TOP-5 Things You Should NOT Do When Creating An App

The past years have shown us that mobile app development grows faster than I could even imagine. Besides, technology introduces new products every day since market demands increase on an hourly basis. With constant improvements in application requirements and high users expectations, there are quite good chances for a developer to go in the wrong direction and mess up with his future app.

The question that crosses your mind is quite easy to predict. So how to make a fruitful and viral app? How to manage your app success? What actions should you undertake to avoid the most common mistake? Considering an experience the company I work for gained, I introduce five essential pieces of advice every game developer should know to succeed in app development and maintenance.   

5th Place: Focus Only on Popular Platforms

I know, that can be confusing, raise questions and create a desire to argue. However, let me make my point before throwing tomatoes. The thing is, how many of you remember what are RIM and Palm? Does anything click in your head when you heard these names? I strongly doubt that. By the way, they were two major giants in a smartphone industry just before iOS and its friend and rival Android came. Palm that released so popular in 2000's personal digital assistants and smartphones was acquired and absorbed by Hewlett-Packard in 2010, and then sold to TCL Corporation. RIM (Research in Motion) started to produce pagers back in 80's, and after Apple had stepped to the market, it changed the name to Blackberry and began to release smartphones in order to be modern.

Past stayed in the past, however, as you can see, everything is changing. The same thing could happen to modern industry giants. Remember, it's essential to concentrate your attention and develop an app for as many platforms as possible.  

4th Place: Too Many Features

It's the most common blunder that beginners experience in order to make an app better, but they only make it worse. Remember, how annoying are these applications that are loading for a long time? I can assure you, the more features you will include in an app, the worse performance it will have or the more battery power it will require. No matter which of these problems touch your creation, no one likes these two points anyway.

So be a professional and do not let these features fool you. Learn how to cut out unnecessary features. For this, just focus on what your app should do and how it can serve the user. Make the first release efficient and simple, you will have an opportunity to improve an application in the next versions.

3th Place: Analytics Overboard

It's a huge mistake not to pay attention to analytical side. It would be as if you'd launch the website without Google Analytics. Don't forget about fundamental metrics like crash reports, user activity, engagement, bug reports, etc. These parameters will lend developers a hand in making decisions about features, content, UI, etc.

2nd Place: No Commercial Use

I'm sure that you are aware that people are not going to give up their money just because you’ve created an application. There are hundreds of free apps the same as yours (or even better). On the other hand, you are not doing this for a charity, right? That's why it's essential to decide on the monetizing part from the very beginning.  Look at other successful applications in your category and their monetary policy. Conduct research to find a perfect way to profit, for example, advertising or in-app purchase.

1st Place: Lack of Testing                                                                      

Rounding out my TOP I would like to drag your attention to the most common and, yet, the biggest development mistake - insufficient testing. Most of the developers have tight deadlines and in order to meet them, even the best expert can skip the testing relying upon his skills. However, alpha and beta testing play a significant role in app development process. Conducting such testing will provide you with third-party opinion, as well as massive bug fixing. The upcoming results will allow you to improve performance and functionalities.

Outcome

The points that I mentioned above are the most common mistakes that developers made when creating an application. By avoiding these pitfalls, a developer can create a truly fruitful mobile app and end up being on top of his competitors.

Please, be free to share your own points in comments.