Does your business have a mobile application? If not, you’re missing out on so many opportunities to grow your brand and increase your client base.

There are a wide range of advantages of having a mobile app in business, from increases in sales to greater website traffic.

With strategy and planning up front, a mobile app can take your business to the next level and help you get ahead of your competition.

In this article, we’ll break down ten different reasons why businesses need mobile apps and how to get a mobile app for your business.

#1 Engage Your Customers

The average person spends over four hours a day on their mobile device, according to multiple studies and research efforts from various sources, including Nielsen, Pew Research Center, SmartInsights, and more.

For this reason, you want to ensure that your customers have easy access to your business on these devices, and the best way to give them this is through a mobile app.

If you make your business easily accessible to consumers, they will be more likely to engage with you and your content.

Another key to engaging your customers is making sure that the actual content within your app is engaging.

The applications that are the most successful today are those that help users achieve some sort of service or assistance with greater ease than they could without use of the app.

Try to think of a way to simplify one of your common business processes and allow users to complete it within your mobile app, whether it is placing an order or submitting a request.

#2 Increase Your Brand Awareness

Another reason why your business needs a mobile app is brand awareness, it’s essential to growing your business, and having an application is a great way to make your company accessible and known to customers.

Make sure you create an app that is brand-focused and centered around your company’s specific branding strategy.

This way, as consumers interact more with your app, recognition for your brand will increase.

In order to make your mobile app centered upon your specific branding strategy, pay special attention to detail during the design process

Use color and other design elements to your advantage by remaining true to the brand throughout.

#3 Generate Customer Loyalty

Another reason why businesses need mobile apps is to create customer loyalty, essential when it comes to long-term growth and success for your business.

A great way to begin building customer loyalty is through a loyalty program that you can initiate through a mobile app.

This program needs to be something that incentivizes people to continue to return and do business with your company.

For example, Starbucks utilizes a loyalty program where users earn stars with each purchase they make using their app, leading to an eventual free drink of their choice.

However, it is important to note that you do not necessarily have to have a loyalty program to grow your customer loyalty.

At the end of the day, loyalty is generated through repeated satisfaction and sincere interactions with your brand.

If your app is fulfilling a need and working well for consumers, they will become loyal to your business over time.

Although a loyalty program may be helpful here, a strong mobile application with a well-crafted user experience can build loyalty on its own, this is also why your business needs a mobile app.

#4 Build Your Audience with Valuable Content

If you really want to widen your audience and attract new users to your app, you need to provide content that holds some value for consumers.

The best way to generate valuable content is to ask yourself what your customers’ greatest needs are.

If you are able to create an application that fills a need people have or gives them information unavailable anywhere else, you may be able to widen your audience.

A great way to increase downloads and drive an audience to your mobile app is by incentivizing users with company-specific content that they cannot find anywhere else.

Whether this is an article that you make specific to your application, or a sale that customers can only partake in through an in-app purchase, make something exclusive to your mobile app.

The exclusivity will make your content more valuable, driving more people to download and use your app.

#5 Improve Sales

As a general rule, customer satisfaction will help to increase sales. In order to grow customer satisfaction, make sure that your mobile app leaves users feeling content with their time on the app or service they received.

Knowing how to get a mobile app for your business that can adapt to any device can make a huge difference in your sales.

Another way to increase sales through your mobile app is by creating a company store within the app.

Being able to make purchases within the application saves consumers the time of going to your website and through the entire checkout process there.

Instead, you can create a simplified checkout process within the application, which will likely drive sales just because of the ease of purchase.

#6 Create a Direct Marketing Tool

A mobile application can be extremely valuable to your business if you use it as a direct marketing tool.

A company-specific mobile app gives you a lot of power to push special sales and promotions right at customers’ fingertips.

You can make sales specific to the application, so that people are driven to use your application, or you can simply use the application as a tool to promote your special offers. Use mobile push and in-app notifications to your advantage, so that you can keep users engaged as much as possible.

Also, pay special attention to the descriptions and reviews that you choose to feature on your app, as these can give your app an edge as a marketing tool.

Your mobile app should be a place where users develop a positive perception of your brand, through your in-app content and marketing efforts.

#7 Drive Traffic to Your Website

Something very important to recognize is that a mobile app provides a direct connection back to your website.

If done right, your app can complement your website by providing a more personal experience that still connects back to the site.

If this connection is strong, you can drive lots of traffic to your website through your mobile app.

A mobile app is also very important to keeping users focused on your company and products. When customers are browsing the web looking for products, they experience a lot of noise and can be distracted by other companies’ offerings or advertisements.

However, a company-specific mobile app completely reduces that noise, because the app is solely focused on your brand and products.

#8 Connect to Social Media

If you strategize properly, you can use your mobile app to connect back to your social media platforms.

If you link back to your social media pages, users will likely be driven to those pages and potentially engage with your content on social media.

Be smart about how you integrate links back to social media within your application, and watch your social media impressions skyrocket.

Also, you can incorporate social media by encouraging users to share something on their social media pages, whether that is a review or link to your site.

The additional exposure for your brand is another reason why your business needs a mobile app.

#9 Gather Meaningful Analytics

Technology makes it so much easier to collect data, so why not have your mobile app collect analytics for you.

If you put in some work up front and develop a strategy for collecting data, you can generate some valuable insights from your mobile app.

A mobile app can help you track downloads, user engagement, and products that users show interest in, among other things.

Over time, if you track these metrics, you can use your data to develop a better digital strategy, which can be extremely beneficial for your company.

#10 Maintain Your Competitive Advantage

If no other reason has convinced you that your business needs a mobile app, this one should do it alone. In this day in age, every business needs a mobile app.

All of your competitors likely already have a mobile app or have one in the works.

Although this may depend on your industry, if there is a need for a mobile app, you need to create one or you will get left behind your competition.

In addition, if you are able to get creative with your application, you can take a giant leap ahead of your competition.

Especially if you’re in a field where not a lot of businesses have a mobile app, developing one may just be the thing that sets you apart from your competition.

Conclusion

In summary, having a mobile app for your business is absolutely necessary in the technology-driven world we live in today.

Without a mobile app, your business is missing out on so many advantages and opportunities for growth.

Although developing a mobile app may take a little work up front, it will be worth it in the long run and you should gather a few Mobile App RFP‘s from trusted mobile app development companies.

If you would like to request a Mobile App RFP from our team, please click here.

You will be able to watch your engagement, sales, and loyalty increase as your mobile app works its magic.

For these reasons, your company simply must have a mobile app to compete in the business world today.

As an app developer, when was the last time you stopped to look at current trends for app design ideas in the development world?

You know, mobile apps are constantly evolving to improve the user experience, and it’s your job to keep up.

Oftentimes app designers keep their heads buried in their projects and forget about what consumers want today.

Try to break that mindset if you can, and put what the user wants first. If you excel at these app ui ideas, users will choose your app over one of your competitors, every time.

Swiping Features

There is some deep rooted psychological proof that swiping is in human nature. People love to swipe, even from a young age.

You need to have swiping features in your mobile app. If you’re still not convinced, just take a look at common dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, Hily, and so many more.

All of these apps are seeing huge success right now, and all of them use swiping as a primary feature proving to be some of the best mobile UI (user interface) design.

At this point, it’s almost impossible to deny a feature that is so apparent in so many successful apps.

It’s likely your mobile app doesn’t involve consistently swiping through potential matches, so how can you use a swiping app UI design to your benefit?

There’s so many places you can implement swiping. If you sell a variety of items and have them on display, that’s one place swiping can be extremely effective.

Customers love more options, and making it easier to go through each option with a swiping feature is a great app design feature.

Adding swiping features in any direction is going to be good, and you don’t have to be a dating app to implement good app design styles.

Here’s an example of one of our favorite trading apps Robinhood, where swiping on different stocks in your portfolio makes trading much easier.

Voice Interface and Voice Search

Voice search is an app ui idea that has become increasingly more popular as voice search technology advances.

It’s getting easier and easier for smart speakers to pick up your voice and provide you the exact results you need.

When it comes to mobile apps, a voice search navigation feature can make the overall user experience of your app much better.

Depending on the app UI design of your mobile app, voice search could be an amazing app design idea.

Voice integration is not limited to the search feature though. Users can navigate through your app via voice commands.

Hiring a mobile app developer that can implement voice interfaces is going to be your best bet since they can provide you with a variety of app design styles.

One of the best apps that utilize voice search is YouTube. Their mobile app has voice search integration for on-the-go searching, making it extremely easy to find the video you need.

Vibrant Colors and Gradients

Choosing the right set of colors and gradients is crucial to a beautiful app design. Below, we break down two common approaches for the best mobile UI design.

Flat Design

The best app UI ideas combine a flat design with captivating gradients and shadows. Flat design has been around since the beginning of mobile app development, and is often still very effective.

Flat design is the most simple design style and makes the user experience pleasurable and positive.

Essentially, flat design avoids 3-D elements at all costs, and focuses on simple, bold colors and other style elements.

Flat design is amazing for the user experience, but can be boring to some users. This is why a concept called Flat 2.0 was implemented, in which skeuomorphic design elements are used as well.

Skeuomorphism

Skeuomorphism is the opposite of a flat design concept, in which 3-D elements are preferred and are used more often.

The goal is to mimic real-world elements and to make a mobile app feel alive. Skeuomorphism does this by employing elements like gradients and shadows, making parts of the app feel 3-dimensional.

While this style does work to improve the user experience by catering to natural human interpretations of objects/items, many designers feel the style of these app design ideas creates too much clutter, and makes using the app much more difficult.

Combining the Two

This is why combining both flat design trends along with a few skeuomorphic elements seems to be the best combination for great app design.

For example, the use of a gradient on an app background is a skeuomorphic element, but when done correctly, a flat design can still be implemented.

Gradients add a lot of depth to any scene, making a seemingly boring page come to life with emotion.

On top of using gradients, choosing vibrant colors seems to be a big trend in app design ideas.

Picking truly vibrant colors that match with one another for best mobile ui design can be difficult, so head on over to the Adobe Color Wheel to get colors that match.

Personalization

Arguably one of the most important app design ideas trends, personalization helps differentiate you from other apps just like yours.

The app market is becoming consistently more saturated, and you have to do something to stand out.

Personalizing your app is one way to show consumers that they should stay on your app because of the amazing user experience and great app design it provides.

There’s a few different ways you can personalize your mobile app, one of them being through eCommerce.

Most eCommerce style apps will tailor specific products to you based on what you’ve already scrolled through or taken interest in. Amazon is a great example of an app design that does just this.

Any app build that provides content should be able to personalize in some way. Over time, content should appear that align with their interests.

Content personalization is only one way to improve the user experience.

Creating user profiles for each user experience and delivering different app functions based on a specific user category is another way of personalizing a mobile app.

If you can make your app feel like it’s designed specifically for a user, you’re on the path to the best mobile UI design.

Augmented Reality

Augmented reality is definitely still a work in progress, but is becoming more and more prevalent as the years go by.

Now, let’s get the distinction right between AR and VR, because they are very different. VR (Virtual Reality) is a completely immersive experience that blocks out all real world input, and focuses the user entirely on computer generated content.

AR (Augmented Reality) on the other hand superimposes digital content onto a user’s real world view.

This makes it seem like there are digital elements actually within the real world. It is considered a composite view between computer generated content and the real world, making it much more applicable to mobile apps.

While the current applications of AR are somewhat limited to superimposing cute looking animals onto your camera, we are headed towards commercializing AR.

Being able to see and interact with products and services in augmented reality is the next step.

Augmented reality enhances the user experience by a massive amount, and if you can find a way to implement it into your app, you absolutely should.

Dark Mode

Dark mode is one of the best design features you can add to your mobile app. This is especially true for apps that use a lot of white space.

After a while, constantly looking at a white screen becomes a problem of eyestrain for users.

For users that use your app frequently, a dark mode could be an amazing option that will greatly enhance the user experience.

Some of the most popular apps have dark, or night mode built in. Reddit is one app that does this, and allows users to avoid eye strain, and remain on the app longer.

A lot of white space is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact it’s amazing and makes designs pop out much better.

Although a consistent downside is the eyestrain users face when looking at a white screen for too long. If you find your app to be in this category, maybe it’s time to implement dark mode.

Video and Animation

Stagnant app pages are a thing of the past. Customers are getting bored more easily, and need content that moves to keep them interested.

On top of being able to keep users attention, animations allow users to understand your content better.

Most people are visual learners, and will have a much better time navigating an animated app rather than a stagnant one.

From loading animations, navigation animations, to visual feedback animations, there are so many ways to implement interesting animations into your mobile app.

This seems to be a design trend that’s here to stay. Users simply love animation.

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As you can see, there’s a whole lot of trends to keep in mind as we cruise through app design ideas.

Some of them are not new app UI ideas, but are still the main trends that keep us busy. At the end of the day, we’re all just trying to improve the user experience in any way we can.

It just so happens that following great app design and implementing them into your app is one of the best ways to improve UI.

Hopefully we went through some design trends that you’ve already been doing, and maybe some that we surprised you with.

As your favorite mobile app development company, we strive to keep you up to date with all the latest trends. If you’ve found a trend that didn’t make it in our least, we’d love to hear about it!

So you want to create a mobile app, but you don’t know where to start. Finding those innovative app ideas that haven’t been made is one of the biggest obstacles that keeps many “would-be” app creators on the sidelines. Just brainstorming an app can be overwhelming.

The idea is the most important feature of your app. It doesn’t matter how fast your app is or how well it’s designed; if you don’t have a unique and useful app, it won’t matter.

So how do you come up with an idea for an app? It starts with a problem (or problems). After you have determined the problem, then it’s time to brainstorm for solutions.

Next, think of people who have the same problem and ask them if your solutions would work for them, this is a way to get the best app ideas. Finally, prioritize.

Prioritize what’s going to be important and where you’ll need help (you’re probably going to need help).

Let’s get started.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is the breakfast of developing an innovative app; if you skip it, you’re starting out on the wrong foot.

While you may be excited about app ideas that haven’t been made that you can’t shake from your head, it could be unrealistic or unwanted.

Imagine putting in hours and hours of work into your app, only to hit a wall where you find yourself needing an advanced programmer that you don’t have a budget for.

Brainstorming will force you to think abstractly of the many alternatives. You’ll have many different ideas to pivot to if things don’t work out right.

Even some of the most brilliant apps have had to pivot at least once. Brainstorming is a process, and you shouldn’t rush it all in one day. Find a problem, let it simmer, think of solutions.

Finding The Problem

For many failed apps, finding the problem was the problem (is there an app for finding problems for apps?).

What’s currently inconvenient for you or your business? Are you struggling to remember birthdays? Or are you and your coworkers having difficulties collaborating on projects?

The more you look at your day, the more you’ll find these small problems that we all somehow put up with. Whatever your problem is, there are probably more people out there struggling with the same issues.

When you find a problem you like (or hate), think of more issues that can relate to it. Think about the other people who are silently struggling along with you.

Who are they and what other issues do they have? Thinking of other people will force you to think more objectively and abstractly.

You can often find a root problem and smaller branch problems. Once you have a problem, think of how you can scale it up or down, this will help you get an idea for an app.

It’s important to not miss the forest for the trees; if you have a real niche idea, think of the bigger picture. If you have a big problem, think of different avenues you can explore.

Let’s go back to that birthday reminder idea. What other problems are those people having? They could be struggling to keep up with other personal relationships in their life. Maybe you can use your app to send periodic reminders to check in with uncle Jim from Houston. You just used your target audience to expand your vision.

You can explore this idea, and determine whether this is something that is worth expanding into. If you broaden your idea, you can find more apps like it on the market that you can review for research and investigate app ideas that haven’t been made.

Now let’s go back to that collaboration problem. What specifically are you and your coworkers struggling to collaborate on? Are files not being updated to the right location? Or is it too difficult to manage tasks across multiple platforms?

Now, you’re using your target audience to narrow in on specific problems. Specific problems are helpful because they are more easily acted on. For a big problem, you can probably think of a few problems that could contribute to it.

Finding Solutions

You’ve thought of your target audience, you have a firm grasp of your original problem and even considered the alternative problems. You can now think of solutions with the best app ideas.

In this stage, you are going to want to do a lot of research. You want to identify similar apps that are tackling a similar issue and what solutions unrelated apps have thought of as well.

Next, you want to start using your research to guide your own solutions. Finally, prioritize what solutions will be most important for your app.

You shouldn’t rush through the research phase. Since you have an understanding of your problem, start searching for apps that are already on the market that try to solve that problem.

Don’t get discouraged if you find something that was exactly what you were thinking of, you can use that as app inspiration.

After all, apps borrow from each other all the time, just look at Uber and Lyft. You’ll want to pay attention to the competition’s features, look and feel, and reviews.

How have other apps made their user’s lives easier? How do the other app’s interfaces look? What are people saying in their reviews?

Reviews are a goldmine for competitive research. You can easily find your audience’s pain points and if that app is doing a good job of solving those problems.

Next, you’ll want to look at other popular apps on the market. What features do they have? Can you apply what they’re doing to what you want to do?

Some of the best ideas are combinations from across industries. Make a spreadsheet with at least each app’s features, and any common customer complaints and compliments. It will pay dividends down the road.

Now it’s time to hit the drawing board. Using what you know, start thinking of ideas from mild to wild. Don’t think of the cost yet; you can think of that later.

Begin making your list of all the possible features you can include. When you feel like you’ve made an exhaustive list, write one more idea.

Finally, begin to curate your ideas. Which features would work well with one another? Which ideas would take a long time to produce? Begin to rank what features are essential and which ones can be left out.

You can always return to your list when you’ve launched your app for updates or pivots. With the ideas you do have, think of a nice thirty-second pitch.

You now have your idea for an app figured out and you’re ready for the next step, validation!

Validating

You made it! You have your app’s big idea all figured out. Now you can think of this time as a pre-testing time.

Go to your friends and family first. Tell them to be as honest and straightforward as possible.

The app industry is tough, so you want to have a firm understanding of your strengths and weaknesses. Show them your other ideas, and get their opinion if there’s anything on your list they’d like to see.

Next, find your target audience. One of the easiest ways to find your audience is through online communities. You can easily go to places like Reddit or Twitter to get opinions on your idea.

People online may not be shy to tell you if they see a flaw, or they could not respond at all. Take feedback in stride and use it to improve your app’s idea.

Now you should have a complete understanding of your app’s direction. You can now work out the order of what you want to tackle first. Make a list of priorities.

Your main job from here on out will be to keep your list of priorities in check.

Conclusion

Finding an idea for an app for your mobile app can be tricky. It takes a lot of work and a lot of critical thinking to get that breakthrough idea.

Once you have your idea, you’ll have to think about what needs to be done and where your weaknesses are for creating your app.

If you’re confused about certain stages of the development process, mobile development tools you can use, or need professional assistance, reach out to us for any of your app development questions!

In this day and age, having a mobile app is crucial for many businesses. According to a 2017 study, more than half of the world’s population owns a smartphone and more than half the world’s web traffic comes from mobile phones.

For this reason, mobile phone app development is no longer an option for businesses. You need to have the best, most beautiful app design you can.

Innovative mobile app design is essential to compete in the mobile world, no matter the industry you are competing in, the app design trends are always changing.

So you need to develop the best mobile app around, but where do you start? It is most important to recognize that your focus should be on user experience (UX) throughout this process, UX is one of the mobile app design basics.

Within both design and product strategy, you need to focus on UX. You want to promote retention and re-engagement through your design, and the way to do this is by prioritizing your customers’ experience while using the application.

iOS vs Android App Development

Of the operating system market share, Android holds 68%, while iOS holds 29.2%. However, the United States is the only country in which Android and iOS hold a relatively equal market share.

For this reason, it is important to develop an application for both platforms, in order to optimize for users on both operating systems. However, there are pros and cons for each operating system, which are outlined below.

Android Operating System

Pros

When developing an application for the Android operating system, a major benefit is that Android is a relatively open system.

This allows developers to have more clarity into the inner workings of the operating system, which makes application design much easier.

In addition, publishing on the Android Play Store is fairly simple and quick, which makes it stand apart from other operating systems.

Cons

The major drawback of developing an application for Android is how fragmented Android devices are.

There are so many different types of Android devices with extreme variations in screen size, which is one of the basics of mobile app design, it makes developing and testing very time consuming and expensive for this platform.

iOS (iPhone Operating System)

Pros

On iOS, there is much less fragmentation than on the Android platform. This makes iOS application design much easier. In addition, iOS has a standardized User Interface (UI), which also simplifies the design process.

Revenues have also been found to be much higher on the iOS App Store, as iOS users tend to be extremely loyal to the brand and are willing to spend more on app purchases.

Cons

Some drawbacks of developing an application for the iOS operating system include it is fairly expensive compared to other platforms, and the iOS App Store has exclusive and restrictive publishing.

Also, because of the standardized UI, there is a lack of customization available for app designers on the iOS operating system, but that shouldn’t stop you from having a beautiful app design.

Steps to Creating A Modern Mobile App Design

In a 2016 conference, Google Developers shared with us their principles of modern mobile app design:

So you understand the importance of having a mobile application and the different operating systems, but how do you actually design your mobile app in the best way possible?

In the duration of this post, we will outline the three steps to the basics of mobile app design development: research, design, and testing.

Step 1: Research

Early on in the research process, you must identify your company’s goals in developing a mobile app. What are you trying to generate with this application?

Depending on whether you are trying to generate interest, engagement, or profits, your app design will look very different, this will determine your mobile ui inspiration.

Identifying these goals early on will allow you to make sure that your application aligns with your overall company strategy.

Discovering the purpose of your app is key here. Are you interested in making money off of your app? Think about how monetizing your app could affect your overall design and layout.

Continuing in the research process, it is a good idea to make sure you have a strong general understanding of mobile applications as a whole.

Stay on top of smartphone innovations and how they affect app design trends.

As an app user, learn to identify what you do and do not like when using an app. Check out your competitors’ applications, and see what features they offer and how their applications are performing.

Developing an understanding of mobile applications and the current offerings available to users will help you to develop a product that stands out from the crowd with a modern mobile app design.

The most important step in the research process is gaining an understanding of your audience. Use personas to determine what will drive your users’ actions within the application.

You can use user scenarios to generate insight into how a persona will act and develop experience maps to display each step a persona is likely to take when using an app.

This will allow you to see all possible conditions for a single user interaction within your application and help you understand all emotions and circumstances surrounding those steps. Researching your audience will allow you to design an application that meets all of their needs.

Step 2: Design

When beginning the design stage, start with the basics of mobile app design: simple prototypes and create a strong core.

You want to keep the interface relatively simple, as this will optimize speed and minimize your bounce rate.

Throughout your application, it is important to create consistency and use common UI elements. Be purposeful in your page layout and consider learnability for your customers throughout your design process.

If your application does not render quick learnability for your customers, you may need to rethink your design.

Throughout the design process, do not underestimate the importance of details. The details of your design are crucial, and may be what sets your application apart from your competitors.

Usability

When it comes to the usability of your mobile app, navigation needs to be made easy for users. This is not an area where you should get super creative, a beautiful app design can be the simplest one.

Pay special attention to detail. You should consider how people physically navigate a mobile app.

Most users navigate their mobile device using one thumb, so it is important to consider the “thumb zone,” or the area that users can reach with their thumb.

If you place an important feature or link in an area outside the thumb zone, this can make navigation and usability difficult for users, you can always check out other successful apps for mobile ui inspiration.

In addition, you should try to optimize your application for as many screens as possible, so that users can use your app on any device.

Color Scheme

As you design your mobile app, the color scheme is an important detail to pay attention to. When using color throughout your design, it should be used strategically to direct users.

Use color to draw attention to your CTAs, so that users are led to engage with the areas you would like them to.

While using color may be helpful, be sure not to use too many colors, as this can become very distracting and confusing for users.

As you are selecting colors, make sure you stick to those that reflect your branding, not personal preference.

Typography

When inputting text throughout the application, ensure that both the text and font is easy to read.

In modern mobile app design, the spaces between the lines and words are also important.

The screen space is very limited on a mobile device, so you want to make sure to utilize spacing in the best way possible, so that the text is easy for readers to read.

Also, you can use typography strategically to create hierarchy and clarity. Because spacing is so limited, using text strategically to develop a sense of hierarchy can help minimize the overall amount of text needed.

Affordance and Signifiers

Affordance is the relationship between the human mind and technology. It gives users cues on how to interact with the technology, without explicitly giving them directions.

Again, because space is so limited, affordance and signifiers can be extremely helpful.

You should use signifiers so that users do not need to think about what each UI element does, but know intuitively how to interact with your application.

This helps with both learnability for users and the limited spacing.

Step 3: Testing

Testing is one of the most important steps of mobile app design basics, because it helps provide quality assurance for your product.

Testing can reveal imperfections and help you find ways to improve through real interactions with the application.

The testing process should begin towards the end of the design phase, and you should thoroughly test your application through multiple stages, including:

• Case and script design testing: Tests battery usage, app speed, data requirements, memory.
• Manual and automated testing: Tests basic functions.
• Useability and beta testing: Tests compatibility, UI, external factors, accessibility.
• Performance testing: Tests functionality, installation, upgrades, sign-up and login, device-specific functions, services testing.
• Security and compliance testing: Checks for security certificates, secure network protocols, encrypted usernames and passwords, restrictions on login attempts.
• Device testing: Tests on all devices, cloud usage.
• Control testing: Detailed tests to stabilize apps and uncover minor defects.
• Test summary report: Documentation for the entire testing process.

Summary

Beautiful app design is a long and tedious project, but hopefully this guide gives you some insight on how to develop a successful application for your business.

In summary, here are some of the most important tips to remember:

1. Make sure you understand your audience! Before even beginning the design process, dedicate some time to researching your audience and personas to help drive the rest of your project.
2. Consider ease of usability for users throughout the process. From early prototypes to the testing stages, your focus should always be on making sure your application is easy for users to navigate and understand.
3. Throughout the stages of design, consistency and simplicity are key. There’s nothing wrong with getting creative, but especially in the world of mobile app design, a consistent, simple design may be the best thing for your audience.
4. Don’t forget to pay special attention to detail as you navigate through your mobile app design. Details, from your color scheme to signifiers, could be what sets your application apart from your competitors.
5. Finally, testing is key to strong product quality. Do not underestimate the importance of testing, and be sure to maintain a thorough, critical eye throughout this process.

Follow these tips and you’ll be well on your way to developing a modern mobile app with a design you can be proud of.

If you’re thinking of ways to monetize an app, having an app monetization plan is essential if you want to push your app to the marketplace.

Unfortunately, if you’re an app creator, it’s a race to the bottom for the cheapest app on the market, which means you have to get creative with how you make money.

There are a number of monetization plans that could work for your app. You must know the pros and cons for each method.

It’s best to have your monetization strategy in place as soon as possible so you can have a focused path that’s ready for development.

The best policy for app monetization is transparency. The app market is chopped full of scam apps implementing sketchy practices to steal away money from their users.

Be ethical and upfront in implementing a monetization plan. If your plan is to just rip people off, this blog post is not for you.

At the end of this blog post we will give you the best mobile app monetization method, so stay tuned!

The Freemium

Freemiums have picked up a lot of steam in recent years as one of the most popular app monetization models.

They work by bringing in users with a free version of your app, then once you have them sucked in, the user has the option to pay for additional add ons. It’s one of the most effective and scalable methods on how to monetize your app.

With a freemium model, you want to be growing, growing, and growing. The “free” listing on the app store is enough to build a small community from the beginning, but after that, you want to have free users coming in who could be converted into paying users over time.

An important caveat to the freemium model is you have to make upgrading worth it to the customers. Your free version needs to be good enough for the customer to use and want to come back to, but not so good that they have no incentive to upgrade from.

You need to strike the right balance, and you should be researching early on to find what your customers want the most.

Don’t underestimate the value of free users, as they can still be useful. In an article published by Forbes, Vincent Kumar, a professor at the Harvard Business School, estimates that a free user is worth about 15% to 25% of a paying user.

If you make your app too unusable for free users, they will get mad, leave, and trash your reviews. Conversely, if your free app is too good, you run the risk of not having enough paid users to keep the lights on.

There are many different approaches you can take to building out an effective freemium model monetization strategy. For this section, we’ll talk about feature freemiums, capacity caps, and free trials.

For more information on freemium models, check out this article by the Harvard Business Review.

Featured Freemiums

Feature freemiums are best for apps that are providing a tool. If you’re building a photo editing app, you might include special photo filters as a freemium feature add on.

Like all freemiums, your paid features need to add value for your users. For feature freemiums, your paid upgrade needs to fill a user’s niche.

You need to have the expectation that the majority of your users will not pay for an upgrade. With this in mind, keep a pulse on who are the people who get the most out of your app and what their needs will be.

Pay attention to reviews on competing apps and what your early adopters are saying. To help you with this process, create a buyer persona. Finally, prioritize what you want to develop first for your freemium features.

Capacity Caps

You see capacity caps most frequently associated with cloud storage and business apps. They work like this: users are given a fixed cap in their usage, and when they reach that cap they have to pay.

Capacity caps are often stratified with layers of payment plans. Oftentimes, the unit cost decreases as capacity cap increases. This can incentivize the heaviest using accounts to continue to upgrade.

Again, you want to make the capacity high enough to work for casual users, but low enough to incentivize heavy users to upgrade.

Free Trials

Free trials are another common freemium model, but it comes with the risk of losing a lot of users. Free trials are self-explanatory; they work by giving users your app for free for a limited time.

You can also use a free trial to promote freemium features. You want to make your free trial bulletproof, so users will want to stay. Even still, after the free trial ends, you will likely see a mass exodus of users.

Virtual Goods

The highest earning video game of 2018 was a free game. You’ve probably heard of Fortnite by now, but if you haven’t, it’s a free game where players can opt into paying for new player skins and challenges.

Fortnite made $2.5 billion (yes, that’s with a B) in its release year in revenue from a game where the only incentives for paying didn’t even affect the gameplay. This video by Wisecrack does a great job of explaining the economics behind this new monetization strategy trend.

Most game apps make money from selling virtual goods or upgrades. Sometimes this means gameplay upgrades, extra lives, or bonus levels; other times it’s just cosmetic customization.

Character customization in games has really caught fire in recent years. The reasoning is many players want to stand out. Character customization is built around scarcity; rare features demand more money.

As a game develops a community, secondary markets for skins and items will often pop up. If you develop a game, you should pay close attention to your community and what they value. Start a forum and search for where your community hangs out online.

Virtual goods are almost exclusive to games. Keep tabs on how to monetize an app in the wide gaming world to succeed in the mobile game arena.

Advertising

Advertising is one of the hardest business models for apps to succeed in. In order to generate significant revenue, you need to be receiving tens of thousands of monthly users.

For an app like Instagram, this is no big deal, but for a small app, this is one of the hardest ways to monetize an app.

To make this work, you need your app to be free and accessible so you can generate a larger audience. Then you’ll have to find a mobile app ad broker to place ads on your app.

You’ll have to negotiate what types of ads can be shown, like: banner ads, video ads, text ads, and more.

You’ll also have to negotiate how much you’ll be paid for each impression, oftentimes it’s hard to earn a good rate.

If your app shows too many ads, you can easily disenfranchise your audience. Many apps that take in ad revenue have other app monetization plans built into them.

If you just want to build an app for your existing brand and leave it, then advertising could be a decent option to make some money back.

Don’t expect to make tons of money off of advertising alone until you have hundreds of thousands of users. Consider combining the advertising business model with the freemium model as a monetization strategy, tastefully, of course.

Paid Apps

Once upon a time, the paid app model dominated the market in how to monetize an app. Now, they make up less than half of total app revenues. The rise of the freemium model has made paid apps look less attractive for users.

New app creators are at a significant disadvantage with the paid app model. Without a track record or a brand image, getting potential users to choose your paid app over a free app is almost impossible.

Paid app models are incredibly straight forward. You know exactly how much revenue you’ve generated from the amount of users you have.

Once you have paying users, it’s hard to generate more revenue from them. In order to make money, you need to get new people to download. This where effective marketing and premium design needs to step in.

To attract new users, you need to have convincing campaigns across multiple marketing channels. Your promotional images need to be clear and understandable to potential new users. You need to sell the benefit that this paid app is higher quality than that free app next door.

Paid apps aren’t dead. The most popular paid apps are often business, photo editing, and productivity apps.

If you have multiple paid apps out, you can sell them in a bundle at a discount to lure in more users. Create effective marketing campaigns for your app that is designed to convert users.

Subscriptions

Subscriptions have really become a popular and profitable way to monetize an app or software. Some of the best apps are subscriptions: Netflix, Blue Apron, Adobe.

Subscription apps take a lot of the same strategies of other app business models. First, you need to convince your customers to pay for your app. Then, you can incorporate freemium models for higher tier subscriptions.

You shouldn’t just have one level of subscriptions; your most avid users will want more eventually.

You are going to need to convince your target audience that this app is not only worth paying for, but paying for repeatedly.

You need to be continuously providing value, whether that comes from frequent improvements or consistently great products.

Of course, you are going to need to have great marketing to get users to sign up. Build relationships with your users, and listen to what they really want.

Retaining customers is the key to the subscription model. Your users are paying for a consistently great product that will work and get better all the time.

There are plenty of resources for subscription models. This video by Polymatter does a great job of explaining the allure of the subscription model, and this article by Zuora gives 9 keys to running a subscription business.

Subscriptions are one of the most sustainable business models when monetizing an app, but you’re never going to convince users if the benefits don’t justify the costs.

Conclusion

So what’s the best app business model? Here’s our answer: elephant, cheetah, mouse — that’s it! Okay you’re probably confused but hang with me.

Each of these animals have evolved to fill their particular niche. You would never call an elephant a failure because it can’t run as fast as a cheetah; these animals all have different goals. When choosing a monetization strategy for an app, you need to consider your goals.

What itch will you scratch for your customer? What do you as an app creator and a business need to survive?

In choosing a business model, you’re making tradeoffs. What works for one category, may not work for another. Adapt and find the right balance. You can combine aspects of different business models to know how to monetize an app that works for you.

Always keep an eye on the changing environment, and embrace innovation when you can. Most importantly, be upfront and honest with your users — they are your most important asset.

If you’re confused about certain stages of the development process or need professional assistance, reach out to us for any of your app development questions!