With the ever-increasing number of mobile users, business organizations are turning towards mobile marketing and mobile app development to stay connected with their customers and beat the stiff competition. However, in the competitive market, the first mover gets the maximum advantage. It is crucial to come out with the mobile app quicker than your competitors to get the optimum benefit from your campaign.
There are many benefits to having a mobile app for your business. Some of them are increased brand recognition, improved visibility, continuous engagement with the target audience, improved brand loyalty, and increased sales. However, it is crucial to building an app that is bug-free and engages the customers by providing them with useful features.
Google Android is a major platform for mobile applications. Android app development consists of three processes: OS, middleware, and applications. It is highly time-consuming and expensive because of the lengthy development process.
Here are some tips to help you fasten the process without affecting the quality of the mobile application.
Focus on Shorter Release Cycles Through MVP
Developing mobile applications is a lengthy process. So instead of waiting to complete the entire project, focus on creating MVP (Minimum Valuable Product) that consists of the core functionality of the application. Release the MVP and keep updating the MVP as you keep adding to the app. Once the MVP is in the market, collect feedback from the users and factor it into the upcoming development cycles.
You can benefit from the first-mover advantage, gain momentum and keep your development cycle focussed by following the MVP strategy. Moreover, it will also help you know whether your app has a good market or you are wasting time on an unwanted product. This will help you to determine a course correction to save valuable time and money.
Use the latest Cross-Platform Tools
There are multiple platforms for mobile applications such as iOS, Android, and Windows. One of the important questions that plague mobile app developers is the selection of the platform for the mobile app. However, choosing one platform limits the potential of the app in reaching the target audience since it can be using gadgets with different operating systems.
Creating mobile apps for multiple platforms doubles the time taken for mobile app development. Using cross-platform app development tools will help you to save time and reduce expenses incurred in app development. These tools allow you to develop an app for different platforms using the same codebase. Some examples of cross-platform tools include PhoneGap, FlutterSDK, and Xamarin.
Agile is the Way to Go
Work smarter with agile mobile app development techniques. Implement the best principles in the agile technique of software development that focus on four values: flexibility, simplicity, collaboration, and communication.
Shorter release cycles, an MVP-based approach, and frequent deliveries can help you to fasten the app development process as you can get feedback from the users and eliminate unwanted features from the final product. It also helps to identify errors early in the development life cycle and take the necessary steps to handle them.
Use Wireframes to Refine Your Concepts Before Writing the Code
Use low-fidelity wireframes to explore the various designs, architecture, and structures for your UI. It is easy to create wireframes using the latest image editing software or a specific wireframing program.
Wireframes also help you to identify any specific issues in the UX and design of the app and make necessary changes before writing the code. Moreover, wireframing also helps to avoid miscommunication among the team members. This helps to eliminate the need for rewriting the code, later on in the development process and saves a lot of time and money.
Automated Testing for Faster and Accurate Results
Testing is a critical step in the mobile app development process. It helps you to ensure that the app is secure and does not contain any irregularities or bugs. However, it is also one of the most time consuming processes. Mobile app testing constitutes of several tests such as functionality testing, usability testing, performance testing, compatibility testing, compliance testing, penetration testing, and UI/UX testing.
All these tests take up a lot of time and contribute to the lengthy mobile app development lifecycle. Automated testing helps to reduce the time taken for testing an application by conducting multiple tests at the same time. There are various tools to automate app testing, such as Selenium and Appium.
Depending on automated testing alone cannot guarantee good results. It would help if you had an optimum mix of manual and automated testing to ensure that all the features in the app are working well and provide a good user experience. Outsourcing the testing function to professional IT solutions and services companies can help you fasten the process. These companies have qualified and trained testing professionals, who can understand your requirements and test the mobile applications in every aspect to ensure that the app functions as it is expected to.
Regular and Ongoing QA and Code Reviews
Opt for Quality Assurance (QA) tests and code reviews at every milestone, to identify any errors and fix them. Regular reviews help you to ascertain the quality of each aspect of the app and take the required actions to correct any bugs as soon as they are identified. You can save time by adopting this measure as waiting till the end of the development cycle may lead to severe issues that are difficult to handle, which ends up lengthening the time taken to launch the app.
Use Third-Party Assets
Using third party assets such as music, graphics, special effects, code etc. will help you save time involved in developing these components. There are several websites on the internet that provide access to essential components for developing a mobile application. Ready-made solutions such as mobile app architecture, code, characters etc. help to make the entire app development process less cumbersome and quicker.
Outsource to Experienced Mobile App Development Team
Outsourcing the whole mobile app development project or some aspects of it like testing and UI/UX design can help you benefit from the expertise of the other party. You can concentrate on the areas of your expertise, while the 3rd party can work on his niche. This collaboration with experts ensures that the time taken for developing the app is considerably lessened. Moreover, it also improves the quality of the application. However, be careful while choosing the 3rd party developers or testers. Research about their experience, track record and the skills of their workforce before bringing them onboard to your mobile app development project.
Consult Saffron Tech for quick and efficient mobile app development and testing services. We design mobile apps for iOS, and Android platforms as well as hybrid apps using Xamarin. Our experienced app development professionals and testers follow the best agile practices to ensure we deliver a high-quality mobile application on-time. We also offer the whole suite of mobile app testing services and also help automate your testing.
Mobile app development is a very time-consuming and expensive task. However, certain strategies like MVP, developing wireframes, using Agile development techniques, continuous QA and code review, and critical outsourcing components to third party app development and testing companies can fasten the process and ensure that you have a high-quality app that can impress the users.
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