You will agree that the major challenges for mobile app development are beyond having the right programming skills for the same.
Even if you may be the best programmer, you may still find it difficult to develop a mobile app if you do not use the right development approach.
This is because a mobile app has to be designed to survive several updates as well as to handle different operating systems and mobile screen sizes.
Also, mobile apps need to be developed while keeping in mind the limited hardware and limited memory available at your disposal with smartphones. It is definitely not the same as designing or developing apps for significantly faster and more powerful desktop PCs.
To ensure the resolution of the various challenges listed above for mobile apps that can be developed quickly and downloaded easily, you may contemplate using the agile mobile development approach. This approach enhances the mobile app development process in various ways.
This article discusses the reasons why the agile methodology is suitable for mobile app development.
With the agile mobile development method, the development process is broken down into several small modules or sprints.
So, even if the overall requirement is pretty complex, the breakdown with the agile approach makes it relatively easy to deal with smaller requirements, one at a time.
So, let us check out the various ways in which this agile approach works in favor of your mobile app development.
Continuous Feedback Loop
During the course of the design and development of any mobile app, the clients will be able to witness the numerous small milestones at regular intervals.
Thus, they do not need to wait for the completion of the entire app to let you know about their views about the app.
The agile approach enables them to provide their valuable feedback at different stages of the app development process. This, therefore, ensures that you are able to incorporate changes (if any) with ease at every step.
In other words, this means that the new updates for your app could be applied smoothly. These updates will also be downwardly compatible with the old data, if you are worried about bugs or issues due to incompatibility with the old data.
Quality Testing at Every Step of Development
Unlike other methodologies, the agile approach involves quality testing at every stage of your app development.
This ensures that you are able to identify and fix any issues with the development after the completion of every small development module.
You would know that it is difficult to inculcate changes or fix issues after completing the development of the entire app.
Instead, this agile approach allows you to make fixes easily at regular intervals. Another good feature is that documentation is also done at the end of every development module for easy reference in future.
Phased Rollout of Features
Certain mobile apps, for example, those for news sites or travel sites, may require consistent access to a back-end server.
For such apps, you need to be extra careful to fill them up with just enough features, without overloading the app.
The agile methodology helps you in this because it enables the rollout of feature sets in phases with sprints, without having to overload your app at once.
You can also possibly scale back on some features, which are not that important, and adjust your app design at a later stage to avoid it being too feature heavy.
Offering a Seamless User Experience
As a mobile app developer, you need to consider the various restrictions related to the size of the app that can be downloaded initially, the size of the app updates, and so on.
There is a chance that, if your mobile app’s size is too big, a potential user may not download it due to a lack of space on his or her mobile.
Alternatively, a user downloading your app may cancel the download process if it takes too long. The agile method for app development allows you to keep the app’s size in check with every sprint.
At the different stages of the agile development process, you can adjust the features and the design to keep your app size appropriate. This goes a long way in offering a fast and seamless experience to your app users.
Better Quality and Reliability of Apps
You would already know how competitive the world of mobile apps is!
If a user comes across a few bugs or faces a couple of crashes while using your mobile app, he or she may quickly uninstall it and move on to another similar app and you would also agree that, for almost every app, there are plenty of similar apps available in the corresponding mobile play store.
So, it is extremely important for you to build a high-quality app that does not irritate the users with frequent bugs or crashes.
This is achieved by making use of the agile methodology, which involves multiple cycles of testing as well as quality assurance tests at every sprint.
When an app is made to undergo so many rounds of testing, the final result is bound to turn out much better. It not only increases your confidence in the quality of the app, but it also makes the app users trust its reliability.
The above benefits of the agile methodology may be more than enough for you to start using it for your next app development.
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