13 Most Common Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Mobile App

eSparkBiz & Team (esparkinfo.com)

Finishing the development of your first ever mobile application is an exciting feeling. Moreover, it’s one that quickly fades when that app is rejected from Google play store or Apple’s App Store.

Thousands of mobile application developers face this emotional roller coaster every week. However, acceptance is not the end of the road. A minimum of 59% of apps generates so less profit that they do not even create development costs.

With painful rejections and poor monetization, poor app development style can also hurt users and cause nightmares. Just ask the developers of EnergyRescue.

In January, the battery-saving app was booted from Google’s Play Store after a security vendor discovered it had been embedded with ransomware because of a development oversight. Both Android and IOS play stores account has more than 1 million apps each.

In such a scenario, companies fight out each other to create apps firsthand than others. In that case, it is likely to see a lot of common app development mistakes taking place. Have you ever thought why some applications are better than others even though they are similar regarding use?

After having a great experience with both types of applications, I am listing the common app development mistakes for you to avoid in your future projects. I have listed the following:

Not identifying the need
Selecting a mobile application development company or Freelancer application developer without enough research
Underestimating the total cost
Not considering user expectations
Developing for too many platforms at the same time
App not displaying a systematic, logical flow
App having too many features
App Not having visual clues to help users
Not releasing the updates on time
The app is not focusing on niche features rather than information overloading
The app is not getting sufficient testing
The app is not making use of intuitive icons or interactive graphical elements
There is no proper marketing of your app

Let us dive in details

1. Not identifying the need

Before going for IOS app development or Android app development the most common and big mistake is not doing a requirement analysis before starting the app development process is like serving Ham to vegans – Nobody is going to eat it.

You have a great app idea, and you go and put your money into it without doing market research is not the best way to go. Whenever there is a significant investment required, it is favorable to take things slow.

It is necessary to test the market and conduct surveys about what features the users need in the app if they need it. That would validate your idea and give you confidence about a considerable user base.

Source: https://www.scnsoft.com/blog/app-development-process

There is always a way to a successful app development steps, and it is helpful to follow that route for creating an application that users like. Survey your targeted users, if they are ready for your use or not is better of customer acquisition and more importantly, user satisfaction.

2. Selecting a mobile application development company or Freelancer application developer without enough research

Just like there are several categories of mobile apps – Financial application, educational applications, eCommerce, On-demand, etc.; there are categories of mobile app developers also. Moreover, similarly, all the mobile app development companies are also different. Firstly, before selecting a mobile application development team, you must fix the budget, the platforms, the complexity, the domain of your app.

Then, you should research and find out about the application development companies who fit the criteria of your mobile app. Then finally, you should create a list of questions to ask the mobile application development companies before taking a decision.
Some of these questions can be:-

Can I see your portfolio?

Can I get some of your client references?

What is your app development basics approach?

These types of question can give you a detailed view of the company itself, the kind of projects they can handle, what is the size of one project they’re capable of taking, etc. Later, you can easily cross out the companies which do not fulfill the criteria for your app’s development.

3. Underestimating the total cost

You cannot have a dream one day about a rocket ship and start building it the next day. Especially when you know, it is going to eat up much money. What is required before the building process is the detailed solution of all the resources it would take to create that rocket ship.

Moreover, resources not just include money but development time, material, space, overheads, a marketing or operations team, etc. Each one of these directly turns into capital investment, and all of it needs to be taken into consideration before the starting of the application development project.

Even before starting with an MVP for one platform, it is important to consider training, hiring, and overheads price if you want to avoid a big mobile application development mistake. Remember, it is paramount to know how much does app development cost? Only then you can accurately define what your MVP will look like.

4. Not considering user expectations

Source: https://www.uxbooth.com/articles/12207/

Attracting new visitors to your app each day is not an easy task. There is a different set of expectations tied with every single user. As the famous saying goes “the first impression is the last impression,” the first view of an application to the visitor is the most important that should be taken most care of.

Many users expect an app manually after a welcome message, while the rest go for a high-level excitement to figure outflow on their own.

To reach the expectations of every single user is almost impossible, and due to that, most of them miss early visitors with a poor homepage screen. Users should not have to fill long registration forms before knowing how the app will be useful to them.

It is a terrible idea to keep long registration forms in the starting with welcome screens that are animated as well as various other elements blocking the relevant view.

Get the routine sign-in or sign-up procedure instead of asking for just your name and email address. Also, try to integrate social media login so that users can log in directly through their social media profiles.

5. Developing for too many platforms at the same time

One of the biggest mistakes is that the company commits to going after all the platforms at the same time. They expect to make the most of it by creating their presence on every platform. However, it’s not a wise decision considering the number of effort and money it takes. Moreover, you may not get the desired results.

You must identify which platform you want to go for. Each mobile platform has its pros and cons. Presently, Android has the greatest number of apps followed by iOS. It would be best if you also consider the target users while selecting the platform.

It would be best if you studied all the other factors closely to find out which one is better for your app the best.

6. App not displaying a systematic, logical flow

Show your users an organized, logical path to follow to get the information out that is relevant. Random screens displaying from nowhere will not only confuse users but also let them refuse to use the app from in-between without going any further. Users are guided in such a way that every single step seems to be essential for them to fulfill, to extract the exact piece of information.

7. App having too many features

This is an error that everyone must get rid of. You should make sure that your application does not contain too many elements.

Mobile app users take no time in uninstalling the form once they figure out that it has too many features which are useless. So, to avoid this scenario, you should identify the main features that are required to keep the importance of the app.

Along with it identify another set of features that make your app stand out. Remove other features, and features will no longer overload your application.

8. App Not having visual clues to help users

An image always helps in better understanding rather than plain text. Hence, it turns even more prominent to incorporate visual clues within your application. However, it is not always that visual clues never go wrong or they are perfect every time.

Even visual clues tend to look needy or not as per individual user perceptions. In that scenario, the developer has to be more careful in creating the general appearance that goes with the expectations of all.

Hence, let’s have a look at a few design rules that can be helpful in solving this problem:
Go with the conventional forms of design rather than ones that look unique and impressive. Most users don’t like a mobile application undergoing specific changes. They are comfortable with the traditional form.

Regions and cultures influence metaphors. Using this in your application can help users emotionally connect with the application more efficiently. However, not all metaphors are understood right away.

Therefore, extensive research needs to be done for shortlisting metaphors that can be easily grasped by anyone. There should be text accompanied by visual clues. Many people can understand the text in a much better way than graphics. Describing an action instead of placing an icon, works like a wonder for most to interpret things with a significant amount of ease. Nevertheless, since most others prefer graphics to text, it is preferable to use both in parallel complementing each other.

9. Not releasing the updates on time

Developers must consider their application as a work in progress. They must ensure that they are assessing the app’s performance and making necessary changes to it. The developers should release updates from time to time.

Moreover, getting this is not difficult, hire an android application developer who ensures to revamp and make required changes to the application to improve its performance.

10. The app is not focusing on niche features rather than information overloading

Novice developers always tend to fill in lots of features rather than concentrating on few and getting expertise on those selected few. However, in reality, successful apps tend to have fewer features, but they do quite well in those limited features.

It is always advisable to focus on a few top-notch features instead of installing too many standard features that aren’t even much useful to the users. Reducing unnecessary functionalities and tasks will uplift your app drastically.

11. The app is not getting sufficient testing

This one can be termed as a silly mistake; however, it’s widespread. Testing your application before releasing is imperative. Daily more than a thousand apps are released making the competition fierce.

On top of that, the last thing you would want is your application to fail while launching. You can avoid this by hiring Dedicated App Developers that would ensure adequate testing of your app at regular intervals, on different platforms, devices, and versions.

12. The app is not making use of intuitive icons or interactive graphical elements

The standard components for graphical representation or even icons have not come up within a day or two. They have come into existence gradually with every passing year backed by extensive testing. Since they have now become a global identity, ignoring them could be a big mistake.

Users would like to see only those icons or elements that they are familiar with and with whom they can interact.

With unseen components, they are bound to put more energy to comprehend things that they are not interested in doing. Just as learning a new language does not make much sense, in a similar manner trying to interpret the original app language does not make sense.

If you want to prevent your hired developer from Android app development mistakes, then the programming tutorial shared by Ivan Dimoski of Toptal will be worth reading.

13. There is no proper marketing of your app

Source: https://clearbridgemobile.com/step-by-step-guide-marketing-mobile-app/

The developer’s role is not to build an app. Once it’s developed the developers, need to do appropriate marketing. Now the question is how you would do that — there are many ways to promote your apps like promoting through niche blogs. Moreover, you can identify websites that cater to your target audience and develop the app there.

Conclusion

With plenty of opportunities in mobile android app development and iOS app development, you can capitalize and gain access to your market, given if you avoid the above common unseen mistakes. If you are experiencing any problems with mobile app development, you can know us by filling below form. We will get back to you with the smartest solutions that you will praise.