In today’s fast-moving digital world, mobile applications have become an integral part of business as they cover a large range of end users. Targeting mobile applications for businesses can help them expand their business and reach a large range of end users. However, building successful mobile applications requires careful planning, proper execution, and adherence to best practices across the process of application development.

We will be discussing the best practices that one should follow before starting mobile application development, following these practices strictly can guarantee business in building a successful mobile application.

What is Mobile Application Development?

Mobile application development refers to the process of creating software that runs specifically on mobile devices and tablets, these mobile devices are powered by mobile application operating systems such as Android and iOS. The entire process of developing mobile applications involves different stages such as Planning, Design, Development, Testing, and Deployment. Each stage involves different users with unique roles that lead to successful mobile applications.

Businesses can choose a platform for their mobile application based on their requirements(Native or Cross-platform). Below are some most commonly used mobile application platforms.

• Android(Native)
• iOS(Native)
• Flutter(Cross-platform)
• Xamarin(Cross-platform)
• React-native(Cross-platform)

Best Practices for Mobile App Development

In mobile app development, following the best practices is really important. We are going to look at the essential strategies for creating top-tier mobile applications. From prioritizing user accessibility to optimizing performance,find out how you can make apps easy to use and run smoothly.

1. Defining Mobile App Objectives

Before starting on Mobile application development it is very important to define your objective and goal for your project. Starting projects without well-defining goals and objectives in advance results in scattered project flow and delays in project timelines.

• Identify target audience, and clearly define objectives and goals before starting mobile application development.
• Conduct market research and competitor analysis, gather user preferences, and before making a final decision.
• Consider market trends based on that include features in the app to attract a large user base.

2. Identify Platforms (Native Or Cross-platform) For Development

Businesses are moving towards cross-platform mobile application development nowadays to give consistent UI experience to users and reduce their overall project cost. Choosing the correct platform can help businesses reach the right targeted audience.

• Identify advantages and limitations of Cross-platforms(Flutter, Xamarin) versus native development.
• Consider performance(Choose native for better performance), platform-specific requirements(Hardware integration, Bluetooth, Sensor-based apps), and developer expertise while choosing a development.
• Before choosing a cross-platform framework, consider its community and ecosystem.

3. Adopt User-centered Design

User experience(UI) and User interface(UI) play vital roles in the success of mobile applications. Each mobile platform comes with its own UI standards such as Material design for Android and HR guidelines in iOS. Following these guidelines helps developers to keep end-users engaged with applications.

• Follow platform-specific UI guidelines for each platform, Material guidelines for Android users, and Human resource guidelines for iOS users to ensure consistent user experience in each platform.
• Use prototyping and usability to gather end user’s feedback before starting implementation, this increases chances for app success.
• For native and cross-platform use the latest widgets and control for best user experience.

4. Focus on App Responsiveness

Mobile devices come in different screen sizes and resolutions specifically Android devices as large number of companies manufacture physical devices that run Android OS and each device comes in different screen sizes, an application must look the same on all devices with different screen sizes.

• Use flexible layouts(constraint layout for Android and Auto layout for iOS), and scalable assets to ensure consistent user experience in different device sizes.
• Test applications in multiple physical devices and emulators to identify layout-related issues in advanced stages.
• Use the cross-platform framework to give consistent user experience across mobile platforms.

5. Performance Optimization Consideration

Optimizing application performance is crucial to delivering a smooth and responsive user experience, mainly for large enterprise applications such as banking, medical, and e-commerce, where performance plays a vital role in user experience. Consider the key points for best optimization practices.

• Minimize the use of resources and try to use with minimum size with the best possible quality, reduce loading time, and optimize code for speed and efficiency.
• Implement best techniques and libraries such as lazy loading(Glide for Android), caching, and background process(Coroutine for Android)
• Use SVG images for visuals for better application performance.

6. Adopt The Best Codebase Architecture

Adopting efficient codebase architecture helps developers maintain code easily in the future mainly for large enterprise projects where multiple developers are working. The commonly used architectures in Android and iOS application development which you should follow are

• Use MVVM, MVC, MVP, and clean architecture are commonly used architecture in Android and iOS native which helps developers to isolate UI data binding with business logic. For cross-platform technology such as
• Cross-platform developers such as Flutter commonly use architectures are clean architecture with block management.
• Include the use of dependency Injection libraries to avoid code redundancy in applications.

7. Prioritise App Security And User’s Data Privacy

App security and data privacy are prior concerns for end users, especially for the apps that deal with user’s data such as social media apps and banking apps. Avoiding security and privacy also results in delisting application from their apps stores.

• Implement the best encryption algorithms and authorization mechanisms to store and send users’ data over the networks.
• Follow best security practices such as encryption for storing data in a database and local storage.
• Include SSL pinning to avoid intruder attack(also called man-in-middle attacks) that happens over the network.

8. Consider Adding Offline Support

Offline support helps to engage users while the device is not connected to the internet, adding offline support in mobile applications helps to give a seamless user experience without an internet connection. The points to be considered while giving offline support in Mobile applications.

• Implement storage synchronization and caching mechanisms to give a seamless user experience in offline mode.
• Also consider techniques such as pre-fetching, background sync, and data compression to optimize offline performance and minimize data usage.
• Use offline support libraries provided by each platform such as Room in Android, and SQLite in Flutter.

9. Accessibility for All Users

Users with disabilities are an important user base to consider while developing an app, as accessibility feature give them a way to use application features seamlessly All Apps functionalities should be easily accessible to those users.

• Follow standards and principles for accessibility to make the app easily accessible to users with visual, and auditory impediments.
• Provide alternative text for controls such as images, navigation, and other controls used on-screen across the app.
• Ensure accessibility for every feature across the app.

10. Continuous and Quality Testing

Testing is a very important process involved in the entire project development cycle, testing helps developers to identify bugs in an application before applications goes to end users. Properly tested apps result in the least live bugs and positive end-user experience.

• Include comprehensive testing techniques in projects such as unit testing, integration testing, and end-to-end testing.
• Include automated testing and CICD pipeline for making testing, deployment, and release processes automated.
• Adopt automation UI testing to eliminate UI bugs in advance, which is also faster than manual testing.

11. App Store Optimization (ASO)

App Store Optimization, also known as ASO helps apps to rank on top based on users searching. Applications that have properly done App Store Optimization are likely to have higher installation rates than apps published without App Store Optimization done.

• Optimize application on stores by adding relative and most used keywords, compelling descriptions, and attractive visuals.
• Continuously monitor application review and rating, and take necessary actions on users’ comments if they are facing any critical issues.
• Adopt paid app advertising that can boost application installation and active users.

12. Regular app updates and maintenance

Keeping the application up to date with the latest trends is important to keep users engaged with the app. Mobile application OS gets updated frequently with new features, supporting these features and providing compatibility helps businesses keep users happy.

• Provide the latest OS support, along with supporting backward compatibility for older Operating system versions.
• Acknowledge users by providing fixes and provides continuous support to existing app features.
• Include the use of online support systems such as chatbots to give users support 24*7.

Conclusion

Developing applications with efficient quality, least bugs, and fast performance helps businesses to grow their business and keep end users engaged. Following best practices while developing an application helps businesses to make an app successful across the users. Following proper guidelines helps developers in the long term to manage and scale projects for future requirements.

FAQs on Best Practices for mobile app development

What are the benefits of cross-platform development frameworks like Flutter and Xamarin?

Cross-platform development frameworks such as Flutter and Xamarin offer benefits such as code sharing, faster development cycles, platform independence, and access to native features and APIs. These frameworks enable developers to write code once and deploy it across multiple platforms, reducing development time, effort, and costs while maintaining native performance and user experience.

Why Privacy and Security consideration is very important for Application development?

Platforms such as Android and iOS have declared several privacy and security policies that applications must follow and address, ignoring those privacy concerns results in app suspension or delist from the application marketplace.

What and Why maintenance activities are important for mobile apps post-launch?

Post-maintenance activities include bug fixing, addressing user feedback, and continuously monitoring app performance. Continuously providing support to those activities helps businesses retain their users for the long term in this competitive market.