7 App Store Optimization Strategies To Improve ASO

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When you reach the point of marketing your mobile application, you must apply the correct app store optimization strategies. These strategies help drive traffic and installs within the App Store and Google Play. While app store optimization (ASO) can never replace paid user acquisition (UA), you should use both for optimal results. However, we’ll focus on ASO for now, as there’s much to cover relating to this topic in this guide. 

If you’ve released an app before, you likely have some experience with ASO. Or you hired an app marketing team to handle ASO for you instead. But if your experience with ASO is limited or non-existent, you may wonder how it works in 2023. Or ponder if the app store optimization strategies that worked several years ago still work today.

The good news is that many strategies from a decade ago still have their place in 2023. Any prior ASO knowledge and experience you’ve acquired will not go to waste. But the same old, same old — doesn’t work either! For example, many ASO experts focussed primarily on keywords to gain in-store traffic about a decade ago. But nowadays, experts also optimize screenshots, analyze user reviews, and look at the user journey holistically. 

Of course, that’s a lot of additional work and complexity added to the mix. As a busy appreneur or business leader, you may find all this daunting or beyond scope. If that’s the case, we’d always recommend that you work with an experienced studio like NS804 to handle ASO for you. But if you wish to tackle ASO in-house, check out the tips below. 

1. What You Need To Know About ASO

ASO shares many similarities with search engine optimization (SEO) for indexing and accessing content efficiently. A similar philosophy exists for increasing visibility for a website as it does for a mobile app. Furthermore, the biggest search engine, Google, also owns Google Play — and most users have witnessed similarities in both. 

But how does this all impact your app store optimization strategies? As part of your app marketing campaign, your key performance indicators (KPIs) will not align with your SEO KPIs. But they must align with the following ASO ranking indicators:

  • App quality: The higher the quality of your app, the higher it will rank by the store algorithm. 
  • Uniqueness: Fresh ideas pay off, as app stores often reward unique apps with a higher ranking or a featured app placement. 
  • Scalability: The ability of your brand and app to scale to user demand will impact app ranking positively. 
  • Traffic: If your app proves popular, the algorithm acknowledges this and will ensure that more users see your app. Paid traffic will further boost your app’s ranking and won’t negatively impact your organic traffic. 
  • Categories: Your app can rank higher for specific categories or if it enters the top charts. 
  • Downloads: The higher your downloads, the better your app’s ASO ranking.
  • Ratings and reviews: When users leave ratings and reviews, it helps increase your app’s keyword rankings. Positive ratings and reviews also convince other users to try out your app. 

2. Do Research Before Formulating App Store Optimization Strategies

All your app store optimization strategies will be for naught if you don’t research the market beforehand. After all, you need to know which apps succeed and fail in today’s app marketplace. But that’s not all, as you must uncover what strategies successful competitors use for ASO purposes. Since this guide is not about formulating an app idea but app store optimization strategies, we’ll focus exclusively on the latter.

While this seems dubious, spying on competitors will help inform your app store optimization strategies. But if you avoid this path, your rivals won’t have any issues spying on the most successful apps, including yours. 

Thus, it’s pointless to reflect on the ethical ramifications of spying on competitors when it’s a common practice in the industry. Besides, we’re not referring to corporate espionage or anything illegal but a way to gain valuable insights by doing the following: 

  • Spot competitor weaknesses: Read the user reviews of competing apps and compile a list of all their pain points.
  • Discover the keywords of the top apps: Pinpoint the keywords that make successful competing apps appear during searches. 
  • Identify the keywords that drive maximum downloads: Determine whether branded or generic keywords lead to more downloads.
  • Check out competing app metadata: Keep a close eye on how often a competitor rolls out updates and metadata changes to determine their ASO strategy. 
  • Use the correct tools to analyze competitor ASO: Try free and paid tools from vendors, such as App Radar, AppTweak, and ASOMobile.

3. Use Search Ads To Improve Your ASO

In 2016, Apple introduced its advertising platform — Search Ads. It’s a paid platform renowned for its sheer power in targeting various app markets. App marketers, in particular, love Search Ads and have made it their go-to tool for advertising purposes. So, there’s little reason not to integrate it into your arsenal of tools that will work with your app store optimization strategies. 

But what does Search Ads do so well to make it essential? While Search Ads is a paid tool, it helps save app developers and marketers money. After conducting keyword research, you’ll likely have a long list of keywords you plan to use. But that’s counterproductive, as not all these keywords will drive a reasonable amount of traffic to your app. 

Therefore, you need to reduce that list of keywords to only those that will bring favorable results. That’s where Search Ads comes in, as it will help you pinpoint the keywords relevant to your app and its target market. You’ll quickly pare down your keywords, reducing ad spend and increasing the possibility of successful searches.

4. Prioritize Visual Quality Within Your App Store Optimization Strategies

Whether developing a mobile game or a non-gaming app, you must make it visually appealing. This makes your app more marketable and gives users more reason to leave favorable ratings and reviews. And all this helps with ASO in several ways that we’ll discuss in greater detail.

An app with high-quality visuals will please your users and provide you with plenty of assets for ASO and marketing purposes. Start by taking high-resolution screenshots and record clips for previews and instructional videos. If you wish to add any branding to your screenshots or edit them, consider working with an experienced graphic designer. Likewise, consider hiring a professional video editor to make all your videos slick and impactful. 

Look at ways to optimize your screenshots and videos for the App Store and Google Play. Ensure you arrange the screenshots to convey a coherent story about your app’s usefulness and core features. 

If your app is exclusively text-based, you may want to spruce things up with graphics that flow harmonically from screenshot to screenshot. Moreover, this may enhance the story-telling component of your app’s presentation and ASO, which will help draw user interest.

While these screenshots are crucial, your video preview must never take a back seat as it’s equally important. Create a 30-second clip that hooks the viewer within the first 10 seconds. This early part of the video must highlight the core capability of your app and later reveal two or three of its prominent features. 

Don’t forget to prepare a visually striking but comprehensible app icon. Ideally, work with a graphic designer who understands ASO, the app market, and your brand identity.

5. Focus On Localization At An Early Stage

Never draft your app store optimization strategies just before you launch your app. Instead, outline your ASO and localization during the planning stage of your app. It’s crucial to have clarity regarding the territories where you will launch your app initially.  

For example, if you target English-speaking territories from the get-go, you’ll limit your localization strictly to English. You may also limit your initial release to the App Store due to the higher adoption of iOS devices in these territories. Once your app achieves a reasonable amount of traction, you can target other markets.

You may decide to target Android devices that are predominant in developing economies. But if you’ve made provisions for additional localizations when hashing out your app store optimization strategies, you can move forward with the necessary translations. Most likely, you have budgeted for all your localization costs and decided on the localization team and testing process. 

Localizing your app to all target markets is worthwhile because it will enhance its visibility. Furthermore, it increases user trust, engagement, and conversions. Targeting multiple markets will inevitably expand the reach of your app and bolster its profitability with the right monetization strategies.

6. Update Your App Page Regularly

One of the biggest mistakes you could make is to leave your app product page as is, even after a successful app launch. And even though you’ll spend many hours optimizing your page for your launch — that’s not enough. That’s because app marketplaces are very dynamic in order to respond to user demands and market trends. These marketplaces are also very seasonal, meaning that holidays help drive additional demand. 

It’s common for the app stores to run special offers during Black Friday, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, etc. So, you’ll need to update your keywords, screenshots, and icons to optimize your page for these holidays. And even though holiday-specific keywords don’t gain significant traction, they will still bring some traffic. 

But the real reason to put in extra effort during holiday seasons is to align your app page with app store seasonality. Users often have more leisure time during holidays to discover interesting apps and great deals.

Thus, these users are browsing the app stores with intent and have certain expectations that your app page must meet. If they’re browsing during Christmas, ensure that your app’s description, promo text, screenshots, video preview, and icons convey that quintessential Christmassy feeling. 

But be forewarned, your app’s category will play a crucial role in whether or not it gets a high number of downloads during the holiday season. For example, a travel app won’t do so well during Christmas, as most users spend time at home with few travel plans. However, a gift idea app will be in high demand during Christmas since most users will seek unique gift ideas.

7. A/B Test During The Entire Lifecycle Of Your App 

You’ll never truly know the effectiveness of your app store optimization strategies without testing them out. The best way to do this is with A/B testing during every phase of your app’s lifecycle. Your first A/B test will focus on finding the keywords that drive the most traffic. Then, subsequent A/B tests will focus on your app’s conversion funnel and how your strategies impact the user journey. 

You should also A/B test each time you change your description, promo text, icon, keywords, screenshots, and video preview. But you can also do A/B tests when entering new markets, during seasonal promotions, or when introducing new features. 

But how long should you run A/B tests to gain significant analyzable data? Run A/B tests as long as possible, but never less than seven days if you have time and budget constraints. Furthermore, run separate A/B tests for the App Store and Google Play. You’ll find that results differ widely between these two platforms due to considerable differences in user behavior and traffic. 

If you have a severely restricted budget, it’s better to pick one app store to launch and A/B test initially. You can also use your chosen store’s native A/B test tools to test and tweak your app’s page. Gradual improvements to the app page will improve your ASO. 

In Conclusion

Your app store optimization strategies are crucial to the overall success of your app. The app stores have matured, so finding the applicable keywords and making a few tweaks to your app page isn’t enough to drive traffic consistently. 

Every aspect of your app page will impact ASO, so you can’t ignore minute details. But if all this seems too much or too complex, consider working with an expert. Contact NS804 today to learn how we’ll help you boost your ASO and meet your KPIs.

Avoid These 10 Mistakes When Developing Your First Mobile App

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Mobile apps have transformed how we communicate, interact, shop, and exchange information. From online food shopping to e-ticking, mobile apps have changed how enterprises do business. These pocket-sized tools have transformed how consumers access information, defining consumer shopping habits, and purchase preferences.

Developing your first app is exciting; the prospect and thoughts of bringing your ideas to life is thrilling to most entrepreneurs. However, this process comes with its fair share of challenges. It requires meticulous planning, expert execution, and continuous improvement.

This article walks you through ten mistakes to avoid when developing your first app, equipping you with the knowledge, expertise, and skills required to know what sets an excellent app apart.

 

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1. Lack of a clear purpose

The first step to developing a successful app is defining your purpose. Most successful apps are reputable for solving common problems. Think about Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, and LinkedIn, and you realize just how robust and excellent these apps are at solving a diverse set of problems.

Remember that at the heart of mobile app development lies a clear-cut purpose and the audience in mind. Defining a clear purpose acts as the North Star that guides your app’s design, development, and functionality. Without this clarity, you risk developing an app that lacks a clear direction, leading to confusion and ultimately affecting user experience.

2. Failure to do market research

In the ever-evolving field of mobile app development, the popular phrase ‘knowledge is power’ takes center stage. One mistake a budding mobile app developer can make is failing to conduct market research and missing out on the crucial insights that this research provides.

It’s important to acknowledge that when it comes to mobile app development, market research is not just a formality; it’s a source of informed decision-making at every stage of the process. By skipping market research, you’re venturing into an unknown area without a map. Market research provides a clear roadmap on what to do and avoid in building a successful app.

3. Neglecting user experience

The user experience is the engine that powers your app. Think of it as the fuel in the engine. Neglecting your user experience is similar to building a mansion on a shaky foundation. The success of your app hinges on more than just its primary features; it’s about crafting an engaging, intuitive, and seamless user experience that leaves a lasting impression. Neglecting this critical aspect of mobile app development is akin to alienating users and squandering your app’s immense potential.

When developing your first app, remember the user design underlines its success and adoption. Developing your app means understanding your users’ needs, preferences, and options and optimizing opportunities that fulfill these needs. When users find value in your app, they’re likely to recommend it to others, creating an expansive platform for adoption. Apps that emphasize user-centered design forge lasting relationships with their prospects, fostering trust and loyalty with their audiences.

4. Ignoring platform and device compartibility

Optimizing your app for iOS, Android, and other operating systems is critical in a world where users have diverse devices and several OS preferences. Each platform – Android, IOS, and others – has its interface conventions, design guidelines, and user expectations. Therefore, by tailoring your app’s experience with each of these operating platforms, you’re demonstrating your commitment to building native experiences that resonate with diverse users.

It’s important to note that ensuring consistent operation across multiple platforms is non-negotiable. Inconsistent performance leads to frustration, disgruntlement, and abandonment. To tackle this challenge, adopt the following practices:

  • Responsive design. Implement responsive design principles that adapt your app’s layout and functionality to different screen orientations.
  • Performance testing. Conduct performance testing by testing your app on different devices to identify performance bottlenecks.
  • Adaptive UI. Design a UI that gracefully adapts to different screen sizes, ensuring people have a positive user experience.
  • Platform-specific customization. Embrace platform-specific customization to leverage unique features and design principles of each platform.
  • Regular updates. Continuously update your app to accommodate changes in user feedback, OS updates, and device specifications.

The importance of customizing your app cannot be overstated in an era where users span many platforms and operating systems.

5. Overloading your app with features

As a first-time app developer, you may be tempted to overload your app with features to make it all-encompassing. However, falling to this temptation and overloading your app with features can be a major pitfall, resulting in a compromised user experience and overall app failure. You must strike a balance between comprehensive offerings and a clean, user-centric interface.

Other than attempting to be a jack-of-all-trades, successful app developers focus on a limited set of app features, optimizing basic functionalities without compromising user experience. By offering basic features, you’re prioritizing a seamless user journey, thus improving the likelihood of app adoption.

In developing a successful app, remember that quality triumphs over quantity. The inclination to overload your app can be counterproductive, harmonizing your app’s user experience with a limited set of features.

6. Poor performance and speed

In this fast-paced world where instant gratification is the norm, delays and sluggish performance can spell disaster even for the most creative apps. The importance of developing an app with faster loading times and smooth performance cannot be overstated.

A smooth and flawless experience combined with faster loading times is the holy grail of a successful mobile app. Users have become increasingly accustomed to fast-performance applications and expect nothing less. An app that loads quickly and responds faster to customer requests will build trust and foster loyalty. The attributes of speed, efficiency, and responsiveness contribute to positive responses and organic growth through word-of-mouth referrals.

Here are tips for optimizing app performance:

  • Efficient coding. Write clean and precise code that minimizes resource consumption and increases efficiency.
  • Image compression. Compress images to reduce loading times without affecting image quality.
  • Caching. Utilize caching to store frequently used data, reducing the need for frequent data retrieval activities.
  •  Minimize animations. Minimize animations that can affect your app’s loading speed.
  • Asynchronous loading. Load content asynchronously to ensure the interface remains responsive even when retrieving data.
  • Performance testing. Regularly test your app’s performance on different devices and on varying network conditions to identify bottlenecks.
  • Optimize network requests. Reduce the number of network requests and use techniques such as data prefetching to enhance user experience.
  • Update management. Implement update management to ensure your app remains compatible with new OS updates and different device capabilities.

The term ‘time is of the essence’ holds profound significance in app development. So, optimize your app for speed and efficiency when developing your first app.

 

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7. Neglecting quality assurance and user testing

In mobile app development, user testing and quality assurance cannot be overstated. Transcending from app inception to a polished app requires a rigorous process of refining, testing, and addressing potential problems or issues. Neglecting user testing and quality assurance can impair your app’s performance, tarnishing your brand and business reputation.

Quality assurance ensures your app responds to the latest testing requirements, optimizing for better performance and new updates. Most importantly, quality assurance helps to highlight issues that can be addressed later in the development stage. Constant testing and evaluation help to expose loopholes that can uncover hidden problems in your app performance.

8. Inadequate marketing

Marketing your app is key to providing visibility and educating users about its features and applications. Building an app without marketing is akin to buying a security dog and locking it in, you won’t utilize its potential. So, marketing your app provides visibility, educating consumers on the potential benefits of adopting it. Most importantly, developers who take the time to market their apps enjoy better adoption, retention, and usability due to word-of-mouth referrals. Word-of-mouth referrals lead to increased organic search.

Here’s how you can effectively market your app:

  • Social media. Leverage social media channels to increase brand visibility, interact with other users, and create a community around your app’s brand.
  • App store optimization. Optimize your app for the app store by including catchy graphics, informative descriptions, and relevant keywords.
  •  Influencer collaboration. Leverage influencer collaboration with influencers in your niche to gain brand visibility and engage their audience.
  • Content marketing. Create informative and engaging content that relates to your app niche. Your content marketing must include keyword research, on-page optimization, and back-linking capabilities.
  • Email marketing. Utilize email campaigns to ensure your app gets the traction it deserves on digital platforms.
  • Press releases. Craft informative and quality press releases and distribute them to media houses to generate buzz and coverage for your app.

Developing your app is only half the work done and half the battle won, marketing it to the relevant audience is a key step to winning the war. So, ensure you actively engage with the relevant outreach platforms for better brand visibility.

9. Ignoring user feedback

In mobile app development, the voice of the user is the beacon that guides your app to success. Ignoring feedback can lead to grave mistakes earlier on in the development process and impair your app’s adoption. User feedback provides informative insights, empowering you to develop an app that answers genuine questions. It’s only by infusing your users’ feedback that you can obtain genuine feedback about its performance and overall usability. The insights obtained by users act as a foundation for improvement, empowering you to do more by solving deep-seated problems and issues.

Here are specific channels you can use to collect user feedback:

  • In-app feedback. Encourage users to leave personal feedback regarding their experiences, preferences, and needs.
  •  App store reviews. Collect user feedback from Google and Android app store platforms, engaging with positive and negative reviews to demonstrate responsibility and responsiveness.
  • Social media engagement. Optimize social media channels to collect user reviews, answer questions, and address deep-seated concerns.
  • User surveys. Conduct user surveys to gather insights about personal experiences and pain points.

Once feedback is collected, it’s crucial to analyze the feedback to identify recurring themes. Most importantly, communicate with your prospects, notifying them about new improvements based on their feedback; be transparent about the changes you’re making and inform them why. Finally, embrace continuous iteration, regularly analyzing feedback and implementing changes based on feedback.

10. Not planning for maintenance and updates

Most renowned operating systems come with updates at every turn. For instance, Microsoft recently launched Windows 11, reinforcing its commitment to remaining ahead of new technological advancements. With Windows 11, users enjoy advanced features – gaming graphics, cloud storage, seamless design, and better functionality. Android and Apple are also considering new transformations in their operating systems. Already, iOS 17 is making the iPhone more personal and intuitive as reported by Apple Inc., highlighting the importance of updates in remaining relevant.

Neglecting updates can have dire consequences, leading to users neglecting your app due to outdated features and flawed functionality. A lack of updates sends the impression that your app is under-utilized and negatively supported, eroding user trust and engagement. This, in turn, leads to dwindling user numbers, reduced user adoption, and a decline in your app’s standing in the market.

Here’s how to create a roadmap for continuous improvement:

  • Continuous evaluation. Continuously evaluate your app, regularly assessing user feedback, performance metrics, and industry trends.
  • Feature addition. Strategically identifying new improvements and adding features based on evolving user needs.
  • Release schedule. Creating a release schedule highlighting when you will add new features.
  • Bug fixes. Constantly optimize your app by fixing bugs to ensure your app remains reliable and efficient.
  • Refine user experience. Continuously refine your app based on user feedback, constantly making intuitive changes based on collected user feedback.
  • User-requested features. Constantly listen to users and incorporate their feedback. Implement features that resonate with your users’ needs and use preferences.

In developing your first mobile app, remember that the true measure of success lies not only in the initial inception and creation but also in constant improvement. Your app must be ever-green, addressing new needs as demand requires. So, if you’re running an enterprise or seeking to create your brand, aim for constant improvements to ensure your app evolves with new trends.

NS804 – Turbocharge Your Journey Towards Your First Mobile App

In the journey of mobile app development, planning and execution are key. However, many opportunities and challenges emerge in designing, developing, implementing, and maintaining an app. Working with a trusted mobile app developer helps you to avoid most of these mistakes. You get to optimize the best practices in mobile app development, taking advantage of market knowledge and expertise from outsourced professionals.

So, whether you’re looking to create your first app for your brand or want to kick-start your e-commerce operations with a robust app, look no further. NS804 provides lasting solutions in mobile app design, development, and implementation.

Reach out to us for time-to-value mobile app development services.

How a Well-Designed Mobile App Can Improve Communications

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Businesses that rely on their apps to strengthen internal communication tend to see great results if they are intentional about it at the development stage. Apps designed to enhance collaboration among employees would need to be heavy on messaging and collaboration features. Apps designed to support communication with customers should allow for service personalization. In this article, we explore different ways in which well-designed apps can improve collaboration leading to improvement in a company’s bottom line.

Responsiveness and Performance optimization

App users today greatly value apps that deliver a smooth user experience. A responsive app is one that has no lag between receiving user input and delivering immediate feedback. Efficient coding and data handling are at the heart of app responsiveness. In addition, the app should cache data that users access frequently to avoid having to input it repeatedly. Perceived responsiveness can be improved by implementing transitions and animations within the app.

App optimization takes into consideration how much of a device’s resources (battery and memory) the app takes up. You do not want your app to cause a significant dent in a device’s battery life or slow the device altogether. Those two scenarios would lead to poor user retention and negative reviews. To avoid this, the development team must implement measures to minimize battery consumption.

 

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Easy Navigation and User-friendly design

A well-designed app should feel intuitive to use, even for new users. Designers must ensure navigation bars are placed at the most natural location without interfering with the user interface. The menu should move responsively depending on the device being used. Buttons and social icons chosen should tell users where they lead. The content team must always be on the lookout for any dead links because those can quickly frustrate users.

Some apps are now taking advantage of advanced features in operating systems to give users added levels of control and operability. These features include being able to use gestures to swipe between windows. Mass-market apps meant to help customers interact with a business’s e-commerce store allow people with disabilities to interact with them through alternative input and output features.

Instant Messaging

Companies that have employees spread out across different time zones need both synchronous and asynchronous communication tools. Instant messaging features built into apps are therefore quite valuable. The ideal messaging tools should allow for multi-media file sharing for richer communication. Apps such as Slack allow the creation of channels for discussions on specific topics. This means that only people involved in that matter get to partake and follow the channel.

Notifications are a strong enabler of efficient communication, especially when a team is spread out geographically. Being able to customize notifications allows people to respond to incoming communication differently based on urgency or importance. For example, a salesperson who is trying to close a big new account may want to respond to all communication from the said customer even when the salesperson is out on annual leave.

Videoconferencing

Even though instant messaging solutions and email are the main tools of communication within businesses today, videoconferencing provides a rich experience that cannot be replicated by other means of communication. Face-to-face engagement creates a sense of familiarity between people even when they have never met physically. For business-to-business engagements, deals can take months to complete. Clients often want to establish trust, have questions answered, and have solutions customized to suit their needs. This requires numerous presentations and engagement between teams on both sides. Videoconferencing is the ideal solution, especially if it can be built into the productivity or CRM tool in use within a business.

Social media and Email Integration

Workflow management solutions today need to have integration with social media platforms and email apps for several reasons. First, people within the organization may want to share their work on external platforms such as LinkedIn as part of their personal branding journey. Being able to do this within seconds is not only convenient but encourages them to continue creating.

Some large organizations do have a form of social network of their own where people can share different types of content including pictures, short videos, and blogs. The existence of such networks not only encourages learning and sharing but it also creates a sense of belonging for employees. Further, through the use of hashtags, people can discover content that they relate to.

In addition, integration with email solutions helps with task management and scheduling of meetings. Team members can block out dates when they are unavailable for things such as meetings. This reduces the need for calls which can be a source of distractions and inefficiency. Take, for instance, having to call tens of team members in an attempt to find an ideal date for a 30-minute meeting. It is better to schedule the meeting and invite them instead. IP

Collaboration and Project Management

Features such as being able to assign tasks and set deadlines are important in any project management platform. The implementation may vary from one app to another or on context, but the purpose is to ensure all team members are correctly briefed on their tasks. Team members also get to keep track of a project’s progress. As pointed out, having channels for different topics within the same workspace helps to ensure important conversations don’t get drowned out by seeming more urgent issues.

File Sharing and Cloud Integration

As mentioned, inbuilt filesharing is an important feature of well-designed collaboration tools. However, designers must take into account the fact that apps need integration with cloud storage solutions to enable sharing of heavy files, especially video. Even small word and picture files can quickly take a toll on internal hardware storage space. As such, integration with industry-grade cloud backup and storage ensures quick file sharing across multiple user devices. The files are safe and always available.

In some organizations, a version control feature is important when many people are collaborating on one project. Being able to go back to previous versions ensures that mistakes are not critical and that changes are pre-approved before being implemented.

AR and VR Integration

Virtual reality technology creates an immersive experience for users in an artificial environment. Augmented reality, on the other hand, overlays digital information over a real-world environment. Businesses can enrich communication by finding and implementing use cases for these new technologies within their application. With AR, businesses selling things online are able to showcase how something would look like if the customer went ahead and bought it. IKEA has done this on their e-commerce app whereby users can see how a piece of furniture would look in their house. VR can be used by companies to enhance learning and training for staff thus saving on costs while allowing people to interact with knowledge at their own pace and as many times as one wishes.

Natural Language Processing

Natural language processing allows computers to understand human text and speech and respond intelligently. NLP today is used by companies to serve customers through chatbots. By adding customer-service bots on customer-facing applications, a company is able to provide round-the-clock service and reduce the strain on their call centers. A lot of customers would rather not wait on phone lines if they can get frequently asked information from a chatbot.

Third-party apps today are operable using virtual assistant services such as Siri and Google Assistant. Such operability means users can interact with applications even when driving or doing other tasks. For revenue-generating apps, time spent on the apps directly correlates with revenue generated. Customers today can place orders using virtual assistants or send messages to friends and family with one or two instructional sentences. Any well-designed app today must take this into consideration.

Data Security

Apps that come with the best-grade privacy and data security are important in today’s context. A lot of valuable information gets shared online and therefore encryption of such information is critical. A breach of security is likely to cause great reputational damage for an organization with effects on profitability also likely to follow.

A recent but important implementation in most applications is giving users a level of control over their information. People now have the option to determine whether to withhold personal information. By law, organizations operating in most of North America and Europe need to expressly reveal to users how they intend to use the personal information they collect from users.

 

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Sales Personalization

Apps designed to specifically generate revenue through e-commerce sales need to have personalization features to achieve their outcome. Using AI-powered profile building, companies are able to develop highly personalized offers to present to customers. Most e-commerce apps today will show different homepages to every user based on learned preferences and browsing histories, leading to increased time spent on the app, and hence revenue.

Offers will often be sent to customers through automated emails. Customers may also receive push notifications to remind them of carts left pending. In fact, wish lists and carts are important features so that customers can come back and see items on they intended to buy hours or days ago. This quickens the checkout process.

Finding the Right Mobile App Development Partner

Enhancing communication within your organization requires multiple features to be correctly implemented within your application. Some of these features, such as cloud connectivity only require a simple API integration. However, others such as the connect personalization capabilities through AI require customization to suit your specific needs. Finding the right mobile app development partner massively improves your chances of succeeding in improving communication.

If your company is seeking to build an app to enhance your internal communication or engagement with your customers, reach out to our team at NS804. Our team will help you determine features that will best improve the app’s utility while optimizing performance and efficiency. We handle all projects for clients from conceptualization, design, building, implementation, and even maintenance. With clients in tens of industries, our team is best placed to handle your next mobile app project. Reach out to us today through our website.

6 Internal Company Solutions A Mobile App Can Provide

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Internal company solutions often include communication, team collaboration, and project management tools. In most cases, these will be desktop or web-based applications and paper-oriented in more extreme cases. But, increasingly, more companies are shifting to mobile apps due to their versatility and widespread use of mobile devices. Below, we’ll look at what company solutions mobile apps facilitate in greater detail.

Bring Your Line-Of-Business (LOB) Apps To Mobile

Regardless of your organization structure, you likely use a suite of desktop LOB apps for most internal tasks. Also, you’re probably heavily invested in the Windows ecosystem due to its business-centric approach. And while many company solutions may run on Windows, this is not always the case. 

 

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It’s not uncommon for businesses to use macOS, Linux, ChromeOS, FreeBSD, or some other esoteric operating system (OS). There are cases when companies inevitably cling to legacy operating systems such as Windows 95 or DOS since these will only run on their older equipment and computer systems.

But what does this all mean for you, and how can your business benefit by porting your existing LOB apps to mobile? While desktops are great and allow for high productivity, they’re not the only feasible solution for your business. After all, most, if not all, your employees carry smartphones on them during the workday and after hours. And given the considerable computing power of most current smartphones, they’re also excellent productivity devices. 

So, it’s a wasted opportunity not to port several mission-critical apps to mobile, as this will allow employees to complete essential tasks when out of the office or late in the evening when necessary. Furthermore, most employees don’t like using a PC after hours, especially after staring at a computer screen all day at the office. 

But they’ll feel more comfortable with a smartphone or tablet, as these devices feel more personal and intuitive for use inside or outside the office. Thus, your employees won’t mind catching up on work at home or on the go, provided your mobile LOB apps have an intuitive and snappy user interface (UI).

How To Bring Your Internal Company Solutions To Mobile

Unless you have an internal development team, you should partner with a reputable mobile studio, such as NS804, to port your existing LOB apps. Founded in 2012, we have worked on over 100 mobile apps for Android and iOS and received acclaim for our hard work and commitment to excellence. We work with organizations of different sizes and industries, such as CarLotz, Dominion Energy, and Wells Fargo Advisors, to name a few.

But even if you don’t have any desktop or web-based LOB apps but need us to create mobile-first or mobile-only company solutions, we’re happy to assist. We have developed several notable business and productivity apps that you might have used or heard about, like the following:

  • Béné
  • CFO Sidekick
  • EntreConnect
  • Paxis Pro
  • Referral Buddy
  • Substation App
  • Text Surge
  • Transsporter
  • True Home Review
  • Yards4Yeardley

As a native mobile app developer, we use the best-in-class programming languages, tooling, and methodologies for Android and iOS. Ultimately, this guarantees we create apps that offer optimal performance, look, and feel on both mobile platforms. 

But what if you only need to release on one platform due to budget constraints? Which platform should you choose and why? Preferably, opt for the platform that enjoys the most use in your organization. For example, if most of your employees use iPhones, go with iOS. However, if there isn’t a dominant platform, Android is preferable due to its more open nature and ability to sideload apps easily. Android smartphones and tablets are also cheaper to acquire if you plan to equip all your employees with a device.

1. Automating Employee Onboarding And Training

As your business grows, you have little choice but to hire additional staff. But you’ll need to offer a comprehensive onboarding and training program. The only problem with this is that it can become an expensive and time-consuming endeavor. 

That’s because you’ll need training staff to teach newcomers the skills and methods to function effectively in your organization. And every time you hire someone new, you’ll need to repeat this process, which will inevitably increase your costs. It makes little sense to keep training staff around if you only require their services occasionally and at irregular intervals.

One solution is to outsource to a third-party training provider. But that’s not always a good idea, as their pricing may be higher than expected, or you may not want to share methodologies that reveal trade secrets. Instead, you should build a custom training platform that automates these processes continuously.

You’ll only need to hire training staff once to write documentation, film videos, and record audio training courses. Once you’ve assembled all this training media, it’s time to put it to work for you within the framework of a training app. The app will commence with the onboarding process consisting of a welcome video, your company’s mission statement, achievements, goals, and what you expect from new hires. 

Once they complete onboarding, the app will launch a training module specific to each new staff member’s position in the company. They will gain access only to the documentation and media suitable for their roles, then tested via questionnaires and multiple-choice questions (MCQs). The app will also send you progress reports and test results for each candidate so that you can better assess their suitability for their assigned roles.

2. Improve Staff Efficiency With A Team Collaboration Mobile App 

Internal company solutions often revolve around powerful collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Trello. And while all these are great, you may want a more custom solution geared toward the workflows and methodologies of your company.

Furthermore, you may want that extra peace of mind of having complete control of the privacy and security of your collaboration app instead of relying on a third party. After all, it’s not uncommon for popular apps to suffer security breaches and for hackers to steal user credentials.

A side benefit of having your own team collaboration app is that you’re not subject to the end-user license agreement (EULA) set by a third-party software vendor. And that’s because you may not like some terms within the EULA, or updated terms and conditions may pose potential legal risks to your business. It’s also common for vendors to introduce app updates that disrupt staff workflow and business operations. 

With your custom team collaboration platform, you’ll have a level of control to keep undesirable elements blocked off. But you’ll also have complete control over how, when, and where staff may use your app.

Perhaps, you want staff to communicate via text to save on data costs, or you want them to use the app during office hours only. Ideally, you’ll want to make use of what the best team collaboration apps bring to the table, such as video conferencing and the ability to share all types of files. 

3. Accelerate Digitization In Your Organization

Whether you create a communication, project management, or team collaboration app, these will boost digitization within your organization. These apps require you to convert all your physical-based data and media into digital form. All paper documents within your file cabinets are ripe for digitization, and there are many tangible benefits in taking this path. 

Having documents in a digital format will make it easier to archive, share, and update your organization’s files. And you can follow through with other media, such as 3D models, draft plans, illustrations, photos, videos, and audio recordings.

It’s also more cost-effective to store all these on your servers or the cloud instead of allocating significant office space for this purpose. You can also easily backup digital files within and outside the physical confines of your organization, ensuring you never lose this valuable data due to a fire or any other mishap.  

However, one of the reasons why you want to implement digitization for company solutions is to give your business a competitive edge. And that’s only possible if your staff has access to the correct information all the time. You want staff to access the information they need rapidly. Moreover, you want this data to be accurate and up-to-date. 

4. Enhance Supply Management With A Mobile Solution

Even if you already have supply management software for your business, do you have a mobile version? This is a crucial question because a mobile app can radically improve all supply management tasks.

If you’re relying exclusively on a desktop app, your staff is probably wasting valuable time moving back and forth between the office and the storeroom. They’re probably back checking on the inventory in stock and what appears on the computer screen or print out. 

Also, there’s no guarantee that they processed inventory information correctly the first time, as they probably ticked off or filled out a paper document before entering this information into the computer. That’s an additional step that wastes time and increases the probability of error.

With a mobile app, an employee can log all incoming inventory directly on the storeroom floor without needing to be near a desktop. The app will store all recent entries on the mobile app’s backend, and your desktop supply management app can query this data in real-time if necessary.

You probably want internal company solutions to handle your distribution and logistics pipelines. The mobile app can play a vital role here, as you can connect and monitor your drivers and third-party freight carriers and shipping companies to successfully fulfill all delivery obligations. You’ll also reduce the duration of delivery trips, paperwork, and the probability of items going missing in transit.

 

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5. Engage Employees With Social And Gamification Features

The last thing you want is for your employees to lose interest in their work and your company’s goals. Ideally, you want to keep them engaged and excited about coming to work so that they perform at their best. While you can offer them incentives like bonuses and paid company trips, you can achieve much more with the right type of company solutions.    

One good solution is to build a dedicated employee engagement app that functions similarly to a social media platform. It can act as a central hub where staff can gather, complete their profiles, connect with others, hold discussions, make announcements, read company news, and receive acclaim for meeting milestones. 

Furthermore, the app can facilitate your company’s emergency preparedness and response plans by providing staff with all relevant emergency numbers and a floor plan showing fire escapes inside company premises. You can further boost app engagement by including gamification features that reward staff with points and unique icons or emojis once they complete specific tasks within the app, such as completing their entire profile. 

And if you decide not to build such an app, you can still implement social and gamification features in your training, communications, and team collaboration apps. You may also share company news via your other apps and urgent announcements via push notifications. 

6. Take Charge With A Project Management Mobile App

Your organization needs a good project management app to plan and monitor projects from A to Z. If you already have one, that’s great, but you can achieve more with a mobile app. And that’s because you want staff to collaborate in real-time regardless if they’re in the office or out in the field.

You may also integrate with your existing team collaboration and communication tools to facilitate team project management. And depending on how you plan and execute your projects, you can optimize the app for Agile or Waterfall methodologies. You can take things further by including a Kanban board that allows you to schedule projects visually, making it easier for staff to follow all steps of the process.

The Bottom Line

Businesses are increasingly using mobile apps to fulfill many crucial internal roles. These often work in tandem with existing desktop or web-based company solutions or replacing them entirely. If you’re currently sitting on the fence, there’s never been a better time to enhance or augment your internal company solutions with a mobile app. Contact https://www.ns804.com/ today to learn how we’ll help you develop a custom app to boost your business!

14 Signs Your Current Mobile App Needs Improvement

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It is a well-known fact that app maintenance is an important element of successful apps. Once an app launches in the market, the development team needs to dedicate sufficient resources to fix bugs, monitor usage, build new features, tweak existing ones, and do anything else necessary to keep users happy. If you are not doing this with your app, you are inhibiting chances to grow your app and existing users may end up leaving altogether. To paint a clearer picture, let us explore some common signs that your current app needs improvement.

1. Number of Uninstalls

It is important to keep an eye on data related to new downloads of your app. It is a key metric for tracking the growth of your app. However, the number of new downloads should be compared to the number of active daily, weekly, and monthly users. If there is no steady growth in active users, it might mean that your app is getting installed and then quickly uninstalled. Low user retention is common in apps that have not been well thought out in terms of value and design.

 

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2. User Reviews

The comment section on app stores will often give an honest picture of what users think of your app. In fact, users who uninstall your app tend to leave honest feedback on this section. Keeping an eye on user comments could reveal fundamental design flaws in your app or point to something that takes a few hours to fix. Either way, do not ignore the comments. Negative reviews may aid your product roadmap in ways that five-star reviews may not. Bad reviews often mean that users had high expectations and their needs remain unmet. The challenge should be to meet their needs in the next iteration of your app.

3. Frequent Downtime

An app that keeps crashing can frustrate customers who were initially happy and lead to uninstallations. Vigorous app testing in real user environments is necessary to identify and fix bugs before launch. You may realize problems in the code, especially where unexpected errors were not accounted for (exception handling).

Improper memory management is another common cause of app downtime. Apps that take up too much memory even when running in the background will cause the hardware device to crash or freeze. Good development practice requires that an app takes up memory efficiently and then releases unused memory resources.

4. Low User Engagement

There are many subjective ways of assessing how well your app users are engaging with your app. A common way is to monitor how well they are fulfilling the need that brought them to the app. For instance, if you have an e-commerce app, check whether you have a high proportion of abandoned carts. Could users be facing issues with the checkout process? Are there pages in your app that users do not visit? How navigable is your app?

Your team should be able to develop hypotheses, collect data, and hopefully answer these questions.

5. Old Design and UI

App UIs have improved so much in the last decade as companies dedicate more resources to creating more aesthetic UIs. Apps are designed to feel as natural to use as possible for maximum user retention. Because of having so many well-designed apps, users today subconsciously recognize an app with bad UI/UX within the first few minutes after downloading. There is data to show that over 90% of users form an opinion regarding an app or website based on design rather than content. Among the main reasons for poor user retention, UI ranks quite high. If your app still features an old design, you need to invest sufficient resources to reimagine the UI/UX. Such a change gives users the impression that the app is seeking to improve its offering.

6. Missing Features

Whereas the app design may be fine, user feedback may indicate that a fundamental feature or functionality that would greatly improve utility is missing. The business has then invested money into researching, building, and testing such a feature. New features could also be a result of market research. Introducing something that competing apps are not could immensely improve your app’s value proposition and it can power rapid market acquisition. A well-implemented feature could be a source of sustained competitive advantage.

7. Security Breaches and Concerns

Security is always an important concern for apps that collect and handle personally identifiable information. Businesses that own such apps must invest resources to regularly test the robustness of the app because threats are evolving continuously. If tests reveal potential vulnerabilities, the app cannot go to market if it has not been launched yet. In the unfortunate case of an actual breach, the business has to reveal to users and relevant authorities the extent of such a breach. They also must detail the steps taken to correct the situation.

8. The Need for Personalization

Content-driven apps, such as on-demand streaming apps, today thrive due to their ability to provide personalized feeds for users, powered by artificial intelligence. The need to incorporate personalization for a better user experience is a valid reason for seeking to improve your app. If competing apps gain first-mover advantage by personalizing content for users, your app may struggle to regain a favorable position. This, therefore, should happen as a proactive move rather than a reaction.

9. Incorporating Analytics

Apps can provide precious data on users that could be used for the improvement of the current app but also for building new products. To say that data is the new oil is an understatement. If your app is not optimized to gather useful data on user trends and behaviors, you are way behind the curve. You need to integrate tools to help you to better understand who you serve.

Data should help you make objective decisions on all aspects of your apps including the need for new features, placement of buttons, improving user engagement and more. There are numerous mobile app analytics tools you can integrate into your app depending on the core features you wish to have. Some of the existing solutions come with added capabilities such as A/B testing and push notifications.

10. Increasing Calls to Support Centre

If your company’s IT support desk has been getting an increasing number of calls and messages regarding problems with the app, then some improvement is definitely due on the app. Perhaps a new feature was introduced without sufficient testing and is now causing a poor user experience. If this is happening, you should consider a new iteration of the app after conducting sufficient testing for robustness.

11. Incompatibility with new OS features

iOS and Android operating systems are constantly rolling out new capabilities to improve the experience of hardware device users. Creators of mobile apps have a duty to play to ensure that apps are compatible with such new features. For instance, signing in to an app using biometric authentication has become ubiquitous today. If your app still does not support this, then you should consider improving the app. The app should also support password managers that autofill a user’s credentials for easy sign-ins.

The dark mode is a common preference for a lot of app users today. Your development team should ensure that the app’s usability is not compromised if a user decides to use the app in such a mode.

Voice search is another useful feature on apps nowadays owing to the popularity of AI Assistants. If there is a case for users to interact with your app’s content using voice, then you should move toward the opportunity.

12. Adding a Native E-commerce Store

If your mobile app has no native e-commerce store, it might mean that you are using a web store that requires additional sign-in for customers before they make a purchase. You may want to rebuild your app with a native store for a smoother customer experience and support for modern payment wallets. It’s often surprising for business owners how much a shorter and pain-free purchase process affects the revenue potential of an app.

13. Poor Discoverability

You may have a great app in terms of design and features but the app might miss the proper app store optimization. This leads to problems with discoverability and growth. Perhaps there was no money allocated to publicity and marketing at the launch of the project. You may decide to rebrand and relaunch the app with proper publicity, including inviting influencers to review it. You then ensure that a fitting description is included with images of the various screens/pages users should expect to interact with. The correct categorization on app stores also matters for discoverability. You could also have the app ]feature in various listicles on industry blogs.

In other cases, official app stores may alter their guidelines leading to the delisting of your app. You have little choice but to find out the cause and implement the right fix.

 

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14. An Ageing Codebase

The codebase of apps with many features is often long and complicated. Maintenance and improvement of the app will often include releasing small updates every few weeks or months to tweak the UI, fix bugs, or improve features. However, it reaches a point where the codebase slowly develops compatibility issues with new versions of operating systems. At that point, a major update to the codebase may be necessary. Consider an app that was built using Apple’s first version of Swift, an app development language, a decade ago. The codebase may be ageing considering there have been 5 new versions of Swift. It may be time to rebuild the codebase especially considering hardware devices have evolved so much in the last 10 years. Screens are bigger while video content has become more. Apps should be optimized for these.

How to Handle App Maintenance the Right Way

Indeed, there are more than a dozen reasons why a business may undertake an app maintenance project. Businesses must take a long-term view of app maintenance and set aside sufficient funds for annual maintenance. It is recommended that the equivalent of around 10% of the initial development costs should go to annual maintenance.

A proactive approach to maintenance ensures that the business maintains its reputation by responding quickly and efficiently to bugs and reports of bottlenecks in the UX. The development team should have sufficient resources to test and launch new features that keep users interested and engaged. The engagement has a direct impact on the revenue generation of the app.

The Right Team

Getting the right development team from the onset puts a business in good stead when it comes to maintenance. A strong code base and proper documentation are important for easy maintenance down the road. This is only possible when you work with a development team that takes a professional approach to the project.

At NS804, we endeavor to build and help clients maintain apps with a good ROI for business clients. If you are seeking a mobile app development team, reach out to us for a conversation about your needs.

Android Mobile App Development Questions, Answered

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Android app development is the process of developing applications designed to run exclusively on Android devices – smartphones, tablets, laptops, computers, and smart TVs. Android operating system, developed by Google in 2008, is the most widely used OS globally, making it crucial for developers, tech enthusiasts, and business owners. Since its release in 2008, the Android operating system has received worldwide acclaim powering millions of devices across the world.

Android mobile app development involves writing code from scratch using reputable programming languages such as Kotlin and Java, designing attractive interfaces, managing data handling and retrieval, integrating various applications and APIs, and ensuring overall app performance and efficiency. The success of Android applications can be attributed to factors such as the availability of many devices at various price points and an open-source nature that encourages innovation.

This article explores some questions on Android mobile app development and their answers. In this post, we will look at various aspects of Android mobile app development, including architectural patterns, choice of programming language, testing, network, design considerations, and data management.

 

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By examining these concepts, readers will obtain valuable insights, empowering them to build robust, efficient, and feature-rich Android applications.

1. What’s the most frequently used programming language for Android applications?

The answer is Java. However, Kotlin has gained popularity and is now the most preferred language over Java. Developers prefer Kotlin to Java for a wide range of reasons: Kotlin is intuitive to use, easy to learn, and Kotlin code is considered safer and more concise than Java.

2. Do I need to learn Java to develop Android applications?

While Java used to be the primary programming language for Android applications, it is no longer an option. Kotlin is more modern, concise, and accurate, and is preferred for modern projects. However, understanding Java can still be beneficial, especially when you encounter legacy codes or libraries written by Java.

3. What’s the advantage of Kotlin over Java?

Understanding the nuance discrepancies between Java and Kotlin is crucial to making an informed decision about your programming language.

Here are the key advantages of Kotlin:

  • Concise syntax. Kotlin’s expressive syntax allows developers to write more concise code, reducing the chances of introducing errors.
  • Null safety. Kotlin type system introduces null safety, reducing the possibility of null pointer exceptions, a common source of bugs.
  • Interoperability. Kotlin can integrate or interoperate with Java, allowing developers to leverage Java-based libraries and legacy codes.
  • Readability. Kotlin’s type inference and expressive nature make the code maintainable and readable.

4. What is Android Studio, and do I need it in Android app development?

Android Studio is the official integrated development environment (IDE). By integrated development environment, it provides the tools, resources, and machinery required to simplify your code. The Android Studio has diverse programming languages, APIs, and other tools needed for beginners to excel.

5. What’s Google Android SDK?

A Google Android SDK is a toolset for developers to write codes in Android-enabled devices. The SDK contains a graphical interface that acts as an Android-driven handheld environment, allowing developers to test and debug their codes.

6. What are the main components of the Android architecture?

The main components of the Android architecture include:

  • Android applications
  • Android framework
  • Libraries
  • Linux Kernel

7. What are the minimum system requirements for Android app development?

To run Android Studio and design Android apps, you need a powerful computer with 8GB RAM, a recent operating system (Windows, Linux, MacOS), a quad-core CPU, and the relevant tools and technologies.

8. What is the Android API level, and why is it important to consider?

The Android API level refers to the version of the Android operating system that your app targets or supports. When developing an app, you will need to narrow down on special versions of Android available out there. We should consider the Android API level because different versions have different capabilities and features. Selecting the right API level ensures your device operates on as many Android devices as possible while taking advantage of new app features.

9. What’s the difference between fragments and activities?

Activities are represented as a single screen with a user interface. Fragments, on the other hand, are modular components within an activity that can be reused or combined in different activities and are especially useful for multi-pane and adaptable layouts.

10. How can I test my app on multiple devices?

The Android Studio provides tools, including an emulator, for simulating various Android devices. In addition, you can use normal Android devices by setting ‘developer mode’ and USB debugging them. You can connect the Android devices on your computer, and test or debug your app.

11. How can I publish my app in the Google Play store?

To publish your app in Google Play, you will first need to set up a development account. Then you will check your app’s store listings and graphics, set up your distribution options, and show compliance with Google Play Store’s policies. Once your app is ready, you can submit it to the Google Console and upload it for review.

12. Can you develop Android applications on platforms other than Windows, Linux, and MacOS?

Yes, you can use cloud-based environments and virtual machines to develop Android-based applications on environments not supported by Android Studio. However, the app’s experience and performance may vary. That’s why it’s advisable to create applications with supported operating systems.

13. How do you select the appropriate architecture pattern in Android app development?

Selecting an appropriate architecture pattern is crucial for maintaining a well-structured codebase. The common types of architectural patterns include:

  • Model-View-Controller (MVC). The model-view presenter is the oldest and most straightforward. It structures data into three main components: view (user interface), model (business and data logic), and controller, which mediates between the model and the view.
  • Model-View-Presenter (MVP). The model view presenter amplifies the performance of the model-view-controller by adding a component known as a ‘presenter’ that acts as an intermediary between the model and the view. The presenter handles user input and updates the view on a need-to-need basis.
  • Model-View-View-Model (MVVM). The model-view-view-model (MVVM) further simplifies the separation of concerns, introducing a view model that holds the application state and business logic, thus separating it from the view.

The choice of architectural pattern depends on the project’s complexity, the team’s expertise, and the app’s long-term maintainability.

14. How do I ensure my app handles multiple screen sizes and resolutions?

In the diverse Android ecosystem, supporting multiple resolutions and screen sizes is important in ensuring a consistent user experience across different devices. To ensure apps handle multiple screen sizes and resolutions, developers can implement the following strategies:

  • Responsive layouts. Use modern layouts (GridLayout, LinearLayout, Relative Layout) to ensure that screen sizes adjust to screens of various sizes and resolutions.
  • Density Independent Pixels (dp). Use density pixels as a unit for defining dimensions instead of pixels. Selecting dp ensures that elements scale appropriately across different screen densities.
  • Resource directories. Ensure you provide alternative resources like layouts and images in separate folders for different screen size densities and resolutions.
  • Vector graphics. Use scalable vector graphics (SVG) for images and icons as they can scale without losing quality.

15. How do I ensure that my app supports older versions?

Supporting older versions is crucial to ensure that you reach a broader audience.

Here’s how you can ensure that your newly developed Android app works even in older versions of the Android operating system.

  • Set the minimum SDK version. You should specify the minimum SDK version your app supports in the AndroidManifest.XML file.
  • Compatibility libraries. Use AndroidX libraries that offer backward compatibility in case of newer features.
  • Feature detection. Use the Build.VERSION.SDK_INT constant to detect a device’s API levels and apply the appropriate code paths.
  • Test. Test on various devices with varying Android versions to identify and fix compatibility issues.

It’s crucial to ensure that your app can access a broader audience by extending support for older versions of the Android operating system.

 

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16. What are the basic components of an Android app?

Android apps are built with basic components such as activities, content providers, services, and broadcast receivers. Activities represent the user interface. Services represent background tasks. broadcast receivers respond to system-wide announcements and content providers manage data-sharing between the app and different endpoint devices – smartphones, tablets, laptops, and smart TVs.

17. What’s an Android Emulator?

Android emulator is a tool by Android Studio simulating Android devices. Through this simulation, it allows the developer to test an app with different configurations and Android versions.

18. How can I optimize my app for better performance?

Performance optimization is crucial for a good user experience. Some tips include: minimizing network requests, efficient data structures, optimizing images, and using background threads for heavy, time-consuming tasks. Most importantly, it’s advisable to properly manage memory to prevent memory leaks.

19. How can I make my app more compatible with other devices?

Use the latest SDK version and select the minimum API target level. Test your app on different virtual devices with varying hardware specifications and different screen sizes.

20. Can you develop IOS apps using Kotlin or Android Studio?

No, Android Studio is exclusively designed for Android mobile applications. If you want to develop IOS mobile apps, you will need Apple’s development tools like Objective-C and XCode.

21. What are some popular libraries and frameworks in Android App Development?

Some popular libraries for Android app development include OkHttp for networking, Hilt for dependency injection, Room for database management, and Gson for parsing. However, it’s important to remember Android app development is an evolving frontier, therefore, it’s advisable to remain updated with the latest trends and technologies.

22. How do you select the best Android app developer?

Selecting the best Android developer depends on several factors such as cost, expertise, and reputation. Most developers offer a defined budget for mobile app development but this cost may differ depending on the diversity of features, operating environments (Android or IOS), and the complexity of the project.

Here’s how you select the best Android developer:

  • Define project requirements. Define the scope of your project, highlighting app features, app capabilities, operating requirements, and security considerations.
  •  Check experience and portfolio. Look for developers with a proven track record of developing superior mobile applications. Review their portfolio to see the quality and range of their work.
  • Technical expertise. Ensure that your expert or developer has sufficient technical expertise in areas like Java, and Kotlin, and understands Android SDK and other development toolkits and libraries.
  • Reviews and references. Request reviews from previous clients and check their portfolios for any reference materials. Online ratings and reviews on platforms such as LinkedIn or Upwork can provide valuable insight into the developer’s expertise.

Finding the right developer depends on project requirements and overall expectations as a client.

23. How do I know if I am ready for an Android app?

Whether running a small business or managing a large corporation, having an Android app is the best way to simplify those monotonous, mundane tasks such as invoicing, communicating, marketing, branding, and personnel management. An Android app streamlines tasks, enhancing the efficiency, scalability, and productivity of operations.

So, if you’re struggling with managing employees, managing your brand, or growing your revenue streams, it’s high time to consider an Android mobile app. An Android mobile app can provide valuable insights needed to reinforce your decision-making in areas like sales, marketing, advertising, and outreach. And if you’re experiencing HR planning and management issues, an HR app can do the job.

Turbocharge Your Digital Presence with Android App Development

NS804 empowers individuals and enterprises to do more with the power of a mobile app. With a robust, efficient, and feature-rich application, you can reach more customers, communicate with a broader audience, and build lasting brand partnerships and customer relationships.

Most importantly, we allow NS804 customers to experience our MVP product, allowing them to know what solutions they are getting by investing in our digital solutions.

Contact NS804 for superior Android app development solutions.

B2B App Features Your Mobile App Needs

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The high rate of internet connectivity combined with high rates of smartphone ownership have led to the adoption of mobile apps by businesses and consumers across different industries and sectors – retail, manufacturing, service, finance, and insurance.

B2B mobile apps have become indispensable in today’s fast-paced business environment for enterprises seeking to streamline business operations, improve performance and productivity. B2B apps cater to the evolving needs of enterprises, enabling efficient workflows, enhanced collaboration, and increased customer satisfaction.

However, the key to unlocking the full potential of a B2B app lies in its underlying features. A feature-rich application has immense capabilities to deliver value and streamline complicated processes or operations. From navigation, superior customer service, analytics, reporting, security, and seamless integrations, we look at different aspects that make a great B2B app.

 

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1. User Interface and Navigation

User interface and navigation are critical features that influence an app’s performance and adoption. A well-designed user experience and user interface are important in ensuring successful navigation by users.

A streamlined and visually appealing interface contributes to the intuitive design and enhanced user experience. For instance, research shows that 32% of your users will stop engaging with your website if it has a poor design. A well-designed website with clear layouts engages the readers, enhancing readability and retention.

Another component that contributes to the intuitive design and user experience is intuitive controls. Intuitive controls yield easy navigation, allowing site visitors to navigate the site seamlessly. According to documented statistics, 88% of site visitors will depart from a website after a poor customer experience.

2. Security and Authentication

Today, more than ever, organizations should be more secure in collecting, processing, presenting, and reporting data, especially consumer data. Poor security controls may compromise sensitive information leading to devastating financial, political, and reputational consequences.

Of special significance for any B2B app is protecting the security of sensitive information and personal data. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires organizations to protect consumer data against unauthorized access. Enterprises violating consumer privacy regulations may face jail terms, fines, concessions, and possible termination.

So, your mobile app must accommodate the emerging needs of consumers without compromising their information or privacy. Most importantly, your B2B app must consolidate consumer information and integrate the appropriate safeguards against cyberattacks.

Some ways to create secure and authentic apps include:

Creating secure mobile apps requires the technical knowledge of attack vectors and the emerging sophistication of cyber-attacks. Use the following best practices to develop authentic and highly secure B2B mobile applications:

  • Secure login methods. Leverage two-factor authentication (2FA) or Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) to add a layer of security to your devices, accounts, or networks. A 2FA or MFA requires additional verification to access a secured account or system. For instance, you may need to input your password and a code sent to your phone to access an email with a two-factor authentication.
  • Strong encryption. Strong encryption algorithms such as SSL and TLS protect against unauthorized access to stored or in-transit data. So, whether you’re sharing fiscal information with your stakeholders or storing your customer information in a CRM database, strong encryption will protect your sensitive information, whether transmitted over large networks or at rest.
  • Role-based access control. Role-based access control provides access privileges based on roles and responsibilities. For instance, if you’re the head of finance, you’ll access devices, systems, and networks with financial information and not any other network. Your roles will define your access privileges and permissions.

A secure app ensures trust and confidentiality, driving brand loyalty and customer retention.

3. Integration

A B2B app must seamlessly integrate with all the other applications used by a business. For instance, if you have enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications, your mobile app must seamlessly integrate, exchange information, and communicate with the ERP suite.

The same case applies to your procurement automation software. Your mobile app must communicate with your procurement software to maximize efficiency and productivity. The ability to communicate and integrate seamlessly with other business apps ensures B2B mobile apps can optimize the existing infrastructure and workflows. Seamless integration with ERP, CRM, project management, and other industry-specific applications ensures maximum performance and productivity.

An important part of integration is integration with cloud services for easy accessibility and data backup. Cloud-based services, whether on-premise or outsourced, provide a safety net in case of hardware failures or storage issues, ensuring disaster recovery and business continuity during attack.

4. Communication and Collaboration

Perhaps one of the most overlooked features of a B2B mobile app is communication and collaboration. Mobile apps must ensure effective communication, information exchange, and collaboration.

Business owners use mobile apps to understand consumer purchase habits, client preferences, and customers’ shared values. On the other hand, customers use mobile apps to identify unique value proportions, pricing structure and evaluate competitive advantages. Customers use the app to assess and evaluate their purchase decisions.

The key components of collaboration and communication in mobile apps:

  • Document storage and sharing. The B2B app should ensure that users can securely download, store, and share files and other resources within the app’s ecosystem.
  • Version control. Version control tracks documents, allowing different team members to work on a single document while tracking changes. It allows different users to collaborate on a single document while maintaining a clear audit trail.
  • Task management. Workflow automation helps with task management because tasks can be scheduled to occur in given scenarios. The automation of repetitive tasks improves efficiency and reduces manual efforts. The B2B app should be able to automate task assignments, approval workflows, and notifications, thus minimizing delays and ensuring seamless progress.

A B2B app becomes a central hub for efficient communication and profitable collaboration by providing robust communication and collaboration features.

5. Analytics and Reporting

Analytics and reporting capabilities help businesses obtain invaluable insights and information like customer feedback, track performance, and make data-driven decisions. Analytics provide the business with a clear picture of the market and industry.

Analytics and reporting capabilities provide customer purchase trends, changing perception, product positioning, and brand positioning, allowing organizations to make actionable decisions. Analytics save organizations resources by allowing them to predict problems and their solutions.

The main components of analytics and reporting include:

  • Data visualization. The B2B app must have data visualization boards to present information in a visually-appealing manner. The B2B app must provide data visualization components such as graphs and charts that present complex information simply and clearly.
  • Customizable dashboards. The B2B mobile app must provide customizable dashboards for real-time insights. Customization helps users to personalize their data views and helps them to monitor important metrics in real time.
  • Generation of reports. The B2B app must be able to generate reports of key performance and industry metrics. The app must crunch the data and provide detailed reports that highlight the key trends for decision-making.
  • Data exports. The B2B must allow users to export data in Excel, Word, CSV, and other formats to do an in-depth analysis with other tools or share with other stakeholders. Data exports enhance the accessibility and sharing of data, improving its usability and application.

B2B apps must analyze trends and communicate emerging trajectories with accuracy. This way, organizations can adjust their systems, resources, and networks to respond to evolving market and industry changes.

6. Predictive Maintenance

Beyond data visualization lies data mining for advanced analysis. Your B2B app can have advanced analytic techniques to read and analyze AI, ML, and natural language processing (NLP) with ease. The app can be designed with predictive analytics capabilities to identify trends and propose the best actions. In addition, data analytics can provide intelligent recommendations based on historical data and user behavior.

7. Customer Support

The evolving nature of customer service demands organizations to be more proactive in resolving issues. Today, B2B mobile apps bridge the gap between efficient communication and poor feedback, allowing organizations to be more agile in their outreach and customer communications.

Any successful B2B mobile app must provide efficient communication and gather feedback. By integrating robust customer support features, B2B mobile apps can detect issues, address issues, and ensure continuous improvement.

These are the main components of superior customer service in B2B apps.

  • Ticket creation and tracking. Every B2B app must create, initiate, schedule, and track tickets seamlessly. The app must offer a helpdesk or ticketing system that allows users to create support tickets for any issues they face.
  • Customer feedback collection. Customer feedback collection and analysis is indispensable in any superior customer service. Organizations that provide excellent customer service understand their customers’ sentiments better. The B2B app must offer a mechanism for users to report issues and express disgruntlement.
  • Ratings and reviews. In addition, allowing users to rate and review app features allows B2B apps to understand their performance. Ratings help with continuous improvement because organizations prioritize improvements based on customer feedback.

Customer support is an indispensable part of customer attraction and retention; apps with superior customer support features enjoy better visibility and usability than those without.

8. Offline Data Security and Backup

Offline data security and backup are emerging trends in mobile app development. Today, apps with cloud-based accessibility are in more demand as organizations and employers seek to encourage more remote workforces. The emergence of cloud computing as a model for remote data storage, transmission, and processing, allows mobile apps to secure user data, regardless of location or size.

It’s important to note that specific components facilitate offline data security and backup.

  • Encryption of offline data. Offline data security involves encrypting offline data to ensure it cannot be read or accessed by unauthorized third parties.
  • Data back-up. Data backup ensures business continuity by providing critical operational data during a breach or incident attack. B2B apps use automated data back-up to ensure seamless collection of information.
  • Secure cloud storage. The B2B app provides secure cloud storage for offline data backups, protecting offline data against unauthorized access.

Data security is a critical component of any business, ensuring that organizations adhere to the principles of data integrity, confidentiality, privacy, and accountability.

 

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9. Scalability and Performance Optimization

Scalability is an important factor for any B2B mobile app. The ability to scale up and down depending on changes in operational demands is a critical component of B2B applications. Your mobile app must handle excessive traffic. It must be able to process a growing list of requests and provide efficient feedback and resolution.

To do this, it must be designed with scalability in mind. Expert developers use cloud offline storage capabilities to improve the scalability of their applications in case of excessive traffic or loads.

Here’s what you need to create a scalable mobile app architecture.

  • Your app must handle increasing user loads and data volumes.
  • Scalable architecture that supports a high user reoccurrence.
  • Efficient database optimization for faster response time.
  • Caching mechanism to reduce server load.

Scalable B2B apps can accommodate changes in user requests, ensuring efficient load and data processing and faster response times.

10. Multi-language and Localization

Multi-language and localization support refers to your app’s ability to provide more than one language for your users. For instance, if you’re in the United States, you may be tempted to create an app for English speakers. However, when venturing into foreign markets, you may be forced to include multi-language capabilities and location support in your app.

Multi-language and location support provide numerous benefits. First, it’s easy to switch between different languages in the app. The location of labels and texts suits audiences in different regions. Localization must take care of dates, time zones, and regional differences. Localization ensures that you communicate with clients regardless of their geographical differences.

NS804 – Building Robust and Scalable Mobile Apps

Whether you’re a small business or a large enterprise, a B2B mobile app empowers you to do more with less. Your mobile app can be optimized to communicate with customers, collect analytics, and report sensitive activities. In addition, the B2B app can be optimized to provide automated reporting of issues through predictive maintenance.

And if you have offices inside or across the country, you can always rely on your app to provide accurate and timely reporting, whether dealing with employee performance or experiencing order delays. Your B2B app must incorporate powerful features that allow you to solve emerging problems. For instance, your app must completely secure user information and sensitive data.

Partnering with a B2B mobile app specialist enables you to optimize their market knowledge of different products and industry expertise of the best practices. NS804 works with experts and professional programmers with a vast understanding of new trends. And with our minimum viable product MVP option, you can seek a replica version before you develop the end product.

Contact NS804 if you’re searching for a B2B mobile app specialist.

What You Need to Know About App Cost Calculators?

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What is an App Development Cost Calculator?

App development cost calculator helps you estimate the cost of building an app that you have in mind. Typically, app development agencies will this tool on their website where you can input details to come up with an estimate figure. The tool, therefore, saves you the pain of sending inquiry emails to different development companies to get a quote for their services.

 

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The Why?

App development is a complex undertaking. A typical app can cost more than $10,000 and take months to build and launch. In addition, the cost comes with no guarantee of a return on investment in terms of revenue or operational cost reduction. Therefore, it’s important that promoters of an app have a strong business case for moving ahead with development plans.

The Subjectiveness of Cost Calculators

Just like any complex problem-solving algorithm, app development calculators are heavily subjective. There are multiple cost drivers including labor, desired features, the perceived complexity of the features, the operating system(s) you are building for, the amount of testing needed, and many more. Each agency is likely to assign varying weights to each of the factors determining the final cost of the app.

When attempting to get a fair estimate of the cost of the app, it may be advisable to use several calculators to come up with a range or an average figure.

The Factors Affecting App Development Costs

Let’s break down the primary determinants of app development costs.

Platform

Perhaps the most important determinant of app development costs today is the type of application. Is it a purely Android app you want? Is it an iOS app? Do you want both versions?

In emerging markets, specifically Africa and Asia, Android commands a supermajority in market share. You may therefore need to prioritize an Android app or at least ensure you have two versions released in the market. The latter choice will mean more app development hours. You may need a team with more developers to ensure the right mix of skills to deliver high-quality native Android and iOS versions of your app.

 

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The Team

Labour is the biggest cost in any development project. Fortunately, the promoters of the app have a choice between working with agencies or with freelance developers. They can also choose to work with developers from different markets because costs differ significantly depending on location.

In the North American market, software developers can charge north of $100 per hour. In Europe, this can be 30% less, and in Asia, the rate can be as low as $25 per hour.

An individual developer can be quite flexible with the amount charged, especially for a big project. However, working with an agency with a big team may mean that they have all the expertise needed to execute the project in-house. A big team is also more likely to keep up with project deadlines.

For complex projects that will require continuous maintenance and updates, some companies may decide to hire an in-house team. This will ensure continuity in the project even when some members of the team move on. It also gives the company control over the documentation, hosting, and other critical elements of the project. Most software-dependent companies are better off with an inhouse-team that is continually working on new features and innovations that may present revenue opportunities.

The Business Model

The purpose of the application will determine the payment processing and security features that will be necessary. An app can generate revenue either through subscriptions or through in-app selling.

An example of a subscription application is Spotify. Such an application requires building account management features and includes a payment processing solution that accepts payments from multiple cards and payment apps.

E-commerce apps require inventory management, a shopping cart feature, and payment processing. Fortunately, developers need not build each of these from scratch but instead, they integrate the main application with third-party industry-grade solutions.

An application that requires payment processing and the necessary security integrations will cost more to build due to the additional hours of integration and testing.

User Interface and User Experience

A mass-market application must invest heavily in UI/UX to guarantee success. The importance of UI/UX is such that there are now front-end developers who specialize in this. They spend hours thinking about how to make the application attractive and intuitive for users. They think about the colors, fonts, button placement, page layouts, progression from one screen to another, and possible choke points in the journey. The goal is to ensure that users find what they need quickly while also maximizing their potential spending within the app.

UI/UX testing is a big part of the development process. The team will in many cases build two versions of the same window and put them both into the market, gathering feedback before building a final version. Extensive UI/UX testing results in additional costs but in most cases, it is usually worth the extra hours.

Feature Complexity

The degree of complexity of an app will naturally affect development costs because of the hours necessary to build and launch. The number of integrations with third-party feature solutions also matters a lot.

Consider a food delivery app that requires integrations to add features such as location tracking, in-app messaging, payment processing, and order status notification. All these features require integration and testing to ensure the app is robust enough to go to market.

During the development, the team must also ensure that the number of features does not result in a slow and hard-to-use application. The layout and interaction of features must be well thought out.

Security Features

App users will need assurances that the security features and testing on your app guarantee the safety of their information. Data breaches not only present a reputational threat to your brand but also legal and potential financial implications if negligence can be proven. Therefore, a significant portion of the app development costs will be taken by designing and implementing of security features for the app.

Interactive apps are particularly prone to data security threats due to the constant passing of information between the user and the server. This is not the case with a more static website or application. Apps with a wide user base are also more likely to suffer more security threats because of the wealth of data stored. Similarly, e-commerce applications are a common target for hackers interested in personal financial information of customers.

Common security measures in apps today include multi-factor authentication for logging in and approving payments. Passwords that users input should be masked using cryptography so that even the internal team cannot crack them. There are also standard security protocols that the iOS and Google Play Store require apps to have before publishing.

It is always best to work with cybersecurity consultants to determine the best combination of security features based on an app’s intended use. They can also recommend threat models to use to get for regular security checks when the app goes to market.

App Hosting

The choice of a hosting service provider directly affects the final cost of your application. The size of your application and the traffic you expect determine the bandwidth you require from your host. A reputable host should guarantee 100% up-time for your app.

Some applications are unique in that they do not need a hosting solution because they work as stand-alone projects with no external communication. In that case, they can be downloaded onto user devices and work fully without communicating with a server.

However, some applications are such that some complex computations require significant CPU power so that only the output is sent back to the user’s application. Other apps have thousands of users using them at the same time. Such applications need resources that only a hosting provider can give. By using a hosting provider, you outsource some of the data security responsibility to them. You rely on their world-class security features to guarantee the safety of user data while at rest.

Using a world-class hosting provider may come with the assurance of support and well-laid-out disaster recovery operations in the unlikely event of a breach.

Therefore, the hosting package that you need and choose will determine how much you will be paying regularly to keep your app running.

Maintenance Costs

The industry best practice is to factor in about 10% of the initial app development costs for annual maintenance and improvement. Inevitably, there will be bugs and feedback from users as they find utility from using the app. Even on the first year after launch, it is important to set aside a significant portion of the budget towards maintenance, perhaps even higher than what will be necessary in subsequent years.

Building Your Own App Development Calculator

The different app development cost calculators available online vary according to the weights given to cost drivers. Bias due to different project experiences is inevitable. With this in mind, you may want to build your own cost calculator. The main advantage of your own cost calculator is you can make adjustments as necessary. For instance, you may want to go with an off-shore team as opposed to a North American team.

Work with NS804

At NS804, we have a proven track record of building and deploying successful apps for clients in the e-commerce, service sector, and corporate operations. Our team’s skill and experience mean we can tailor our services to suit your project needs, regardless of size or scope. Whether you need an Android, iOS, or both versions of the same app, we will deliver on time and within the budget.

You can now use our app cost calculator to get an estimate of how much your app will cost to build. We have included numerous app and feature categories to help you get as accurate an estimate as you can find. Check out the cost estimator here.

If you wish to engage us further regarding your app idea, reach out to us by filling out this form and a member of our team will be in touch soon.

Fintech App Development: 9 Must-Have Features

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Fintech app development has become increasingly popular over the past decade. After all, many startups and development teams are working on innovative fintech apps, especially in the mobile space. It’s a rapidly growing global industry estimated at a whopping $110 billion in 2020 and will likely hit $700 billion by 2030.

But why the interest in fintech worldwide? There’s not a single reason for the meteoric rise of fintech, but several developments have helped to transform this industry. The proliferation of e-commerce entities with the mass adoption of smartphones has led to the widespread use of secure payment processors. These payment platforms and other solution providers have forged ahead with various cashless digital payments and mobile wallets. 

Furthermore, advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), Internet of Things (IoT) devices, blockchain technologies, cryptocurrencies, data analytics, and favorable government regulations have helped grease the wheels of the fintech industry. And the traditional banking sector isn’t sitting on the sidelines either, with many notable financial institutions investing heavily in mobile banking apps.

The banking sector must also replace and upgrade aging systems designed for an era when customers had to visit bank branches or automated teller machines (ATMs) to complete most financial transactions. Also, many banks are reducing their physical footprint and offering more financial services directly on their banking apps. These apps have become so compelling because they provide an A-to-Z approach for customers to manage their finances.

And that’s why fintech app development is so crucial. It empowers users when they have access to essential features. Now, let’s delve deeper into what must-have features today’s fintech apps should include!  

 

What Should You Know About Fintech App Development?

Fintech app development is a multi-disciplinary process that often requires expertise in several key areas: 

  • Mobile app development
  • Back-end development
  • Software engineering
  • User experience (UX) design
  • User interface (UI) design
  • Application and network security
  • Cloud computing
  • Financial software systems
  • Payment processing APIs
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Machine learning
  • Blockchain

Since fintech apps handle large amounts of financial transactions and sensitive user data, security must come first. Therefore, every competent fintech app development studio must have one or more security experts available on the team. These security experts must deal with all present and future vulnerabilities that may occur within the app, the network layer, the back-end server, and the payment processing APIs. 

As for the latter, it’s unlikely that the studio’s security experts can seal off all security holes in third-party APIs. But they should keep tabs on all known and new vulnerabilities and ensure they provide enough security features and defenses within the app to counter these. However, when dealing with open-source APIs with permissive licenses, they can rewrite parts of the compromised APIs or contribute additional code that will harden security.

What Is A Fintech Application?

As a broad description, a fintech app may include any application that simplifies and automates financial services. The majority of fintech apps are almost always the products of the fintech industry, which is in itself a broad term. In the fintech industry, it’s not uncommon for app developers, venture capitalists, and financial institutions to collaborate closely on products, such as banking apps, digital wallets, and money lending apps.

Several technologies that make up a fintech app may include AI, IoT, blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and data analytics. In some countries, cryptocurrencies remain in a grey zone legally. Thus, fintech app development studios must comply with regulations in these countries and apply certain restrictions on cryptocurrency transactions. But most mainstream users will use fintech apps to manage their finances instead of trading and investing in cryptocurrencies.

Generally, fintech apps fit into the following four segments: Business-to-Business (B2B) within the banking industry, B2B bank clients, Business-to-Consumer (B2C) within the small business sector, and wholly consumer based. If you want to develop a fintech mobile app, you’ll need to focus on one of these segments before forging ahead. And that’s because trying to create an app that serves multiple business models seldom works when starting out.

Consider how PayPal began as a digital wallet for electronic payments back in 1999. And soon after this startup launched its initial public offering (IPO), it was rapidly snapped up by eBay — subsequently becoming the preferred payment option for users on the famous auction site. Over the past two decades, PayPal has grown by adapting to the needs of its users. Today, the company effectively runs a two-sided business model in handling financial transactions for merchants and consumers. 

 

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What Are The Most Popular Types Of Fintech Apps? 

One of the neat things about fintech app development is that appreneurs and developers can flex their creative muscles. That’s because there are already many types of fintech applications in the marketplace, and the list of categories will only grow in the foreseeable future. But if you’re new to fintech and wondering what type of app you should develop, then consider the following: 

  • Mobile banking app: You’re probably already using one or more banking apps right now. And you’re likely benefiting from the ease and convenience of handling many financial transactions through these. A side benefit of mobile banking apps is that they provide an indispensable service to formerly unbanked individuals, particularly in developing countries.
  • Investment app: People that don’t have access to large sums of money or a broker will use investment apps to generate some wealth. Several of the best investment apps provide tutorials and simulated stock markets to train new users.
  • Insurance app: Most people will experience at least one major mishap during their lifetimes. It may involve a car accident, a health issue, or lost luggage during travel. But even if insured, these are all stressful scenarios that cause people to hastily look for their insurance policies, wondering if they’re fully covered. Fortunately, today’s mobile insurance apps make it easy for customers to review their policies, make claims, and receive quotes.
  • Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending app: Financial institutions may not always provide loans at favorable interest rates or to individuals with a bad credit score. That’s where loan apps conveniently fill a gap in the market by bringing P2P lending to the masses. But to mitigate risk, these P2P platforms seldom loan out large amounts like the big financial institutions.  

Is Developing A Fintech Application Easy? 

No, fintech app development ranks as one of the more challenging categories in software engineering. Don’t be fooled by the plethora of fintech apps in the marketplace and the many freelance developers making bold claims about quick turnarounds on fintech projects. While the abundance of projects in this domain may make it seem easy, much can go awry by overlooking certain scenarios. 

The hard reality is that not all fintech products offer robust security or comply with mandatory financial regulations. Furthermore, freelancers don’t have the best reputation for tightening up app security or closely following the rules and guidelines set by regulatory bodies worldwide.

Since fintech apps deal with money, no developer should play fast and loose, especially with the law. Any security breaches that result in monetary losses may lead to jail time for the responsible parties, including the publisher or developer, for not following the necessary protocols. So, never place your trust in a freelance developer or a studio that doesn’t have a track record for quality apps and following best practices. Instead, partner with a multi-award-winning and reputable mobile app developer like NS804, which has already released over 100 applications.

Which Steps Must Every Fintech App Development Studio Follow?

We’ve already stressed how important it’s to closely follow best practices, government regulations, and security protocols. But what does that actually mean when developing a fintech application? Before adding innovative new features to your app, you should first ensure that your app adheres to several fundamentals. Be sure to include the following steps in your development process:

  • Legal requirements: Even during your early planning stage, you must know what shape your legal compliance framework will take. Moreover, you must comply with various privacy laws for different territories, such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for the European Union (EU) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Consult a trusted legal advisor during every phase of your fintech app development process to ensure compliance with all regulations, regardless of how obscure or complex these may seem.
  • App security: Security will play a central role every step of the way during your fintech app development process. Toughen security with mandatory biometrics, one-time password (OTP), and two-factor authentication features. Ensure that your team rolls out updates immediately to patch up any security vulnerabilities that may occur.
  • API administration: Your fintech app must communicate with other apps and portals for smooth functionality. Thus, you’ll use APIs to connect these disparate applications. But you must ensure these APIs comply with the most stringent security protocols since this will impact your app’s risk factor.
  • User support functionality: Sooner or later, users will experience issues with your app. Create an intuitive user journey to smoothen the onboarding process. Include built-in training tutorials to help users learn how to use your app and an AI-powered chatbot to respond quickly to their questions.

Before Implementing The Latest Must-Have Features

Fintech apps have evolved considerably over the past decade. Even the most rudimentary applications come with impressive features meant to engage users. While that may seem like a smart move, it’s never a good idea to flood a fintech app with unnecessary features. Instead, it’s better to offer basic functionality that does actually meet users’ needs. You can always add additional features when you roll out updates and when you scale. 

Before commencing on expensive and risky projects, we always advise our clients to build a minimum viable product (MVP). An MVP is ideal for fintech app development because the focus is strictly on basic functionality. Moreover, it’s the perfect vehicle to test an app idea by bringing it to the market cheaply and quickly. 

If users resonate with the MVP, that’s a good sign that it has the potential to become successful as a full-fledged app. And by monitoring and analyzing user data and feedback, it becomes easier to pinpoint the additional features users want. Below, we’ll discuss in detail the various must-have features you should consider for your upcoming fintech project.

 

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1. Gamification

Until now, gamification was more of a nice-to-have feature instead of a must-have feature. But user expectations have changed due to the interactive experiences they’ve had with gaming. There’s hardly a user that doesn’t become incentivized by leveling up their character, achieving a high score on the leaderboard, or unlocking an additional skill on the skill tree. 

Gamification includes all these game-like activities and many more. And these have found their way into all kinds of apps, from productivity to fintech apps. But the real draw of gamification is that it helps to increase engagement by offering users a more fun and rewarding experience. For example, an investment app could award cool-looking badges when users meet specific investment milestones. 

2. Push notifications

Push notifications are not new and are standard in just about every category of mobile app. But it’s not only a matter of having push notifications but how you’ll use them to engage users. The core principles of fintech app development require that you provide users with security and keep them informed of any app changes at all times. 

Consider how users will want their banking apps to remind them of outgoing and incoming payments. And remind them about upcoming bills and alert them of any unusual logins or activity on their accounts. Push notifications are the quickest, easiest, and most reliable way to alert users. Emails and SMS messages sometimes go undelivered, and users may not always check these timeously or regularly. This may put them in a situation where they can’t respond to a potential security risk in time.

3. User Profiles

It’s crucial to let users customize your fintech app to make it more personal and accessible. Users love using apps that feel comfortable and will continue using those that seem designed specifically for them. 

You can do this with user profiles, which will contain each user’s individual preferences. Of course, you may also provide presets so that users can get up and running with a predefined UI, font style, and theme that they’ll find appealing. But customization doesn’t only need to affect the appearance of the app but also how it functions. Users may set their budget and spending preferences and save these in their user profiles. 

4. Blockchain

While not every fintech app benefits from a blockchain implementation, it’s worth considering if your app meets certain criteria. If your app must handle cryptocurrency transactions, you’ll inevitably use a blockchain. But it’s also necessary if your users demand a transparent and secure system to record all transactions without a central entity, such as a large financial institution.  

Where blockchain technology truly comes into its own is with any P2P network. So, if you’re creating a P2P lending application, your users will want to have the surety that there’s a record of all transactions on a distributed database. This way, lenders and borrowers will trust all transactions on your P2P lending app. And if there’s ever any discrepancy, the database will always reveal what happened with any funds after a transaction query.

5. Smart contracts

If you move ahead with a blockchain implementation, you should also consider smart contracts. The best way to think of smart contracts is that of smaller programs that run on the blockchain and automate tasks based on an agreement. And in their more advanced form, they may work with a central securities depository (CSD) to handle fungible assets like stocks, options, and bonds. Also, note that non-fungible tokens (NFTs) operate as smart contracts or under such a paradigm. 

Therefore, if you’re developing a platform to trade NFTs, smart contracts will become central to your fintech app development process. You’ll also need to integrate various digital wallets, crypto exchanges, and NFT marketplaces with your app.

6. Chatbots

We’ve already discussed why you should implement user support functionality in your fintech app. And we even mentioned the need for an AI-powered chatbot that will respond to user queries. Obviously, these kinds of chatbots are not new and are not only meant for fintech apps. But they’re essential to fulfill customer support roles, especially if you don’t have the budget and staff to provide support 24/7. 

Users will want to know how to set up and manage their accounts, get answers to technical issues, and learn more about new and specific features. And while they can find out this information by perusing your app’s docs or support forums, it’s better not to inconvenience them. Ideally, you want to keep users glued to your app and not look elsewhere, even your website, for information. 

An AI-powered chatbot can answer most user questions in seconds and in their native language. Users will feel more confident using your app, even its more advanced features, knowing that help is only a screen tap away.

7. Big Data Analytics

Financial applications live or die based on how well they handle large amounts of data. For example, the more data a banking app has about a customer’s spending habits, assets, and credit rating, the better it can assess risk for a requested loan. When an app feeds from the bank’s Big Data pipeline combined with analytics, it will know if the customer is trustworthy and may also detect potential fraud or malicious intent.  

Once everything is clear, the app can push through the loan request to the loan approval agent and notify the customer. And once the agent approves the loan, the customer will receive the fund in their account. This quick and frictionless way of applying for a loan without needing to call or visit a bank branch is only possible due to Big Data analytics. 

8. Machine Learning

It’s hard to think of fintech app development without becoming proficient at implementing machine learning. And that’s because there’s hardly a fintech application that doesn’t have a ML component in one form or another. Moreover, there are many ways that ML algorithms can aid various functions, even within a single fintech app. 

These algorithms can enhance an app’s fraud detection capabilities, predict market risks, and implement trading strategies. Bots powered by ML algorithms can also advise users on trades, upcoming investment trends, and market opportunities. However, it’s important to note that the quality and accuracy of the data these algorithms use will determine overall efficacy.

9. Multiple Digital Payment Options

No fintech app can function correctly without having at least one digital payment option. But users expect multiple digital payment options, so design your app for such a scenario. While it’s perfectly okay for your MVP or initial versions of your app to have one payment option, you’ll need to diversify payment options as your app matures. 

But what payment options should your fintech app have initially? Offer wire transfer, debit, and credit card payments from the get-go. Then, closely follow with PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, Stripe, Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, Google Play, and Samsung Pay. 

However, some digital payment processors prohibit risky speculative trading and investment products from accessing their services. Ensure that your fintech app complies with the terms of service (ToS) of any payment processor you plan on integrating. You may also add cryptocurrency payment options if your app’s meant for the crypto market.

In Conclusion

Fintech app development has come a long way yet still offers many opportunities for forward-looking appreneurs, developers, and financial institutions. Users have become accustomed to handling all their finances on their mobile devices. They seldom visit a physical location or call an agent to do their banking, submit an insurance claim, or invest in stocks. Furthermore, fintech apps make most transactions easy, convenient, and quick. Contact NS804 today to learn how we’ll help you build your next fintech app for a growing and promising market! 

What is Rapid Application Deployment?

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Today’s digital landscape is ever-changing, and with innovation and speed being at the forefront of most digital developments, organizations are seeking innovative ways to boost their software development and deployment processes. The ever-changing digital landscape has seen software developers being more creative in accelerating their software and deployment processes. One area that has gained significant traction in propelling organizations to be steadfast in application development is rapid application deployment.

Essentially, rapid application deployment refers to a set of processes, practices, and techniques intended to increase the speed at which applications are designed, developed, tested, and deployed in marketplaces. Rapid application development harnesses proven techniques and sure-fire practices to propel the software development processes, from conception to completion.

This blog post explores the concept of rapid application deployment to provide business stakeholders, development teams, and potential clients with insights needed to adopt and master rapid application deployment. Adopting these practices and principles will help organizations upscale their application development while enjoying quality software solutions.

 

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Understanding Rapid Application Deployment

Rapid application development is a streamlined approach to software development. Rapid application development emphasizes speed and responsiveness. Development teams who leverage rapid application deployment will be more adaptable to disruptive technological trends. Likewise, they’re better suited to providing quality software solutions to their clients and end users. Therefore, by adopting the principles and practices of rapid application development, you stand to provide scalable, adaptable, and flexible software solutions while remaining within the boundaries of budget and timeline.

Key Features of Rapid Application Deployment

  • Speed. Rapid application deployment provides faster and more timely software solutions. This concept ensures that development teams reduce time-to-market timeframes, enabling businesses to respond faster to market opportunities.
  • Scalability. The rapid application deployment framework embraces an agile mindset. It fosters adaptability and flexibility. Agile principles such as customer collaboration and continuous improvement are central to rapid application deployment.
  • Iterative development. Rapid application deployment takes advantage of iteration. It divides tasks into smaller but more manageable increments. A large and complex configuration or programming task can be segmented into smaller workloads less prone to risk and more cost-efficient.
  • Continuous integration and deployments. Continuous integration and deployment cannot be disentangled from the entire concept of rapid application development. Continuous integration ensures the continuous integration of codes into a shared repository. Continuously integrating code changes to a shared repository prevents recurring mistakes or errors in codes and enhances the quality and adaptability of software development processes. On the other hand, continuous deployment refers to automating the deployment process so that software updates are deployed rapidly and more reliably.

Evolution and Significance of Rapid Application Development

Rapid application development has emerged as a response to key changes to the software development environment. Traditional processes and approaches like the waterfall model resulted in lengthy development processes and late launch dates. Rapid application deployment has emerged as a solution to overcome the demand for faster software deployment.

 

The Benefits of Rapid Application Deployment

Rapid application deployment holds several benefits in the software development environment.

1. Market responsiveness

Companies must constantly evolve and adapt to shifting consumer and market demand in today’s competitive market landscape. Customers need innovative solutions that are paired with cost-cutting measures. Markets demand more responsiveness, agility, and scalability. Rapid application deployment enables organizations to be more agile in their technology uptake. Companies leveraging this concept are more innovative and adaptive, providing less-to-market time for new software solutions.

2. Iterative improvement

Iterative improvement creates room for collecting feedback, validating, assumptions, and integrating suggestions into consequent parts of the project. In software development, feedback must be taken into consideration for quality and reliable outcomes. Interactive improvement leads to continuous learning and adaptability to evolving requirements. Development teams who adopt rapid application development can continuously integrate improvements into their processes. This eventually leads to quality and reliable software solutions.

3. Risk mitigation

The rapid application deployment approach takes into account the risk-mitigation factor. RAD approach continuously tests applications early enough to identify and mitigate unprecedented risks. Early and continuous testing ensures that errors are detected and mitigated early on in the development lifecycle. One technology used in risk mitigation is predictive maintenance. In predictive maintenance, detection bots are used to detect errors in every development cycle, providing insight into small technical issues before escalating to costly problems later on.

4. Enhanced collaboration

Rapid application deployment encourages cross-functional teams to deliberate on issues. Most importantly, this approach is anchored on frequent communication, ensuring that stakeholders can clearly define their project expectations. Frequent communication and cross-functional teams yield the integration required to develop applications that respond to existing problems. In addition, this collaboration leads to a shared understanding of project goals, facilitating knowledge-sharing in different stakeholder groups.

5. Customer-centricity

Rapid application deployment is feedback-driven, placing a central emphasis on customer satisfaction. Its iterative approach to design, development, and testing ensures that feedback is collected and shared. This iterative approach further prevents errors or mistakes from reaching the consequent stages of the project, leading to quality and reliable project outcomes. By integrating customer feedback, software development teams can build reliable software that responds to the needs of markets and customers.

Steps for Successful Rapid Application Deployment

1. Project planning and gathering requirements

A successful first-step approach for rapid application deployment is conducting project planning. The first step of conducting the project planning is defining your project goals.

  • Define your project goals. You must set out your project goals and objectives. Clearly defining your vision and goals helps you to align your development efforts with defined business goals. For instance, if you want to increase your client base by 30% in two years, your application deployment must guarantee this outcome.
  •  Identify your project requirements. You must meet with different stakeholders to identify any prevailing requirements. Prioritize all requirements based on their value and feasibility. Your plan must focus on core functionality and project outcomes in early iterations.

Successful project planning ensures that the consequent stages of the project proceed as planned.

2. Iterative development and release management

The rapid application deployment uses iterative development. This type of deployment delivers iterative deployment cycles. Each cycle leads to a deployable and manageable software increment. This process involves the following two steps.

  • Breaking down the development into smaller sprints. Typically, break down the project into smaller, manageable cycles that run between two to four weeks. Each iteration involves developing a testable and almost deployable software increment.
  • Prioritizing features and release plan. This step involves collaborating with stakeholders to comprehensively understand the project. Reiterate goals and project expectations. Reiteration ensures that the application or software developed meets the client’s needs.

Iterative development provides room for collaboration and information-sharing. This ensures that the project meets the needs of both the developers and the clients.

3. Test automation and continuous testing

Test automation ensures that any deployable increments are tested for quality outcomes. Each code that’s continuously integrated must be tested before deployment. Test automation is critical in rapid application deployment because it provides timely and accurate feedback on software quality.

Test automation involves the following two steps;

  • Identifying test cases. This step involves identifying test cases for automation. Test cases involve selecting areas that are critical for validating the security, performance, and functionality of an application. After identifying areas critical for a software’s performance and functionality, you can automate the test of these areas in a repeatable manner.
  • Deploy continuous testing. Now it’s time to implement continuous testing. Three types of tests must be deployed regularly to ensure that errors and mistakes in codes and executable or deployable increments are detected early in the software lifecycle development stages. These tests include automated tests, acceptance tests, and integration tests.

Test automation ensures reliable and accurate reporting of software quality, ensuring that teams proceed with information on the development lifecycle.

4. Continuous monitoring

Feedback loops and continuous monitoring are important in ensuring customer satisfaction, reliability, and performance of the application. Achieving continuous monitoring and feedback loops involves the following steps.

  • Application monitoring. Development teams use applications that track and evaluate key performance indicators. Monitoring tools are used to track KPIs such as response time, resource utilization, and error rates. Monitoring tools collect user feedback, identify improvement areas, and prioritize developments.
  •  Integrating feedback into development cycles. Collaboration with stakeholders helps to gather feedback. This feedback is injected into the development pipeline, ensuring that every iterative cycle captures the intended needs of customers and clients alike. In addition, this iterative feedback is shared in the development pipeline to ensure continuous improvement.

Providing continuous monitoring is a critical element of rapid application development. Continuously monitoring ensures that every deployable increment meets and exceeds the needs of the application development project.

Challenges of Rapid Application Deployment

Although rapid application deployment provides numerous benefits, there are various challenges that you must overcome to ensure successful implementation. Overcoming these glaring challenges is critical to meeting the needs of reliability, flexibility, and quality related to rapid application deployment.

1. Managing technical debt

Technical debt refers to the costs or losses incurred while taking suboptimal solutions in software development. Technical debt can impair future development. So, it’s crucial to take measures to mitigate technical debt. Some of the steps taken to manage technical debts include;

  • Regular refactoring. Regular refactoring is allocating sufficient time and resources to a code to improve its structure. This approach helps reduce technical debt, by ensuring that the code base is always clean and adaptable.
  • Prioritize technical debt reduction. Integrate efforts to reduce technical debt at every development lifecycle. Integrate efforts, systems, and processes that detect and mitigate costly risks. In addition, reconcile differences between new feature development and technical debt to ensure that you do not create more but less-likable features against the backdrop of rising debt.

Debt must be mitigated because it represents a risk to future application development.

2. Ensuring quality assurance

Ensuring quality assurance is important in application deployment because the design speed must not inhibit the quality of the end output. In rapid application deployment, experts believe that all steps, although proceeding at a significant pace, must take into account quality requisites. Deployable software increments churned at every iterative cycle must respond to quality requirements set out in that specific developmental cycle or stage. There is a wide range of strategies set to ensure quality assurance.

  • Automated testing. This step involves implementing a comprehensive suite of deployable tests. These tests may include end-to-end tests, integration tests, and unit tests. Automated testing ensures quick and reliable feedback, thus providing opportunities to improve the correctness and stability of an application.
  • Code reviews. Continuous code reviews detect, mitigate, and manage costly errors emanating from flawed code integrations and code deployments. By emphasizing code reviews, organizations can identify potential technical problems early in the development cycle. Peer reviews in code design and deployment ensure adherence to coding stands. Code reviews further help to catch bugs and promote knowledge sharing among peer groups.

Quality assurance is an instrumental challenge in rapid application deployment. Luckily, mitigation steps set to ensure the successful implementation of RAD provide immense solutions.

3. Security considerations

Rapid application deployment doesn’t overlook the vulnerability of attacks. Applications are one of the most targeted platforms, with hackers and attackers looking to exploit vulnerabilities. If financial software is infiltrated by unauthorized users; they will steal millions of credit card numbers. And using bots and iterative software, criminals can match credit card numbers with other user credentials like names, SSNs, and street addresses to gain access to protected information.

  •  Incorporating security practices. The first step taken to ensure maximum security is adherence to coding standards. Vulnerability testing is also incorporated early in the development stages to identify loopholes.
  • Secure deployment practices. The developer must follow established code standards, code configurations, and encryption of sensitive data. Following these secure protocols in code development and design enhances application security, increasing customer trust.

Development teams must provide secure applications prioritizing the customer’s safety, accountability, and security.

4. Continuous monitoring

Continuous monitoring and collecting feedback are critical for ensuring scalable and quality applications. Strategies deployed for effective monitoring and collecting of customer feedback include:

  • Application performance monitoring. The development teams deploy application performance monitoring tools and techniques to track an application’s real-time performance. Application tools report critical metrics on performance like response rate, overall responsiveness, functionality, application, and usability. Application
    performance monitoring helps monitor indicators such as error rates, response time, and resource use. These measures monitor and solve performance bottlenecks.
  • Engagement and user feedback. You must actively solicit user feedback using surveys, direct communication channels, and user testing. In your user engagement journey, prioritize user behavior, preferences, and pain points. Analyzing these trends is crucial in making important decisions about future improvements.

Continuous monitoring is critical for determining what works and what doesn’t. Evaluating feedback provides room for information-sharing, leading to informed decision-making across every stage of the development cycle.

 

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The Outcomes of Successfully Adopting Rapid Application Deployment

Although expensive and time-consuming in some quotas, rapid application deployment provides numerous benefits to enterprises and marketplaces.

  • Reduced time-to-market. Traditional development methods were time-consuming. Rapid application development provides a cohesive model with proven techniques to escalate an application’s development and deployment. Escalating the development process reduces the time-to-market, allowing customers and enterprises to take advantage of emerging opportunities.
  • Customer satisfaction. Customers are satisfied when the products and services meet their immediate needs. To meet your customers’ varied satisfaction levels, you must understand the perceived usefulness of your product. An application’s ‘perceived usefulness’ refers to the collective value of the product. Rapid application deployment provides quality assurance, developing products that meet and exceed expectations.
  • Efficiency and collaboration. Rapid application deployment leverages collaborations among stakeholders. Development teams, customers, and respondents all participate in different iterative stages. Each stage carries the collective feedback of every stakeholder. Iterative development helps deliver a holistic perspective and version of software to everyone.
  • Flexibility and adaptability. Rapid application development underscores the values of flexibility and adaptability. A large and immensely complex project disintegrates into smaller, more manageable deliverables. Each deliverable can be quantified, tested, and even deployed independently. Thus, the end outcome of rapid application deployment is a flexible and adaptable application that can respond, configure and detect changes based on changing user needs and demands.

Ensuring that you leverage the capabilities of rapid application deployment will ensure that you take advantage of emerging changes in the technology landscape.

NS804 – Scaling Heights With Rapid Application Deployment

NS804 works with a multidisciplinary team of professionals to deliver actionable software solutions. NS804 software solutions are scalable, adaptable, secure, and quality. The company has leveraged rapid application development mechanisms to accelerate application design, development, and deployment.

So, whether you’re a medium-sized e-commerce enterprise seeking rapid software solutions, or a large hospice seeking leverage in emerging e-health technologies, we are here to power your dream. We help all enterprises, small and large, simple or complex, reach the apex of transformative technology.

Reach out to NS804 for quality and reliable solutions in rapid application development.