The mobile app market gets more and more competitive every year. As of December 2021, there were 3,482,452 apps on Google Play, and 2,226,823 available on Apple’s App Store. Naturally, to keep from drowning in this sea of competition, you will have to create a really good application that appeals to a wide audience.
Behind every great app is a unique concept. The ones that are most successful are the ones that find effective approaches to solving users’ problems. That’s exactly what will allow you to stand out from the crowd among your competitors with similar kinds of apps.
Even before you get started, you’ll have to ask yourself a few simple questions:
Convince yourself of your app's value by conducting market research. This will help you protect yourself from unnecessary risks and expenses and finalize the concept.
Here are the key components that will determine the success of your mobile app.
A good application fully meets the user’s needs, and it does so quickly and efficiently. Even if the app has just one single function, it should do it perfectly. It should also be original or at least an improvement on a competitor’s app.
Blindly copying someone else’s idea isn’t going to bring you success. Do your research and identify customers’ pain points. This will give you an idea of what kinds of problems you should develop your app to solve.
The look and feel of your app is going to create that first impression to encourage users to come back. This is especially important for free apps that tend to lose users quickly. If your app feels less user-friendly than the competition, most users won’t even bother to stick around, even if your app is better overall. A smart UI/UX design combines an intuitive interface with obvious transitions and a pleasant visual environment without unnecessary clutter. This helps the user get what they came for as quickly as possible.
Nobody likes to wait. The boredom of waiting for something to download can quickly turn into frustration, prompting the user to look for something better. According to Google, 70% of users will abandon an app if it takes too long to load. 47% of users expect apps to load in 2 seconds or less.
The same goes for performance and stability. Regular crashes and freezes decrease the quality of the user experience. Market research by Dimensional Research found that 80% of users will uninstall or less frequently use apps that are problematic or unstable.
Not every user will be able to understand an app’s functionality the first time. A good app has a support service that responds to questions as quickly as possible and provides detailed advice if necessary. Create an FAQ section once you have a feel for the most common user concerns.
The trend towards increased use of smartphones for shopping and banking has been correlated with an increase in identity theft. That’s why a high level of security is an absolute must for apps that process and store personal and confidential information.
Regular updates are a sure way for an app to maintain its popularity. You can spend a lot of time, effort, and resources making a great application, but if users’ needs aren’t adapted to in a consistent, timely manner, all of those efforts will have been in vain. A good app adds relevant content and new features before the competition does. The same goes for troubleshooting and optimizing performance. Anything to keep the end user happy.
One problem that many mobile startups have is that they ignore the audience of one particular platform. For example, if an app has been created just for iOS, then the developers could be missing the target user.
Developing for iOS as well as Android is an important strategy that will not only help you maximize profits, but also retain customers who switch their platforms.
But alas, a good idea simply isn’t enough to create a cool application. You have to go through the whole development process, from creating a design to uploading the final product to an app marketplace. You would have to find the funding and a team of specialists capable of bringing all of your ideas to life.
Without a single line of code and nothing but a visual interface, you can create a full-fledged app that can be successfully monetized.
