Apps are becoming more and more common. We’re moving into a mobile world where many people use apps every day for all kind of things.
Users expect apps to function correctly and do what they expect them to do. Apps should be easy to use, fast, and reliable. This article provides useful suggestions if you want to build high-quality apps.
Quality matters
The quality of a software product or system is primarily how it satisfies the needs of the users, customers, and stakeholders, and delivers value to them.
Quality has never been more important in software development. There are multiple apps for almost everything. Users get to pick the one they like.
They will look at the review comments and the number of downloads before they decide which one they will pick. If they don’t like the one they downloaded, they will quickly uninstall it. And they might leave a negative review too. You don’t want that to happen.
High-quality apps
Teams can only deliver quality if they are driven by the needs of the users, customers, and stakeholders.
My recommendations for software teams to build high-quality apps are:
- Know your users – understand what users expect from your apps, why and how they use them
- Master platforms and devices – have in-depth knowledge of the mobile platforms and most used devices on those platforms to ensure that your app will run smoothly
- Foster craftsmanship – write good quality code, know the language and tools that you are using, refactor often
- Don’t overcommit – trying to do too much will hamper quality
- Be fast and good – deliver in small steps to ensure that you get feedback so that you know if you’re delivering value
- Learn from mistakes – if things go wrong, find out why and what you can do to prevent similar problems in the future
Agile principles and practices can be applied to deliver high-quality software. The book What Drives Quality views software quality from an engineering, management, and social perspective. It explores the interaction between all involved in delivering high-quality software to users and provides ideas to do it quicker and at lower costs.
What have you done to ensure that you are able to build high-quality apps?
