These days businesses are focusing on building the apps in order to target audiences simply and proactively, solve their problems and collaborating with a shared purpose. Applications generate revenue in various ways like charging small amount of money for use of app, charging for access to premium features of an otherwise free app or simply selling ad space. According to the report, there are 2.56 million apps on Google Play and Apple’s app store has 1.85 million apps. Companies and enterprises need to cope with rapid changes and trends in mobile app architecture development industry to achieve the desired results.
In order to succeed in this battleground, it is necessary to choose the right mobile app architecture. Most of the apps fail because of poor architecture. So we came with a detailed guide about how to choose the right mobile app architecture for your business. Before digging into the details, let us see what is mobile app architecture?
Mobile app architecture is a set of structural elements and their interfaces from which the system is built and their behavior in the framework of all structural elements. Simply, it is a skeleton of a program. Complexity of building high-quality architecture depends on the size of application. Right architecture will save a lot of time, energy and also cost in the future.
Basically, mobile app development can be organized into different layers such as presentation layer, business layer, and data layer. Let’s see the each layer in detail.
This layer completely focuses on how to present the app to the end-user. It includes the components of User Interface and UI processes. Main objective of this layer is to check the accuracy and presentation of mobile app to the end users. It includes some important aspects like themes, colors, fonts and so on. Here, app developers decides each of the presentation techniques, features and location of the application. While developing the presentation layer, developers should determine appropriate client type that is cooperative and adaptable with infrastructure.
Business layer is completely inclined towards the business front, meaning that the way businesses present it in front of the end-users. It involves business components such, workflow and entities under two layers, namely service and domain model layer. Domain model layer denotes knowledge and expertise connected to a specific problem domain, service model layer focuses on elaborating a fundamental array of app functions that will be available to end-users and clients in the mobile app architecture. Every small detail must be top-notch, as it is directly presented to the end-users. Business layer indicates base of mobile application. You can reduce the overall load by deploying business layer on user and backend server remotely.
All the data related problems are considered at this stage. This layer fulfills all the unique app needs so eases the secured data transactions. Choosing perfect data format is important factor to consider in designing this layer. It protects app from any random invalid data input.
A key to successful mobile app is to build an app as a solution to particular customer pain. Before you start development, it will be better to know the details of future clients- who they are, what apps they use, what they actually need. Think about how your mobile app will solve their problem. If your target audience is youngsters, you can include motion designs to your app UX, but in case of senior citizens app design should be simple.
From the audience analysis, create a solution that will fulfill the audience needs and solve their problem. If your user need platforms to perform tasks other than iOS and Android, go with cross-platform development. If these platforms are sufficient, go with the native app development only. After a decision is made, start developing the main functionality of your app. Create an environment that your customers want- for example, whether they want to work offline, have a specific navigation method, reach interesting content in a feed and so on. Choice of architecture is always linked with app’s ability to satisfy target audience.
After completing the main preparations and reality check, you can turn to work with specific platforms and offline functions. This step includes determining how you will perform the app technically and according to some industry specific requirements also. Consider all the advantages and disadvantages of different models from the technical point of view. For instance, native apps have best performance but need to install and are very expensive for users to download, web apps are SEO friendly and don’t require installation and have low performance. And progressive web apps improves the experience of web apps with greater reliability, engagement,and speed.
You should also ensure that your app includes offline functionality. Most of the users don’t like to rely on internet connection while using app, hence you should consider this too. Include synchronizations with server when the user is connected to the internet. For offline functionality, you need either native apps or PWAs. So it is better to use these two mobile app architecture options.
Native app development needs a detailed knowledge of Objective-C and Swift for iOS and Kotlin, java and android. Although most of the developers are acquainted with HTML and Javascript, most hybrid and mobile web frameworks depends. If they don’t have detail knowledge, you should train them.
Right architecture of a mobile app is balance between key responsibilities and cover them with budget. Once you get all the data about customer preferences, calculate the cost considering functions, advanced features and team constraints. It is also important to consider all the maintenance and support expenses.
A well designed architecture is important for all apps as it eases the testing and debugging of app. Use of architecture for mobile app saves time, effort and costs. Here is a checklist to understand if your app has a good architecture.