You're building an app or you're planning to build an app uh and and you might think like oh you're such an awesome planner and and you know i've been there i've been like hey we're going to make sure that we're thorough we're going to plan on this app all the way and you know what in on more than one occasion i've had just these little annoying details come and and bite me so what i want to do is cover 14 of the most annoying little things about app development that you want to make sure that you remember because you probably could overlook these things.
1.) Modals talking about all the little pop-up windows that say are you sure you want to proceed with this or do you you know if you perceive that this is going to happen are you sure or you got the wrong password so make sure that you think through where are all the modals have we forgotten anything make sure that you have those planned out because a lot of times you'll get into app development and you realize hey we forgot to actually consider those models when we designed the application so don't forget your modals
2.) login and password error handling you're talking to the server all the time trying to get passwords validated and stuff and someone's going to enter the wrong email or the wrong password and you need some kind of error to come back to say hey that's the wrong password or hey you need a stronger password make sure you've thought through and plan for all the error handling for your user authentication
3.) Back end error handling your back end and your front end are going to be talking to each other what happens when something goes wrong you know or maybe you've got systems on the back end that are talking to each other what happens if one of those systems like has an error you need to know how to handle those errors and also you need to know what to show the user when a back-end error happens
4.) Time zones if you are dealing with time or calendaring in any way on your application which you probably are like you think about chat history timestamps think about uh calendars think about anything that's related to time are you addressing time zones appropriately and what's going to happen also when you have daylight savings time and it changes so make sure you're thinking through time zones when you're working on on your application.
5.) list sorting anytime in your app you've got some kind of a list it's going to be sorted in some way is it going to be sorted alphabetically is it going to be sorted chronologically is it alphabetically by first name or by last name so how are we sorting those lists so when you done when you when you've done your design look through and see and see where are all the lists and have we defined how those lists are supposed to be sorted make sure you call that out so that the developers know how you want those lists sorted.
6.) Notification settings what are all notification settings and how exactly uh are the users supposed to set those notifications so if you want someone to be notified about some kind of an event when it happens that's that's pretty easy but like what if you want someone to be notified about uh like a reminder every day or every week or every month well how is the user supposed to set those up and and and to tell the app how often they want to be notified or reminded so make sure that you're thinking through your notification settings and how the user can interact with them.
7.) Notification copy when i say copy i'm talking about the actual text that shows up when people read the notification so if the notification comes up on your on your um your home screen on your on your device um it's gonna say something well what does it say and is that is what it says on on brand and does it have the same voice that you want it to have so you can treat people like computers or you can treat people like people and and so you want the personality of your company and your brand to come through in the notifications and so you want to write out what those notifications are you don't want to get to like the last minute and realize oh my gosh we forgot to write out the wording for those notifications so think through that in advance so that the developers can uh implement those notifications and i recommend just having a document that has all notifications written out it's gone to the client or if you you're the if you're the client because you're the entrepreneur that you've you've thought through all of those and that you've written out exactly how you want to communicate to your users through every notification
8.) Doing a thorough copy reviews so if you've got all of your screens mocked up you want to go through screen by screen and just pay attention to all of the words that are showing up on the screens and are those the right words do we are we really sounding the way we want to sound so i'm not just in notifications or models but everywhere on every screen so make sure that all of your copy all the actual text in your app is on is on brand
9.) Grouping and Ungrouping if you have some kind of an app where you're grouping users together uh or you're ungrouping things you wanna make sure that you're addressing the scenarios where well is it just one to one are we grouping two people together are we grouping one to many is it many to one like do we have if i'm in a group on this application there might be more than one group and what happens if uh i'm in two groups but someone else is in three groups so you want to think through what are the scenarios around grouping and ungrouping people content whatever it is that you're grouping together think through those scenarios.
10.) Version Numbers which version of the app are you looking at how do you know if someone has an error and they and they want to report a bug how will they know which version of the app they're using so make sure that the version number of the application is somewhere on the app so that people can find it it could be in some kind of an info section or it could just be on the footer or some other place but make sure that people are able to tell you i'm using this version of the app that way you'll be able to know if they're using the most current version or not another thing about version numbers is that you want to tie the version number that's in the app with the version number that is in your management like your work management system so like if it's jira or trello or wherever it is that you're managing the work for the developers make sure that you're lining up the version numbers in the app with the version numbers and your releases in um uh in your work management system.
11.) Email Branding and Design if i have to go into the app and reset my password probably i'm going to get some kind of an email that says hey reset your password or validate your username whatever that is especially if you're using a third-party service they may have their own default branding just make sure that you're looking at those emails and that they look like they represent your brand and your company
12.) This probably should be number one app store and google play compliance you want to make sure that you've been thinking through is this app is this business model that i'm offering is it acceptable according to google play and the apple app store some some business models that people think of that are great business models but they built them into their apps and then they submit them to the app store and for example apple won't approve them so for example if you are trying to create some kind of alternate currency or tokenization or credits that people consume in the app you can't do that unless you're going through um in-app purchases and apple and google they both take 30 uh for those purchases so you want to make sure that you're thinking through um any other issues relative to compliance with apple app store or google play policies.
13.) Menu Options do you have a menu do you have all the options in that menu are the options in the right order do you have a user story uh for creating a menu or a task that the developers can estimate make sure that you have thought through okay well what is going to be in the menu and number
14.) You need a support staff and a support plan make sure that you are ready to support your users once you go live it's really you really don't want to forget this because when you get to the end of your development and your deployment and people are starting to use your app they're going to need help don't forget to think through how are we going to help them how are we going to get the information that they need to them and how are we going to be able to let them contact us so there you go.
14 basic things don't forget these things when you are building your app uh i hope that these tips are helpful to you we've got more how to's more resources and more app ideas right here on app creative.
