mobile app development

What leads to your Mobile app failure even before it’s launched?

Often it happens that despite you putting in your best efforts in the Mobile app development process still things take a bad shape that may lead into the failure of an app. In that case, everyone is held responsible for the app collapse as considerable, time, effort and money was invested in its development.

Meanwhile, it’s not always a bug or a flaw, that can be remedied, that leads to the failure of an mobile app. There are a few common categories of problems that can certainly add up in the app failure.

It is necessary to grapple the entire idea about these issues as it will help you in proceeding intelligently for looking into the signs where things might take a nasty turn.

Defining failure

It is imperative to understand the term failure in context with an mobile app. Mainly, failure is defined as a lack of success or the state of you being unable to meet a set of specific goals or objectives. However, there is nothing like a general failure. Like, a project is going to fail in the context of something that you are trying to achieve.

There are two basic types of failure, in the same way as there are two major categories of goals: those set by the company to meet strategic demands, and those set by users regarding what they expect from the app and how they think it should perform.

However, you can also fail if your goals don’t support company strategy. For instance, “copying your competitor to get something out there in a hurry is a recipe for failure,” said Mark Lister, vice president of experience engineering at London design company Ness SES.

Now here are the most common reasons that led to your app failure at the development stage and the ways to combat them:

MVP is way too minimum

To start with, you need to find the simplest yet pretty effective app solution to get product-market fit quickly. However, often it is realized that many teams also take the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) methodology so seriously, that they go on to cut-out essential features that customers might desire. This leads to the app a half-baked solution in the esisting competitive marketing.

Poorly defined requirements

The app’s success is mainly dependant on the pre-production stage instead of the actual coding process. It fails at the development stage because the scope and product requirements are not made clearly outlined. It is advised to avoid that situation by investing the time upfront in writing out every user experience, process and requirement of your app before you begin.

No user feedback

It is great to have as many beta testers as you can find, as that will help you in fixing all of the bugs in your app before you are ready to roll out. Though this holds true for most of the technology, there is also a fine line between testing paralysis and rolling out too quickly. Always work to strike a balance between enough testing and getting your app to market quickly.

Your app is too complex

Often new developers try to do a lot of experiments with the app. However, it is realized that generally, it is point solutions that ensure success in the market. Thus, it always works well to do one single thing very well instead of trying many things in a mediocre manner. As the development costs are always higher than anticipated, so it’s suggested to start with a small step and look for early signs of traction and adoption for scaling accordingly.

Feature Bloat

Well, Feature bloat is quite common. Like, you have a pretty good idea for a sophisticated solution to a known problem; however everyone you discuss your app with suggests to add one more feature. To try and close a sale, you comply, and soon there is an unsophisticated solution and thus you end with a confued explanation,  despite having numerous ideations. So, it is best best to focus on a single thing and  then evaluating the things later on.

Unrealistic goals

Often it is observed that enterprise development projects are under a lot of pressure to create goals, schedules, and budgets, which are not too realistic. We’re all prone to planning fallacy, company politics and unrealistic expectations which  leads to project failure before being delivered to that very user. Thus, the companies must give a good thought to the true scope of their project before committing resources.

Over-engineering

Most of the time apps start with a simple idea of solving an issue. Once the development starts, they add a widget here and there, and before you even understand, your app becomes unrecognizable. Understanding the significance of simplicity is vital. So, keep it clean, as that  will surely resonate your audience.

Poor APIs

Numerous issues come up during the app development process; however, the one common issue is a poor API. Thus, it is critical that backend services are well engineered and designed to provide apps with fast and efficient mobile data. App development companies must pay heed to the backend as seriously as the front end. Since, a great API allows the mobile experience to work wonders.

Lacking an appealing design

As you design a product, it is crucial that you communicate early and often with your developers. This is the sure-shot way to keep the project in scope and in accordance with the timeline. Also, it can weed out any potential blockers early enough to design around. Next, it is time to prepare a strategy for the designing , as with this you can graph out all the development work that is required for getting the product introduced into the market.

Missing on Branding

Often your apps may fail as the company may not have developed consistency corrospending to the  brand messaging, tonal guides, and overall product feel. Branding and aesthetics  here  plays a great role. Another big reason behind the early failure is that the waiting period during which the app bugs are being fixed, the one’s that were not determined during  beta testing.

Conclusion: During the iPhone or android app development, there are various areas where you can go wrong, and that may throw your app project off track which the, can put it straightly into the failure zone.So what you can instead do is to plan while being a patient observer  for making all your related activities executed. Adhering to all the planning strategies can allow your projects  to attain the amicable levels of success and at the same time can lessen down the risk of mobile failures too.

Sumit Garg

Project Manager @ Octal Info Solution