More and more businesses are building mobile applications and web sites to promote their businesses. But building an effective mobile application is more difficult than just pushing out your web content and shopping experience via a smartphone application. The differences start with the obvious, like the smaller form factor, but it doesn’t end there. There are other issues regarding consumer behavior and expectations that must be considered and addressed to get the most from your mobile application development project.
Mobile applications are currently a critical area that must be addressed by any business or organization that desires to stay relevant with their audience. Smartphone sales in 2012 are expected to be nearly 1.8 billion units and it is for this reason alone, it is important to strive to build an effective mobile application experience for your audience. But beyond just the numbers, mobile application development is a tremendous opportunity for your business.
With mobile applications and mobile commerce you can now go where your customers are rather than waiting for them to come to you. Mobile commerce truly enables customers to purchase products and services anytime and anywhere.
If you are like most people you have experienced the less than satisfactory user experience while accessing web content on a mobile device. Usually this is in the form of having to zoom and scroll left and right and up and down to fully view a page or image or even text. Clearly if you want to create an effective engagement with your audience, you will need to create build pages or applications perfectly optimized for the screen size of each device so users don’t need to zoom and scroll.
When preparing to create a mobile commerce experience, it’s important to keep in mind that mobile web sites and applications lend themselves to less complicated user experiences given the smaller form factor of the experience.
User expectations gravitate towards simple, easy-to-navigate user experiences. And it is simple to see why – the consumer is on the go, often busy or in the middle of a discussion and usually with a more limited keyboard experience. They obviously will want simplified user experience that can be completed quickly. Marketers should reduce the number of steps that users need to take to the essentials and present this in an easy to use format.
But mobile experiences are not just about limitations, there are several exciting opportunities created by the mobile environment. Geo-location is a powerful feature in improving user experiences. Merchants and advertisers are using geo-location to improve shopping experiences. Brands thinking about mobile should definitely include geo-targeting in their mobile user experiences if possible.Through this functionality merchants can provide value added information such as locations of the closest stores and even targeted merchandising based on local or regional preferences.
Mobile applications and web sites present exciting opportunities for manufacturers, retailers and marketers. Smartphone and tablet sales are just too big to ignore. But, you need to pay attention to both the limitations on the one hand and the expanded opportunities on the other to create an effective experience for your audience.
Apple just released iOS 5 on October 12th along with the debut of its iPhone 4S and it is touting a long list of changes and additions. These additions will give more options for iPhone applications and has developers and businesses the utilize mobile applications to market very excited. Apple says iOS 5 has over 200 new user features and over 1,500 new APIs available. Here is a quick list of the highlights that are being discussed:
1. iCloud API – Apple now allows third-party developers to create applications that store and backup data to iCloud. Additionally, application files don’t have to be transferred from your iPhone to your iPad. Several iPhone applications are currently in development to help you leverage the power of iCloud.
2. Storyboards – This is a new iOS 5 feature that simplifies the process of creating apps with multiple menu screens. You probably won’t notice the presence of this feature directly, but iOS application developers have and are making good use of this feature already.
3. Newsstand Support – Publishers that want to sell content through Apple’s Newsstand app are excited that developers can now write Newsstand-enabled apps.
4. Message UI Framework – Updated to add support for iMessages and text messaging that can be sent between iOS devices without incurring carrier text messaging charges.
5. Core Image Framework – APIs that give iPhone app developers a set of filters that can be used to manipulate video and still images. The Core Image Framework supports various filter effects like color changes, gradients, and transformations, as well as face and feature detection.
6. Twitter Framework – This framework makes it easy to integrate Twitter messaging into apps and simplifies Twitter user authentication.
There are several more that you will certainly be able to take advantage of over the coming months as applications are built to take advantage of them.
If you’re thinking about developing an application for iPhone, Android application or an iPad application, your potential audience is massive and growing at an accelerating rate. Individual smartphone users across the globe will have downloaded 98 billion mobile apps by the end of 2015 according to a recent estimate by Berg Insight. And while this is encouraging news regarding usage, it also points out that it is more important than ever to carefully develop mobile applications that will stand out in the marketplace and stay on your users smartphones.
One of the key attributes and considerations that we tell our clients when discussing mobile application development is that they need to do more than just market a business. While this often seems to be a driver to build mobile applications, it’s far from the only one. You should consider functions such as customer service, a tool to augment your product line or simply providing your customers a mobile application of value that they will utilize regularly. This way your app is something that they will interact with regularly, this isn’t necessarily the case with apps that exist solely to promote. Consider all aspects of your business and goals and then develop an app strategy that actually supports those goals and works inline with them.
The second idea that we always tell clients is that an app should deliver value. Even if it’s free, the app needs to give the user a reason not just to download it but to actually use it. Reasons will vary by business and industry–giving you lots of opportunities to be creative. You know your customer, see that they will get some value from your app. If you do they will appreciate it and use your iPhone or Android application.
Finally, have a plan to get the word out. Just like with your website, a mobile application won’t just magically find an audience. They need to be marketed like any other part of your business. This could be as simple as a sign in a physical retail location, links from an emails or your website, or a mention that you have iPhone, iPad and Android application on your print marketing materials. Remember that apps are hip and new, people want them and it very easy to get people to download them if you let them know that you have an iPhone application, iPad application or Android application available.