Lessons Learned From Building Websites And Apps
We will like to share a few valuable lessons that we have learned from our experience from working with our web design Singapore clients on building their digital products. We feel that these learnings might be applicable for everyone to think about before working on your own digital product.
Prioritize Features
It is always exciting when it comes to adding new and cool features to your website or app. However, by having more features, it will increase the complexity of the product. That also means you have to put in more resources to work on the user experience (UX) and the development work.
When presented with a list of new features to implement, you should ask yourself if each feature contributes directly to your business’s primary goals. If they are not, put them under “good to have” feature list and archive for future review.
Hide The Complex Features
Complex features are features that extend the core functionality of your website or app. Every complex feature has a learning curve and is normally used by power users. These features shouldn’t affect the overall user experience.
Always keep things simple by hiding these complex features or putting in the settings so that your users are not intimidated by them. A cleaner interface allows the user to make lesser decisions.
Ship Early And Get Feedback
Do not wait for the “right time” to launch your website or app. You will never know how people will react to it if you don’t ship to them. Iterations can be made along the way as you start getting feedback from your users.
If you develop on multiple platforms (i.e. web, iOS, Android, etc.), you do not need to launch all at the same time. You may want to launch your website first and follow by your mobile apps. By doing so, you are able to start generating traction and getting feedbacks early. You will also be able to make better decisions based on the feedback from your users.
If you build it, they will probably not come
If you think that when you launch your website or app, people will come and use it, then you are wrong. Growth is hard. It takes a long time to build a brand that people will trust and recommend to their friends and family.
You also have to put in lots of marketing effort to drive more people to use your website or app. Remember, there is no such thing as an overnight success.
The Takeaway
As mentioned in Sun Tzu’s Art of War, “speed is the essence of war”. If you delay your launch because of your ever-growing list of features or waiting for the “right time”, you will suffer dearly.
As much as we agree that great founders have a clear vision for their products, we think that your customers’ feedback is also invaluable. Do show potential customers your prototype to gather feedback as early as possible.