Your Complete Guide to Mobile App Development Software
by Michelle Lawrence | Last Updated: Jul 31, 2020
No matter what I’m trying to accomplish, the first place I look for information is YouTube. There are millions of videos on YouTube that give you a brief overview of how to do something. With all of the unexpected free time 2020 has brought me, I recently learned how to paint on this website (although I am no Piccaso yet 🎨 ).
While YouTube has a plethora of how-to videos, they lack videos related to app development. So before you go into a full-on panic mode, keep reading for your full guide to mobile app development software.
Walk Before You Run
Before you can run, you’ve got to learn how to walk. So in preparation for the nitty-gritty aspects of app building software, let’s start at square one with what you’re actually creating - a mobile app. There are two main mobile apps you can build - native mobile apps and Progressive Web Apps (PWAs). Choosing what you want to build first will help narrow your search results when you go to find the best app builder, because not every app maker delivers the same product. If you want to provide users with an experience they already know how to use, native mobile apps win here. They take advantage of all device hardware and they work offline.
But here’s the thing - app downloads are decreasing. It’s projected app downloads will decrease by nine percent by the end of 2020. Native mobile apps can only be downloaded through the app store, take up more storage than we’d like on our phones, and often require separate development for Android and iOS. So unless you’d like to look for a separate Android app builder, PWAs are the pièce de résistance for this mobile marketing project.
Learn a Few Tricks Along the Way
Everyone likes to have a cool trick up their sleeve. I got to ‘wow’ my family when I seamlessly knew how to access restaurant menus through a QR code when everything went virtual this year (perks of working in tech). Give your users a chance to show off their tech skills with options on how to access your brand’s app. Anywhere you can put a call-to-action (CTA), you can place an app activation. PWAs can be accessed through text, QR codes, Near-field communication (NFC), and links.How to Create Happy Users
Once you’ve decided what type of app you want to build, next comes the fun part - mobile design! But just because this is part where you get to let your creativity run wild, doesn’t mean it can’t have some serious consequences if you’re not methodical. Using the best mobile app UI design tool is crucial to your app’s success - otherwise, users will be quick to banish your app from their home screens. 23 percent of apps are abandoned after their first use. 👋🏼
How do you keep users coming back? Keep it simple. As marketers, it’s easy to want to push out a lot of pop-ups with CTAs to increase your click-through rates. Resist this urge - it makes for a poor user experience. Instead, try a collapsible navigation.
And if you really want your users to swoon, make it personal to them. Provide users the opportunity to toggle off certain dashboards and features they don’t want to see. They’ll feel like their opinions are valued and they’ll be delighted with the experience. It’s a win-win.
Ramp Things Up
Ready for the advanced portion of this lesson? Let’s talk about some of your options when it comes to mobile app development tools. A popular choice for app development software for beginners is to partner with an open source mobile app builder. Open source development allows you to take advantage of code that already exists and modify it to your needs. This becomes particularly attractive for enterprise companies that wish to create a custom mobile app.
You can usually find open source development with a low cow platform. Low code platforms have drag and drop capabilities that make it easy to place objects on an app’s page. Plus, you have the option to modify the code to make it more custom. And what really takes the cake is with low code platforms, there are typically mobile app design templates you can choose from to speed up the app development process. You can have the app of your dreams built in just a few hours.
If you made it to the end, congrats! We are going to give you a passing grade on this course of ‘how to make a mobile app’. Still hungry for more lessons on mobile? Take a listen to this episode of Mobile Matters. It’s basically the best masterclass you’ll ever take.✏️
Meet with one of our experts to see how easy it is to centralize your product data, manage digital assets, and create digital product experiences. Trust us…you’re going to be wowed.
