What Your Mobile App Developer Wished You Knew

And That Make Every Project Easier and Smoother

Do you know what often distinguishes a good app development project from a great one? The client. While knowing how to work with all sizes of municipalities and local governments is part of our job, I would be lying if I didn’t admit that some clients are easier to work with than others.

These clients understand a few critical things that tend to make the entire mobile app development process easier and faster. When we work with clients like these, I always think to myself, “I wish every client knew this.”

Here are the 8 things I wish every client knew (and that make every project easier and smoother):

1. Having clear objectives is essential.

Having a defined set of goals will help your developer understand your vision and create an app that meets your expectations. When we know what you want to achieve with your mobile app, we can offer better suggestions on what content to include and not include and what features you should prioritize. Understanding your goals equips us to better guide you through the many decisions you’ll need to make throughout the mobile app development process.

2. A quality mobile app needs quality data and content.

While the Info Grove team is talented, creative and hard-working, we aren’t magicians. We can build an excellent mobile app for you, but without quality data and content, the app won’t be useful for your audience. And if the app isn’t useful, you won’t see the kind of resident engagement you’re likely hoping for.

Spending time gathering and organizing your data and content can feel tedious and overwhelming. But, the more energy you invest in gathering quality data, the better your finished mobile app will be.

3. Some things just shouldn’t be on a mobile app.

While it can be tempting to want to include everything on your website on your mobile app, there are some things that just don’t make sense to include. As a general rule, a task or activity that takes your resident only a few minutes to complete is ideal to include in your mobile app. If it takes them 30 minutes or more, it’s best to leave that to your website.

If you’re unsure, the team at Info Grove can help you decide if something is worth including on your mobile app or not. We can also help come up with creative ways to share information or make activities more “mobile-app-friendly”.

4. Trust the feedback and suggestions your developer offers.

Our mobile app development process is collaborative. We love hearing the ideas our clients have–in fact, the ideas and requests our clients come to us with often inform future updates we make to our platform.
That said, when a developer provides feedback or suggestions, remember that our recommendations are based on experience, expertise and a desire to see your app succeed. Don’t hesitate to ask questions so you feel confident about your decisions, but trust that building an app with a positive resident experience is at the heart of our suggestions.

5. Delays on your end mean delays for the whole project.

Info Grove has designed a mobile app development process that allows us to take a mobile app from concept to deployment in as few as six weeks. BUT.

And this is a big ‘but’.

If our team doesn’t get what we need from you or your team, we can’t always meet the project deadline. Any delays on a project have a ripple effect. If we don’t receive the data and content needed to populate the app from you, we can’t start the development step of the process. If we don’t receive feedback after sharing a test version of your mobile app with you by the agreed-upon date, we can’t guarantee that any updates required will be made on time to keep the original launch date.

We know that wrangling all of the stakeholders often involved in developing a mobile app can be challenging and we do what we can to make it as smooth as possible. If a client is struggling to meet deadlines for certain parts of the project, communication is key. The sooner we know about a delay, the more we can do to help keep things on track.

6. Having one main contact person from your team makes our lives so much easier.

Just as wrangling all of your team members can be difficult for you, managing feedback and questions coming from multiple stakeholders can be difficult for us. It often creates confusion, wastes time and can delay the project.

Working with a client who designates one main point of contact for us is a dream. When that contact is able to collect and consolidate all of the feedback and requirements from their entire team before getting back to us? Well, that just makes us want to do a little happy dance.

7. “Little changes” aren’t always easy.

Sometimes making changes is easy for us, but sometimes they require more time and effort. This is why we place a lot of importance on our kickoff and discovery phase. During this step of the app development process, we get a clear understanding of your objectives and the requirements you have for your app. We ensure we’re aligned before we start the design and development of your app to minimize the changes required later in the process.

Of course, changes are expected on any app development project. During the review and adjustments phase in the process, it’s essential that you and anyone else on your team who needs to provide feedback and approval take the time to review the test version of your app.

8. You don’t need to be an expert.

Many of our municipal and local government clients have never worked with a developer before and have no experience managing a mobile app project. We don’t expect anyone to be an expert in what we do–we know you might have no idea what the mobile app development process looks like.

That’s why we approach the kickoff of any development project with an educational mindset. We want our clients to have a good understanding of what to expect at every step of the way and give you the opportunity to ask questions so you feel confident moving forward.

If you’d like to know more about how we approach mobile app development, check out our full process here or book a call to meet with our team. We’d love to hear about your municipality or local government’s needs and see how a mobile app might be able to help you achieve your goals for your residents.

Karim Mansour is an Inside Sales Representative at 14 Oranges, the creators of the Info Grove platform.