Building a mobile app that customers love is no easy feat. Making your app stand out can seem like a mammoth task, especially in a highly saturated market where app-first companies face growing competition and pressure to deliver quality products.
But it isn’t impossible. We decided to ask tech experts for their top tips to build a mobile app that customers love, from idea to production. So, read along to see what they have to say!
Design is crucial to an app’s success, whether for consumers (B2C) or businesses (B2B). Users prefer apps with a simple, intuitive user experience (UX) and user interface (UI). A simple UI ensures that information is easily accessible without any clutter. A responsive UI makes the app feel seamless and user-friendly from the first interaction.
What is the impact of UX and UI on app success?
“Too often, app designers want to show off shiny new features and lose sight of the end-user experience. The most loved apps are always simple and easy to use - see TikTok and Instagram. They started off with very basic functionality that hooked users in.”
- Ilya Radzinsky, Co-Founder & CMO, TaxDome
“Customers love simplicity. If the app is not easy to navigate and understand in five seconds, you have problems. While building, you should conduct many thought experiments where you ask the development team, "How could this be simpler?" Then, next week, ask the same question. Lastly, the best way to test this isn't to ask "Do you think this app is a good idea?" or "Would you use this?" It's to ask, "Would you pay money for this?" That's how you drive genuine answers.”
- Brian Robben, CEO, Robben Media
Your product has one end-user - the customer. So why should they not be your first priority? Putting the customer first at every stage of your development process is crucial to ensuring you are delivering an app that they will actually use and enjoy.
What makes an app valuable?
To motivate users to download and consistently use your app, it should offer significant benefits, such as:
A well-performing app seamlessly integrates:
“Co-develop your app with your customers! In the early days, we invited our first customers to join our Product Advisory Council, where we had regular meetings with them to get their feedback on the initial product and to tell us about their biggest pain points. We'd build the next version, then rinse and repeat the feedback process with them. It helped us stay on track and build features that we knew people wanted. In exchange, these customers got heavily discounted prices and of course had a direct hand in building the product in their image.”
- Vasilios Alexiou, VP of Customer Success, FirmPlay
“ The most important tip is to build the app that your customers or users actually want. You accomplish this as an app developer by actually taking the time to get real representative samples of the user/customer base involved in the design, the build and the testing of the app. This most occur all the way from the stages of testing the basic need or idea on which the app is based, all the way through to testing the design, interface and actual functionalities that are implemented.”
- Bryan Osima, CEO, Uvietech Software Solutions Inc
Any great product that has staying power solves a problem. So, your app should do the same. If you’re solving a customer’s problem, churning will mean your customer loses their ability to solve it anymore. It’s a great way to increase app retention rates.
Venmo, a peer-to-peer payment app, solves the problem of enabling quick and easy money transfers between individuals. Before Venmo, people often relied on cash or checks to settle debts, which was inconvenient and slow. This app provided a seamless way to instantly send and receive money, addressing a significant pain point for casual users and small businesses.
"My simple tip for building an app that people will love is to focus on solving one problem first. Users will fall in love with your app as long as it's serving a particular meaningful purpose. Don’t start building an overly elaborate product right out of the gate. It's great to have a big vision, but success is achieved by taking a lot of calculated small steps, not one giant leap. It’s important to build and launch the most basic version of your app, get feedback from users, and expand the feature set from there."
- Manny Hernandez, Founder/CEO, OMNI
If your app seamlessly becomes part of your users’ day-to-day routine, your customers will see it as a valuable asset. If your customers find your app useful every single day, they are going to trust your brand, and likely stick with it.
Take Headspace, a popular meditation app, for example. Headspace encourages users to integrate mindfulness practices into their daily routines. By offering guided meditations, sleep sounds, and stress-relief exercises, the app provides value that users can benefit from every day. To help build this habit, Headspace sends gentle reminders for daily meditation sessions and tracks streaks to motivate users to maintain their practice.
Key elements that help build a habit:
“Many people will download apps that they don't ever use, but they will still rely on a few that they'll come back to every day. Building an app that's actually contributing to a user's daily life is important if you want your app to truly bloom in the market. Identify the roots of your users' habits, or build a habit for your user. Once your idea clicks and your customers love using the app every day, you can start expanding and thinking of ways of how you can make money through in-app purchases and other methods.”
- Tom De Spiegelaere, Digital Marketer, Tom Spicky
Customers value security. Data breaches and poorly tested cybersecurity measures will negatively impact brand perception and customer trust. There’s nothing more worrying than thinking your personal details aren’t safe with a business, especially where banking details are involved.
“Mobile app users reward companies that prioritise usability and security. If their experience is pleasant and simple, and if they are confident in the security of their data that is used and created within the app, customer retention is going to be significantly higher compared to those app developers that experience data breaches or make users go through hoops for things like password resets. The more proactive a developer is in regard to security and streamlining processes -- the more appealing the app becomes for the masses.”
- Asaf Ashkenazi, COO, Verimatrix
Building an app starts with a focus on the user. Think like your customers throughout the entire process and consider their needs and experiences above all else. While it's exciting to bring your idea to life, don't let your passion blind you to potential flaws. Stay objective, be open to new ideas, and use your app regularly to spot and fix issues.
A helpful way to prioritize features is the MoSCoW method. This method divides features into four categories:
The MoSCoW method helps communicate what’s most important and makes it clear which features to focus on first.
“An app with a feature that is the best among the rest has a better selling point compared to apps that are jacks of all trades but are masters of none. As such, the software development team must ensure that that one feature of the app is almost faultless before doing the next, so that they won’t have divided attention.”
- Jonathon Wright, Management Consultant, QA Lead
Let’s say you deliver the most exciting, customer-driven, secure new app. After careful marketing and launch, your users can’t wait to log on to the app and see what it can do.
Suddenly, they see the words no new user wants to see: ERROR.
Your app glitches out on Android users and doesn’t quite work well in other countries. Those affected customers delete the app, believing it’s buggy and not worth their time.
“Develop and implement a fantastic QA strategy to ensure that your app is thoroughly tested. You can achieve this by using a blend of manual and automated testing, conducting localised tests across the globe and partnering with a crowdtesting solution like Global App Testing. Delivering quality is vital to ensure your customers love using your app.”
- Fahim Sachedina, Growth Expert, Global App Testing
Building a mobile app that customers love takes time, budget, planning, and creativity, but it isn’t impossible.
Global App Testing can significantly contribute to building a perfect app through:
If you would like to learn more about delivering quality to your users and driving product ROI as a result, speak to one of our growth experts today.