5 Universal Components of Every Successful Mobile App

Businesses spend thousands of dollars to make an application suitable for the mobile app market, but only a tiny fraction of those apps become popular. How do you give yours the best chance of succeeding? An expert Las Vegas mobile app development agency integrates five essential components in developing mobile apps.

These are:

• User interface
• User experience
• Offline functionality
• Security
• Personalization

Ready to learn how each contributes to your app’s success below? Let’s go!

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1. User Interface (UI)

UI is the umbrella term for all user interaction elements in your application. These elements enable someone to navigate, access, and perform actions on your platform’s features. In other words, the UI works as a bridge between users and the technology.

Usually, when people think of UI, they imagine visual attributes. These include layouts, buttons, icons, fonts, color schemes, and typography. In fact, the UI takes a variety of forms. In addition to a graphical UI, a platform can have one or a combination of these types:

• Text-based command-line interface, where users type commands or send prompts
• Touch-based interface, which allows someone to interact with the platform manipulating on-screen elements via the touchscreen
• Voice-UI (VUI), which incorporates voice-assisted technology

A good UI helps you stand out from your competitors because you can incorporate branding into it. Think of the yellow and red colors that dominate a McDonald’s corporation app. However, to truly matter, any app you develop must:

• Provide timely and appropriate feedback on user actions,
• Remain consistent in behavior and appearance, especially when the platform also has a web-based version, and
• Be understandable and accessible, including by people with disabilities.

2. User Experience (UX)

Many confuse user experience (UX) with UI, but they have distinct roles. While the latter focuses on an app’s visual and interactive elements, UX takes a more holistic approach. It considers the satisfaction (or lack thereof) of someone throughout their entire user journey.

It also refers to someone’s perception of your platform. Your mobile application might be visually appealing, but it can still have poor UX if users cannot maximize its functionality and use.

The best UX centers around its users, prioritizing their needs, goals, preferences, and behaviors.

An app, therefore, should be:

• Usable
• Accessible
• Understandable, with easy-to-follow cues, labels, and hierarchy
• Consistent in UI and behavior
• Fast
• Emotionally appealing
• Simple

To achieve all these characteristics, mobile developers often ask the following questions at every stage of the app development process:

• Who are the target users? What are their demographics, behaviors, and preferences? What are their goals and motivations for using the app? What challenges or pain points do they currently face?
• How can you optimize the application’s performance in Android or iOS? What are the potential bottlenecks or loading time issues?
• What specific features or functionalities will provide value to users?
• How does the app differentiate itself from competitors?
• How can the platform provide a seamless and intuitive UX? What should be the focus areas of its interface? Can you automate or simplify any complex or repetitive tasks?
• How can the app's design address accessibility? What assistive technologies should it support?
• How can you ensure a consistent and cohesive UX? Should you follow certain established design patterns or brand guidelines? How can the app align with the overall brand identity and tone?
• How can the app surprise and delight users with thoughtful and innovative features?

3. Offline Functionality

Believe it or not, a significant percentage of the world’s population still cannot access the internet. This data suggests that most are in India and China. As a mobile app owner, why should these markets matter when you can just target them with the internet?

The answer is simple: globalization. While significant portions of these countries now may not have internet connectivity, China and India are part of the future of the global consumer market. In time, those who do not have an internet connection will eventually catch up.

If you desire longevity for your mobile application, now is the best time to make your product more accessible to this market. One option is to offer offline functionality.

Here is how it usually works:

• The user still has to download the mobile application when they have an internet connection.
• While someone uses the mobile app, the platform downloads the data from the servers into the device.
• The user can then take advantage of all or most of the features and access their information even when the internet is missing.
• Once the user can get some internet back, the application syncs offline and online data. This way, the person will always have access to accurate, relevant, and timely information.

4. Security

Cybercriminals are like regular burglars. They take advantage of what is available for their nefarious activities. Today, their “assets” are mobile applications, and they perpetrate crime in two ways:

• They infiltrate existing mobile platforms, injecting them with viruses and malware that can spread from one user to another (or sometimes across devices).
• They make their own applications that can look and feel legitimate, encouraging unknowing users to download them.

Because of the increase in cybercrime, consumers demand that apps have more security features. They are also eager to look for red flags that yours is insecure.

This makes safety another key to launching and maintaining a successful product. Las Vegas developers incorporate this by following some best practices in mobile app development. These include:

• Testing the app at various stages of its development, including during and after its launch
• Requesting appropriate credentials from users, especially when accessing sensitive information or premium content
• Providing redundant security measures, such as two-factor authentication and one-time passwords (OTPs)
• Maximizing secure mobile features, such as biometrics and face recognition
• Decreasing the number of entry points into the app
• Encrypting the source code

5. Personalization

With stiff app competition, your product should have three ingredients besides UX and UI:

• High engagement
• Improved retention
• Greater customer awareness

You can achieve all these through personalization, allowing users to tailor the app to their preferences.

For example, to increase personalization, you can use:

• Push notifications based on user interest, location, and behavior
• In-app recommendations, based on past behavior such as purchase history
• Customized special offers, such as discounts and loyalty programs
• Gamification
• Personalized first feed
• Relevant rating system

Nevertheless, personalization is not the be-all and end-all of app development. It comes with many challenges, such as:

• Data privacy concerns
• Difficulty in gathering and reading data insight
• Issues with scalability
• Over-personalization, which happens when users feel overwhelmed by customized content and recommendations
• User control to limit the risks of insecurity

However, the increased revenues and sustained growth make this worth it.

Summing Up

No one solution guarantees an app's success. Instead, it is a combination of several components that, when properly executed, leads to a healthy market launch and sustainability.

This article highlights five app development features that can make your mobile app have longevity and be widely used. A Las Vegas mobile app development agency executes all these well and adds more. That is why working with a reputable, experienced team that can bring the best of your app’s ideas into reality is vital.

Digital Authority Partners has the expertise and track record to bring your app to life, launch it, and keep it thriving in the market. Contact us now to get started on your mobile app development journey!