mobility app designer and developer survey, which highlights key pain points in the enterprise mobile app development process. The “Bridging the Gap: Mobile App Design and Development” survey reveals that a traditional approach to mobile application development for enterprises causes friction and misalignment between developers and designers, with 50 percent of respondents saying their projects fail to lock or get approved because of user interface issues.
The survey of more than 340 respondents from leading global brands reveals a clear gap in the mobile app design and development process specifically when it comes to user interface and user experience. This user interface gap and rework are the causes for many change requests, which lead to project delays and poor user adoption.
“Today’s IT departments are struggling to keep pace with the demands of their business to mobilize their enterprise,” said Dave Shirk, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, Kony, Inc. “CIOs are faced with the challenge of rapidly delivering mobile applications for their businesses, and this survey sheds light on one of the biggest hurdles: business users, designers and developers don’t see eye to eye when it comes to user experience and interface design, which can cause costly delays and mobile app failures, leaving the business looking for a better answer.”
Key findings:
User interface is the main source of frustration: Developers said the three main reasons for changes to the user interface are because the user interface designs never gets locked; the stakeholder identified issues in the user interface once they got to use the working application; and the user interface design failed to address one or more functional requirements.
Change requests slow down development time: More than half of developers said that 25 to 75 percent of their projects receive change requests that impact the user interface. Moreover, nearly 40 percent of developers said it takes 25 to 50 percent of additional development effort to address change requests that impact the user interface. Approximately a third said it requires 50 to 100 percent more effort for development projects, and nearly five percent said change requests more than double the original development effort required.
Developers struggle with user interface and user experience: Designers cited communicating input back to developers on the mobile app prototype and successful collaboration with the developer during the development cycle as the most challenging aspects of working with their developer team to seamlessly create engaging mobile apps.
“To ensure mobile app success, businesses should take a holistic approach to mobile app development,” continued Shirk. “In the world of mobile, the software development lifecycle needs to begin with design. Mobile app design is often overlooked in the development process, but companies are finding that most mobile apps fail because of lack of user adoption caused by poor design and experience. Enterprises should design their app with a mobile perspective when it comes to look and feel of the app. Doing this in a collaborative way and leveraging cloud technology is far better than the classic design tools, which have zero functionality or relevance to support the rich and varied user experience requirements of mobile technology.”
Additional Resources
To access the full report findings: Bridging the Gap: Mobile App Design & Development 2014