The fact that Android is so widely used may be sufficient motivation for those trying to get into the mobile app industry to choose it as their platform of choice. Smartphone users have now surpassed 4 billion globally. As of 2022, Android has over 75% of the smartphone market share, followed by iOS with roughly 25%.
Whatever the reason, it’s critical to use the finest strategies to remain ahead of the competition in order to provide your application with the greatest chance of success in this highly competitive industry.
In this blog post, we’ll show you 8 of the best ways to make an Android app..
1. App Usability
Usability was first described in 2004 as a crucial component of the user experience honeycomb, which has since grown in popularity. Even though it is widely recognized as a vital mobile app development best practice, usability is sometimes overshadowed by, or even confused with, user experience (UX).
Nobody loves “Swiss Army Knife” applications that are over-bloated with seldom-used features that don’t support the app’s primary operation. The usability of an Android app is determined by a number of aspects, including navigation, visual clarity, device resource utilization, and error handling.
Focusing on usability will guarantee that your clients like using the app – and happy users equal app success. As a result, usability testing should be an integral part of any Android app development approach.
2. UI and UX Design
The mobile app development process includes two independent but interconnected elements: User Experience Design and User Interface Design. UX design is a multidisciplinary field that focuses on making the user experience as easy, meaningful, and engaging as possible. It includes branding, usability, and functionality. Meanwhile, UI design is in charge of designing an aesthetically pleasing interface that provides users with a pleasurable and emotionally satisfying experience.
A superb mobile app experience is a combination of UX and UI that is both harmonic and complimentary. Whereas UX makes interfaces helpful and assists users in achieving their goals, UI makes interfaces appealing and builds emotional bonds with users. To provide customers with a cohesive multi-platform experience, a strong UX/UI design must transition effortlessly across the spectrum of Android devices and platforms.
3. Choose the Right Tools
When making an Android app, it’s always hard to choose the right tools because there are so many to choose from. Should you use old technologies that are reliable or new technologies that aren’t as reliable but have great features?
What tools do developers use?
Take Java, which was the most popular language for making Android apps for a long time. But more than half of professional Android developers now use Kotlin, a programming language made by JetBrains that Google has now made a priority over Java and suggested be used for all new Android projects. Interoperability and productivity are two things that make people interested in Kotlin. Many people think that Kotlin is clearer, more useful, and faster than Java. Because Kotlin is short, it can solve more problems with fewer lines of code. This speeds up development and makes it less likely that mistakes will happen.
Its ability to work with other languages is also important. This means that developers can write modules in Kotlin that run smoothly with Java code. In the same way, many people think that Coroutines, Android Jetpack (Room, Live Data, and View Models), Dagger2, and Retrofit are all important tools for developing Android apps today. But it’s important to make sure you’re using the right tools for the job. Some “popular” tools are heavier than they need to be and don’t work very well on large projects. When this happens, you can replace these tools with lighter versions that do the same job but take up less room.
4. Assign Key Roles before the Project’s Commencement
Project managers, developers, back-end developers, UI/UX designers, and testers make up the majority of professional Android development teams. To guarantee the project’s success, it’s essential to identify and assign the project’s fundamental roles and duties well ahead of time.
Product ownership is perhaps the most important role in any large-scale app development project. The product owner is in charge of identifying the standards that an app must achieve to outperform competitors and exceed user expectations. Product owners are accountable for the final result and bring the vision and voice of the client to the app development process.
With Agile project management, the concept of a product owner has gained traction, defining a position that coordinates across the full Agile team, including the Scrum Master, the development team, and all other stakeholders. Product owners are in charge of increasing the value of the product that the development team is working on.
5. Work Agile
When it comes to mobile app development, Agile provides numerous advantages over the classic waterfall method. It improves collaboration between the development and client teams, allowing for a long-term and fruitful engagement between all parties.
The Agile model lets customers know everything about the development process and gives development teams the freedom to use customer feedback in the app development process. This makes sure that the project stays in line with what the client wants and that changes can be made easily along the way to keep it that way.
When a project is broken up into smaller pieces, or “sprints,” more than one team can work on it at once, which speeds up the development process. Agile Android app development also lets you launch a minimum viable product (MVP) faster. This lets you get feedback from real users quickly, which can help you make decisions in later iterations.
6. Deliver Progressive Updates
The lifespan of any mobile app development process includes updates to increase security, offer new features, or expand functionality. However, overwhelming app users with major changes is never a smart idea. For example, big UI changes should always be released to a larger audience after being A/B tested with a smaller representative group.
Progressive Release is another Agile technique that stresses rapid iteration while reducing risk in the release process. It emphasizes outcomes above outputs to ensure that everyone on the team is aware of the overall business aim behind each release. It enables development teams to deploy particular features to specified user groups at precise periods, reducing time-to-market while reducing risk.
7. Integrate QA
After the development team, end-users should not be the first set of individuals to engage with an app. In the competitive world of mobile applications, Quality Assurance (QA) teams are an extremely crucial aspect of development.
The major objective of QA in the app development process is to guarantee that the app is completely functioning and free of bugs. QA does this by establishing quality standards, defining functional needs, and ensuring that software satisfies all of its quality criteria. It is responsible for detecting and correcting mistakes before releasing software to end-users, as well as guaranteeing that all releases are “Fit for purpose” and “Right the first time.”
Before applications are launched to the market, QA teams are responsible for executing dynamic tests. UX/UI, cross-device functionality, security, and resource utilization are just a few of the aspects covered in these tests. QA should be included in every level of the app development process as a best practice.
8. Prioritize Security
Security is quickly becoming a way for mobile app development service providers to stand out from each other. Modern apps, especially those that run on an open platform like Android, are getting a lot of attention for how well they protect user privacy and data. App security is an ongoing process that starts when the app is first being built and moves along with cyber threats, if not ahead of them.
One of the best ways for developers to make sure their apps are safe is to test them all the time. Techniques like penetration testing can help stop possible threats before they happen by showing where security is weak. Android app development also needs to focus on building strong authentication and authorization systems that take into account important factors like privacy, session management, identity management, and device security.
Don’t use public or generic code when making apps, and use best practices for mobile app security when writing code.
Conclusion
In the end, Android app development isn’t just about making apps that look good. It’s also about making apps that are useful and fun to use, and that brings value to the business. To get there, you need to start with the right development team and then focus on usability, user interface, and user experience. Here, AppleTech’s experienced team of highly specialized designers, developers, testers, and project managers can help you in making your project a success.
