All You Need To Know About Agile Development For Mobile Apps

By / August 8, 2016 /

At Miracle Group, we believe in delivering quality mobile apps by having regular communication with the client to ensure we are on the same page. Our goal is to meet effectively the specific needs of each client for whom the mobile app is being developed. Following Agile principles of software development help us do the same. This approach is based on customer participation, constant assessment, flexible planning and better risk management to ensure the output is what is expected.

What is Agile Development? what1

Agile Development involves division of the task into small releases ensuring the mobile app development companies frequent re-evaluation of plan and adjustment of the same to meet the client’s’ expectations. This helps us to move promptly and efficiently in the process of mobile app development.

Agile development not only helps in simplifying the process of mobile app development but also ensure that the output is adaptable to change even after deployment.

In the book “Balancing Agility and Discipline: A Guide for the Perplexed”, Barry Boehm and Richard Turner provided the following list of principles that are imperative for Agile development:

  • Keeping the design simple
  • Short releases
  • Foreseeing change and working accordingly to take advantage
  • Persistent team cooperation
  • Making testing a part of development process

As per Mr. Van Baker, VP Research at Gartner Inc. , there is a major difference between software development for desktop applications and mobile app development. This difference lies mainly in the need for mobile apps to be constantly updated and improved as per user feedback and requirements. Also, the diversity in mobile devices, network connectivity and other mobile-specific considerations put forth additional challenges. Baker believes that Agile development is essential for mobile app development and that it will overpower traditional practices being followed.

Distinctiveness and Characteristics of Mobile Application Development

As opposed to the development of Desktop Applications (which were usually designed to run on a system for a longer period of time before any revision is needed), development of mobile applications present a number of challenges in front of the developer. Some challenges that come across for mobile app development include:

  • It is expected to be easily updateable
  • User expects a quick download
  • User demands keep changing at a rapid pace
  • Development cycles are short
  • Limited hardware, etc.

How to develop mobile apps that meet the above challenges? How to meet user’s expectations? How to build high quality apps that are easy to use, adaptable to change and provide good user experience? These questions are often faced by mobile app development companies. The solution lies in Agile Development.

Agile development involves collaboration of all stakeholders including the clients, designers, developers as well as the end users to ensure that the app meets expectations. As per Gartner’s, most complaints about mobile apps are to do with poor user experience. Thus mobile development companies should follow Agile to ensure a good user experience by making the users test the app even before release.

Our Approach to Agile Development

At Miracle, our aim is to deliver quality to our clients. By following Agile Development, we start with accumulating basic functional requirements and moving on to sprint tasking based on user stories or information. The requirements are usually divided into smaller tasks for better management of work. A sprint schedule of two weeks is regularly monitored for achievement

scrum_process
 

Our take on Mobile App Testing

There is no doubt that testing a mobile app is vital for its success, because very often it is expected to work on a wide variety of devices. The mobile devices pose challenges like different screen size, different operating systems and other mobile specific characteristics.  Thus, Miracle follows a comprehensive testing process wherein there is constant communication between the potential user, client and the development team.

An exemplary aspect of Agile development is that development never stops. In fact, the product is modified and improved based on user feedback even after launch. We believe that an Agile approach is best suited for mobile apps as it involves incremental short releases to match expectations. Also, the testing process is significant to agile development. It allows the developers to work in collaboration with end users and clients for a better understanding of what the final app will be like.

Want to create an outstanding mobile app?

Do you wish to have a mobile app that not only goes beyond business objectives but also provide a great user experience and that too, within your means? Miracle Group is here to help! Our mobile app development services have helped several clients achieve their goals and we are happy and proud of the same!

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