5 Essential Traits of an Effective Business App

Unlike entertainment or Gaming apps, a business app is expected to be made with all seriousness and highly focused on what they aim to do – though, I am not saying entertainment and gaming apps aren’t made with seriousness, otherwise Clash of Clans wouldn’t have been making $ 1.5 million a day.

The point is, everything in a business app needs to be highly critical, sophisticated, uncompromising, highly rewarding and helpful in the most ways. If it is cumbersome to use, hard to learn or lacks vital features, no one will use it. No one wants to compromise in the business. They will just go for the better option.

So, when developing a business app, how do you guarantee that your business app consist all the essential elements?

To help you out to some extent, we have studied many apps and figured out the basic elements of every successful business app that appeals to their respective users. Take a look at them and try to compare your own business app with them. Do they check all or some of the essentials below or it’s missing almost everything?

1. It targets and solves a problem

That’s how a business app should be made. Find a problem and solve it with an app. If the problem is serious enough and users find the app useful to ease up the trouble, they will invariably use your app. That’s your success formula.

If there are competitors in the market, try to serve the solution in better ways with additional tools, features and covering the whole process-tree of the problem into your app. Make the app highly rewarding to an extent where the user doesn’t care if it’s free or not. Thus, it should be a win-win situation where both parties are getting something out of the business app.

Best Example: Cisco WebEx Meetings for solving the problem of online meetings with great ease.

Download: iOS | Android

2. Easy to Use and Highly Useful

Your app needs be easy to use and highly useful for the user. If the navigation system is complex, desired functionalities are buried somewhere deep inside the app and design, colors and graphics feel hurtful for the eyes, how could you expect someone to use your app?

Make sure your app is easy to use, loads in no time and takes as little time of the user as possible to complete a certain task, AKA making your app invisible to the user while he/she is using it. Your app itself shouldn’t come in the way of work.

This rings true mostly in the apps which are feature-rich and has many things to perform. Such apps need to manage all the functionalities in a very easy, clear and uncluttered manner, or the user gets confused.

Best Example: Mint, for it presents many functionalities in simple and clutter-less fashion

Download: iOS | Android

3. Accessible Everywhere on Anything

Your client is riding a bus and carries a laptop and his smart phone. He urgently needs to check the files or need the information which is only served from your app. Now, if he has to wait to reach the office to access the file from a PC, then eventually, he will turn to another option which provides cloud facility or its app has presence on multiple devices/platforms. Why? He wouldn’t have to wait to reach to a PC any longer. He can now even order his employees to complete a task or update the information from his bathroom.

The convenience of performing tasks from everywhere allows a certain sense of freedom to the users which they love dearly. So, either make your app available through cloud or have its presence on PC, phone, laptop and even on their SmartWatches if necessary (and maybe even on smart mirrors and smart cars and smart cups in future).

Best Example: Google Docs for its features-rich presence on most devices/platforms

Download: iOS | Android

4. Growing with the User

A year after launching the app, your average user will find some features missing or will demand new features to be added matching with the latest technologies and trends. You have no other choice but to upgrade your app regularly to satisfy your customers. Grow with your users.

Nowadays, the update cycles for most apps are less than a month and in some big, enterprise scale apps; it doesn’t exceed more than a year. So, updating and upgradation has become a vital after sales service. Though, you can make upgrades free or with charges.

Best Example: Dropbox, which grew exemplarily over the time

Download: iOS | Android

5. Interoperable with Other Apps and/or Environment

Make your app interoperable with other apps. It eases many things on the user side. For instance, if the user had to login and your app gives the option to login via Facebook or Google than it is one step less for the user to do. If the user wants to share some content on social media, to personal contact or someplace other, have the direct sharing links to those destinations inbuilt in your app. If you have more than one app falling in the same product-family, make your apps talking to each other so, merge the functionalities and leverage each app’s selling point for other ones. It will ease the effort on user’s side and also make them invested more firmly in your app-system.

Another type of interaction is with the surroundings. Basing on the location of the person, your app could provide more information relating to the place or the information about the branch-office in that city to the business app user. It could also use camera to provide various features.

Best Example: Google Calendar, as it retrieves information from all the Google services and gives you a smooth schedule.

Download: iOS | Android

These were some of the essential features, we think, should be on a business app to satisfy the business app user. Are you in need to create a business application? Just contact us.

Original Source – 5 Essential Traits of an Effective Business App

Sahil Patel is an engineer and project manager at Elegant MicroWeb, involved with project management and services delivery. An excellent problem solver with architectural and hands on programming skills on Microsoft platforms, Linux, PHP frameworks,