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Top Tips for Great User Interface Design

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Your app is so much more than just a collection of pages, connected to each other and constructed for a particular purpose. It’s an interface, a platform, a tool, and a virtual space designed to meet a specific need, or promote a company, or provide solutions to an identified problem. As such, careful thought needs to go into the way the interface looks and feels – you want your audience to have a connection with your app, and for them to feel that it has been designed with their wishes, thoughts, or lifestyle in mind. Here at Messapps, we always take great care to put across the idea that interface design isn’t some last-minute process, slapped on at the end of the project. The colors, fonts, style, and overall tone of your app need to be taken into consideration all the way through because they’ll not only inform the way the app comes together, they’ll also establish the way your target audience relates to all the content and usability within. You know your audience better than anyone, and you know the kind of people they are, the way in which your app will be used by them, and the vibe you want to get across. This is why being selective with your design, and thinking carefully about the way you want your app and your company overall to come across, is absolutely key to your app’s success. Let’s take a look at a few tips and approaches to bear in mind when you come to this crucial part of your app’s creation. Colour is Key Make no mistake, the color scheme of your app is of the utmost importance, and says a huge amount about the nature of the app or the company it is promoting. You can find pages and pages of information on the meanings of colors, what they suggest, and the effects they have on your audience online (and we’d recommend putting in the time to do some research in this regard), but we’ll condense the main points for you here. The first tip we’d really, really like to get across is this: don’t use a whole spectrum of colors and hues on your app. You’re a professional, and your app needs to come across as one which has been professionally designed. Start flinging more than four or five different colors onto your interface, and it’ll end up looking like it has been put together by a hyperactive preschooler… and it’ll give your user a headache within minutes of opening it. Choose just one, two, or at a push three colors which harmonize or contrast comfortably with each other, and you’ll be onto a winner. Here’s a quick rundown of what the main colors mean. Also we have a good useful information of how to design an accessible user interface for color blindness. Choosing the Right Tone Tone can mean different things to different people, but however you approach it, it’s something important to consider when designing your app. Consistency is what’s key: if your app is for a professional service or business, the whole app needs to reflect this (in the color scheme, in the words used, and in the formatting). The same can be said for apps designed to get people excited about an event or service – you don’t want to launch an app for a children’s entertainment channel, for example, which resembles an accountancy firm in its choice of wording or layout. The best way to approach tone is to put yourself in the shoes of your users and target audience. If you were a customer, what impression would you like to gain from the app or the company behind it? Would you expect something sincere and professional, lighthearted and fun, or approachable and friendly? Use this as the basis for your app design, and be sure to have absolute consistency on every single page. Fonts, Fonts, Fonts The text makes up 95% of digital communication, and as a result, typography is really important when it comes to app design. Surprised? You’re not alone. We often don’t think too much about fonts when we’re using apps or at least that’s how it seems. In fact, subconsciously, fonts do have a considerable impact on how we receive the information they convey on the screen, and as such, a lot of time and money goes into both designing and choosing the right font for the right purpose. Most newbies to the app design world might not give fonts much of a second thought (apart from the universal rule of ‘no comic sans’), but to overlook this would be a mistake. The font you choose says a lot about the app and the company behind it, and it’s well worth trialing a few different fonts to see which conveys the best ‘feel’ or tone. One top tip which works as something of a catch-all when choosing fonts is to go for a native font. Apple’s native font – San Francisco – was meticulously designed for legibility, clarity, and slickness, as was Google’s native font, Roboto. Both are available to use, and there’s no need to worry about their legibility and usability on Android and iOS systems, as you can imagine millions went into their design! However, if you’re looking for something with more personality or a distinctive slant, there are plenty of options out there: just make sure that your font fits the tone of your app, is easy to read, and doesn’t end up crowding the all-important ‘white space’ of your app as a result of being used. Keep it Stylish It’s not easy to give advice when it comes to choosing the right style for your app. After all, your idea of what great style might be could well be different to ours. However, within that very conundrum lies the most important advice we could give: you need to remember that your app is not for you, it’s for your customers. As such,

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When Your App Features are ‘So Extra’

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As every good app developer knows, apps exist to solve specific problems. The past decade or so has seen countless apps arise to become completely essential for a massive range of everyday tasks, professional situations, or for entertainment purposes… and even more fall by the wayside to be forgotten, or to be quickly rejected by their users, or to become utterly obsolete in the fast-paced world we all now inhabit. If you were to take a look through some of the most popular and indispensable apps in the world today, you’d most likely be able to identify on a handful of specific features they all share. Sure, they’re most likely attractive and streamlined and will have great levels of interaction, and speedy performance times. However, the key to their success most probably lies in one other key aspect of their creation, which revolves around their relative simplicity, and ability to focus on solving specific problems free from distractions or too many extra features. We all know it’s tempting to fill your apps with a whole load of additional material, extra pages, or special features. After all, as an app developer or producer, you want to show off the length and breadth of your expertise and include a range of the kind of state-of-the-art capabilities that you’ve most likely worked hard to complete. However, this blog is going to lay out why sometimes, stuffing your app with extras can be a real turn-off for your audience base, and why it can have the opposite effect you really want to achieve. The Key to App Development Success: Hold The Extras, Deliver the Goods By consistently reviewing your app all the way through its design and production, and by repeatedly either gaining feedback from clients or adopting the user’s point of view, you should be able to end up with a streamlined, elegant, and efficient app which focuses on solving the problem you’re trying to address. Resist the temptation (no matter how strong!) to fill your apps with fancy features and extras, and focus instead on achieving those end goals with style, effectiveness, and panache. Therein lies the secret to real app success! Focus On The Problem You’re Trying to Solve All the best apps exist to solve specific problems. If this sounds a bit generalistic, that’s intentional: after all, problems come in all forms, all shapes, and sizes, and affect us in all areas of our personal and professional lives. Whether your ‘problem’ involves making stock-taking in the workplace more swift and efficient, or staying in touch with your customer base, or alleviating boredom on the way to work (or indeed anything else) there either exists an app to tackle it, or one is most likely in production now or in the near future. Our jobs as app developers primarily involve addressing and taking action to solve those problems in the most efficient, elegant, and user-friendly way possible. As such, when constructing our apps, we should have the solution to such problems as our target and our endpoint. Anything else the app does, therefore, has to either support that ultimate goal or in some way facilitate the user towards solving the problem themselves. As soon as you start straying from that path and losing sight of the app’s purpose, you’re in dangerous territory… and it’s really important to consistently view the app from the user’s perspective throughout its entire production. This is essentially an issue of focus and streamlining. While a small number of additional features may indeed add charm, usability, or a sense of fun to your app, anything beyond the necessary will end up as a distraction, and result in your app being unwieldy or overcomplicated. How Much Is Too Much? It’s not easy to come up with an answer to such a question, as it really does depend on what your app is for, and the issue it has been built to address. However, most top app developers would say that as soon as you start to add any features which aren’t 100% relevant to your app’s purpose, you’ll already have crossed the line into the unnecessary and cumbersome. This, ultimately, comes down to your better judgment, and your knowledge of your customer base. As with all aspects of app development, you need to carefully and consistently put yourself in your users’ shoes, and approach the creation of your app from their point of view. If you genuinely feel that a couple of extra features can help the usability or enjoyability of the app without distracting from its main purpose, then go for it. However, if it is clear that the extra features mainly serve to confuse the user or lead them away from its primary function, it’s probably besting you leave them on the cutting room floor, so to speak. Learn to Prioritise When you’re in the development stage of your app, it’s a good idea to spend some real time prioritizing features and thinking carefully about how your app is going to be used in real life and in real situations. Often, once released, apps take on something of a life of their own and end up being used in ways the developer might not have expected. While this is difficult to prepare for, it’s still of the utmost importance to focus on your priorities and make sure that those primary features are as smooth and as usable as possible prior to launch. One way of doing this is to split your plans into two key categories: ‘essential’, and ‘desirable’. Your ‘essential’ list should be pretty short, as these factors will be the driving force behind what your app is intended to do. Your ‘desirable’ list can be as long as you want it to be… but unless the features and extras on that list actively support the function of your essential features, the vast majority of them will have to be cast aside. Who knows? Maybe they’ll make it onto your next app, instead. Quality,

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How To Solve Problems With Innovative Apps

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Life is, unfortunately, full of problems. From the smallest annoyances to the most monumental time-wasting experiences, and from drops inefficiency to regular hiccups that slow down our day, there is no shortage of problems, issues, and complications that need to be fixed. Thankfully, the world is also full of innovative, forward-thinking, and savvy app developers, too. Every day, app creatives and programmers are out there not only solving problems with mobile apps and platforms but also identifying and anticipating problems that can be easily dealt with via an app at some point in the future. As we increasingly rely on our smartphones and other mobile devices in our working lives, our social lives, and when we’re alone, it comes as no real surprise that we’re also increasingly relying on apps to help us through our day to day tasks. Problem-solving is a key part of the app developer’s job, and it is in the resolution of everyday problems or workplace issues that the app industry truly shines. In this article, we’re going to be taking a quick look at the world of problem-solving with apps, and how app developers can solve problems and fix issues more creatively, effectively, and efficiently with the apps they come up with. Read on to find out more! Custom Apps: A Solution for Every Problem Custom and tailor-made apps really are perfect for addressing and solving a vast array of problems. Almost every single industry out there is currently investing in new apps for speeding things up, improving morale, reaching out to customers, and encouraging engagement in ways hitherto unimagined. Members of the public, also, are using apps to solve a massive range of problems from the mundane – for example finding more efficient ways of staying in touch with friends – to the complex, highly specialized, or location-specific. A considerable chunk of the app developer’s job is to focus on and identify these problems and to come up with elegant solutions which work for their users, customers, or clients. So long as our minds are focused, our perspectives are clear, and our goals clearly defined, it seems there’s no problem too big or too small to be solved with an app. Why Are Apps Ideal For Problem Solving? There are plenty of reasons why apps are making lives and jobs easier all across the globe. Never before in human history has mankind so literally had all the answers at their very fingertips – our mobile devices and smartphones give us the opportunity to access apps built for highly specific purposes wherever we may be. Need a solution for rota management at work while you’re on your morning commute? It can be done in an instant with an app. Need to research something prior to an interview, or find out where the nearest branch of your favorite coffee shop is, or order something in for fast delivery while on the go? Apps provide easy, accessible, and speedy solutions. We’ve become incredibly accustomed to turning to apps for a whole load of different solutions to a massive array of problems, and there’s one key reason for this: the majority of apps out there in circulation have been constructed and designed with those very problems in mind. As app developers, it is our job to identify such problems and come up with nifty and effective answers to them in the form of custom apps. This level of focus, and this way of working, really does make mobile apps ideal for problem-solving in a hundred thousand different ways. So, how can we as app developers improve our skills when it comes to solving problems via the apps we produce? Let’s take a look at a handful of steps that should lead to more effective and popular results. Carefully Identify the Problem In order to come up with a truly efficient and effective solution, we first need to understand and identify the problem with pinpoint accuracy. When creating an app designed to solve a specific problem, we absolutely have to understand that problem inside-out and figure out where it comes from, how it arises, and what the app user is looking for when it comes to the solution provided. By deeply understanding the root cause of the problem, the likelihood of it occurring (or repeating), and the sorts of complications it brings, we can make ourselves more efficient and productive app developers. Whether the problem is a specific workplace conundrum, an issue with timeliness or time-wasting, or simply a problem of having too much time to kill (and let’s face it, a huge number of apps out there are designed to tackle boredom first and foremost), the problem itself should always be our starting point. Research Other Solutions and See What They are Lacking The chances are, your custom app isn’t going to be the only one tackling any given problem. Even if the issue you’re addressing is extremely niche and relatively unique, it’s likely that there will be similar apps out there doing comparable things and solving similar problems. All good app developers will know the ins and outs of the apps they are competing against. Our job isn’t to imitate others, it is to figure out exactly what other solutions are lacking, and come up with ways of superseding them. Perhaps you can solve the problem more quickly with your app. Perhaps you can take a totally different route towards solving the problem, or you can try approaching it from a different angle which leaves the user more satisfied. Essentially, there are two routes you can take from this point, which are: Essentially, this involves looking at the solutions which are currently out there on the App Store and finding ways to make those solutions faster, more efficient, and overall more effective. No app is absolutely perfect, but by gaining that deep understanding of the problem and identifying what the solution looks like, you can certainly figure out ways of making existing solutions considerably better for

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How Apps are Changing Healthcare

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There’s no doubt whatsoever in our minds that apps have already changed pretty much every aspect of modern life. In workplaces all over the world, apps are used to increase efficiency, speed up communications between co-workers, and reach out to customers and target audiences. In our social lives, we chat with friends via online mobile apps. We get our news from apps. We order our food from apps or check when the next train is coming, or look for our dream jobs from the safety of our mobile devices. The list goes on, and on, and on. There’s one profession and aspect of everyday life, however, which is being transformed by smartphone and mobile device apps in ways which, just ten years ago, would hardly be imaginable. The healthcare industry is one which is naturally open to innovation, progress, and precision, which makes it absolutely ideal for the ever-burgeoning app market. Individuals on both sides of the healthcare spectrum – that is, both healthcare professionals and their patients or members of the public – have recently been benefiting from a new wealth of healthcare-oriented mobile apps, which aim to speed up otherwise time-consuming processes, allow more transparency in the industry, aid with training, and much, much more besides. It’s an exciting new dawn for app developers, and it’s an aspect of app programming, design, and overall creation which is bringing out the brightest and best in the app market. Who knows what new innovation in healthcare apps may arise in the near future? Let’s take a look at the here and now of healthcare apps, and consider how they are transforming this most dynamic and ever-changing industry for the better. The Rise of Telemedicine There are thousands of apps which have been designed with one clear purpose in mind: to connect people and allow for greater ease of communication. Just think about it for a moment – when you want to meet up with your mates after work, are you more likely to phone them individually and have a conversation about it, or are you going to set up a Whatsapp or Messenger group chat, and sort it out via an app? Increasingly, most of us are opting for the latter. In the field of medicine, similar things are starting to occur. Telemedicine isn’t something particularly new; phone lines for doctors and remote diagnoses have been around for as long as telecommunication has. However, with the prevalence of and improvements made in messaging services and photo and video messaging, it has become a powerful force for good in the healthcare industry. With a dedicated telemedicine app, doctors and other healthcare professionals have the capability to chat to and offer advice to their patients remotely with the greatest of ease. What’s more, the rise in telemedicine has given many healthcare professionals the ability to work remotely, or set up more flexible schedules, meaning semi-retired doctors wanting to still lend a hand, or healthcare professionals taking time off to raise families etc can still get involved via online diagnoses or app-based advice giving. Improved Self-Diagnosis We’ve all experienced the fear we feel when we find ourselves experiencing unusual or unexpected symptoms, and don’t know what’s causing them. Whether it’s a blemish on the skin that wasn’t there yesterday, a persistent headache that won’t go away, or a pain in a certain part of the body, it’s only natural to want to figure out exactly what’s going on and find a way to make it stop. Healthcare apps are able to draw upon years of medical research, and set up complex algorithms and systems which allow patients to key in their symptoms, and self-diagnose their ailments with increasing accuracy. On top of this, the same algorithms and apps are massively helpful in triage situations, when doctors or nurses are trying to examine a patient’s symptoms and come to some sort of conclusion as what to do next. Accessible Patient Data on the Go As everyone knows, apps are fantastic for storing and calling up data at just the push of a button. Gone are the days of overflowing doctor’s filing cabinets, spilling out with mountains of paperwork concerning a lifetime of patient records. Apps are replacing the need for handwritten data, and are also replacing the need for carrying such sensitive paperwork around with you while visiting patients or moving from one ward to another. With the right app loaded with the right information, healthcare professionals are able to call up a specific patient’s medical record in a matter of seconds, saving precious time which might end up being absolutely crucial. Emergency Notifications Push notifications and other types of app notifications are used for countless different reasons, and app developers and users alike love them, as they boost engagement and keep people informed as to any key developments the app feels they would benefit from knowing about. While most of us might get regular notifications telling us an old friend is trying to get in touch with a message, or that our regular coffee shop has a great offer on, just imagine how useful it would be for doctors, who would get notifications informing them of an emergency which needs their attention! This has proven to be particularly useful for nurses and doctors working as part of a bank, or agency staff who are continually on call. No matter where they are or what they are doing, a notification on their smartphone has the potential to inform them that they are needed at a certain address or hospital, allowing them to get there quickly and get on the job. It’s no exaggeration to say that push notifications on mobile apps are saving lives as you read this! The Dawn of AR for Surgeons and Other Medical Professionals Make no mistake, the virtual reality world is more than upon us, and VR and AR (augmented reality) is transforming the medical community as much as it is transforming a whole host of other industries

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Research: If There Is An Audience For Your App?

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Do you want to know if there’s any interest in your app or app idea? Not sure how big the market for your app is? Does your app offer the functionalities people really need? These are often pain points for those who develop and market mobile apps. They are often guilty of developing and designing a product without an end user in mind. Having a great idea for an app simply isn’t enough. An app should provide value for a specific group of people. If you take time to define your target audience first, you will save a lot of time and money during later app development stages. Answer the questions at the start of this article and you’ll find out “what your market thinks”. It will give you an idea whether your app will be a success. But how can you do this? Implement early access feedback surveys Let’s say you already have a great app idea and started development. To make it a success, you need to be aligned with your audience. Epic Games, creator of worldwide success game Fortnite, used online surveys in combination with user analytics, social analysis and community sentiment in order to gain deeper insights into how the audience felt about the company and their products. Keeping track of how users perceive the game has always been an important part of the development process for Epic Games. Especially in early access, when there is often still a large amount of balancing and development to be done. Due to their feedback loop, the dialogue between company and audience became of significant importance to the Fortnite developers, who relied on first-hand feedback to improve the quality of their game. This approach lead to a product that has been honed and refined in the interests of the wider community, and the conversation between players and company has ultimately led to a better-finished and very successful product. This focus on listening to the needs of early access app users as well as adapting and implementing the requested changes that gave the developers of Epic Games a competitive advantage over others. Soft launch your app So you have your idea validated, but how do you get your app to really stand out.75% of users uninstall an app within 90 days after installing. You don’t want that. You can waste a lot of money on your app if you don’t test the waters first. A soft launch is a perfect way to optimize your app before you move to a  widespread release. What is a soft launch? A soft launch is a preview release of your product to a limited audience. It allows developers and app creators to acquire a small group of users, receive early customer feedback, and get rid of bugs that you missed during testing. Another great advantage of a soft launch is the ability to increase user retention. Did you know that77% of new apps get deleted just 3 days after the download? Improving user retention should be a top priority. Soft launches give you excellent user feedback. It’s important to know what your users liked and disliked about your app. If you receive similar feedback from multiple users, then you can clearly identify a part of your project that needs some work. As you can see in the graph above, 58% of Android and 63% of iOS users find new apps via the app store. Soft launching is also a good opportunity to see if your app store pages are optimized. App store optimization is a crucial part of your user acquisition strategy so it’s important to get this right early on, it will help you build an audience that you can leverage in later stages to get the word out. Combine an interactive prototype with a survey Create an interactive prototype to draw people to your app and combine it with a survey to get valuable feedback from your users. Creating a prototype combined with a survey offers several advantages, it gives you invaluable feedback from your users. By analyzing yours and your target market preferences you can make informed decisions on how to move forward. Secondly, it allows you to validate your idea. With a prototype, you bring the user interface design to life. User testing helps identify potential improvements. It can bring new ideas to the table and confirm which direction to take during the development process. Since solutions to problems are given early, the development process will be more cost-effective in the long run. Ask questions to make more informed decisions As a method of gathering large volumes of feedback from your audience, surveys are a highly useful market research tool that can be administered for a relatively low cost, in comparison with other data collection methods. This makes surveys or polls highly useful for app builders with an active social following. Take Bowlcut Garms, who regularly use surveys to gain marketing insights, as an example. In the past, Bowlcut used their social media to collect first-hand survey data on topics such as what products customers prefer, or how audience members first heard about the brand. This feedback can then be used to improve their overall product line, and will also provide a wealth of easily understandable data for the team to continue to fine-tune their strategy in the future. However, in this example, these questions have been asked solely via Facebook. Be aware of respondent bias. Assume that these users may respond differently to those who are surveyed through different channels such as email or the phone. Therefore if you are looking to replicate a similar approach, it is always advised to ask questions through multiple channels to reduce any bias that could skew your results. Conclusion Nowadays, having a great app idea just isn’t enough. Your app should offer great value to your audience and finding out who exactly that your audience is, is an essential step to success. Hopefully, with these tips and tactics you can turn

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Why An App Must Be Part of Your Brand

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Walk down any street. Sit on any metro. Step into any cafe, bar, museum, supermarket, or park. What will you see? Dozens of people engaged with their mobile devices, catching up with the latest news, chatting with their friends, answering emails, or checking out what’s going on with their favorite brands. We are living in an age in which the mobile device is king; it has become our primary conduit with the outside world, the mirror through which we connect with almost everything around us This alone should be reasoned enough to ensure that a custom app is a key part of your brand. Marketing and connecting with your public, your clients, your customers, and your prospective customers has always been a challenge faced by every company but apps have opened doors in the system which have made the process a lot easier, and a considerable amount more effective. More and more, your customers expect and demand as much simplicity and user-friendliness from the brands they love; and whether you run an e-commerce brand, a coffee shop, or a lifestyle company, you can undoubtedly benefit massively be offering your public an app with which they can heighten their connection with you. Branding is, at essence, all about communication. It’s a way of communicating ideas, your identity, the feeling your customers get when they interact with your brand. As such, bringing a custom app into your communications arsenal is never, ever a bad idea and today, we’re going to be taking a closer look at a few specific reasons why. A Constant Advert On Your Customer’s Smartphone Your brand needs as much visibility as possible in order to make it truly effective. What better brand visibility can you get than a constant reminder of your presence and services on a smartphone screen? When your users download your custom app from the App Store, they aren’t just downloading a nice suite of your information and functions. They’re also inviting an icon onto their home screens, which acts as an advert for your brand each time they open their phones to make a call, check out the latest news, or conduct their everyday business. With this kind of exposure, you’ll be more likely to get repeat visits and see a fantastic ROI on your initial expenditure. Brand Interaction on the Go Apps are brilliant for facilitating communication and interactions; that’s why social network apps have become such a major feature of our everyday lives and way of contacting and keeping up with our friends. With a smartphone app, your brand is essentially creating a portal of interaction, facilitating communications between your company and your customers. Whether they’re using your app for its intended purpose or simply browsing through updates, the app is a fantastic way of ensuring interactions remain easily accessible, no matter where your customers are, or what they might be doing. Who’d have thought you’d be able to promote your services to customers when they’re sitting on a bus or enjoying their morning cup of coffee? With a well-made app, that’s exactly what your brand will be doing every single day. Simple Re-Engagement One of the major challenges all brands face is ensuring that customers and the public remain engaged with your services. In the past, this meant sending out lengthy newsletters or agonizing for hours over the content of email marketing campaigns. Nowadays, apps have made this problem almost disappear altogether, thanks to the existence of push notifications. When your customers download your app, they’ll have the opportunity to accept regular updates and notifications from your team. They might be on their daily commute, in a meeting, or hanging out with friends and suddenly, a little message will pop up on their smartphones, presenting some new offer or promotion, or informing them that some new material has been uploaded to the app. The result? Easy re-engagement, and a spike in your visitor numbers. Simple! Open Channels of Communication Customers nowadays are more demanding than ever when it comes to feeling valued, feeling like they are part of the “brand family”, and feeling as though their voices are being heard. Brand apps have allowed this side of the business to take a massive leap forward, as they open a clear channel of communication between the brand and the customer, resulting in fantastic levels of engagement and satisfaction. Whether you choose to encourage communication via forms, instant messages, chatbots, or social media linkups, your custom app will allow your customers to get in touch easily, quickly, and on the go. It’s a vital part of modern business and has the power to take your brand further than ever before. Sales, Specials, Discounts, and Promotions Your customers love to hear about special offers, discount events, promotions, and sales and like to feel like they are “in the know”; about secret deals and opportunities for saving money with your brand. Make sure your customers never miss another promotion, by ensuring you have an app which sends out push notifications or direct messages, letting them know of all the savings opportunities you have. It’s a brilliantly simple and effective way of not only boosting your profits and ROI but also ensuring that your brand engagement levels are sky-high, too. Every time a brand we love sends out a notification of a special offer, we automatically feel as though we’re part of a tight circle of valued customers and that’s the key to branding success, no matter what type of business you run. Apps For Brands: Bringing Your Customers Closer As we approach the third decade of the twenty-first century, there’s no getting away from the fact that apps have become a major aspect of branding for companies of all shapes and sizes. With enhanced communication possibilities, brilliantly inventive ways of encouraging engagement and boosting visibility, and new methods of increasing sales, apps have changed the world of branding forever. If you manage a brand and haven’t yet got yourself a custom app, there’s simply

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How Apps are Improving the Finance Industry

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The world of finance is, by its very nature, a fast moving and quickly evolving one. It wasn’t so long ago that banks and financial companies were utterly opaque and altogether rather mysterious organizations; they involved booming, marble-floored buildings, where quietly serious people sat behind grated windows, filling in papers and arranging cash transactions with a deadening air of solemnity. With the rise of the internet and online banking, however, things changed beyond all recognition. Suddenly, banks and similar businesses were keen to be our friends – they sent out friendly emails, and adopted brightly-colored websites, which allowed us to keep on top of our finances without having to ever leave the house. Now, however, we are very much in the era of the smartphone app, and banks and other aspects of the finance industry and rushing over each other and themselves to stay on top of the latest trends in on-the-go financial tools, mobile device banking, and ease-of-use programs to ensure we can do what we want with our money, no matter where we might be. This, of course, is only one side of the current finance industry. With the arrival of cryptocurrencies and a whole host of new investment apps, savings apps, and stock trading tools, the finance industry has sped up to a blistering pace. The app developers are naturally leading the field when it comes to financial innovation, and customers are becoming more and more demanding for user-friendly applications with which to handle, transfer, invest, withdraw, and share their money. These are exciting times indeed for both the banking and the app industry, and there’s little doubt about the fact that apps have blazed new trails in this sector, making our financial lives a whole lot simpler, and a whole lot more interesting. This week, we’re taking a deeper look at some of the most fascinating developments in the world of financial industry apps, and looking at how a custom app for financial companies could help take your services to the next level. Online Banking, App-Style Online banking isn’t exactly new – it’s been around for more or less as long as high-speed internet has, and for many of us, it’s a basic part of our everyday lives. Thanks to huge leaps in data encryption and security, however, online banking apps have already started to become highly commonplace among the general public, and they appear to be getting better year by year. With a custom app for your bank or financial company, online banking becomes simpler than ever. Not only can you keep track on your incomings and outgoings, and make simple transfers, set up direct debits, and check your balance all in one place, an online banking app also gives you the opportunity to stay updated with all the news relating to the bank and your financial life. On top of this, a custom banking app also opens a smooth channel of communication between the individual and the bank, meaning higher levels of customer satisfaction, and fewer missed opportunities to promote new services or to upsell features. Another key benefit of mobile banking apps is the presence of push notifications. With notifications, a bank can easily remind its customers when money has entered their account, when payments are due, or when certain promotions come along that the bank deems appropriate or beneficial to tell the customer all about. Make no mistake, banking apps for smartphones are definitely here, and they’re not going to disappear any time soon! Easier Access to Money and Payments Today’s public demand faster, easier transactions than ever before. The rise of contactless payments upped the ante for banking and financial sector apps, and encouraged a flurry of activity in making everything more swift, more user-friendly, and more efficient from a technological point of view. Over the past few years, we’ve seen how apps have made access to one’s funds far simpler, and payments at shops, cafes, and elsewhere via smartphone app have become considerably more commonplace. With such easy access to money, the process of spending and carrying out financial transactions has had the stress completely removed, resulting in happier individuals, and a greater level of trust in financial institutions. Peer to Peer Payments Back in the day, we used to have to carry cash pretty much everywhere with us. If you were meeting a friend for a drink in a pub, we had to do all we could to avoid the embarrassment of running out of physical funds by the end of the evening, and relying on our mates to buy us that final drink (which we would, of course, pay back the next time). Today, things have become so much simpler thanks to the arrival of peer-to-peer payment apps, allowing us to quickly and easily send funds over to our friends, colleagues, or clients in the flash of an eye. Whether you actually use these app functions after a drinking session at the bar with your friends or not is incidental – the number of possibilities that these apps present is, simply, endless. Borrowing, lending, sharing, paying, spending, and helping with money has been transformed completely by peer-to-peer payment apps, and the world is most probably a happier place as a result. It’s a genius idea, once again facilitated by better protection schemes and data encryption, and it’s one which the millennials and generation Z users have leapt upon wholeheartedly. Stress-free, super fast, and lacking any awkwardness or complications, peer to peer payment systems have changed the way we see and use our money forever. Trading Stocks and Cryptocurrency No article about banking apps in the 21st century would be complete without some mention of cryptocurrencies. Whether they’re a flash in the pan or a whole new way of thinking about money and investments, cryptocurrencies couldn’t have arisen in the bombastic way that they did without the existence of apps facilitating their use. Market traders, blockchain enthusiasts, digital prospectors, and hopeful investors alike have leapt on board the

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How To Turn Your Dream Into Business

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We’ll be providing you with a number of stages to tick off as you go, and we’ve seen client after client reach considerable success by following this process, and ensuring all the tasks on this list have been thoroughly carried out. Over the years, we’ve made a number of custom apps and smartphone applications for clients who really have taken their dreams and run with them and if they could do it, so could you. The sky really is the only limit! Research Your Competitors No product or brand exists as an island, completely distinct and separate from everything else. No matter what you do, make, or provide for your prospective customers, there will be someone else out there doing something similar, if not the same. Getting to know how they work, how their customers tick, and what makes them successful is a key part to getting your dream off the ground. There are a whole number of ways you can get to know your competitors. You can, for example, look into reviews left by real customers (the wonders of the internet mean that almost every service imaginable has by now been reviewed somewhere online), become a customer yourself, or hire someone to compile some competitor research for you. However, you go about it, this is a vital stage of the process. It will allow you to see the minimum standard you’ll have to reach in order to effectively compete, as well as give you a chance to select your pricing, your level of service, and think of ways to stand out and attract a loyal customer base of your own. Conduct Market Research It would be unthinkable to launch any kind of product or service without conducting plenty of market research first. You need to know your customer base inside out before you go into any kind of promotional campaign, and before you finish honing what your business does. Failing to do adequate market research could see you end up being far wide of the mark you need to hit, and struggling to make the impact you need to be making. Market research comes in many stages, but the most important are: What is it your customers want? What is the market calling out for, and desperate to see become available? Once you understand what your customers expect, demand, and need to see from your brand, you’ll be able to tailor every step of the process to satisfy them and get them on side. Every business needs to address a specific problem your customer is facing, whether they realize it or not. Once you’ve identified the precise nature of that problem, so many of the steps you’ll need to take will fall into place. The nature of your campaign, the tone you’ll use to address your customers, the precise details of your product or service, the features of your custom app all of these things will exist in relation to the problem-solving nature of your market research. What sort of content does your audience respond best to? Do they like informative, educational content? Funny material that’s good for sharing on social media? Serious and thought-provoking content? Do some research into their social media habits, and you’ll be able to keep this in mind when promoting your business. Identify Your Target Audience The success of your business depends hugely upon your knowledge of your target audience. You need to know these individuals very well indeed, and learn as much as you can about them. You’ll need to identify exactly who your target audience are by using precise demographics, and will need to know details such as their: No product or service is right for everybody, and casting your net too widely only leads to your message being diluted. Hone your attention as precisely as you can, and your content, marketing, and business plan will benefit hugely as a result. Your Vision and Budget It’s your passion. Your dream. Your key to success and prosperity. As such, it’s all about your vision and that vision needs to be as clear as day in order for you to know how to proceed. You’ll need to spend some real time getting everything in order, whether that means drawing up detailed business plans, consulting with expert designers and project managers, or consulting an expert app development agency to get your digital campaign and app creation underway. It’s something which takes a huge amount of effort, but get it right, and it will all pay off in the end! Another key aspect of your vision is your budget. For most of us, we don’t have access to an inexhaustible well of funds (although that would be wonderful!), and as such, knowing exactly how much you can afford to spend is vital to the success of your dream. Write up a budget as early on as you can, and stick to it as closely as possible. With each stage of your business, you’ll need to rewrite and review your budget, to check how much money you’ll have access to for the next stage to come. Build The Model Prototypes and models are essential when turning your dream into your business. Such things will help you gain a deeper understanding of your products and services, and will give you a chance to gather feedback and iron out issues before your official launch. This is especially relevant if you’re planning on using a custom app for your business. Apps often need to go through several drafts before completion, as usability and smooth transitions are key to the success of an app. Make sure you involve several individuals from your target audience (as well as different backgrounds) who can provide feedback on your models before you move onto the final stages. Stay Focused Turning your dream into your business can be hard. It can be exhausting. There will be times when you’ll wonder if all the effort is worthwhile, and when you will struggle to see the light

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5 Marketing Tactics to Generate App Downloads

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When launching a new app, it is likely that you will pay attention to one metric above all others: the number of downloads you generate. Generating downloads is about far more than simply building a killer app. If no-one knows that your app is out there, or if they can’t find it easily, you are losing out on many potential users. Marketing a new app is all about building momentum, and in most cases this will mean engaging with users (and potential users) to generate glowing reviews, word-of-mouth marketing, and recommendations by key influencers. If done correctly, the initial marketing for your app will provide returns many times greater than your initial investment. Once you have your first 1000 downloads, you should leverage the experience of your first customers to build a ‘snowball’ effect, where every new user of your app generates more customers. There are some easy ways of achieving this. Let’s look at the five most important. Prioritize App Store Optimization App Store Optimization (ASO) is a set of techniques that seek to maximize the visibility of your app on the app stores it is listed on. ASO is essential for any new app because before you have built a brand name, most users will search for a new app using keywords. At a basic level, ASO involves optimizing each metadata element in your app. This includes the title of your app, the screenshots users see when they view it on an app store, and the keywords you use to describe it. Despite its importance, ASO is often overlooked in the rush to get a finished app to market: having spent hundreds of hours designing an app, there is a tendency to regard ASO as an afterthought. Whilst the way in which app stores rank apps can appear complicated, there are plenty of online tutorials to teach you the basics of ASO, and any quality app development company should be able to help you in achieving good visibility. Make Your App Free at Launch One of the most effective tools to generate your first downloads is to offer your app for free. The majority of successful apps – and even those that generate income via paid downloads – will be free for a few weeks after launch, in order to get attention from influencers. Whether offering your app for free represents a good long-term strategy for you will depend on your business model. If you plan to generate income from selling the app, it is still worth offering a free introductory period. Similarly, you could offer a free version of your app with limited functionality (or ads), and encourage users to upgrade. Offering your app for free will also generate advantages beyond increased downloads. App stores rate free apps higher than paid-for apps, giving your app a much-needed boost during its early stages. Ask Your Users to Rate & Review your App One of your biggest assets, during the initial launch of your app, are the people who download it first. You should value them, and use their experience to generate marketing momentum. The first few reviews that your app receives are a critical part of its success, and many apps are killed off by just one or two users posting an early negative review. You should encourage users to review your app and do so at times when they are likely to give positive feedback. This can be done with pop-up windows that appear at times when users are likely to feel positive about your app. Engage in social media Building momentum behind your app involves more than just encouraging users to leave feedback. Most people get their information about which apps to download via social media (read more about SMM in apps promotion), and as a result it is important to nurture and encourage your early users to talk about your app on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Encouragement to do so should be built into your app, at least for the first few months. It is also important to respond to such postings as quickly as possible. This can involve saying thank you for positive comments on social media, but should also include prompt responses to any criticism. Even highly negative comments can often be quickly defused by responding to users’ comments, and doing so provides an opportunity to turn a potentially damaging experience into one that builds trust in your brand. Influencer and Community Outreach Influencers have a lot of influence! As a result, they should form a key part of your marketing strategy. A positive recommendation by the right influencer can significantly improve the number of downloads you are able to generate: research has found that 70% of millennials pay attention suggestions put forth by their influencer peers. Reaching out to influencers involves a few key steps. First, if you haven’t already done so, you need to identify the key influencers in your sector. Second, offer these individuals incentives to download and review your app, even if this is as simple as a free download. You should also try, as much as possible, to limit any negative feedback from influencers, but if this occurs it is not the end of the world. Engaging with their concerns can turn a potentially disastrous situation into a chance to show that you are a company who listens! Stay Engaged! Ultimately, you should see the process of launching a new app as a collaborative project between you and your customers. Each user who downloads your app is a potential asset in generating further downloads, and so engaging with your early adopters is critical. This means getting the basics right  – such as the pricing and name of your app – but also encouraging users to leave reviews, to mention your app on social media, and to give you feedback on aspects that could be improved. With the right strategy, you should be well on your way to generating millions of downloads and becoming the next killer app.

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How To Keep Users Aware Of Delivery Status

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There is nothing more frustrating than waiting for a package, but many e-commerce companies seem to forget this. Customers can easily become frustrated if products they have ordered online do not arrive quickly, and this is a common source of negative user feedback for many e-commerce companies. From the company’s perspective, such negative feedback can undermine the success of an otherwise effective marketing strategy: all the work that has gone into marketing a product, and convincing customers to buy it, can be undone by slow delivery. Most e-commerce companies are still dependent on third-party couriers, and so unfortunately little can be done about late or missed deliveries. However, the frustration caused by this can be effectively reduced by providing your customers with a system for tracking their packages. Today, there is really only one way to inform your customers as to the delivery status of their packages: an app. Any quality app development company will be able to provide a system for updating customers, often in real time, about precisely where their package is. The best way to implement a delivery tracking system on your app will depend on your specific circumstances, but these systems commonly make use of three tools: a standard status tracker, a way of pushing notifications to users’ phones, and GPS tracking. Status Tracking Systems that track the delivery status of packages have been around for a long time: Amazon.com rolled out such a system almost 20 years ago, and today it forms an important part of their customer experience. While such systems are not new, today customers have different expectations of them. In short, not offering a delivery status tracker as part of your website or (even better) your app is likely to cause frustration among your users, and eventually generate negative feedback. Systems to inform your customers about delivery status do not need to be complicated, but they do need to be integrated into any other systems you use to communicate with your customers. When developing an app for an e-commerce store, a way of tracking the delivery of items should form part of the initial design brief. Such is the ubiquity and importance of these systems that almost any app development company will be able to offer you off-the-shelf solutions. At the most basic level, these could consist of a link to your courier’s website, and a small script that copies a tracking number into an automated form. Status Change Notifications A more complex implementation of a delivery status system can involve push notifications. In these systems, a notification is delivered to a user’s phone whenever the delivery status of their package changes: when it is dispatched, for instance, or when it has been delivered. Systems like this have long been standard in sectors where transit time is a critical factor, such as in healthcare and food supply chains. Nowadays, they are being used for more everyday applications. Pushing notifications to user’s phones, however, requires that utility is balanced with convenience. Though users commonly report that they want to be kept informed as to the status of their packages, too many notifications will simply annoy them. The trick, therefore, is to send enough notifications to provide useful information, while not bombarding users with too much information. Used correctly, delivery status notifications can also be used for other purposes. Many extra elements can be included in a standard notification, for instance. These might advertise items similar to those being delivered, or provide an opportunity for a user to give feedback. A particularly effective technique is to ask for user feedback in a notification that an item has been delivered: having just received their eagerly anticipated new product, customers are likely to leave glowing reviews! GPS Tracking The state of the art, when it comes to delivery status systems, is the use of GPS tracking. In these systems, a user can see precisely where their package is on a map, and can watch it speed its way across the country. In a similar way to push notifications, your decision on whether to use a system like this should depend on an understanding of the needs of your customers. In some cases, providing such functionality will simply not be required. On the other hand, providing as much information as possible to your customers can greatly reduce the time you spend responding to queries and questions. Using a GPS tracking system also has another huge advantage: it presents your company as one that embraces new technology, and goes the extra mile. Such systems are still quite rare, and users are typically impressed by the ability to see where their packages are in real time, and as such providing this service can help to cultivate an image of your brand as technologically advanced. Integration and Partner Selection Implementing any of these systems relies on two factors: the design of your app, and the partners you chose to work with. Sadly, many delivery companies lag behind when it comes to cutting-edge technologies. Many cannot provide real-time information on the location of packages, for instance, and in this case providing your customers with this information becomes impossible. This fact, in turn, illustrates a broader one: that in today’s business environment, your choice of partners should be based on far more than just the cost of their services. Rather, in selecting partners you should consider how well their systems will integrate with your own, and how willing they are to share information. The same is true for your choice of an app development company. In developing your app, your developer should take the time to understand your needs and those of your customers, and be able to provide systems that work well together. In the end, using a delivery status tracking system is about providing both you and your customers with more information. This means that your customers are less likely to get frustrated by slow delivery, and allows you to focus on more important matters.

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