When building a mobile application, focusing merely on a single performing factor is like fixing a date with failure. For building a top-notch app, developers must seek improvement across all its aspects, which include user experience, app design, and graphical layout among more. And since it isn’t some donkey work, developers must continually look beyond the market standards to deliver best-of-the-breed apps.
Bad application performance is stonewall no business wants to meet. It affects customer experience and spoils any chance that the business might have had with market success. This underscores an important question — how can developers improve the performance of their apps?
Why Should You Focus on Mobile App Performance?
The importance of ensuring seamless mobile experience can’t be stressed enough. Studies reveal that more than 50% of mobile app users have faced problems, or had a bad experience with mobile apps more than once. Of these, only a handful of users continued using the app that failed to give them the expected user experience. The remaining gave up after trying it for the first time or maximum, after two times.
The mobile app market is advancing rapidly. Customers are demanding. And, a simple fact that there is no dearth of mobile applications that might replace your brainchild is a reason big enough that why you can’t compromise on the performance of your app. When you design an app that’s intuitive, easy-to-navigate, and aligned to user preferences, you attract customer growth and maximum revenue. The perfect example is garageband, it has every single characteristic of a good app.
The performance of a mobile application is measured along certain lines, such as the processing speed, the rate of recovery when the app crashes after reaching peaks of user activities, its interface quality and customization abilities, payment gateways, and more. Furthermore, the performance of an app is a direct influence of a range of factors, which includes the server, the device on which it’s accessed, network status, and the related programming of the application.
Below are the top 10 winning characteristics that can help improve the performance of a mobile application. Take a read.
Top 10 Winning Characteristics to Improve Mobile App Performance
1. Localized Experience:
This is a little expensive method to fix performance of your mobile application, but continues to gain traction as one of the most rewarding fixes for developers when it comes to improving the app performance. As compared to hybrid apps or web apps, native apps have a certain inherent advantage for developers. Since they are designed especially for a typical operating system as per the user’s device and are subsequently installed locally, they tend to remain more reliable and intuitive for the users. Moreover, native apps make the complete use of the device features on which they are accessed.
2. Resizing of Images:
Use of big images should be avoided since they can slow down the app significantly. And, using images too small can dull your app. Instead, go for image compressing. Choose a big image and compress it using web tools available for the task. Don’t worry about the quality, as these tools don’t compromise on it. Resizing images will avoid unnecessary use of bandwidth as well.
3. Handpicked Use of Features:
When it comes to features, it may not always be wise to give more to users because it may undermine the performance of your app at the end. For a stable app performance, add limited features and avoid offering an ‘overkill’ of an app. An overwhelming chunk of features might give utility headaches to users and they might prefer withdrawing themselves.
4. Backend as Strong as Frontend:
User experience is not solely reliant on the frontend features, such as app design and graphics. Factors, like Content Servers and Payment Processors, also affect the overall deliverability of a mobile app. Everything, from interface, user paths, payment gateways to exiting, needs to go through various channels of communication and processing to ensure that there’s nothing stalling the app. Remember that Frontend is the face of the application, backend is its backbone; an information center where all the data sits.
5. Work with Text:
Content plays a crucial role in determining the user experience of your app. While there’s no doubt that poor content can potentially drive your users away, a lot of textual content can also be a kryptonite to your app’s speed, resulting in downtimes, and force your users to move to other visually appealing alternatives. For as much time as it takes for images to load, you can make the text appear first and fill the space on your user’s mobile screen, so that he does not feel as though he is losing his time. Additionally, when mobile data capacity is limited, text only options will be more than welcome by your users.
6. Offline Functionality:
All your mobile app needs to work is an internet connection. However, at times, poor network quality can put a sudden stop on the app running on a device, which can frustrate the users. If you integrate offline functionality with your app, it could work in your favor and help you retain the customers better.
7. Performance Tests:
It would do you a lot of good if you can constantly check for performance gaps and correct them before they become a huge trouble. Performance tests are a crucial precaution, which can save you from the crisis when your app doesn’t work the way you would like it to.
8. Avoid Cache:
In order to create a cache stock of images and files, data will be consumed, costing time and network. It will inadvertently impact the rate of performance of the app. Avoid repetition and reformatting of cache to save time it takes for the app to process well.
9. Use Boot Loader:
Most large-sized apps make use of this concept and leave only the bare minimum at their application. That too, in separate assemblies! This speeds up the loading pace of the page and simplifies the whole process.
10. Splitting Assemblies:
All pages of your app will not be accessed at once, which is why, don’t go after loading all pages at once.
The Lowdown
From the user’s standpoint, mobile app performance is a crucial benchmark, which encourages him to continue his use of a particular app. At the same time, when the angle shifts to the developer’s vision, the same acts as a crucial growth driver, unlocking benefits like improved customer experience, maximum retention, and revenue generation. At a deeper level, conversion rates and open/push rates also become undisputable aspects in determining the success of the app.
The factors, which have been mentioned above, can help you work upon your mobile apps and optimize them for quick response. At the same time, constant monitoring at the frontend and backend will complete the entire picture for you.
The scope of mobile applications and their use has expanded 10X in the past few years. They have come to occupy a central position in people’s lives. From reminding them to drink water and booking their air flight for them, it seems that they have become as important to the human race, as the essentials of life itself. Make sure that you offer a successful, worthy and reliable offer to your customers and build a lasting partnership with them.