Differences between mobile app and website development

 

Changes in the application development industry are happening at a frantic pace, like everything else related to the Internet. New technologies, development environments and business strategies emerge every day to challenge the status quo. To be a successful mobile app developer, you need to know some differences between website and mobile app development.

Despite the tremendous rate of change, there is a variable related to mobile application development that will continue to increase in importance in the future: user experience. According to Nielsen Norman Group, the user experience encompasses all aspects of the end-user interaction with the company, its services, and its products.

A user's experience with software or websites is primarily with the application's user interface. The user interface is defined as the means by which the user and a computer system interact, in particular for the use of input devices and software. To summarize, a user's experience is defined through their interaction with an application's user interface.

Follow the business and consumer technology industry

Mobile app developers would do well to follow the lead of the enterprise and consumer technology industries. These industries have been successful in leading the design process with user experience.

The mobile application development industry, compared to the website development company UAE industry, is a new and emerging field. When we started in 2009, there were only a handful of companies looking to build mobile apps, and even fewer who could.

On the contrary, website development has been around for more than 20 years. It is a fast maturing industry. Having been in the web development services USA industry for the past sixteen years, I can tell you that it has been primarily technology that has led the design process. We seek to build websites and user experience around their interaction with technology.

Mobile application development as an extension of website development

A common mistake many mobile app developers make is treating their mobile app as a website with a smaller screen. Many app developers will try to shrink their apps or websites to work on a mobile screen. While this is a noble goal, many of these same applications have failed in terms of business goals, especially if these applications were outwardly focused. In other words, these applications did not attract the amount of downloads that was expected. If downloaded, they were rarely used and in many cases removed from the mobile device on which they were installed.

Mobile application development based on the mobile experience

For mobile app development services USA to be successful, we have learned to design for mobile devices first. Unlike web and desktop design, the designer and developer have to do a lot more with a lot less. They should also do so while providing a pleasant experience. This is the mobile experience and it has many more limitations than website design.

The mobile experience is not about software that works on mobile phones. It is about moving or mobility. The devices that people are using are their mobile phones, tablets, and soon, wearables like the iWatch. The rules that applied to the development of desktop or laptop computers will not necessarily apply to the extent that they once did. Mobility is about the mobile experience and not so much about the device.

Therein lies the challenge

As stated above, mobile app development requires the developer to do much more with less compared to traditional web design. For example, security and privacy considerations are very important when developing mobile applications.

Website security and privacy updates are very easy for websites. All you do is update the code on your production server. By contrast, security and privacy updates for mobile apps require a lot more preparation and planning. Mobile app updates must be delivered to the mobile device. As a result, poor planning and mistakes when it comes to an upgrade can become immediately apparent in a very important way. On the contrary, this is not the case with the publication of the code of a website. The only users who will see an error are those who visit your site.

A second difference we've seen with mobile app development has to do with build cycles. New iterations and feature sets are much slower in website development than with mobile devices. Previously, new functions and features were released at regularly scheduled intervals. With Android Development team USA, new functions and features may need to be implemented when required. In short, aspects of the mobile application development and maintenance process have become increasingly reactive compared to website development, which can be increasingly proactive.

Additional differences between website and mobile app development

There are several additional differences between iOS development team USA and website development that need to be taken into account. Bandwidth restrictions are much more limiting with mobile app development. While download speeds are important in website development, they are even more so in mobile app development because there is a wide variety of download speeds in a wireless environment. Fast download speed is a critical requirement when developing mobile applications.

A second difference has to do with the scalability of an application on a website. An application should be designed assuming several many more users at any given time compared to developing a website.