From Siri in the phone to Netflix recommendations on Smart TV, the Artificial Intelligence technology is revolutionizing our lives. It has become the hottest technology of the present time. Every small to medium businesses- from food chains to personal fitness centers are employing this technology to reap higher benefits. And finance industry is not at all lagging behind. Finance companies are also hiring the top mobile app developers to invest in this technology and enjoy its perks. Before we begin to delve the benefits of Artificial Intelligence in Finance and Banking sector, let’s have a quick recap of what is it all about.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a fusion of three state-of-the-art technology, namely Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing (NLP), and Cognitive Computing. The main idea behind this technology is to mimic the human intelligence and provide better communication between the humans & machines.
Artificial Intelligence Technology & Banking Mobile Apps
In the war of gaining a competitive edge in the marketplace, it is quite tough to rely completely on humans. The humans have a limit to the speed with which they do any task. They can’t act with the speed of light to deliver an impressive experience to multiple users at the same time. However, human intelligence machine can do this. And this is the prime reason they are gaining such a huge traction in the market.
Following are some of the benefits finance and banking industry is enjoying with the help of AI:
Customer Support
The banking sector is adopting the AI technology to enhance its support system and offer better value to users. The AI-based customer service Chatbots are imitating the human interactions and providing them desirable information/result in no time. This feature is helping users with relevant information and in tasks like recovering passwords. This way, it is cutting down the workload of financial specialists, empowering them to focus on more crucial tasks.
“Artificial Intelligence allows us to offer an experience that doesn’t require our customers to go through several pages on our website; they can easily get the information through simple conversations. This is a great time-saving convenience for busy users who are already using Messenger.”
– Steve Ellis, Head of Wells Fargo’s Innovation Group
Fraud Detection Technology
Fraud detection is one of the key areas excelled by Finance world with the implementation of Artificial Intelligence. The AI equipped apps easily identify the fraudulent activities and alert the customers. It also helps payment providers and retailers in examining and securing financial activities in connection with their firms.
Financial Planning
The Artificial Intelligence plays a significant role in assisting the users to choose the right plan for them. Using the data from the past activities of the users and offers from banks such as credit card plans, investment policies, funds, etc., the AI-enabled mobile applications are offering the most optimal recommendations to the users.
This feature is the core factor behind the revenue growth in the major banks and so, is highly in demand by many other entrepreneurs. If you are also in the finance business, reach to the top mobile application development companies today!
Automated Transaction
The users love automation and the opportunity of running timeline crucial tasks. Because of the same, the AI-based applications are ruling the industry. At Anteelo, our adept mobile app developers have built various projects based on automated functionalities.
Personalized Remainder
Various finance companies are implementing the AI based personalized reminders into their mobile apps. Just like an alarm clock, these reminders remain active for a certain period of time to enable users to perform a particular task on time. This feature is helping the users in renewing their policies and other such financial transactions before the time passes.
Wrapping Up!
Artificial Intelligence is heavily influencing the market, especially the finance industry. The industry’s leading giants have already begun to enjoy its benefits, setting a new stage of the competition. If you are a finance or banking corporation, it’s high time to hire the best mobile app developersand get your own AI-integrated app. Otherwise, you might find difficult to remain on the apex of the market.
48% of global consumers accepted that they would rather connect with a company over chat than any other source of contact. 35% of the users would like to see more companies incorporating chatbots. As for the business side of the story, chatbots save around £6 billion per year and a simple chat option in the mobile app brings up the revenue by over 30%.
These are only a snippet of thousands of statistics that are all around the internet and lying on a million office reports hinting towards how chatbot app development has turned out to be the best business decision.
Done right, chatbots can single-handedly make your company approachable and open to business even when you sleep. Done wrong, it leaves users unsatisfied and complaining about how your brand is slow in the logic department.
What helps in making a chatbot effective, besides of course passing all your chatbot success worries to a chatbot app development company, is having a right strategy in place.
1. Have a Purpose
Knowing what purpose your chatbot would solve is the first step in designing a working, revenue-generating chatbot design strategy in 2018.
The last thing that you would want is to join the chatbot world just because every business is on it. While it is true that it benefits a range of different industries, it is also true that not all businesses need it, especially the ones that are working only around a particular geographical location i.e. in the same time zone.
But if yours is a business that would benefit immensely with Chatbots, think of the process that you would like to give your bot the autonomy of. The scale of the process that you are looking forward to leaving in the hands of chatbot will help decide which bot type you have to invest in (more on this later).
2. Conversation Flow
The flow in which your chatbot would converse is one of the most important things for your chatbot design guide to cover.
The ideal situation when it comes to deciding how the conversation should flow is that the bot should start with a general salutation followed by asking questions and then pitching the product when the user put in the respective action words like ‘Tell me More’ or ‘Give more information’.
The biggest mistake that businesses make is pitching in the product as soon as the user becomes active on the website or page when they should go with a more human-like conversation flow.
3. Bot Personality
The only way to make your bot more human-like is to give it a personality. Now when I say personality, I am not implying you to create an avatar and anime man. No, when I say personality, I mean giving it a tone, a difference in the US and UK English, slang, and age-appropriate responses.
Now, in the normal scenario, a business doesn’t have a specific exact type of customer base, so would you keep making bots aiming for each of them to meet specific criteria? The answer is obviously No. What you can do is ask your users’ background and change the initial conversation level of the bot.
4. Give Context From the Beginning
Make the purpose of your chatbot clear from the first two messages itself. Aim for a scenario where your user knows exactly what the bot would be helping them with and have no misinterpreted expectations and then a bad customer service instance.
The first two dialogue to and fro should be enough for your user to know what is to be expected from the chatbot. If you miss this step, the chances are that your bot dashboard will get filled with repeated questions and frustrations of not getting answers.
5. Share before Publicizing
So you have developed an amazing bot that converses with masses effortlessly, specializes in giving the users the exact information that they need, which even varies from context to context. What’s next?
And the answer does not make it live on your website or integrate into your mobile app right away. The answer is to first share it with your in-house teams to see if it’s actually able to answer different questions and different contexts.
By sharing it with the team and taking their feedback, you will be able to track exactly how people are reacting to it and what changes would make the conversation more meaningful.
6. Choose your Words Wisely
The most important element of strategic chatbot development according to chatbot design trend 2018 is choosing the words right. Your copywriting technique should be on point to not just entice the users to start the conversation but keep them hooked enough to convert into your site’s loyal customer or subscriber.
Know that your chatbot copy has the power to make your chatbot a conversion magnet and it should be treated just like that – as a mix of emotions and conversion statements.
So, here were the pointers that would help you draft a killer, high revenue generating chatbot design strategy in 2018. The one that would result in a chatbot that people love to converse with and pay to.
Now that you know what an ideal chatbot should operate like, it is time to look into the three types of chatbots that you should invest in developing once you have your chatbot design guide planned.
The Three Types of Chatbots
1. Menu Based Chatbots
These are one of the most common types of chatbot available in the market today. Using this chatbot, brands give multiple options to the users to select from. These are used mainly when the users are looking for a direct answer.
One of the biggest challenges that businesses face when it comes to menu based chatbots is that the process that users will have to follow to come to the point when they get the desired answer is quite long. They have to click through several buttons and options to come on one point.
2. Keyword Recognition Based Chatbots
These bots utilize the blend of AI and keywords to determine the appropriate response. They lack in performance when they are asked a lot of similar questions with similar sounding keywords, even when the context is different.
A new set of bots are now present in the market that is hybrid. They automatically switch to the menu based type when they are unable to answer users’ queries through AI.
3. Contextual Chatbots
The most advanced of the chatbot family, these bots remember the interaction and its outcome and keeps growing on it to give better result to the users over time. They work strictly on Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to help users come to a decision.
As they are based on ML and AI technologies, they come with a self-learning ability, which helps in not just customer relationship management but also a positive sales conversion rate.
The ultimate decision of which chatbot type to invest in depends entirely on your business need. If yours is a simple Q&A type app where you aim at giving a quick in and out experience to your users, answering their questions to the point, menu-based chatbot app development is what you should go for. But, in case you have an assistant like mobile app idea, then you will lose your pockets a little and invest in Contextual chatbot development.
Businesses and Entrepreneurs such as you, sometimes spend as high as a million figure to get their application developed and deployed in the stores. The one hope they tie all their effort and money to is generating more than what they earned as revenue from their app.
But, in come reports that over 94% users uninstall mobile apps just after 30-40 days of app install and it hit the businesses hard – Realizing that their app has fallen in the well of those 94% apps.
There are three categories in which you can divide the reasons why users are uninstalling your mobile app –
We will be looking at all the three categories in detail in this article. After all, a clear indication of the problem will only help you with determining how to prevent your mobile app uninstall.
Although, it sounds very obvious but the signs that the app is not developed right are not laid in plain sight. There are a number of issues that businesses ignore to double check when their app is in the development stage, which then goes on to adversely affect the user retention score.
Let us look into them individually so that you know the pointers that you have to pay attention to before you launch that app of yours.
Not Paying Enough Attention to Security
The number one reason that keeps users at bay when it comes to apps that ask for their number, email id or bank detail is the doubt of data breach. Now even if you have kept all the crucial security considerations in mind and practice while developing the app, make it a point that you showcase the badge of security protocol to your users in application homepage, so that they know that their information is secure.
Also, as an added security feature, ensure that the cloud service that you have signed up to save the user data is hack proof. Sit with your mobile app development company and discuss the ways you can make your app tamper proof.
Taking up Way too Much Space on Users’ Device
It is a given but highly ignored fact that your app is not the only application on a user’s device. At any given point of time, users have at least 2 similar app category applications in their smartphone or tablet.
In a scenario such as this, if your app is taking a considerable MB of space on users’ device, you are digging your grave, pretty fast. There are a number of ways to ensure that the app size is small for optimizing the images and videos or manually fixing the app size from the backend. Run your app through those practices before you launch it in the market.
The ‘Application Has Stopped Working’ Message Pops Up A LOT
Nothing annoys an impatient user more than an application that keeps on crashing or asking to run again.
It has been noted that users bear with app hanging or stopping abruptly only till two instances and not more. So, once you start receiving messages or reviews saying that the app hangs a lot, leave everything aside and get it resolved asap.
Look at your code structure and pay extra attention in the app testing to ensure that your app doesn’t hang, or even it does, because of hundreds of queries being generated at the same time, make sure it is an isolated event.
Apart from these three, as long as you have done your testing right and have ensured that the app works like it is supposed to along with making sure that its load time is on point, straight from the application development process, you will be good.
Let us now move on to the next stage, The lack of Ability in Keeping Users Unannoyed, which has less to do with your mobile application development process and more with your incapability to keeping users unannoyed.
Constant Pop-Up Notifications
Sending out notifications saying this and that to your users every hour is one turn off an event. We get it that you want your users to remain hooked to your app, but sending out notifications every hour is more a recipe for pushing them away than of keeping them engaged.
Your notification should be planned. It should come as an effect of user’s movement. Hit their device when they have abandoned your cart or when it’s time for their next lesson. Above everything else, know when to let go. If even after 7 days of zero interaction with the notification, your users are MIA, it is time to let go and stop sending them pop-ups.
Constantly Seeking Rating of the application
If your app is of the kind that constantly asks users to drop a rating in the store, you are headed down the uninstall road. There are hundreds of instances when users are asked to rate an application even when they have left the review days back.
Like notifications, app rating prompt should also be well timed. Ask them to drop in a review when they have achieved something within the app and not when they are either still learning their ways in the app or when they have logged into the app after the longest time.
When you master these two arts and as an added measure, get acquainted with the power of personalization, you will be able to stay in users’ devices for a longer period of time. It’s time to move on to the last element, which you can also call the first nail in your app’s coffin – App Ideation.
Poor Market Research
Chances are that you went into the app game too soon. The time that you should have spent into ensuring that your app idea is different from those in the stores, was spent into wireframing or something else entirely.
Maybe you did not even give enough time into judging whether your app is even solving a real problem or not. Whatever it is that you did in name of less to no market research, is only going to fall hard on you now.
So, here were all the reasons falling into three categories which you can avoid only if you are more cautious during the whole app development process. Now, there can be a number of reasons why users uninstall your app, sometimes as weird as – app was too addictive. The truth is, you cannot always control this. But what you can control is being careful in the whole development and testing process.
Originally incepted as a means to get Play Store to fetch the app listing to place the app higher in the list of category apps, Play Store Optimization has today become a necessary means for businesses to get their apps to rank higher among the list of thousands of similar apps in a category.
Just like your regular Search Engine Optimization mechanisms, Play Store Optimizations also show their effect only when worked from both on store and off store front.
Here is what both the factors entail-
On store factors – These include having the right set of keywords in the app description or its title to enable Play Store search algorithms to fetch them when showing results for a particular category. These features also play a huge role in getting an Android app featured on the store.
Off store factors – These include having enough backlinks coming in from different sources. The sources can be anything – articles, videos, or mentions. Another element that we will be adding here is users’ ratings and reviews. Although, they get uploaded on the store, but the app publishers have no control on them.
For a better understanding of both the factors, read on store factors as the one that the publisher has control on and the off store one as a set of an element that publishers have no control over.
Now that you know the two factors that would directly impact the rank that you are visible on in Play Store search result, let us now get in depth of it – Of getting your app optimized for the Google Play Store to reap the benefits of the time and effort you have spent into getting it developed.
1. Market Research
The first step towards optimizing your app to rule the Play Store chart starts with a thorough market research.
Since the end goal of all your ASO efforts is to get maximum downloads, and app store optimization is 80% about keywords and phrases, you will have to get into your users’ heads to know what they are looking for.
You will have to know who your users are, what are they looking for in an app that they would then move to their home screen and what words are they using to find that application both on search engine and within the app stores.
To understand what is going on in your users’ head, you will have to frequent the place they frequent to show/vocalize their needs.
Once you have their insight, the next entity you will need to analyze in depth is your competitors.
Competitor analysis is as important as knowing your customers’ needs. You will have to gain an understanding of what they are offering to your customers, on what mode, in what context, etc. You will have to pay attention to the power words that they are using in their app description, that are making the users install their app.
Go through their review section and see what experience users are having on their app, visit their Youtube channel or go through their blog sections to know what image they are creating in the market and what their users are liking in their offering as compared to thousand other similar apps.
An insight into both – your customers and your competitors – will show you exactly what your customers are looking for and the words they are using and getting converted with.
2. Keyword Optimization
With a very clear understanding of what your customers are looking for and the standards that your competitors have set, the next stage is to convert those insights into keywords and phrases that your users will search for your app with.
Before we move on the steps to optimize your app description and other app elements on the Google Play Store, let us first look into the process of finding the keywords that you should be putting in your app details page.
There are two ways of finding out keywords to use in your app’s Play Store page –
Use what your competitors are using OR
Go manual and find keywords that the world is using when looking for a product or service in your category.
For the first method, make use of websites like “App Annie” and “Sensor Tower“. Both the websites give you a detailed list of keywords that your competitors are ranking on, which you can copy/borrow/ steal for your own app.
If you are planning to take the manual route, these are the steps that you need to follow –
Step 1: Open your Google Keyword Planner Tool and select ‘Search for new keywords and ad group ideas’ and enter your app domain in the Search bar and click on ‘Get Ideas’. In the list that comes up, do not stress too much about the average monthly searches that are coming up on your query, focus your attention on the ‘Ad Group Ideas’ section. This section will have a list of keywords that users are also looking for or the similar keywords.
Step 2: Use reverse dictionaries available on the internet to get a list of words associated with your keyword.
Step 3: Once you have got the list of keywords ready with you, the next step is to refine the list.
There are three categories on the basis of which you should judge if your keyword is viable enough to get you good ranking on the Play Store or not –
Relevancy with your app idea
Difficulty range under 20
Mid Level Traffic and Search Volume.
These steps would give you a list of keywords that will help you in getting your app’s ranking up in the store along with its visibility and download probability.
Now that you have the refined list of keywords, let us now move on to their usage in your app’s Play Store page.
3. Title
Title is the number one element that needs to be optimized for Play Store. It has a direct impact on both search result and conversion rate. Google has extended the app title character limit to 50 characters since July 2017. To make the most of this space, put in a strong keyword next to the brand name as your app title.
An optimized title can look like any one of these four types –
Brand name: Keyword(s)
Brand name – Keyword(s)
Keyword(s): Brand name
Keyword(s) – Brand name
4. URL
The URL package is another element that can bring in a direct boost in the Play Store ranking number. You can include your keyword in the URL as well to increase its chance at visibility. Remember that you will have to check the Play Store package URL before you publish your app. Once set, it cannot be modified later.
A successful example to prove the point that having keywords in app url impacts its ranking and download probability to a huge extent, is Nintendo’s Super Mario Run game. They have added a very competitive keyword in their URL – Zara, which has made them rank a lot higher than other running games on Play Store.
5. Developer Name
One of the least thought about app page elements which you can incorporate with your keyword is ‘Developer Name’ section. Also, Google saves the Developer History and apps that come with a positive developer history ranks much higher than those who don’t. But coming back to incorporating keywords for making Play Store fetch your app because of your developer name, if you make your primary keyword your developer name, you will be able to rank higher a lot sooner.
6. Short Description
The 80 characters short description section on your app page can easily take your app name up the Play Store ranking list. You should plan the short description in a way that it has the keywords in under 20 characters and explain exactly what your app does differently from the thousands of other similar apps.
The sign of a well crafted short description lies in how seamlessly it blends keywords with the app’s USPs, while giving the users something that would grab their attention in microseconds. To gain users’ attention, a number of brands have started using emoticons in their app’s short description section.
7. Long Description
Play Store App Description section is your place to shine. Unlike Apple, Google offers ample space to its developers to showcase their app, fill in keywords, and convince their users why the app is better than the thousands of similar ones in the market.
In the 4,000 character space that Play Store gives you, make sure that you have entered the keywords and their synonyms in the first line and in the last 5 lines of the description, as that is what will make it searchable.
When drafting your app description, make sure it is well formatted and structured. It should have all the necessary information that would persuade your users to install the app. Feel free to mention your accomplishments, use emojis, have details of the updates you rolled out, and social media profile names for the users to follow through.
8. Icon
In the time when the mobile app users have no time to waste, icons are the first thing that they see before deciding whether to even click on the app detail or not. A clearly distinctive icon is what triggers maximum click throughs. For a business to make a lasting impact on its users, the icon needs to be picture perfect and an exact representation of what the app is about.
The biggest mistake that you can make is uploading a pixelated image because you were unsure of the icon size. Although, your partner mobile app development company will handle this for you, but for the sake of expanding your knowledge, here is the image detail –
32 Bit png
512X512 Dimensions
1024 Kb File Size
There are some things that you need to be wary of when it comes to designing your app icon, such as –
No copying of design and layout,
Avoid having text on the icon photo,
Use the latest design trend present – it can be gradient or line icon or something absolutely fresh in the market.
Lastly, until you become all famous and popular, avoid using icons that are not self explanatory of what the app is about.
9. Feature Graphic
The next visual cue that your users will follow after your app icon is the feature graphic. A well designed feature graphic is not just a stepping stone to taking users to the next stage, but also a major driver of conversion rate.
Google has set two requirements for the app feature image –
24 bit png or jpeg
1024X500 Dimensions
Here’s how you can optimize the feature graphic of your android app
Do not place any necessary information by the bottom or near the borders of the image
Use Large Font Size
Keep changing it according to different schemes or campaigns
Localize the text in your featured image, if any (more into this later in the article)
Continuously keep A/B testing your featured image and its content to see what works with your users and what doesn’t.
10. Video
Paste YouTube URL in the “Promo video” section of your Google Play Store listing to add video to your app page. Videos have become one of the most powerful marketing tools of today’s time when the users are getting less and less patient. One of the coolest things about adding a video in your app page is that the views that you get on your play store listing gets added to your YouTube views count, automatically.
Before you upload a video on your app page, know of these two requirements –
Use an individual YouTube URL instead of the URL of a Playlist or Channel
Make sure that the video is not age restricted and that everyone can view the video.
Lastly, just like you did with your feature image, localize your app video as well to reach a greater user base.
11. Screenshot
Screenshots are your only way to create an impression about your app in front of the users. They provide a direct look into how your app looks and moves. In fact, majority of the onlookers get converted into app installers on the basis of the screens they are shown.
Your screenshots should be the best representation of your app’s features. You can even add texts or highlights on the screens to explain a complicated image. Don’t restrict to uploading just two screenshots, use all the slots that Google has given you. It also helps when your screenshots move from one to other in form of a story, so give it a shot.
Google has laid down a number of guidelines that are to be followed when it comes to uploading screenshots on the page, here they are –
320X384 Dimensions
24 bit png or jpeg
With this, we have now covered all the on-store factors that can up your ranking in the Play Store, and now it is time to move on to the off-store factors, which are not in control of the app publishers.
12. Rating & Review
The first element that has an impact on play store ranking is the rating and review section of your app description page. While you don’t have a direct impact on whether users would like your app or not, you can most definitely make it easy for them to like your app by giving them an app that they would love, by default.
By being active in the review section, you can create an impression that the issues are heard and by constantly adding updates that touches upon those issues will also make you your users’ favorite. But, above all, the only resort to getting higher stars and great reviews is by offering your users an app that they need, that comes bug free, and ultimately is something that offers some value in their life.
An important thing to consider here is that you should at all times be responsive. Don’t let your users think they are unheard or ignored.
13. App Update
Another non keyword related element that has an impact on bringing up the app ranking is App Updates. To be in trend and to keep offering your users something new ever so often, you will have to keep updating your android application. It can be as minor as a bug eradication or can be as major as a UI/UX change.
Although, there is no written time when an app should be updated, but you should aim for updating your app at least once in every 30 to 40 days. And, once you do, your users should be informed of the same. They should know that the app was updated and the details of the new update.
While you can send an email to every user individually, highlighting what the update was about, but the ideal practice is add the details in your app description section under What’s New or Update (version name).
14. App Localization
There are a number of statistics doing round all over the internet, hinting towards how app localization hold the immense potential of bringing in a sharp rise in the app revenue charts. Majority of the Play Store users, as opposed to the common beliefs, belong to non english speaking nations, a section that is majorly ignored when an app is designed, developed, and promoted.
Lately more and more brands are coming up with localization tactics to expand their users base and growth, revenue chart. What it means to localize is not just translating the language from dialect A to dialect B, it means changing everything from videos to visuals according to the audience that is meant to cater.
Suppose yours is a language teaching app, now instead of explaining everything your app is about in English in your screenshot or video or even your feature image, have them designed and developed in a variety of different languages, so that the native speakers get attracted towards the app as well.
15. A/B Testing
There is no single point formula to ranking high on the Play Store listings specially when you are competing with million of other mobile apps. You will have to constantly keep making tweaks here and there to see what is working and what is users not responding to.
What we would suggest is that keep changing your screenshots, app descriptions. Keep shuffling your keyword list and changing your app’s details accordingly. It is only when you will constantly change your app’s look and read, your users would get to see something new on the page, creating a curiosity to install the app again, if uninstalled earlier.
A/B Testing should be a continuous process, you should always remain in touch with your app developers so that you are always in trend when the app users compare you with the thousands of apps in the similar category.
16. App Indexing
The idea is that the maximum traffic you send to your app listing page, the more higher you go up in ranking charts. Now, the process of sending traffic off to your mobile app listing is not an easy one to follow. You will have to promote it in enough places and among a range of different people.
Apart from promotion, you will also have to invest time in getting your app listing page indexed. Two quick ways to make your app indexing ready are –
Focusing on Nouns as keywords
Having related words phrases as well, in addition to the specific seed keywords.
So here was the complete guide of getting your app higher on the ranking charts.
The two takeaways and parting notes that I want you to take along with you as you step in this cut-throat competition are –
A. Choose your Keywords Wisely, go with ones that have medium level traffic and competition and
Getting funded for an app idea that you strongly believe in is every entrepreneur’s dream. And, sadly the recurrent news of tech startups getting funds just on the basis of their app idea, doesn’t really help the case. In fact, it’s more scary than motivating.
To start with, forget about those tech startups and their ideas and concentrate on yours.
And now that your app idea has your undivided attention, let’s slide off another thing – the reason your startup haven’t set its feet off the ground it is because you are being unrealistic. Either you have not started working on your idea or you are a headless chicken running in all directions with no one point destination.
Either way, there’s a long way to go from here.
Let’s begin.
We will take you through the similar layout which we follow when entrepreneurs seek our Mobile App Consultancy service that revolves around ‘How to Get Funds’ issues.
We will begin with why you need funding and then we will move on to the element that investors look for when they put in their funds in an app idea, even though the world is now officially sitting on 5 million + apps (we will spend some time on this point) and lastly we will look into avenues where you can find investors for your mobile app.
Why Do you Need Funds in the First Place
So you have an app idea that would work perfectly in changing the economic scenario of a village in the African subcontinent – as conveyed to you by your family and neighbors.
What you do is make rough estimates of the involved costs and time and approach an investor to get their money. Will this work? No.
You need funds to validate your idea in a real market with real users and find if they even need the solution (or it was a problem that only existed in your short sighted head).
Now, suppose you made an app to solve the real African issues and the users there accepted and saw a life change because of it, what next? Would you be able to scale your app outside of the one village with the X amount of money on you?
I guess we both know the answer to that.
You need funds to first convert your app idea into a full fledged app and then to keep growing it to reach the masses. Now, don’t be naive and think that your app will generate the money for you, it never happens at least not enough to make an empire out of your app idea.
But, if you are one of those businesses who are only creating an app for a local community and that too for social causes and have no intention to make money at the back of it, this article is not for you. So long.
If, however, you belong to the category of budding entrepreneurs who wish to make a name in the industry and earn millions and millions worth of revenue and billions of eyeballs, it is time I let out the secret of what Investors actually look for.
What Do Investors Look for in Companies/Ideas They Fund
The honest but soul crushing answer to this is that they invest in brands and entrepreneurs who have developed a relationship of that sort with them over the years. But, we know the percent is well under 5% and you along with the 95% of the new entrepreneurs are born to fight, so let’s roll up our sleeves and get that app dream of your some money.
Since you have been with us this long, it is time to let you on the secret to getting your desired amount of funds (if your idea is actually as amazing as you think it to be).
The Secret to Getting Funds on Your Mobile App Idea
*Cutting straight to the chase* What investors look for when deciding to credit their money into your – the amazing app idea innovator – bank account is validation.
Validation, both in terms of app usage ability and its acceptance level.
Will touch bases on both the validation points now.
To start with, the route to validating your app’s usage ability, you will have to launch it in the market of real users and that is where your weapon of mass funding comes in – Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
What is MVP?
To test an idea that you strongly believe in, which the world needs and would love, you develop a working, functioning model that you then pass along in the market to test the waters. This working, functioning model aka your guinea pig is the MVP.
You contact team of skilled mobile app developers and create an MVP with the basic features without putting too much of your time, money, and efforts into it and you gauge its engagement and feasibility that then defines if at all you should continue with the idea or tweak it around or the worst case scenario, drop it.
The secret is out: MVP is the tool that investors base their funding decisions on.
Now, the definition of MVP as – A product that is launched with minimal features that best describe the issues and the future of the application and your whole startup – comes with a string attached with many other questions such as – What features to use? How to know if the solution the app is offering even needed? All the features are unique, how can I remove even one?
Don’t worry, we will give you an answer to all your questions
Steps to Developing an MVP That Gets Funded
1. Know What You Are Validating
The first question when you start with your MVP development process doesn’t even start with its features. Sounds crazy, right? Bear with me here.
The first point of validation comes with knowing if at all there is a mass problem that would get solved with a mobile app. Suppose your app idea is to keep exam results and feedback on student’s performance on mobile.
The first question you will have to ask is if at all teachers have the time to first correct the papers and then upload them on the app and then add comments and if the students would be willing to see their results like this instead of in person.
Once you the answer to that, find out if the educational system would be open to a solution as this or if there will be any conflicts.
2. Talk to Your Real Users
Instead of restricting your talk to your aunt who teaches Math in a private school, expand your bases. Talk to teachers all over the city – of schools that are maintained by some private company and of those who are operating within the meagre means offered to them by the local government.
Find out the pain points in the process that starts with a teacher correcting the papers and ends at students getting feedback on their performance. Make a list of points that can be solved through mobility.
3. Know What Features to Add
Follow a Deconstructed Pareto Method to Decide on the Features that your MVP Should Consist of.
Once you have identified the exact needs your user group, and have a list of features – both primary and supportive – that would solve the need perfectly, ready on you, use the 80/20 Pareto Analysis rule to refine the list of features further. Keep the 80% features that would solve all the problems as your MVP features and keep the 20% features as a part of future updates.
This way you will be able to hit two birds with one stone. A. You will be giving your users exactly what they need and B. You will be adding the additional features, which they also needed, later; which would create your image as a brand that really listens to what its users asks of it.
Now that you know what goes into the blood and bone of a tool that would help generate funds, don’t wait. Get out of your chair and hit your app market and then don’t wait further when the app is launched.
As long as the buttons work, the app is functioning, and the user is able to move within as you want them to, launch the MVP.
With this, we have now come to a point where we answer the one question that is on every Entrepreneur or Start-up’s minds – Where to Find Investors to Fund My Mobile App?
Unless you are not waiting to hearing back from the Shark Tank producers to invite you on the show, here are the four more attainable and easy to reach platforms to attract investors and raise funds for your app
Kickstarter
Indiegogo
AppBackr
AppStori
Here we go. Now you have all the insights that you need to get started with to raise money for your app idea.
Only a few years ago, any and all forms of motion and animation was associated with the definition of a bad site UI. Remember the old age advertisement websites which showed offers in circular balls bouncing off from one corner of the screen to another? The case of motion in web design was a sad case.
But ever since the advent of mobile apps, the scenario has changed so much so that UI motion design has now become a popular design trend.
A modern-day interface is no more about static elements. With UI motion design, brands are now covering the void between software and human primal need of variety and connection.
“The most intuitive and pleasurable element of web and mobile application services are the one that involves Motion Design.”
Incorporated at different mobile app journey stages, motion design for apps can not only make the users swoon over your app movements but also increase the app session time. They have now become a symbol of fun, innovativeness, and a sure shot medium of binding users with the applications.
Why use motion design for apps?
There are a number of ways apps motion design has made the overall mobile interactions a completely interesting one. Here, let’s see how.
Slow App Loadings are Now Enjoyable
Slow loading apps are as common in occurrence as days and nights since they happen all the time. There can be a number of issues behind it such as low network from the users’ front, a technical issue on the backend, or too many requests being made on the server at the same time. But, irrespective of the reason, slow load time is the number one reason that takes the users away from the app.
Well, this can be prevented completely by using animation in the app UI design which was one of the mobile app trends of 2018. By adding motion elements in every case of low load time, designers can keep the users hooked just to see the elements or the animation to glide on the screen. For instance, take Google Chrome’s offline page with a dinosaur game.
An Onboarding Experience for users
One of the most common use cases of Motion Design for apps is seen in the Mobile App onboarding stage of the app journey. Used to explain and make the user acquainted with the app, the animation is being incorporated by brands to make it easy for the users to find their way around for the first few runs.
Emboss App in Users’ Minds with Mental Map
Taking the Onboarding Experience to the next level, mobile UI designs help users create a mental map that fits the app flow in the mind. Ever noticed yourself pulling the top Gmail bar down to refresh your mailbox? We doubt it. The reason is that it has been embossed into us just like blinking of the eyes, so we no more have to think twice, it happens automatically.
Letting users know what’s wrong and what’s right
Motion elements can be one of the most impactful ways of letting the users know that they have encountered an issue or that they have crossed a level successfully. When designing to highlight an error, it is important to point out to users exactly what they are doing wrong.
Wrong password shake is the one animation that achieves it perfectly. Just like you show what users are doing wrong just with your motion, the feedback motion should also show the successful events. A simple mailbox popup with a tick mark animation would show the users that their mail was sent.
In the end, never keep the users wondering what they are doing wrong or if they were able to do something successfully.
Now that you have seen how motion elements make the app journey more fun and memorable, let us now look at the app UI design principles that you should employ to keep your motion elements from crossing over to the side of tackiness and uselessness.
The Walt Disney Articulated Principles that you Should Embody in Your Mobile App
Every app development company that has worked with motion elements know that the line between innovation and overdoing it is very thin and it is the place where they blur, the problem begins. Users become disinterested and apps go from being useful to becoming plain confusing.
To prevent your motion signs and movements from seeing a similar fate, you can follow these interaction design inspiration. These principles were first articulated by Walt Disney but are still capable of delivering a memorable enjoyable experience just like Mickey Mouse.
1. Motion Movement Trajectory
The design principle that has been prevalent in the industry follows the rule that animated shapes should mainly follow a straight trajectory movement. But we all know better. You cannot really offer an outwardly Web and Mobile Application Design Service with one leg in old traditions. To make users fall in love with your motion elements, you will have to add new movement trajectories such as curves, verticals, and even wave like and then show people those things visually.
2. The timing of when the Motion appears
Any motion prompt that comes at users’ screen out of the blue without any action motivating it, should be avoided. If you are incorporating motion in your app UI design, do it at a time which asks for it. There are times when it makes sense to add motion like when users enter the wrong password but an animated tick to show they have entered the right credentials can be ignored.
So, before you overboard with them, know at what stage they are actually needed.
3. Focus on the Focus of Animation
If your app has a lot happening on the screen in terms of content, design elements, image or video wise, have a motion element that comes with a tinted blinking background or blurs in and out so that users know what to do next. All your immovable motion features will lose their value if you fail to show their presence on the app screen.
4. Animation Speed
Assuming that you would be making a mobile app for ordinary humans and not Flash, your motion elements should move at the speed of a feather glide. Give users time to adjust their eyes to the movement instead of making it too fast for them.
A pro tip: Add rhythm to your motion. While adding movement into movement seems like a nonsensical thing to do but know that by doing it, you will be going one step ahead of the whole app resonance game straight from the users’ subconscious level.
5. Become an On-the-face Motion Piece
Used mostly in flashcard quiz based and eCommerce apps, these motion types makes the next move a no-brainer for the users. By moving too evidently, like in case of a discount countdown or the drop of location pin in case of Uber, you will be able to lead the users exactly where you want to be while creating a memorable brand image for yourself.
How is animation and motion used in mobile apps?
Like we said before, there is a thin line between doing it and overdoing it. There are places where you think you can use animation but in reality, you can simply avoid it. There are a few ways you can use motion design which makes the best UI design for apps. Let’s take a look at them:
Gamification
Adding emojis and animation mascots can do wonders for your app. These elements make the app addictive and likeable by all. Various messengers have animated mood stickers which give the app an edge over all the other plain messaging apps.
Progress animation
Waiting for something to load without knowing the progress tests a users patience. This is why apps have progress animations that show how much progress has been made while loading certain functions. Progress animation is one of the most liked features of motion design for apps.
Animated notifications
Notifications are usually quite boring but if proper animation is used then it improves the overall user experience. This will also make sure that users remember every important notification they get.
Loading animation
Loading animation is one of the most common types of animation used for app UI interactions. This type of animation informs the users that the process of loading is active and that the app is running well. This animation is a sub-type of progress animation.
Transition animation
Transition animation gives the app a classy look. It also conveys a positive user experience. By allowing transition, you give more life to the app when going from one page to another.
Marketing animation
Marketing animation is great for your brand. Animations used in logos is a great way of grabbing the attention of the users. This also creates a mental image of the brand on the users’ mind.
Scroll animation
Scrolling animation is another famous type of animation added in apps and is considered one of the best UI design for apps. Not only it makes the app beautiful but also gives it an elegant look. However, proper scroll animation needs proper coding otherwise the app may freeze or slow down.
Drawing attention
Attention drawing animation is usually applied when the attention of users needs to directed to certain areas. Suppose, you are ordering from an online food ordering app and as soon as you add items the price changes with a certain kind of animation. This would draw your attention to the numbers which is where the focus should be.
In the article, we have discussed how motion elements are the key differentiator between a boring app and an innovative one, the right stages for incorporating them and even the design principles that should be followed. We being best mobile app design company, follow a simple mobile app designing process to achieve the best results possible. Even though the steps are easy, the work is detailed. If you have any queries regarding motion designs or need interaction design inspiration, contact us at Anteelo.
Development of an Addictive App that gets its first thousand users straight under 24 hours of its app store launch, is believed to be a privilege that is only bestowed upon the brands that have already established themselves in the crowded market, like Rovio or King.
However, the belief is far away from the truth. Every brand that knows the formula for creating an app that gets hooked in users’ minds, can become the next Rovio or King or much bigger.
But, is there a secret formula behind giving the users exactly what they need? An app that they would not just become a regular user of but would also make their friends and family follow with same dedication?
In his book Habit-Forming Products, Nir Eyal attributes app virality to the elements of a circle, which he calls a hook model.
The model helps understand the human psychology that works at making an app viral in the market.
Let us Look at the Model that Paves the Roadmap to Develop Addictive Apps:
Hook Model: The Secret to Creating Addictive Apps
The model portrays that there are four elements – Trigger, Reward, Action, and Investment which run in a circle and together lead to the conversion of an app or a product into a habit. Thus, making an app the most viral app in the app store.
These are the four elements explained in detail –
Trigger: For an app to become an addictive app, it should be able to hook the user using triggers. The triggers, which are divided into –
External Trigger: These simulations are based entirely on the outside information. Those triggers could be an ad image, notification, a review or rating, recommendation, emails, or CTA buttons etc. These are how the user reaches an app or gets triggered to use any of the app’s functionality.
Internal Trigger: These are mainly the reasons behind the development of the app, i.e. they define the real intention behind the creation of the addictive app. For example: The apps could have been the response to users’ boredom (Social Media/Games/Music or Video Streaming), need to productivity (Slack), or for making a difference by introducing a unique concept (Sea Hero Quest).
Both the external and internal triggers affect each other. For example: One external trigger, like suppose an image of some beautiful top shown on a Facebook or TV advertisement creates an internal trigger, which then forces the users to order the top. Here, an advertisement, our external trigger, is directly responding to purchase, our internal trigger.
Action: Once your users get the push, the time comes to take a planned action. Now, the action entirely depends on the users’ ability and motivation. When the user’s desire to take action comes in sync with their capability to do so, it brings you one step closer to the realization that you have developed an addictive app. Just take a simple, real-time scenario.
Here are two real-life scenarios to help you understand the Action element of the model better –
Suppose you are feeling bored and are logged in some social app. Now the net connection suddenly becomes low and the app is not able to show the content. Here, even though the motivation for using the app is pretty high but the ability to stick with the app is very low.
Next, imagine you open an app that is offering news. You are able to read the articles and are even able to share the one you like with your friends. By a single tap on Facebook Share button, you are done with the sharing. Here, both the motivation and the ability to finish an action were present.
To develop addictive apps that mix motivation with ability, ensure that your app has bare minimum hooks to help keep all the users invested.
So what you can do to ensure that you hit upon motivation and ability at the same time? You do this by offering features even when the internet is low. Plan your app in a way that the users are able to work around the app even when the speed and network conditions are not in their favour. Allow them to continue what they were doing when the network reestablishes.
Reward: For doing even the simplest of the action inside the app, the user must be rewarded. The reward can be anything – appreciation, a form of acceptance, or special attention, all in return for an action, which they perform within the app.
Here is an example to explain the point:
Suppose you are enjoying your time in a puzzle game app and after reaching the 50th level, you get a notification saying that you are top 5th player of that round and then soon you start seeing praises flowing in from all directions in your notification feed and you get 5 extra lives to use in the game.
The puzzle game here is offering you appreciation in form of the extra lives and attention in form of all the messages you are getting from the other users.
You can offer a reward through your app in any form. For example:
A cashback
Name listed as the top player among other names
Free access to content
Investment: as soon as the user gets hooked on the app, they start investing. The amount of investment user has is directly proportional to their reaction towards the hook. The blend of triggers, ability, and motivation together create Hook, which is what keeps your user invested in your app. Hooks are the features that keep your users coming back to your app. They can be anything – Name Mention Tweets, comments/likes/share on Facebook, live stories on Instagram, or picture filter on Snapchat.
Good hooks work, irrespective of with what intent the users are involved in the app with.
So now that we know how the users’ psychology works and what elements your app must have, to make the users get hooked with it, let us now move on to looking into some other time tested ways that are known to have set the standards for the top mobile app development companies.
1. Develop Something That Users Would Get Inclined to Share
The number one way of getting the users hooked to an app is through giving them an app that they would love to share. Now, the kind of apps that users tend to share have either of these three and at times a mix of these features –
Apps Offer Some Value
Apps Evoke Emotions
Apps Offer Something Interesting
The route to offering all these features starts with a valuable app idea, the one that users would get some benefits off.
2. Select your Target Audience Right
The mobile app time belongs to the millennials. A generation that is impatient, loves everything that has a buzz and craves being updated with everything that is happening around the lives of people they admire or are even remotely acquainted with.
Snapchat, one of the most popular social platform, got their first 10,000 users through word of mouth of high school students and as the history of Facebook goes, the app was first launched to enable students to rate their classmates and schoolmates.
So, to successfully develop an addictive app, find a way to include millennials in it, one way or the other.
3. Have Sharing Buttons Visibly Present in the Right Places
The no brainer but sometimes gravely ignored secret of creating an addictive app is having sharing button placed at steps which the users would want to share.
How many times have you visited a mCommerce site, liked a product but have not been able to share it with your friends in a single click because the social APIs are missing? I am sure it’s a common occurrence. As users, we always end up copy pasting the product page link to another window.
If you want yours to be an addictive app, it is time to enable single click sharing to social platforms in your app.
4. Get a hold of your app analytics
You can only keep the users hooked to your app when you know why they are leaving in the first place. The right set of tools when integrated into your mobile app, will give you the numbers and highlight the problem areas.
Every information related to – the stage where your users left, the season in which your app saw maximum uninstalls or bounce rate, and even the acceptability of your app sharing reward can be measured and acted upon in time using the analytics.
While there are a number of other ways you can make users get addicted to your app, our secret as the top social media app development company for addictive apps, has been the inclusion of features that – make an app useful, make it different from what the users have worked around, and offer something that the users need in return of them sharing the app with their friends.
Although the framework, language, and tools that go into the development of an addictive app in no way different than what goes into creation of apps that get uninstalled after two runs, what brings in the difference is the development process that is followed and above all the app idea.
If you have an app idea that you know people will fall in love with, contact our team of developers who have developed apps that have hit the million download mark, today.
*Disclaimer*: The Blog Is Meant to Wake you Before You Make Grand Enterprise Application Mistakes. We don’t want you to fail.
While it takes a lot of effort to build an app into success, it’s fairly easy to plan its failure well in advance. The chances of pushing your app towards making it a failure is not difficult. All you have to do is miss out on things that the employees need or you can simply keep users out of the enterprise app development process.
If that was not enough, here are the five ways you can guarantee your enterprise app failure
1. Wrong Problem Identification
In your typical corporate setup, there can be over 500 different functions, when the primary ones are broken down to different processes. Identifying which ones of those functions would benefit and become more efficient when mobility is introduced to them, is a crucial decision to make.
There can be many work process issues which might seem crucial and long term right now, such as managing mass recruitment processes, but they might be seasonal in nature. So, wrong identification of which problem actually needs to be solved or which process needs to be changed is your shortcut to enterprise app failure.
If it’s getting too difficult to navigate within the app, if the app is filled with functionalities that are not important for moving a task from point A to Point D, or if your enterprise app asks users to sign in with different credentials to view a report, or by simply not allowing them to leave your app to perform even the basic of their device’s functions, they won’t stay for long.
The second employees realize that they were better off before there was even an app to “ease” their processes, your enterprise app is doomed.
3. No Access to App Analytics
You develop an enterprise app that was meant to streamline the teams, make them more efficient, and enable better tracking and you see it working right in your favour. You see evident changes in team’s performance. But when the management asks you to show numbers, you are lost.
While you see the positive changes, there is no way to translate them into numbers. This happened because you missed out on adding app analytics in your enterprise app development process.
By missing out on adding features that would showcase how employees are working inside the app and what are their pain points, you close down all scope of further improvement.
4. Lack of Marketing
While the top management knows that you are creating an enterprise app that will be floated down to the concerned team once done, but the team doesn’t have an idea. They have not been given any heads up on how their working process is going to change, how it is going to save their time and make them more efficient.
What do you expect the first reaction would be when one day suddenly, the team is asked to move their reports on ABC Enterprise App?
I know I would have not taken it easy nor I would have invested my time in knowing the app’s functionality and plus points.
If you are not following the golden rule of greater the marketing efforts greater the acceptance rate, your enterprise mobile application development process is going to fail, massively.
5. Not involving the Team Seeking Change
Imagine you are developing an app for streamlining the offshore and in house sales team. So you meet up with the management team who give you a basic idea of the issues that are there and just at the back of that discussion you start developing the app.
You don’t bother to sit with the offshore and the company’s in house team to understand exactly what issues they are facing, if it’s on site network issue or lack of a platform where the reports are present.
If that was not enough, you don’t involve the team when deciding the app’s functionalities as well. You straight away go to the deployment stage even without passing the app across the team for review and feedback.
So here are the ways you would be preparing your enterprise mobile app for not just your failure but also for the failure of company’s efficiency.
With numerous mobile apps entering app industry daily, the biggest challenge for app developers is to make their app survive. How can one develop an app that beats 2.8 million mobile applications? How can one make his app stand out of the crowd when user hardly use 30 apps a month? How can one create a mobile app with lifetime success like Pokemon Go, Candy Crush and SnapChat?
One word answer to all of these questions is App Discovery.
App Discovery
App Discovery phase, in simpler terms, is the phase where you put your app idea on paper. You consider your business objectives and user expectations and plan how your mobile app will look and feel. You define all the crucial requirements, estimate the cost of app development and all the major milestones. In a nutshell, you create an effective blueprint for your mobile app project.
To ensure impactful results, the mobile app developers should consider the following stages/steps of application discovery:
1. Concept Analysis – To determine if your app idea is feasible as per the business and technical aspect.
2. Market Analysis – To find out your target audience and market based on different demographics like Age, Gender, Income, Region, Occupation, etc.
In addition to Concept analysis and Market analysis, it is also profitable to invest your valuable time in Competitive analysis. It will help you understand competition your app will face and how to deal with it.
3. Requirement Gathering – To study and decide what features and functionalities you want to add in your mobile application. While deciding app features, mobile app developers should consider the needs and expectations of their end users. This will help in creating a user-centric application and hence, improve the chances of app survival.
4. Wireframing – Wireframe is yet another phase of mobile application discovery that you can’t miss. It let you design a visual layout of the app project and determine what features/specifications can be achieved by certain layout and UX.
5. UI Prototyping – This phase helps mobile application development companies to visualize the end product via graphic designs that empower target users to experience the in-app flow.
6. Development Tools and Technology – In this phase, you decide the technologies and tools to employ for building a successful mobile application.
Now, as you know the perks and stages of the App Discovery phase, let’s move to tips for effective app discovery. Ones which can be applied in addition to taking advantage of Apple’s App Clip, Google Instant Apps and similar discovery-friendly functionalities.
Tips for Effective Mobile Apps Discovery
1. Consider ASO
Irrespective of endless marketers efforts, App Store is still the leading source of app discovery, which implies mobile app developers should learn and implement the best practices of ASO (App Store Optimization) to enhance app visibility.
2. Turn towards Social Media Marketing
Employ social media networks to engage the target audience. Share the screenshots and short videos of your app to engage them. Allow users to share your posts/tweets on their timeline and get leverage of exciting offers.
3. Invest in Referral Marketing
This mobile app promotion strategy is to attract new users while keeping the existing ones hooked with your mobile app. All you have to do in this case is to allure existing users to share the app with their near and dear ones and enjoy lucrative offers/incentives.
The most overwhelming example of this kind of app discovery practice is Dropbox. The app saw an uplift from 100,000 to 4,000,000 users within 15 months, all thanks to this method.
4. Team up with Bloggers
Finding bloggers with experience in your niche and asking them to write about your app is also an effective strategy. You can pay them for writing about your mobile application on their blogs, or can let them try a free version in return for the same.
5. Go for Third-Party Advertisements
Apart from focusing on a respective app store, you can also submit your app on third-party app stores like Amazon app store and Samsung app store in order to increase your app visibility.
With the uprising competition, the need and searching style of consumers have also changed. As per Google’s recent research, users these days are becoming more particular of how and what they search in mobile apps. So, it is advisable to look into the app search trends before building a mobile application.
App Discovery Trends for 2018
Here are the top four app search trends that the top app development companies would be focussing on, in 2018:
1. App with Productivity and Convenience
Smartphone users are looking for apps that make their daily life easier and effective, like note-taking apps, calendars, office suits, etc. Google disclosed that searches for apps with features like placing an order, discounts, and tracking orders have increased 120% YoY. This implies mobile app development companies can turn to productivity apps for enjoying better outcomes.
2. Apps that teach new skills
Users are more interested in learning new skills or polishing their skills more than ever. As per the reports, searches for learning-based apps like ‘guitar learning app’ or ‘painting learning app’ has experienced a rise by 80% YoY. Besides, the language-related apps have seen an 85% YoY rise in searches. So, if you build an education mobile application or an app that let the users learn something new, your app will have higher chances of success in the market.
3. Health and Fitness Apps
With time, the smartphone consumers are becoming more fitness-freak. They are searching for more fitness practices and products than before. According to Google report, the searches for fitness shoes and activities like weightlifting has been increased by 135% YoY. Besides, users are searching for apps that improve their physical as well as mental health, such as meditation apps.
4. Finance mobile applications
Whether it comes to reservation, purchase or enrolling in a gym, users are looking for discounts and other offers. In other words, users are more conscious about finances and are looking for means to save more. Google revealed that brands with ‘free services’ and coupons facility have grown to 90% YoY. This directly indicates that personalized offers and referral marketing should be taken into consideration for app success.
While there are various other ways to enhance your app visibility and improve its survival chances, the above-mentioned are our favorite.
What are your favorite hacks to reach a wider audience and promote your mobile apps? Share your tips in the comment section below.
Has the app industry enticed you into submitting to its popularity? Are you now at a phase where you know you want to join the crowd but are unsure where to start? Don’t worry, you’re not alone.
Many have been where you are now. Your worries related to which platform to choose, whom to trust to not rip you off financially in the promises of an amazing app, how would you make money off your app, how will you see that people actually use your app, etc. are shared by thousands of first timers around the world.
While, it is still easy for those halves who have years of experience in the mobile market, who are well-versed with different aspects of mobile app development as mentioned in this mobile app development guide, and have launched their own app; for your half, who is new in the game, you have to lot to gear up for.
But it’s okay. You have stumbled over the right place.
We have something that no one will let you on this easily and in one place.
We have created a checklist, which covers the complete mobile app development process from its ideation stage to the stage it’s uploaded on the store. Here, we have itemized various elements that one must consider before initiating their mobile app development effort. Irrespective of whether it is done in-house, or with the help of a mobile app development company, the checklist will help in preparing you successfully developing a mobile app.
Here’s how to use it:
First select what stage you are at in the App Development process and then cross off or answer the points that are mentioned against each stage. This will give you an idea of how prepared you are for every stage.
Without further ado, let me take you down the ultimate Mobile App Development Checklist.
But before that, a quick prologue.
When you partner with a third party mobile app development company, they share a scope which entails all the parts of the checklist, superficially, which you are going to read right now. So, when dealing with a mobile app consultant, use this checklist as a means to finalize one company out of the lot you mean to interact with for developing your app.
Discovery Phase
This is the stage which preludes the app development process. This is where the app idea is checked for its viability. At this stage you analyze your target market, look at the similar apps and see what features are being offered to your target group.
If you have associated with a company, this is the part where they will sharing a scope with you that will be developed on the basis of competition analysis.
Here, you will be looking out for the :
1. Do you know who your target group is?
2. Do you know the problem your target group is facing?
3. Is there any other company offering solutions to their problems through mobile app?
4. Do you know who are the app’s competitors?
5. Have you listed down the features the competitors are offering?
6. Have you read the reviews on their app?
7. Do you know the monetization model the competitors use?
8. What app monetization would you use in the app? [Here’s a guide on this]
Technology Requirement
Once you have the understanding of the features that you need to add in your app and the behavior of your target market, the next part is to look at the basics of what your app would be. This stage will set the foundation of what you plan to offer.
9. Will your app work on Android?*
10. Is your App for iOS?
11. Will you make an app for both, now or will you wait to see its performance?
12. Is the app native or hybrid?
13. Will your app be integrated with device’s features?
14. Will it need cloud based infrastructure?
*the reason I have mentioned Android and iOS separately is because both of them come with their set of advantages and shortcomings. And even though, majority of the businesses are moving to Android, it would be completely your choice of which platform you wish to hit first.
User Interface Details
After finalizing the details related to the platform your app would be based on and the type it would be, the next step is to think about the look and feel of the app. If there is one crucial element that can affect how your app is received by the world, it is the User Interface. When you reach this stage, this is the checklist for designing an app.
15. Do you have the wireframe ready?
16. Have you decided on the App orientation? Landscape or Portrait?
17. Does the app easily transitions from one orientation to another?
18. Have you finalized your benchmarks?
19. Have you worked on the transition between screens?
20. Are the call to action button standing out from other elements?
21. Are the design elements in line with the culture of the region the app is in?
Until now you must have got a clear idea of what your app would look like and where. Beyond this point, we will now see who and how would convert this concept into a functioning app that would be used by the world. And what all would follow your app after it has been developed.
Development Criteria
This is where your app transforms from an idea into an app that would soon be available on millions of devices. Every concept that you had envisioned up until now will start taking shape here. Here is your checklist for a successful mobile app development
24. If hiring, is the company in your region or based internationally?
25. If making in-house, do you have a team and expertise?
26. Do you have a cost range set for your app development process?
27. Do you know how much time would it take to develop the app?
28. Have you settled on the development process? Iterative, Agile or Waterfall
29. Have you paid attention to your app’s backend development?
Performance Metrics
Once you have settled on the decision whether to develop an app in house or employ an external agency, the next step is to make a checklist to measure its performance. This is what you need the answers to
30. Do you know how the app behaves in case of special events like low battery, less network coverage, Airplane mode, less storage?
31. Does the app has a web service?
32. Does the app have a server side component?
33. Does the app have scope to be scalable vertically or horizontally?
34. Do you get notification of app crashes in real time?
Security Measures
If there is one part of your app that can make users look beyond the performance and design and everything material, it is concrete security. Our industry is full of examples of data breach and security lags. It goes without saying that your app should not be the next example of an app that could have been made secure.
While any experienced app development company would know of the concrete ways to make an app secure, Here’s what to check from your behalf –
35. Do you have secure sockets layer incorporated in the project?
36. Does your app has two point user authentication in place?
37. Do you have control on who would have an access to your app?
38. Will there be sub-admins?
39. Does your app comply to industry security standards, like HIPAA or PCI DSS
40. Is your payment gateway integration done right?
Testing Checklist
Nearing the end stages of the app development process, testing comes into the picture. At this stage, you measure the outcome of your app development process with what you had envisioned before it all started.
Are your target users interacting with the app as you meant them to? Is it behaving like you want it? Are there any bugs and misses? You will get an answer to all these questions at this stage. Let’s see the points that you will be checking off at this stage –
41. Is your app performing same on different device and OS versions?
42. Are you testing your app on your tech team?
43. Are you testing your app on real, non-technical users?
44. Have you checked your mobile app Localization strategy?
45. Is your app ready for the next device update?
46. Is your app ready to be scaled to the next OS Update?
47. Do you have a test plan in place with tests like QC testing, Unit testing, and User Acceptance Testing?
In continuation to this, here are the things that you need to consider when testing your mobile app.
With this, you have the complete checklist for developing a mobile app. But there is one element that is still left to be worked on and that is your app brand. All these elements will fail to deliver if your app is not able to entice your target segment into using your app.
Here is the branding checklist of a successful app –
Branding Requirement
These are the elements that would define your brand impression and attract people to install your app among the sea of thousand other apps. Here’s what should be perfect in your app, before you publish it in the Apple or Google Play Store
48. Does your App icon follows the app store guidelines?
49. Are your App images are clear and contextually right?
50. Is your App Store Optimization done right? (More on this, here)
51. Are you sure your App name is not taken, unique, not unheard?
52. Have you added real screenshots in the app description?
53. Have you added tutorial videos on how to use the app?
54. Have you crossed over the various multilingual app challenges?
A quick recap:
Till now, we have seen all the elements that you will have to check pertaining to the different stages of App development process. Now, we will see how to shortlist a company out of the thousands of app development agencies in the world.
While, the internet is full of articles and guides related to this, here is a quick digestible checklist for you to finalize a brand, sooner.
Finalizing a company
If after reading through it all, you’re unsure of how you would finalize a company that can be given the responsibility to handle not just these but many other related tasks in the long run, don’t be unsure any more.
Here is a checklist to help you with the selection and finalization process.
55. Are they present on the app development companies’ review and rating sites like Clutch, Appfutura, Extract etc?
56. Are they in your time zone?
57. Are they based out of some other location?
58. Have they worked with Start-ups before?
59. Do they have experience in platform your app is based on?
60. Have they worked with the features that are to be included in your app?
61. Do they offer designing services or just the development?
62. Do you know of the team size?
63. Will they communicate with you on your mode? Skype, phone, email etc.?
64. Will there be a common report to track performance?
65. Do they follow your style of the development process?
67. Do they outsource any part of app development?
68. Do they take full payment upfront?
69. Do they take payment stage wise?
Mobile App Metrics
Even after it’s all done and your app has been made live on the app store, the crucial part of analyzing how the app is performing remains. There are number of standards that your app will have to fulfill before being validated as the top ranking app in the charts.
Here are the questions that you have to prepare your app to answer –
70. What is the number of your app downloads?
71. How many new visitors are on your app?
72. How many active users are there on your app any given point of time?
73. What is the average session interval of your app? The time gap between when user opens an app and when he starts using it?
74. Do you know of the time users are spending on your app?
75. Do you know at what stage are they leaving your app?
76. Are you able to calculate the Lifetime Value of a user?
77. Do you know how many people are your app able to convert in buyers?
78. Are you tracking the app store ratings and reviews daily?
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