How To Build An App. Iowa Democratic App Failure Gives 5 Lessons.
How to build an app that works well for your business? Don’t let the Iowa Democratic Party app failure scare you. As much of the world knows by now, the Iowa Democratic Party tried to use an app to help tabulate results of the Iowa caucus. Just because their app failed doesn’t mean your venture into app development has to.
The app had issues and could not be used. Then the problems were compounded with issues in phoning in the results.
Don’t hate technology, embrace it for your business. But use it wisely.
From what I can gather, the app was not tested and it was not tested as the project was rushed.
I’m a firm believer in doing things “good enough” and getting better as things move forward. I also believe that in many things you can “build the plane” while you fly it.
However, for some things, like a national election or the launch of a mission critical program for your client and etc, you can’t just use technology without testing it.
In regard to app development, here’s how to build an app that works well.
- What’s the user experience like overall. This takes lots of user testing and feedback.
- What happens when lots of users start using the app and not just a few programmers who developed it?
- What’s the security like? Has it been reviewed by friendly hackers or security experts who can check it for vulnerabilities?
- Has it been tested in real life scenarios to explore ways it uses that you might not have test it for?
Finally, it seems like the company who built the app was a small startup and might not have had the resources to develop it fully.
Does this mean you should not hire startups – of course not. But if what you’re doing is REALLY important think carefully about going cheap and fast with your technology (and other parts of your business)
These are just a few things you want to consider when developing new software – be it a website, program, or etc.
Test, test, test and get lots of feedback from your users.