When developing mobile apps, you should avoid these 5 details

The popularity of smartphones has led to the birth of a large number of mobile applications, which can help people solve various problems faced in daily life. A report published by Smart Insights pointed out that mobile applications account for 89% of the total time people use smartphones. Therefore, in order to ensure that the app you develop can be successful and can achieve long-term profitability, you need to avoid the following five pitfalls during development:

1. Ignore the ever-larger screens of mobile phones

According to a recent survey report by the flagship technology website CNET: Super large screens are being sought after by everyone. Therefore, you should remember:

• Smartphones are no longer ordinary phones, but hybrid devices. They are the most common and most popular way of interaction for people, and the larger the screen, the better it can meet the needs of users.
• Smartphone manufacturers all want to launch mobile phones with large screens, but in the past it was difficult to achieve due to technical limitations. Now, with the emergence of new display technologies, this bottleneck has obviously been broken.
• E-commerce companies prefer large screens because customers who use large-screen phones to shop online are often more likely to press the (payment) button in the end.

Of course, the screen orientation of the device cannot be ignored either. You need to provide users with a consistent user experience on different screen sizes and screen orientations.

[[140756]]

2. Ignore compatibility with (older) phones

If when you think of smartphones, you picture the shiny metallic finish of the iPhone 6 or the proud curves on the edges of the Samsung S6, you're probably mistaken.

According to a report published by CNET, many Android users are clinging to their old phones, and in fact, people are upgrading their phones more slowly than expected.

The latest report from the Google Play Store further illustrates this point, and there are still many Android devices running old system versions:

• Gingerbread(2.3.3–2.3.7) – 5.6%
• Ice cream Sandwich(4.0.4–4.0.4) – 5.1%
• Jelly Bean (4.1.x–4.3)– 37.4%
• KitKat (4.4) – 39.2%

As you can see from the above data, if you ignore compatibility with older mobile versions, you will lose millions of users.

3. Ignore power and memory usage

Battery and storage are two key resources of smartphones. A study by uSamp shows that the reasons why users dislike or do not install certain apps are very consistent: lag (76%), crash (71%), and high battery consumption (55%). These factors are important reasons for users not to choose your app.

When developing a mobile app, you must know the following:

• For most smartphones, memory is the main factor that hinders them from downloading apps. Many (thousand-yuan phones) or low-end phones even have only 1 GB of memory.
• Too much memory will slow down the phone and cause apps to freeze and crash.

4. Incompatibility with other applications

In a study by the University of California, Berkeley, the authors encouraged developers to take advantage of the possibilities provided by the smartphone platform to achieve collaboration and interaction between applications. The benefits of doing so include:

• Leveraging data and services provided by other apps can give users the impression of a seamless experience within the same app.
• Reduce the burden on developers and improve intelligent reuse of functions.

5. Ignoring the consistency of user experience across different systems

According to research conducted by the Nielsen Norman Group, maintaining a consistent user experience across all platforms helps build trust with users.

Therefore, your application needs to have a good positioning and meet some of the strong needs of users. At the same time, you should also try your best to meet those needs that are second only to the first need.

Furthermore, a study conducted by Forrester Research showed that around 90% of respondents used an average of three devices to complete a task. Therefore, it is important to keep your app’s user experience consistent across different platforms and devices.