Businesses seek to enhance brand value through a prominent mobile presence in a dynamic digital environment. Besides optimising and having mobile-friendly websites, this entails having user-friendly, efficient, and functional mobile apps. Mobile Apps are the epitome of convenience & comfort in a user’s life and work well when filling in a gap. Business owners must balance the features provided to users – neither too few to leave them dissatisfied nor too many to confuse them. 

With the increasing prevalence of mobile apps, interactions between businesses and customers have transformed over the years. Businesses must be fully aware and alert about consumer psychology and work towards balancing their project requirements and the market’s needs.

An average US adult, for example, spends almost 3.5 hours on mobile apps – not to forget that access to mobile apps is nearly 30-40 apps in a day. Yet users can quickly abandon apps if they find a problem with the loading or features. 

The data on mobile app downloads reflected below should tell you the importance of incorporating the right features into apps.

Mobile App Downloads worldwide 2021-26, by store

The decision on what mobile app features to include is tricky; you have to know what the essentials are & what you are providing as a USP. Whether gaming apps, business-related, or educational, there will be a few “must-have” features and a few that you will provide to gain a competitive edge.

Here’s a walkthrough of everything to keep in mind while deciding about the features that are going to enhance your app’s value-

Features for your Mobile App

1. Purpose of the App 

Features have to align with the core business strategy formulated. You must list all your company’s goals, short-term & long-term objectives, and the type of function you want the app to perform. Often the ideas you have in mind may exceed the practicalities of implementation and budget allocation.

You must consider all these aspects before listing the exact purpose of the mobile app. This will help you note what pain point you are addressing for users, how you’re adding value, and how you will profit from it. Specialized purpose addressing usually helps an app gain better traction. 

2. Market & competition research

Now that you know your purpose, you must do your market analysis – of the competition and the audience. The first will tell what you’re up against with other businesses, and the second will tell you the demographics of the particular audience. It would help if you could study the mobile apps being downloaded by users and note the specific stories to understand what worked for others ad what didn’t. Research current trends, competition, market, available technology, and audience group (need, desire & pain points).  

3. Priority features 

It is always good to prioritize the essential features that your app needs to have. While doing so, remember the practical motive of seeking a result from the app. Make a requirement list, then decide on a feature based on each one. Then choose the tools & technologies that will be used to design and implement the app.

Also, keep in mind the sequence of time in which you might want to add features – essential ones first, some specialized ones later, while keeping in mind the basic structure of the project. While strategizing on the features, you must avoid scope creep. Prioritize measurable, business-related features. 

4. Success benchmarks 

Defining the success of your project is vital, so you know how you’ll evaluate every feature. Then the teams also understand what they will need to achieve for the product to be released. The related user experience should be built as per the feature. Simplicity while using features and usability of features matter. 

5. Platform compatibility

When you select features, you should be aware if you can make it all work out across platforms. Features shouldn’t be too complicated to work on specific platforms. This, in turn, will help you decide whether you are using native or cross-platform frameworks – most people use the latter. Feature and platform compatibility are essential to a seamless and intuitive user experience. 

6. Performance consideration

App performance is a vital factor. Care should be taken to include features that will not complicate the mobile app’s performance. Complexity can lead to general slowness and difficulty in loading. Readability of the content, quality of the graphics, and effortless scrolling through the app are all part of the performance of mobile apps.

Make sure your feature selection and implementation are all taking care of this.  You can also take a call on whether you want to choose features as per usability in offline mode. Being able to work offline is a significant asset in a mobile app. 

7. Update & Security Concerns

Choose your features such that it is not tricky for teams to take care of security issues and regular updates. Will you be able to provide regular updates for your features? Will you be able to ensure security for all users irrespective of the features added? These are questions you should ask yourself before finalizing the feature list. 

8. Connectivity issues 

Certain mobile app developers point out that you must consider the variations in internet speed and connectivity issues across different audiences. While testing your MVP, ensure you are testing all significant features for speed issues. 

Takeaway

Listing the purpose of the mobile app you are building and defining the product properly is very important while selecting the mobile app features. Chosen features should be relevant to the intent, the audience, and the particular pain points being addressed. Besides this, you will decide on the USP and accommodate features accordingly.