Building an app is an extremely arduous task that requires proper planning and knowledge of its potential audience. Selecting its features is often a challenge for its creators, as they have to combine expectations with capabilities at a common point. How, then, do you find that perfect balance and choose features that satisfy both the app's creators and consumers? I will answer these and many other concerns in the following text. So reach for your favorite tea and enjoy the article.
Table of Contents:
- What should an app feature have?
- The most popular feature categories in the app market
- How to implement features effectively into the application?
- Focus on the most important attachments
- How to check that the feature meets all the assumptions?
- Test the newly developed feature
- How to share the applied improvements with the world?
- Choose experts who will help you through the entire app development process
What should an app feature have?
Before you start the app development process, a key task is feature planning. This is the process of identifying the necessary functionality for your app. Many developers already make a fundamental mistake at this stage by not thinking about what the audience wants. The ideal app should meet the needs of users and at the same time include what is essential. Overloading the product with unnecessary features regularly causes confusion among users, but also affects the performance and size of the application. For this reason, it is essential to have a product vision backed up by appropriate research before starting development. The ideal app feature is one that provides a solution to a key problem, but also translates into customer satisfaction.
The most popular feature categories in the app market
If you are involved in the digital world, you are probably well aware of the fact that features can be very different from each other. Among the solutions available on the market, there are several types of them that impact the success metrics of an application. Here are some of the most common forms of app features.
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Functional features: specify in the simplest terms what exactly the product is supposed to do. Functional features may also define the niche into which the application is to fit and satisfy the requirements of the selected target group.
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Collaboration features: are responsible for integrating tools to make the application more convenient to use. They are used in scheduling, data transfer and communication formats between users.
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AI features: these are solutions that make use of the possibilities provided by AI. They can be found in the form of chatbots, as well as in functions responsible for automation and prediction.
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Security features: appear most often in the form of two-factor authentication, which is used during login, as well as the assignment of access control to users.
These are just a fraction of the possibilities provided by the features currently used to develop applications. In the course of project management, it is important to define the necessary features for the comfortable use of the solution being developed.
How to implement features effectively into the application?
Now that you know what options each feature of your application should have, the next step needs to be proper planning of what elements the final product should consist of. This is not an easy task, as it requires carrying out appropriate market research, preparing a detailed roadmap, identifying the technology stack and estimating the time and costs required to develop the application.
During the market research phase and the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) development stage, it is essential to know the audience's perspectives. Therefore, it is useful to interview users, look at what the competition is doing and look for previously unmet pain points. Then, having such detailed knowledge, one can approach the planning of the technologies used during the process and the costs involved. This is also the time to prioritize tasks and determine the backlog of the project, with a breakdown of the subsequent stages of application development. Each feature before it is put into the hands of the client should be thoroughly tested and subjected to the actions of real users so that its functionality can be checked and contrasted with consumer feedback.
Focus on the most important attachments
Many principals fall into the trap of their expectations when planning an application. They want their final product to include as many features as possible and account for everything possible. Such an idea, while logical, seems problematic from a practical standpoint. Overloading an app with features makes its size too large for many devices, and also affects its speed. Users value simplicity and convenience, so it's best to limit app design to the most important features that fit the needs of a particular market. It is equally significant to determine on which platforms the developed solution should appear. From the client's perspective, the cheaper option is a single-platform model, but there are also solutions designed for several of the most popular operating systems.
How to check that the feature meets all the assumptions?
It is often the case that the feature studies conducted do not clearly translate into results in practice. This is why it is worth “screening” a feature for its effectiveness. For this purpose, it is worth conducting tests after a suitable period of time has elapsed since the feature was launched to users in the application. The following should be considered authoritative indicators:
- the total number of users using the feature,
- the frequency of use of the feature relative to the selected period,
- the adoption rate and consumer satisfaction as measured by the feedback provided,
- monthly recurring revenue (MRR) that occurs when the feature is designed to increase sales.
Test the newly developed feature
To be sure of the usability of a feature and its proper functioning, it is worthwhile to use appropriate testing. Software testing is an essential part of the development process, so undertaking it can have a positive impact on both the usability of the overall product and the development budget. Testing can take many forms. Here are a few that application developers most frequently opt for.
Functional testing: it is responsible for thoroughly checking the functionality of the feature under development so that it is fully functional when performing the assigned tasks.
Usability testing: is used to analyze the usability of the feature. Inspection in this case is mainly concerned with the interface and ease of use, and is responsible for verifying that the feature is fully usable by users.
Performance testing: this is the best method to see if the feature is fast and fully responsive. To achieve reliable results, the feature is subjected to various load scenarios to evaluate its performance under heavy traffic from users.
Security testing: a key testing role that is responsible for verifying that the user's personal information is properly protected at each stage of using the feature. During testing, various types of attacks are simulated to indicate areas for security improvement.
Compatibility testing: works well when you want to check that the application feature under development is compatible with different devices, operating systems, as well as device screen sizes.
Regression testing: this is used after any demonstrated changes have been made. Its task is to make sure that the applied amendments have not negatively affected the structure of the application.
How to share the applied improvements with the world?
Once the entire development process has been completed, it is time to deliver the application with the new functionalities to users. Before this happens, however, the right steps must be taken so that everyone who uses it can find their way around the changes. The most important thing is proper communication with the audience and discussing in the simplest possible way the advantages and value of the solution being implemented. For authoritative feedback, it is worthwhile to identify a group of users who will be able to test the new version of the application first and share their conclusions with its developers. In this case, it may be useful to use A/B testing, which can show what actions users take without any changes to the application and which ones when the opportunity to use the new feature arises. It is also worth setting a period to adapt to the new reality. After it expires, gather all feedback and suggestions and start working on improvements.
Choose experts who will help you through the entire app development process
Before you decide to implement a new feature into your application, however, make sure you approach it in a fully professional manner. User trust is a factor that should not be underestimated and should be reckoned with. Any slip-ups can contribute to a decrease in trust and thus less interest in the app. Therefore, to implement the feature in the best possible way, it is worth entrusting this task to a specialized team, which will take care of the technological stack and properly conduct the process.
Railwaymen can certainly be counted among such specialists. We are a company that for more than a dozen years has been providing customers with high-quality mobile and web solutions that influence business growth. Our applications are appreciated by both clients and users, for whom we prepare each of them with care. We invite you to visit our case studies section, where we have discussed step by step the course of our most important implementations.
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