s important to comprehend what exactly a PMF is. ASAP Developers defines this in as simple terms as, “having the right product for the right market.”

Unfortunately, there are no real qualitative data points to track when it comes to product market fit, or PMF. This makes it hard to standardize a measurement process related to PMF. However, there are ways to gain qualitative insight on product market fit, and make informed decisions regarding marketing, product-launch, and other important factors.

For example, a company can conduct stakeholder surveys to gain feedback. Other PMF insight comes from engagement metrics.

In the mobile app market, conducting a product market fit should include a few standard tactics.

  1. Keyword Search Volume: The app stores track data that is very valuable to mobile app developers. One instance of that is keyword search volume. This is a list of the most commonly searched words in the app store. Access to this data is greatly beneficial to mobile app developers that want to know what the people want. Understand the need first.
  2. Conversion Metrics: Once the app is up and running, or perhaps a beta version of it, the developers can track important conversion metrics. These metrics relate to how many users the app is gaining, and other insightful data points. Having a full picture of this data allows app developers to further optimize their app for the app-store, and bolster their conversion rates.
  3. Retention and KPI’s: This is another element that can be tracked once the app is up and running. Hitting certain retention benchmarks is extremely crucial to mobile app developers. In such a super-saturated marketplace, users are a hot commodity, and retaining gained users should always be a main priority.

A Final Word

Understanding product viability is crucial to mobile app success. Developing apps that aren’t just entertaining, but solve a user problem is a sure way to increase downloads, sales, and revenue. With mobile apps seeing larger user bases than ever before, now is the time to turn your mobile app dream into a reality. Get in touch with NS804 today to start the conversation about your mobile app idea.