Five Features Businesses Need To Consider When Building A Mobile App

After con­sult­ing on the design and devel­op­ment of near­ly 200 mobile apps, I’ve picked the top five fea­tures I think busi­ness­es and brands need to con­sid­er when build­ing one. They’re not rock­et sci­ence fea­tures, but care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion on how they are used will yield the best usage out of your mobile app.

Before we get into it, let’s address one impor­tant ques­tion first: Why build a mobile app? Hir­ing a team of mobile app devel­op­ers can get pricey quick, so there should be a clear goal that ben­e­fits your brand or busi­ness and ulti­mate­ly dri­ves more traf­fic, users, engage­ment and, most impor­tant­ly, revenue.

Once you’ve deter­mined a clear path to the above, it’s essen­tial to look at an app as a piece of soft­ware that runs on a mobile phone. View it as some­thing unique­ly posi­tioned to lever­age the capa­bil­i­ties of a device and vast­ly more pow­er­ful than com­pet­ing soft­ware expe­ri­ences such as a mobile-for­mat­ted web­site or advertisement.

With that, here are my top picks for must-have fea­tures in your next mobile app:

In my opin­ion, this is the sin­gle most impor­tant fea­ture to lever­age in a mobile app. You basi­cal­ly have access to the mobile phone’s GPS and, there­fore, the where­abouts of your end user at any point in time. There is a mul­ti­tude of ways to use this infor­ma­tion, such as by serv­ing cus­tom loca­tion-based con­tent like coupons and pro­mos for retail loca­tions. You can also sim­pli­fy the deliv­ery of on-demand ser­vices or inter­act social­ly with users in close prox­im­i­ty. What­ev­er the use case is, hav­ing a tie-in with the device’s loca­tion-based ser­vices will add incred­i­ble val­ue to both you and your end user.

Not nec­es­sar­i­ly a fea­ture, per se, but where web­sites fail, mobile apps can pre­vail. Since a mobile app is a dis­crete piece of soft­ware run­ning on the client side, a lot can be per­formed in the User Inter­face with­out an inter­net con­nec­tion. App devel­op­ers should take advan­tage of this and design ways where a user can inter­act with the app — with­out a con­nec­tion — as seam­less­ly as pos­si­ble while queu­ing up requests and infor­ma­tion. This way, the infor­ma­tion or request can be sub­mit­ted and received once a good inter­net con­nec­tion is present.

For exam­ple, sync­ing a local data­base on the phone with one in the cloud allows a user to inter­act with the last known updat­ed piece of con­tent. And although it could be out­dat­ed by a few min­utes, it is still a vast­ly improved expe­ri­ence than hav­ing no data at all, a con­nec­tion error or a nev­er-end­ing load­ing animation.

This is one of my favorite fea­tures that often gets over­looked. Not all devices can ben­e­fit from this hard­ware tech­nol­o­gy, but devel­op­ers on iOS should cer­tain­ly take advan­tage of it. Why? Touch­ID — and, more recent­ly, FaceID — makes sign­ing into an app quick and seam­less and is rel­a­tive­ly sim­ple to exe­cute from an app devel­op­ment perspective.

Any fea­ture that sim­pli­fies usage goes a long way and is con­sid­ered a big win. These days, there can be sev­er­al dozen apps com­pet­ing for your users’ screen time, so what­ev­er you can do to make their lives eas­i­er is going to hav­ing a last­ing impact. This fea­ture also has the ben­e­fit of mak­ing your app feel more current.

This almost seems like a giv­en, but few app devel­op­ers actu­al­ly use this fea­ture prop­er­ly. In this case, few­er is bet­ter. There seems to be an ongo­ing sen­ti­ment in the indus­try that using every oppor­tu­ni­ty to get the atten­tion of your user is going to max­i­mize your usage and impres­sions. But this is often not the case for pro­duc­tiv­i­ty apps. Most users will use your app because it is tru­ly use­ful and solves an impor­tant need, whether for con­ve­nience or pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. Your push noti­fi­ca­tion should aug­ment this and be uti­lized for impor­tant updates and alerts.

We live in a strange new world where social rank­ing amongst mil­len­ni­als trumps just about every­thing in the real world. So impor­tant is the per­cep­tion we cre­ate for our audi­ence that apps like Insta­gram have won the world over with some­thing as sim­ple as pho­to sharing.

While apps that solve a true busi­ness need or unlock real-world con­ve­nience are going to be the most suc­cess­ful in receiv­ing con­sis­tent user engage­ment, hav­ing some ele­ment of gam­i­fi­ca­tion has become increas­ing­ly suc­cess­ful in dri­ving app views. Some­thing as sim­ple as a dai­ly reward, upvote or likes, or a point sys­tem based on app usage or fea­ture inter­ac­tion, can go a long way to engage your end user.

Since apps are per­sis­tent, record­ing a user’s engage­ment in an app is going to be much eas­i­er than, say, on a web­site, where a login or some sort of “cook­ie” needs to be uti­lized in order to peg that ses­sion to a spe­cif­ic user. This can get com­pli­cat­ed when a user uses mul­ti­ple web-enabled devices, requir­ing track­ing on each dis­crete device. Mobile apps do not suf­fer from these same com­plex­i­ties, and there­fore it is my strong rec­om­men­da­tion to max­i­mize mobile’s unique advantages.

Per­haps you thought I’d be reveal­ing some indus­try trade secret when putting this list togeth­er, but alas, the fea­tures that are crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant are com­mon-sense ones that are often over­looked or poor­ly exe­cut­ed. Many brands and star­tups alike are focused on the core fea­tures that are unique to their prod­uct and fail to address the free­bies in the app devel­op­ment space.

There still appears to be a lit­tle bit of an aura around mobile apps, where com­pa­nies feel that if they build it, users will auto­mat­i­cal­ly come. The app ecosys­tem is com­pet­i­tive, and users are increas­ing­ly picky when look­ing for an app they’re will­ing to com­mit time to. It’s para­mount to incor­po­rate your unique fea­tures while respect­ing your audi­ence’s time and giv­ing them the max­i­mum ben­e­fit from, and rea­sons to, use your app.

After con­sult­ing on the design and devel­op­ment of near­ly 200 mobile apps, I’ve picked the top five fea­tures I think busi­ness­es and brands need to con­sid­er when build­ing one. They’re not rock­et sci­ence fea­tures, but care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion on how they are used will yield the best usage out of your mobile app.

Before we get into it, let’s address one impor­tant ques­tion first: Why build a mobile app? Hir­ing a team of mobile app devel­op­ers can get pricey quick, so there should be a clear goal that ben­e­fits your brand or busi­ness and ulti­mate­ly dri­ves more traf­fic, users, engage­ment and, most impor­tant­ly, revenue.

Once you’ve deter­mined a clear path to the above, it’s essen­tial to look at an app as a piece of soft­ware that runs on a mobile phone. View it as some­thing unique­ly posi­tioned to lever­age the capa­bil­i­ties of a device and vast­ly more pow­er­ful than com­pet­ing soft­ware expe­ri­ences such as a mobile-for­mat­ted web­site or advertisement.

With that, here are my top picks for must-have fea­tures in your next mobile app:

In my opin­ion, this is the sin­gle most impor­tant fea­ture to lever­age in a mobile app. You basi­cal­ly have access to the mobile phone’s GPS and, there­fore, the where­abouts of your end user at any point in time. There is a mul­ti­tude of ways to use this infor­ma­tion, such as by serv­ing cus­tom loca­tion-based con­tent like coupons and pro­mos for retail loca­tions. You can also sim­pli­fy the deliv­ery of on-demand ser­vices or inter­act social­ly with users in close prox­im­i­ty. What­ev­er the use case is, hav­ing a tie-in with the device’s loca­tion-based ser­vices will add incred­i­ble val­ue to both you and your end user.

Not nec­es­sar­i­ly a fea­ture, per se, but where web­sites fail, mobile apps can pre­vail. Since a mobile app is a dis­crete piece of soft­ware run­ning on the client side, a lot can be per­formed in the User Inter­face with­out an inter­net con­nec­tion. App devel­op­ers should take advan­tage of this and design ways where a user can inter­act with the app — with­out a con­nec­tion — as seam­less­ly as pos­si­ble while queu­ing up requests and infor­ma­tion. This way, the infor­ma­tion or request can be sub­mit­ted and received once a good inter­net con­nec­tion is present.

For exam­ple, sync­ing a local data­base on the phone with one in the cloud allows a user to inter­act with the last known updat­ed piece of con­tent. And although it could be out­dat­ed by a few min­utes, it is still a vast­ly improved expe­ri­ence than hav­ing no data at all, a con­nec­tion error or a nev­er-end­ing load­ing animation.

This is one of my favorite fea­tures that often gets over­looked. Not all devices can ben­e­fit from this hard­ware tech­nol­o­gy, but devel­op­ers on iOS should cer­tain­ly take advan­tage of it. Why? Touch­ID — and, more recent­ly, FaceID — makes sign­ing into an app quick and seam­less and is rel­a­tive­ly sim­ple to exe­cute from an app devel­op­ment perspective.

Any fea­ture that sim­pli­fies usage goes a long way and is con­sid­ered a big win. These days, there can be sev­er­al dozen apps com­pet­ing for your users’ screen time, so what­ev­er you can do to make their lives eas­i­er is going to hav­ing a last­ing impact. This fea­ture also has the ben­e­fit of mak­ing your app feel more current.

This almost seems like a giv­en, but few app devel­op­ers actu­al­ly use this fea­ture prop­er­ly. In this case, few­er is bet­ter. There seems to be an ongo­ing sen­ti­ment in the indus­try that using every oppor­tu­ni­ty to get the atten­tion of your user is going to max­i­mize your usage and impres­sions. But this is often not the case for pro­duc­tiv­i­ty apps. Most users will use your app because it is tru­ly use­ful and solves an impor­tant need, whether for con­ve­nience or pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. Your push noti­fi­ca­tion should aug­ment this and be uti­lized for impor­tant updates and alerts.

We live in a strange new world where social rank­ing amongst mil­len­ni­als trumps just about every­thing in the real world. So impor­tant is the per­cep­tion we cre­ate for our audi­ence that apps like Insta­gram have won the world over with some­thing as sim­ple as pho­to sharing.

While apps that solve a true busi­ness need or unlock real-world con­ve­nience are going to be the most suc­cess­ful in receiv­ing con­sis­tent user engage­ment, hav­ing some ele­ment of gam­i­fi­ca­tion has become increas­ing­ly suc­cess­ful in dri­ving app views. Some­thing as sim­ple as a dai­ly reward, upvote or likes, or a point sys­tem based on app usage or fea­ture inter­ac­tion, can go a long way to engage your end user.

Since apps are per­sis­tent, record­ing a user’s engage­ment in an app is going to be much eas­i­er than, say, on a web­site, where a login or some sort of “cook­ie” needs to be uti­lized in order to peg that ses­sion to a spe­cif­ic user. This can get com­pli­cat­ed when a user uses mul­ti­ple web-enabled devices, requir­ing track­ing on each dis­crete device. Mobile apps do not suf­fer from these same com­plex­i­ties, and there­fore it is my strong rec­om­men­da­tion to max­i­mize mobile’s unique advantages.

Per­haps you thought I’d be reveal­ing some indus­try trade secret when putting this list togeth­er, but alas, the fea­tures that are crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant are com­mon-sense ones that are often over­looked or poor­ly exe­cut­ed. Many brands and star­tups alike are focused on the core fea­tures that are unique to their prod­uct and fail to address the free­bies in the app devel­op­ment space.

There still appears to be a lit­tle bit of an aura around mobile apps, where com­pa­nies feel that if they build it, users will auto­mat­i­cal­ly come. The app ecosys­tem is com­pet­i­tive, and users are increas­ing­ly picky when look­ing for an app they’re will­ing to com­mit time to. It’s para­mount to incor­po­rate your unique fea­tures while respect­ing your audi­ence’s time and giv­ing them the max­i­mum ben­e­fit from, and rea­sons to, use your app.