And to make things difficult UI is the most important thing
in this space. If you don’t get UI right for the app then there is no point in
making it. Mobile users just won’t give your app a second chance if you get a
single thing wrong in the initial interaction. It’s an extreme version of the
short attention span that website designers worry about.
This is the top thing you need to get right in your team.
There are a lot of books, websites and training on this area these days. But
one book stands as our Bible, we make it required reading for everyone
(including developers) in our mobile apps team – Tapworthy by Josh Clark
Kill the PM as soon
as you can
Coming from enterprise or large software world, we tended to
think that every project needs good continuous project management. Not so in
typical mobile apps – you need initial project planning for sure, someone coordinates
the resources and finalizes the UI etc. But once it gets to dev stage (which is
pretty early) the notion of the PM role should be gone. Developers can easily
manage the process and coordinate with other sides and having an external role
here just slows down the flow significantly. So the lesson learnt is plan out
things and then don’t plan anymore!
Be addicted to apps
In no other platforms is it so important to be following the
trends. The trends in graphics, interaction, placement of buttons, type of
apps, how are freebies given out, you name it. It seems the whole apps using
population swings to new direction at the first chance and knowing where people
are moving is essential information. So everyone in the team needs to be
downloading and using mobile apps like crazy – it’s the only way to keep up!
Build a collection of
devices
No matter how great the custom mobile application code works
on the emulator or the device in your hand you never know how it will behave in
the device of your user. This is very true for Android but just as important
for other platforms (even iOS). And in the crazy mobile hardware world, to get
a device even an year old can sometimes be extremely difficult. The only way to
go is to start building a collection of devices and not updating software all
the time!
Stay informed about
the appstores
This is something that is never quite needed in any other
platform. But in the mobile space the delivery marketplace (e.g. Apple
appstore, Google play etc.) is extremely important. They are like dictator
states with their own set of rules which change at a moment’s notice. Knowing
the appstore policies by heart, following news and blogs about them and reading
mail that you would have usually considered spam from them are an important
part of the mobile software building.
Know the basics in
latest app marketing
In most other branches of software the non-techies take over
marketing (and other such fuzzy things). But on this new and ever evolving
mobile apps software scene everyone needs to have an idea about app marketing.
Interaction designers need it to plan where to squeeze in the ask for money
line (or to know if it is appropriate to ask for money at that point or not)
and developers need it to know which part to speed-up the most, what tools to
use or the politically correct library to use in the interface. I am not
joking, it’s really a frontier science this mobile application software
development!
Deliver before the
deadline
OK, this one is always the best advice on paper. But
amazingly this is expected in the mobile apps development. Its expected since
it’s really one the things that may make the app survive as a business. The competition
is extreme and any new niche (as if there are any) gets filled up instantly. So
any delays are really disasters. As more and more companies get into this space
this is becoming even more difficult – so we may have survived with delays in
2008 with our first app but today it would have been a disaster.
So you have to plan for early deliveries. You do the usual
things you do in software projects for such thing – prioritize, compromise and
sometime throw in more people (forgetting that pesky book about mythical
man-months). But you do them right from the start!
I think that’s about all the non-tech lessons we took – but there
are a lot of tech lessons too. Another day, another article.