Challenges Faced by Mobile App Developers

Top 11 Challenges Faced By Mobile App Developers

Posted on February 11, 2019 by Super Admin Testreveal

Mobile apps have been around for almost a decade now, which means technology lovers are highly acquainted with what they are presented with in terms of digital solutions. In order to remain updated, informed and strongly connected at any given place and time, users need smart mobile apps that deliver solutions with minimal interactions.

While futuristic technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and IoT have transformed the conventional face of mobile apps, users are expecting to have even smarter and more evolved mobile applications, tossing more intense challenges down the path of mobile app developers.

Let us take an unbiased glance at all possible challenges mobile app developers are most likely to face in today’s time.

1. Innovative Elements That Beat The Competition

The crucial stage of mobile app consultation is when you have to make a very pivotal decision of winning the target audience and overpowering the competition.

Finding the correct field of interest and ensuring your app will be successful enough to beat the competition is a work of diligence.

In the industry that is known for changing trends and giving rich user experience, developers must have superior talent to outperform the similar products in the App stores.

The challenge is to overcome the pressure of developing the most original, aesthetic and innovative application, the one that people can notice and embrace for lifetime.

2. Optimizing The App For all Devices and Mobile Screens

From Android to iOS and Windows, all devices come with various screen size and resolutions, each offering unique environment and ecosystem for developers to work on. For developers, the challenge is to create apps that perform exquisitely across all device screens.

Each time they build an app, it becomes important to meet the unique requirements of target devices while optimizing the app for different screen sizes.

3. Keeping the Mobile App Clean and Relatable

As there are many applications in Google Play Store and Apple App Store, it is essential for mobile app specialists keep the app as clean and clutter-free as possible.

Here the challenge is to make sure the application should be self-explanatory. In case the app does have certain unknown elements, they need to include quick guide so that end users can get on with your app and jump right in without much time.

Apart from this, it is also advisable to maintain the relevance of the app for the target audience, considering the fact that users want to explore the features that they find highly relatable.

4. Battery Life vs. App Performance

Device battery life is something that has to be considered with utmost sincerity as users don’t want to experience the instances of overheating or overmuch power consumption while they use your app. People who still use previous versions of device OS are often subject to battery life issues.

Developers therefore test battery performance for their app by releasing Beta version and check whether the app drains the device battery too quickly.

Based on the feedback, developers run a second check and tweak the features to ensure the app retains battery performance. The challenge here is to design a bug-free, high-performance app that doesn’t devour excessive power.

5. Simplicity of Design and Use

Users have a general tendency to relate with those apps that are easy to use and understand. Mobile app fanatics would never appreciate heavy complexity of design and will switch to other apps that are simple in use.

Developers are expected to focus on building an app that has simple design yet offers incredible user experience with personalized features and functionality. Thus, combining simplicity with engaging user experience is another challenge for them.

6. Volatility and Limited Lifecycle

The problem with most digital solutions is that it remains predominant and appreciated until a bigger player conquers the mobile app market.

Mobile technology is constantly evolving and so is user behavior, which means there will always be a fair chance that your app has limited lifecycle.

This suggests that developers have to be creative enough to launch a substantial and highly sustainable product that can combat market volatility for similar apps.

7. Changing Mobile Apps Ecosystem

Today’s best mobile technology is likely to become tomorrow’s past phenomenon. This is because along with mobile development technologies, hardware and software ecosystem of digital devices often experience frequent updates in regular intervals.

In this dynamic situation, mobile app developers find it hard to cope with design and testing the app for heterogenous device environments. This poses as another tough challenge for even the most talented mobile app developers.

8. Making it Outstanding

Mobile app stores are deluged with great many numbers of apps. Even the app you are planning to build may already have its hundreds of competitors. More apps keep hitting the online store everyday. How can you make sure your app will end up on users’ mobile screen?

You must delve deep into latest needs and how user behavior is changing in order to create something that stand out from the crowd and receive impressive response. Making the app unique and different from others is a real challenge for developers.

9. Interactive UI

Not every app downloaded by users stay permanently on their mobile screen. This is why professional mobile app developers must gravitate towards the concept of making user interface more appealing. A mobile app with attractive and expressive UI makes for the most usable apps.

Mobile devices have built-in sensors integrating which developers can make the apps more lively and interactive. However, this again swoops down as a challenge on developers’ shoulder as it consumes a lot of time making such features work.

10. Establishing an Instant Connection With End Users

The key to survival in the mobile application market is to release an app that instantly connects with end users. The best way to achieve this goal is to continue to evolve the features and adopt an innovative approach for creating the exemplary features.

If your mobile app fails to connect with users, the entire purpose of investing efforts and money will go in vain. Also, the job of developers involves being accessible and taking in all the comments and feedback shared by users and rectifying the bugs that practically hinder the user experience. Building an unblemished relationship with end users from the beginning phase is a cumbersome process for developers.

11. Mobile app Marketing and Promotion

Mobile app marketing is the key to growing awareness and visibility for mobile apps in the app stores and eventually impacts the app success. Developers need to opt for extensive marketing and promotion strategy to obtain massive response from the target users.

However, for developers to jump into the role of marketer is a great challenge since they need to learn all the principles of SEO and ASO and online affiliate activities.

One easiest way to diminish the challenge is to approach a successful creative marketing and ad agency who can help app development companies aggressively market their new apps and earn thick volume of traffic.

Conclusion

With technology landscape for mobile app development getting mighty hard for developers to keep up with, they must pull up their sleeves to confront intimidating challenges. However, there is no denial that these challenges do present boundless opportunities to build excellent user experience for their mobile app.

Surpassing these challenges with technological insight and versatile skillset gives mobile development experts a strong competitive edge and helps them build expansive user base.

App Development Challenges And How To Overcome Them

Posted on December 20, 2017 by Super Admin Testreveal

The mobile app development market is flooded with countless apps that are designed across different platforms. However, only a few of them could achieve a firm space on users’ mobile screens.

A perfect mobile application is a result of an intuitive interface, speed of loading, attractive features, offline functioning, ease of navigation, and security of in-app data.

With the availability of cutting-edge technologies and widespread use of mobiles, many enthusiasts are funding new mobile applications for their business. Making a mobile app a huge success means overcoming certain hurdles encountered during the development process.

So, why is mobile development difficult, and how we can overcome that? Challenges can include everything from the basic app performance and productivity, integration challenges to the end-user experience.

The app developers should make a dedicated effort to address the old as well as the unseen challenges to make a long-lasting impact. More importantly, they have to find effective ways to monetize the efforts.

The blog lets you learn about the diverse challenges in mobile app development and the comprehensive solutions to overcome them.

Technical Mobile App Development Challenges

Creative and Natural interactions: The way the internet has offered an interconnected world and how we all remain connected in two-way communication has triggered a lot of interesting discussions.

Read Also : 15 Best Programming Languages For Mobile Apps

In fact, users can interact with their mobile screen with even more speed and ease if in-built advanced sensors of the devices are leveraged. This presents as another challenge as well as an opportunity for developers during the development.

Remedy:

To ensure that your app has the best interactive design that is user friendly, make it an essential part of the design strategy
Do not place the interactions design in the later phase of the development as it will cost a lot of time
Give users more to play with and introduce more than basic (swipe and tap) physical gestures of interactions
Improve their app experience by allowing them to play with different motions like tilting, shaking, and flipping

The simplicity of UI: Unlike a fashion house where fancy haute couture is highly appreciated, the mobile app user interface is something where simplicity is expected. Making the UI complicated or confusing will repel users and give them a reason to uninstall your app.

Remedy:

Make UI easy-to-understand
Create consistency in navigation
Utilize a clear and simple structure
Avoid adding complexities within functionalities
Make the menu titles and content comprehensible

Creating apps with remarkable aesthetics: Your app will have no value and receive a weak response if it does not offer pleasant aesthetics to users. Users tend to choose apps that instantly capture their eyes and compel them to look inside. The pressure of creating noticeable apps, therefore, is high, which poses a big challenge.

Remedy:

Make your app a stunner by introducing the finest visual elements that leave a lasting impression for users. Try to design the kind of graphics and features that seems simple but having the potential to amaze users. To address this challenge, do the following exercise:

Research into popular apps
Know your target audience
Remember the aim of the app
Find out the colors of attraction
Incorporate purpose with icons, buttons, and navigation
Be unique and innovative

Data security: Digital interactions are wireless and offer great convenience though it comes with a price. It creates an opportunity for hackers to breach and steal data of value. Also, your apps could be vulnerable to malware attacks. This could be a serious problem when users engage with your app and give away their personal information.

Also, software or hardware disintegration issues can cost you a lot of money and time to resolve. Unlike iOS, Android has no specific instructions and guidelines for data security which means that developers will have the added responsibility of developing and maintaining a data security approach.

Remedy:

It is advised that developers engaged in a project should practice encrypting anything shared by users while interacting with the app
It is a good practice to encrypt everything inside your app’s DNA
You can also protect the data by developing a backup of the program so that it goes to the archive at regular intervals

Non-Technical Mobile App Development Challenges

In-depth market insight: Before marketing comes the term ‘market.’ If developers are not conversant with what trends and technologies are making rage in the market, it will be a terrible hardship to meet the purpose for which the app is built. Market knowledge also refers to the competition existing in the similar target market you pitch for.

Remedy:

Find out the reasons for the popularity of competitor apps
Learn about modern trends, techniques, and technologies
Gather insight about your audience’s behavior
Discover the problem points that only your app can solve
Know about features that can touch the lives of users
Grow awareness about app store optimization
Give a sharp eye to mobile app statistics

Development approach: As we know, the right start always takes you in the right direction and the same is the case of mobile app development. Choosing the suitable from the many development platforms and frameworks available is the key. Lack of proper development approach and development timelines can screw up the whole process.

Remedy:

Do a detailed study to decide whether to go for simple web-based development or choose a hybrid or native development.
Strategize UI & UX needs before finalizing the decision
The nature of the business and the possibility of plans in the future should be considered
Integration challenges should be met by handling diverse SQL and back-end databases
Know your target audience and the exact purpose for which the app is built

Customer Reviews & Experience: The app design should always be built with end-users in mind. After all, they will be the ones who use the app and do real-life evaluations. With options for customer reviews and experience in app stores, negative reviews and comments can affect the popularity of the app and this can lead to losing potential customers.

Remedy:

Make sure to keep your app design as simple as possible
Include icons and thumbnails to improve end-user experience
Effortless navigation within the app should be given priority

Improving performance: Apart from design elements and interactive capabilities, app performance also plays a vital role when impressing its users. The performance of the app should not be at the cost of draining battery life.

Also, the least expectation of the users is to have an app with no crashes or bugs. Moreover, the app should be using very minimal space on their device. So, the challenge is to create something that is flawless, intuitive, and aesthetic but that consumes optimal power.

Remedy:

Always test your app for its general and battery performance.
If possible, create a Beta version and run test cases
Analyze the results fed by test users to take remedial actions
Launch an MVP to minimize the damages

Win the attention of potential users: The reports say almost a million apps got submitted into the app store in the last 3 years. And that is why being a good app and a successful app makes the difference.

There are many good apps that just got vanished from the app market in a matter of a few months or years. Making a successful app is another big challenge faced by mobile app developers.

Remedy:

The prime strategy is to win the attention of the potential users
Perform good research to know what an end-user expects out of such apps
Build good strategies to penetrate the market effectively
Make the client understand the importance of app marketing and promotion

Challenge In Mobile Design

Tackling different screen sizes: To surprise and delight worldwide mobile users, makers introduce devices with varied screen sizes. So, developers must develop a mobile app that functions consistently across multiple devices. Screen quality is another major challenge down the path of app development.

Remedy:

Responsive design is an ideal solution to this problem as it offers flexible adjustments to fit the screen size
The one-size-fits-all solution adjusts itself across a range of device platforms and screen sizes

Compatibility with different handsets: The limitations of devices based on their in-built technologies is one of the biggest challenges for mobile app development. Making sure that the app reaches the end-users despite the type of devices they are using is a big challenge.

Remedy:

Like we have already mentioned, the app design should be inclusive of various screen sizes, resolutions, and pixel densities
The app should be equally accessible for users with mobile devices, tablets, or other smart devices

Dealing with different operating systems: In addition to all, one of the major problems faced in mobile application development is the efficiency of the app while running on different operating systems. In most cases, they stick to just 1 or 2 common operating systems to develop an app, but it will cost you many potential users.

Remedy:

To address OS-related compatibility, it is a good plan to first release a Beta version
The bug fixing process needs to be performed in all available operating systems.
Make a detailed app design suitable for cross platform development
Consider the diverse UI objects and patterns that are specific to certain operating systems.

Challenges In App Development as A Developer Working on A Client Project

The pressure of limited time frame: App development companies are told to provide an estimation on the timeline along with other project essentials. Promising a fixed time frame to complete the project can result in pressure among developers and it can get even worse if some sudden technical challenges come from nowhere.

Remedy:

If it is necessary to give an estimation, make it a little flexible. Consider unexpected hurdles and the time it may take to solve them before finalizing on project delivery date
If possible, stay away from committing a precise date and try to give a rough month of delivery so that you will have some time to fix the uninvited tech problems

Estimating the proper funding: Building an app is never a one-time investment as it seems from a distant view. To cope up with the competitive apps and to improve the performance on the go, the app should be updated at least quarterly or as and when it needs.

Read Also : Software Development Life Cycle(SDLC)

The client may not be aware of this while deciding on the funding and it can lead to later chaos.

Remedy:

The app developer should be able to do a rough estimate of the possible updates needed in the future.
Give a clear idea about the extra funding needed for updates beforehand to the client.
Make presentations regarding the usual cost needed for regular updates and what you will be doing differently to make it optimal. This move will surely win the confidence of the client.

The difference between concept and reality: There is often a huge divide between the way clients envision the app to be and what developers visualize it during the design. There will be a lot of requirements regarding app design from the client-side and developers can come across many surprises while trying to make it practical. The difference between the concept and reality is a challenge that puts a lot of pressure on developers.

Remedy:

Keep your client updated on how the process is going and what resources will be needed to fight the challenges
Persuade the app owner to understand the adversities involved in the process, which may require frequent iterations before the app approval.
Clarify on points that signal any doubts. Avoid any confusion and find a way to resolve it before it is too late to turn back. Make sure that the product at the end of the work looks the same as discussed at the beginning

Best Tips for App Developers to Be in The Game

Going by the trend in the last decades, technology will only get better and intelligent day by day. So, in order to stay in the limelight, app developers should make serious efforts to grow with the technology.

This simply means to stay updated by learning new skills and do enough research and learning to think differently and be ready to do more than normal. Here are a few tips that might be a great help for developers to stay in the game:

Educate others and learn new skills from others
Always use healthy, updated, and well-known libraries
Always choose from widely used design patterns and not your favorite
Make use of all available resources to keep yourself updated
Develop a strategic approach to the app development, deployment, and management

Final Words

In a nutshell, before the outset of the mobile app development process, the concept of the app idea always looks practicable. However, as it moves to different phases, mobile app developers begin to encounter unforeseen challenges.

Only the veteran app development firms can invest industry-grade resources, innovations, and creativity required to overcome them in the first place itself.

However, we hope this blog has given even the fresher developers enough idea to anticipate the possible unseen circumstances and make adequate preparation to overcome the various challenges.

More than just the technical skillset and the experience, it is all about how you respond to the different situations. The key is to build a better user experience and app developers should make the best use of the boundless opportunities around them.