The demand for mobile apps is exploding in business technology. According to IDC, enterprise mobile app market is expected to grow to $4.8 billion by 2017. This presents an enticing opportunity for businesses to expand their reach by developing mobile apps for enterprises. However, according to a new study sponsored by Kony, continuous dependence on traditional application processes is resulting in enterprise mobile app failures.
To be more specific, the dependency on traditional approach to develop mobile apps for enterprises give rise to friction between designers and developers. This eventually causes project delays leading to a poor adoption rate of enterprise mobile apps.
Kony conducted a survey of over 340 designers and developers, belonging to niche brands (like Cisco, Qualcomm, Walgreens etc.) to know about their pain points in mobile application development. The survey revealed that there happens to be a gap between the app design and development process – in terms of user interface and user experience (UX). In fact, it was found that nearly 50 percent of the participants cited user interface issues the main reason that made their projects fail to lock or get approved. User interface issues are also said to be the main cause behind delays in app projects.
The study further revealed that, more and more businesses are becoming inclined towards IT departments: to mobilize their enterprise solutions. The IT departments, however, are struggling to cope up with such needs of businesses. That’s because of the difference of opinion between mobile app designers, developers and business users on making changes to the user interface design. This further adds up to the project delays and mobile app failures.
Let’s take a look at some of the key findings from the survey:
User Interface Causes Frustration:
One of the key findings outlined by Kony, proclaims that user interface is the main cause behind frustration. According to application developers, there are three main reasons, because of which changes to the user interface need to be made.
1. The user interface designs do not lock or approve, continuing to change throughout the development phase.
2. When the stakeholder uses the working application, they identified issues in the user interface.
3. The user interface design couldn’t meet up with one or more functional requirements.
Frequent Change Requests Increases Development Time:
Nearly, 70 percent of the respondents said that additional development effort is required to focus on change requests that impacts interface design. Out of which, over half of the developers said, nearly 25 percent to 75 percent of their projects receive requests to change design that impact the user interface. Around 40 percent of developers said that they put in 25 percent to 50 percent of additional development effort to cater change requests that impact the user interface. One-third (approx.) developers said, they need to invest 50 percent to 100 percent more effort for development projects, and 5 percent said that requests to change design increases the original development effort required.
Designers Struggle Communicating With Developers:
Designers said that they find working with developers a real challenge. Providing input back to developers for the app prototype and collaboration appears to be the most challenging aspects for the designers during the development cycle, making them unable to work with their developer team to create engaging mobile apps in a seamless manner.
So, what’s the solution?
According to Dave Shirk, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, Kony, Inc., to “ensure mobile app success, businesses should take a holistic approach to mobile app development.” To this he further added that, enterprises should pay more emphasis on designing the look and feel of their app with a mobile perspective. For this purpose, both designers and developers need to work in a collaborative way. Additionally, they should use cloud technology rather than the conventional design tools that doesn’t contain any functionality or relevance to support the rich and varied user experience requirements of mobile technology.
So if you’re an enterprise, looking forward to building a mobile app, it is recommended that you should read this article to get an idea on: how you attain success in the mobile arena with help of your app.
