So you've created an app. Here's how to make it even better.

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Apps are everywhere. 80% of companies and 65% of startups have them. With so many crowding the market, how can you make sure that your app ranks and that it gets the notice it consequently deserves. After all, you’ve invested a great deal of time and money into your app’s creation. You want to make sure people know that it’s there, and understand how useful it truly is.

So the question remains: How do you optimize your app? Ensuring that yours is of the highest quality, that it is responsive and that it is user-friendly is extremely important in the world of app development and subsequently app optimization. A poor quality or unresponsive and sluggish app will only turn users away, and odds are, you won’t be recovering these disgruntled users anytime soon.

What should you be looking for? And how do you ensure that your app is optimized?

 

The Important Step of Testing Your New App

The people you want to attract, that group of users at which your app is aimed, should, in some form or another be included in the initial stages of your app development and design. Focus groups can be extremely useful here. This gives you a chance to conduct some real live user testing. Whether via workshop or even if you have to rely solely on friends, family and co-workers, getting feedback in terms of how your app works and how functional it is will help in later stages as you strive to optimize your app. Not to mention, testing the app via focus group interaction also enables you to identify the glitches and bugs well ahead of launch so that you’re not left with a subpar product that only serves to frustrate and annoy users.  

 

Read Your Feedback—It may be painful but it certainly helps!

Once your new app has gone global via one or more of the app stores, it’s time to see what people really think of it. You are bound to gets some feedback in the form of comments left on your app store listing. Be prepared, some may in fact be a bit snarky. Some may be downright mean. Toughen up and actually listen to what these users are telling you about your app and its functionality. App optimization begins with being responsive to your audience. If they are aggravated by a certain feature or facet of your app, adjust accordingly. If commentary increasingly condemns a particular element of the design, then redo it. Along these same lines, pay attention to the good feedback as well. What does your app do particularly well…get to know its strengths and its weaknesses.

 

Analyze User Behavior

The app stores, upon your app launch, will give you access to control panels that show you precisely how your product is performing. There is data showing you active installs. Along these same lines, there are also charts that enable you to follow uninstalls. If the uninstalls start to mount up, then you may want to revisit the app’s components and see what may not be working effectively.

Also pay attention to demographic data. Where are the installs primarily coming from? What type of users are installing your app? As with website optimization, you want to make sure that you understand the analytics and how the various metrics impact your app. The more info you have, the more optimized your app can potentially become.

 

Improve your App’s Responsiveness and Overall Usability

App use is all about speed. Mobile users are often on the go, their app needs to accommodate this. Both iOS and Android offer debugging solutions that can help to speed your app’s performance up and thus provide for better optimization Additionally, you may want to revisit design. Elaborate layouts, more than 4 or 5 layers deep can certainly slow things down and hasten user dissatisfaction. Simplify. You can still present customers with a great app that is highly responsive without getting mired down in an overly complicated layout.

In terms of usability, here is where app optimization really comes into play. How efficiently can the user navigate through the app? Are directives clear? Is the font legible? Are all sections of the app well-used, or are some under utilized—maybe these should be moved or reformatted then.

 

Visual Appearance—Is Your App Appealing

A great app designer will understand how to integrate functionality and aesthetics. You want your user interface to inspire interactions, this is often accomplished through attractive design first. If a user is not captivated by the general look and appearance of your app, then odds are, they will refrain from installing it. Working with a talented designer can go a long way toward optimizing your new app.

 

Third Party Integration

Does your app play well with others…Having features available from the home screen that allow for that interconnection with other apps and systems will make your app experience richer and more cohesive. Users like being able to have multiple access points; optimizing your app therefore involves being able to easily integrate third party platforms.

 

 

Making sure that your app is up to speed, that it functions as it should and that it is easy for your users to navigate are all essential components when it comes to app optimization. Not sure where to start? Freelancer.com has plenty of talented app developers, designers and specialists who can help you make the most out of your app experience.

Post your app-based project and let the professionals come to you!

Posted 23 February, 2017

Anne

Highly Experienced Writer/Editor

On any given day, balancing life and work can certainly turn into an overwhelming task. My goal is to take some of the stress off of you. Whether it’s redesigning a company website, preparing materials for a job search, or editing an important document, I treat each and every project as if it were my own. I have many years of experience generating website content, blogs, newsletters and brochur...

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