12 Most Common Mobile App Development Mistakes

Mobile App Development Mistakes can be costly in terms of time and money. With billions of mobile apps in app stores, creating a successful app can be challenging. Even a single mistake can cost you time, money or both.

Undoubtedly, mobile applications are a great way to enhance your reach and monetize your services.

However, 80-90% of these mobile apps are discarded just after one use. It is also seen that a mobile app loses 95% of its user traffic in the first 90 days.

Thus, even if millions of mobile applications are on the app store, only a few receive meaningful traffic.

Can you guess why so many people uninstall an app after they download it?

Don’t google it; just ask yourself why did you uninstall an app last time? You will find plenty of reasons to support your actions.

See! You just discovered some of the mistakes that the developer made which you can avoid while building an application.

There are many such blunders that you can avoid while developing a robust mobile application.

Let’s find out.

12 Most Common Mobile App Development Mistakes to avoid while developing an app

As mentioned above, Mobile App Development Mistakes can cost a huge amount of effort, time, and investment. Following is the list of the top 12 most common mobile app development mistakes that you should avoid while building an app.

1. Not investing enough time in Research & Development

   Many mobile apps fail not because they don’t have a great idea or the best developer but mainly due to their lack of market research. There are plenty of mobile apps in the market; adding just another would not make a difference.

   Thus, you require a team of top web developers that focuses solely on market research. Do not lose your patience and dive unknowingly into creating an app that will only give you frustration in the coming years.

   Jot down topics that you should cover before building a mobile app. These will help you create a wireframe of your application and multiply its success in the market.

   Also, try creating a questionnaire that answers the core ideologies of your mobile app. Some of them could be

   • What purpose does your app solve?
   • Who are its users? Where do they live? What do they do? How much do they earn? In short, everything.
   • What is the competition level in the market?
   • What are the basic functionalities that all your competitors possess?
   • Where do you want to see your app in the next few years?

   There are many such questions that you can create to understand your application well. The time spent on market research is never a waste. Indulge yourself entirely in the process before you even start to create a mobile app.

2. Not focusing enough on the UI/UX

   User experience is one of the highest metrics to determine the success of your mobile app. Now, it’s not about what app you create; it’s about how you present it to your audience. If your targeted users aren’t happy with the interface, they won’t wait an extra second to uninstall it.

   Some of the most common signs of having a bad UI/UX-

   • Confusing navigation
   • Takes too much time to load
   • Too much information
   • Unaligned elements
   • Inconsistency in UI elements

   There are thousands of UI/UX design mistakes that developers unintentionally make by not having a proper eye on detail.

   Focusing on UI is not an expense but an investment with a proven ROI of over 9900%. For incorporating excellent UI in your mobile app, try thinking like one of your users, not a developer.

3. Focusing on too many features

   We have seen many mobile apps going overboard with features. You cannot just add anything in the hope of attracting a new audience. Once you have discovered the problem your mobile app will solve for users, try sticking to features that complement its objective.

   Integrating too many features would confuse the user, and they might lose interest. For instance, if you have a fitness app, would anyone want to see games or a calculator inside the application? NO, Right?

   Then, why add features that do not enhance user experience and only lead to increasing app size? In a survey by “The Manifest”, it was seen that one out of four people would uninstall an app because of insufficient storage space.

   You can refer to your competitors and see the basic features they are providing to the users. Otherwise, hire an app development agency to elevate those basic functionalities and work to enhance the user experience.

4. Not building an MVP

   Before diving into the creation process, start by building a mimic of your mobile app. An MVP helps you do just that.

   Minimum Viable Product or MVP acts as four walls for your mobile app. You create it to understand whether the basic features of your mobile app work fine. After this, you can jump onto adding functionalities that are an extra benefit to the app.

   Let’s continue with the last example,

   If you build a fitness app, your MVP will constitute some basic exercises to examine the platform’s efficiency. Further, you can add elements as your app develops.

   Just focus on the core components of the app, which is the one reason why users would download this mobile application.

5. Building applications for too many platforms

   Another major mistake that developers make while creating an app is reaching out to too many platforms. This is not just challenging but a humongous task in itself.

   Making this move early in the developing process could leave you with an immense financial burden. Thus, have a clear mind on the platform you choose for your application. There are majorly three types of mobile apps in the market-
   

   • Native apps-Programmed for either iOS, Android or both.
   • Web apps- Uses a web browser to perform any action.
   • Hybrid apps- They can be used via both web or iOS and Android.

   Start with creating a pros and cons list for each platform according to the needs of your application. There could be several factors that could affect your decision, including-

   • User base and market share
   • Programming language
   • Integrated Development Environment
   • Development complexity
   • Paid vs. Free apps

   You can analyze these components to understand which platform fulfills your checklist and will be a better option than others.

6. Overloading your mobile app with text

   Visuals are always a better way to make people understand certain concepts. Thus, it becomes crucial for developers to build visual clues and not just text to enhance interface clarity.

   We have seen many applications making similar mistakes, where they overloaded the mobile app with text. This might be comforting to a specific audience, but most of your user base wouldn’t find it pleasing.

   Try to resonate more with the conventional method and not change it. For instance, most of us would look for a menu button in the header, not the footer. So, if you try bringing that change, it might backfire.

   Make an adequate balance of text and high-quality visuals, making it easier for users to understand your thought process. Add visuals that depict the same meaning as the text. Do not overcomplicate the interface with unnecessary words.

   Be simple, and everything else will work out.

7. Not enough testing

   When we talked with some developers, most complained about not having enough time for app testing. Is it an apt reason? We don’t think so.

   If you dive into the stats, 50% of consumers will delete an app if they find even a single bug. So, that’s half of your potential user base.

   Conducting mobile app testing is not a very complicated process but does require patience and observance. There should be a complete app quality testing operation to present a flawless mobile app to your audience.

   If you are not well equipped with the required manpower, there is no harm in hiring mobile app developers. This would save you enough time on training and give you assured results.

8. Keeping unreal deadlines and budget

   Developing a mobile app is not a one-day job; it takes you weeks or even months to come up with an impeccable program. It all depends on the complexity of the functionalities you would want to teach. And all this requires money.

   You have to sit down and allocate budgets for every mobile app development phase. Start by creating a wireframe of the activities that you would perform to build a mobile app. Then, specify the budget, depending on the time taken and the effort involved.

   It’s important that you set realistic budget expectations and not just focus on saving money. If you focus on the current mobile app development trends, there are many things to take care of.

   Thus, take your time to specify deadlines and budget allocation for each development phase. Make sure you don’t allocate the entire monetary resource and keep some for miscellaneous expenses.

9. Mimicking your website

   Undoubtedly, mobile apps are better than websites. They have a 3x more conversion rate than mobile sites and 1.5x more via desktop. Many developers make the mistake of mirroring their website into an app.

   

   We understand that this might be a cost-effective solution, but is it the most appropriate one? We don’t think so.

   Mobile apps and websites show different results because they pose unique features. Users are now comfortable with an app interface where they know the placement of all elements.

   Having an identical color palette and theme would be great for the brand image. However, the user experience on a website and mobile app are different. Try creating an app that has additional features and works super-smooth with all mobile devices.

10. Not choosing the right development team

    It is one of the most expensive mistakes that businesses make to save some extra money at the start. We understand that you might be a little cost-sensitive, but giving away such an important project to minimize the app development budget is unnecessary.

    Doing so will neither give you quality results nor your project will ever finish on time. You can hire top app development partners and make a development team that dedicatedly works for your company.

    Otherwise, getting help from web development agencies could be the best option. Here, you can work on a project basis and not act as an employer. You also save a lot of money and time on training and orientation.

    Research thoroughly to find the top mobile app development team that matches the quality and budget expectations. Ask for referrals from your industry to cut off some extra time.

11. Not leaving scope for updates

    The trendiest app can become obsolete if it fails to evolve. Often, businesses invest all their money into the first phase of app development and forget to update their app in the future.

    We all receive timely notifications regarding updates of our favorite app; don’t we all like the interface with upgraded functionalities? Hell, Yeah!

    Updates are done for various reasons, including bugs, integrating additional features, or just revamping the existing mobile app.

    Statistically, free apps are updated once every 20 days, and paid ones are updated every 50 days. These help brands to continuously adapt to the latest trends and offer premium user experience to their users.

12. Not streaming the development process

    The app development process might look like a huge task in itself. But, if you break it down into different segments, they will become simpler to grasp. Here, a robust communication system plays an important role.

    While interacting with the developers, make the briefing clear and help them understand your vision. This way, they don’t have to assume even the tiniest detail and work as per the plan.

    The development process can be bifurcated into nine major categories-

    • Dedicated market research
    • Market strategy
    • UI/UX of the app
    • On-point wireframe
    • MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
    • App development
    • App testing
    • App Release
    • Updates

    The development team should be a part of all these stages to help them get a fine idea about your mobile app. Clear communication and killer briefing is the success mantra for a great app.

Wrapping up:

Developing a mobile app is not a cakewalk. It takes months of planning and execution to come up with a successful app. Thus, making any mistake can cost you both money and time.

However, making mistakes is a part of learning, but avoiding some basic ones could save a lot of energy.

Try not to make these 12 common blunders that all developers make at least once in their lifetime. Hire the best Android and iOS developers from SolGuruz who will offer quality software solutions to startups and big businesses. Get in touch with us today to get a free quote.