Do's and Dont's for iOS Application Development

A lot of iOS applications fail right away. Have you ever wondered why before starting your own iOS app project? It’s better to know the do’s and don’ts of iOS app development if you want to succeed.

iOS development isn’t easy. To make a successful iOS app you need to have a good grasp at the best practices, Apple’s design style guidelines, and the common pitfalls of new developers.

Let’s get over with a few quick things.

Do:

• Explore your idea: An idea could be anything. But anything doesn’t make good apps. Explore your concept, and clarify the concept thoroughly in your head.

• Define the purpose: This is linked to the first point. What’s the core purpose, key message, selling point, call to action, of your app? Summarize it as much as possible. Only once you’re clear about it can you ensure users will be.

• Make awesome design: App’s design wins the real battle in the arena. It should go hand in hand with user experience and functionality.

• Customization: Give users the power to customize their app. Of course, it doesn’t work for some kinds of apps – but make sure there’s room for giving users some reaction at least.

• Use localization: Localization can help with your app’s personalization capabilities. Always see how can you leverage localization technology in your app.

• Make strategies: Make strategies and do planning for everything from bug testing and gathering feedback to digital marketing and documentation.

Lastly, read UI Design Do’s and Don’ts over at Apple Developer website. It basically talks these:

• Don’t make users zoom or scroll for the primary content.

• Use those touch controls that feel easy and natural. In other words, don’t use controls that don’t look naturally touch-y.

• 44 pts by 44 pts is the ideal size for hit targets, or buttons.

• To ensure legibility, text size shall be at least 11 pts.

• And 6 more topics: contrast, spacing, resolution, distortion, organization, and alignment.

Don’t:

• Shell out to master-of-all-trades promises: Many DIY tools online tell you they can develop cross-platform apps in a flash. Screw them. Design for iOS and then move on once you have enough confidence for it.

• Forget your competitors: Competitors are your best friends here. Learn what features they’re leveraging, the points they’re failing in, things they’re not doing – use the information to steer ahead of them. Competitor analysis should be terrifyingly frequent.

• Confuse or make your users wait: Confusion can be created from too much content, bad content flow, inconsistent layouts for different pages/sections of your app, etc. As for the waiting part, it’s clear. Loading icons aren’t pretty. Keep them as short-lived as possible.

• Update a lot: Too many updates can overwhelm users even if it’s seamless. They shouldn’t get the idea of too many updates. Instead, fix times for updates if possible. It’s recommended to bundle tiny fixes together with a new feature.

• Make an app without demand: Demand can’t always be created. If you can innovate a boring utility, you might have demand. But if you know there’s no demand for something, what’s the point in wasting your time? Instead show some creativity and add something to that.

Written by Charles Madison. Charles is an iOS app developer who lives in London. Charles stint with iOS development began in the early days of iPad devices. He literally fell in love with Apple. He started developing apps for iPad, iPhones, and helped design many apps for other iProducts. Now he has many custom development projects concerning Apple Watch and TV. His large area of experience makes sure his work is high quality.