Mobile app market has become quite saturated. This is why the competition to stand out is even tougher and more intense than ever. With millions of apps on both major stores. The App Store and Google Play Store, consumers have multiple options for one requirement.
Unfortunately, not every app makes it and many are either abandoned or never interacted within the first place. There are many reasons why an app performs poorly in terms of conversions, visibility, and engagement. However, one aspect that largely concerns an app’s success is the essential features it offers.
The mobile app development arena has progressed considerably with time. Now with newer technologies, there is much room for innovation. With that being said, there are certain features that have become a staple for an app’s long term success. Let us explore them more so when you approach a software development company in Houston for app development, you would be in tune with the must-have features.
1) Great Search Bar Feature:
Mobile apps that specifically deal with retail or eCommerce at large should invest in a well-built search bar. Accessibility plays a great role in user experience, and search bar provides users just that. The ability to easily search for content that you desire rather than to scroll past through a cluster of content is much better. Users can search through keywords or phrases and the mobile app can respond within seconds with the relevant search content.
2) Responsive Mobile Apps:
In a time where we have folding phones available in the market, restricting to certain screen sizes isn’t the best option. You need a mobile app that has a responsive design and adjusts to all screen sizes; be it small or large or anything in between.
This will increase engagement and improve the user experience by a large margin.
3) Consider Cross-Platform App Development:
Restricting your app to just one platform isn’t the most feasible at this point. However, given the budget, not every business or company can afford to have two identical apps for Android and Apple users. This is where cross platform app development comes in. You can use one base code for both applications. This reduced the development cost, time, and other resources.
With cross-platform app development, your app gets to reach out to a wider audience and bring in more ROI than one platform only.
Social media isn’t a small fish in the online world. If anything, it is THE fish driving sales for many many brands (big and small). Moreover, it is connecting the world together. So, not adding the feature of social sharing or social networking within your app can be a drawback.
5) Allow User Feedback:
A mobile app should incorporate a section that encourages user feedback. This encourages to build meaningful relationship with your consumers, but also, immediately responding to their query or problem instills trust.
Moreover, these users are the real testers of your mobile app. So, their feedback should never be suppressed or forgotten entirely. In fact, their issues actually give insight to developers into what more can be improved within the mobile app. In addition to this, with time, users may outgrow some of your features and would demand something else entirely. This is why, opening the gates of user feedback within your mobile app is an integral part.
6) Working Offline:
The ability to work offline has become a standard these days. People do not have stable network at all times and yet they rely on mobile apps for many things. So keeping this in mind, you need to have certain important features functional without an internet connection.
Take a food ordering app as an example. People take time to decide their order, they browse, add and subtract. So what you can do is allow your app to display and add to cart feature available offline. Now once they restore their data or internet connection, they can make the order.
7) Push Notifications:
In a time where everyone is rushing or have a lot of distractions, these push notifications help your app be seen and heard. It should be one of the key features that should be enabled in your mobile app. With push notifications, you can easily send latest updates regarding a new feature, or promotions or any update for this matter.
Since majority of the apps that are downloaded are forgotten, these push notifications also act as a gentle reminder. So, with this you can not only gain their attention, but also with the right strategy, real them back into engaging with your app.
Remember, push notifications when done wrong and too often can land your app completely deleted and uninstalled. Hence, tread carefully, craftily, and smartly.
8) Voice Search:
We kept the best for last. Voice search technology is in heavy demand this year. It is one of the key features every mobile app should have. Having access to your mobile app without having to hold your phone and interact with it, is one of the hottest demands of the consumers.
With the era of Siri, Google Assistant and more – voice search has become a norm. People are accustomed to being handsfree whilst being able to control their devices. This allows your consumers to multi-task and easily communicate with your app as well.
So, make sure you incorporate this into your app. Not only you are tapping into a trend that is in high demand, but with this accessibility feature you are increasing your app’s performance as well.
9) Multi-Lingual Support:
This will allow you to reach out to a wider audience. And with wider audience, you are gaining more revenue for your business. Mobile apps that can interact with target audience’s local language is a massive bonus.
Wrapping Up:
Although the mobile app landscape is crowded and overflowing, the process itself, mobile app development that is, has drastically progressed. With newer better technologies, mobile apps can now be smarter, faster, and more adaptable than ever. Hopefully, these best features must have given you the insight you required.
