Agile software development for mobile & IoT – best practices

Application design is key to creating a rich user experience. Some of the critical requirements include a consistent UI design, compatibility with other applications, highly structured workflows and simple navigation structures. The overall architecture of the solution must be constructed to create a usable and efficient application.

We recommend an iterative design process involving all elements of the mobile team – development, design and testing. This becomes especially critical in cross-platform applications when multiple changes need to be made in parallel on different OS’s. The design needs to be simple and intuitive with minimum options on the screen. SDKs may be different, however developers should verify that they are able to use widely used testing, reporting and project management tools across all the required platforms.

Every mobile application requires a detailed look at how it renders on different mobile devices. There are various issues when creating and testing applications for mobile browser compatibilities, screen real estate, orientations, fonts, form factors, forms, notifications, and geo-locations. To address this:

• Ensure an end-to-end service when running usability testing in a controlled environment by assigning a very talented UX team.
• Develop a set of attributes that can be tested continuously.
• Finalize the prototype, set up the testing rig, moderate and observe the test.
• Analyze the design, and continuously improve it.

Mobile applications do not always run in a connected environment and it becomes increasingly important to incorporate analytics features to track user interaction.

Identifying the key performance indicators and finding the right tools to assess and correct performance based on consumer interaction is critical. For example, are people finding and using your application? How engaged are they? How do you retain customers? As the mobile adoption rates increase, and as it becomes a preferred way to access information, it will also become a very critical marketing channel.

A few metrics to keep in mind with mobile application analytics:

Adoption Influence

Keep track of total downloads, total number of app users, the active user rate (the ratio of the number of app users to the total downloads), and new users (the number of users that first used the app during a period of time).

Customer Engagement in High-Value Activities

Measure what the customer is doing with the app. Capture the user characteristics of the audience you’re trying to reach and the user activities that generate revenue and brand engagement for your business.

User Engagement

The frequency of visits (the ratio of the number of visits to the number of users over a period of time), depth of visit (the number of screens viewed on average compared to the number of visits), duration (the amount of time spent on the application) and bounce rate (the ratio of the number of user visits with a single view event to the total number of visits).

Customer Retention & Encouragement

Increase stickiness by staying relevant and up to date. Capitalize on other channels. Don’t rely on customers finding you by chance. Get direct insight from customers on what they think about your app and its features.

The rapid adoption of smartphones and tablets within the enterprise has overwhelmed IT and security managers as they struggle to support an expanding number of devices and technologies while mitigating risk to the enterprise.

Mobile devices need additional support when it comes to security by using the platform’s inherent security capabilities and using other tools for managing access control, authentication, encryption, remote wipe and anti-malware. Important considerations include:

Keep IT in Control

It’s important to let IT control what data users can access with their mobile devices, including back-office systems, formalized user groups and blocked access to devices that don’t have a management client installed.

Stolen Devices

Administrators should be allowed to remove all the data from any stolen or last device remotely. Device inventory should be maintained to make sure that no unauthorized device is able to connect to the network.

Encryption, Authentication & Malware

Add on-device password and over-the-air data encryption to enforce authentication that needs to be done so that data exchange is fully protected. Users should be able to make sure that their devices are in compliance and limit the introduction of malware through spam and unauthorized apps. Automatically updating antivirus, firewall protection, and security patches need to be provided to all mobile users in the enterprise.