Nowadays every third company that has business online thinks about creating a mobile app or mobile version of their site. Today I try to grasp which option is more convenient and what techniques you need to use while conquering the mobile market. To be clear right from the start, I want to point out that several years ago under ‘mobile version of the site’ we implied a stand alone version for mobile devices, nowadays this term means only a creation of adaptive mockups.

The first question that pops into the head of any business owner is what to choose — a mobile app or an adaptive mockup? To find the decision that is right for your business it’s important to find out the goal of your actions right from the start of your mobile market conquering campaign.

Based on our experience, we can see several options when creation of mobile app is reasonable according to your goal. The main option is when you want to widen your users database and come to the new mobile audience. Sometimes there are other situations when company wants to be a trendsetter and stand on the edge of technologies and innovations. Moreover, look at your competitors, — if top-5 of them have mobile app, than it may be wise to follow their lead to stay competitive.

First of all you need to decide upon platform. You don’t need to develop an app for all platforms at the same time. Moreover, we recommend to start with one platform. Maybe you’ll need no more. To choose a platform you need to be certain about your app’ goal and audience you want to reach. If you want to monetize your app and to focus on business audience, than it’s better to start with iOS, because it has the most payable audience. If you want to reach wide audience and your app won’t have inner payments, than it’s better to start with Android, — most of the devices that are used widely work on this platform.

If your goal is to conquer an international market, than your app need to solve other tasks. First of all, it must be adapted to new market. If, as in our example, you’re going to Chinese market, you’d better make your app compatible with QR-codes rendering. On this stage it’s necessary to do competitors apps’ analysis (if you haven’t made it before). If case if existing apps all solve the same tasks you want your app to solve, than it’s better to think a little bit more. What else can you add to stand out from your competitors?

There are various types of menus that don’t depend on platforms — top, bottom and side ones. Moreover, cards on the screen also can be placed differently — for example, they may be placed on one screen or be swiped to the right. For convenient usage and unloading of your app you can use combined core, when every main feature is placed in top or bottom menu, cards are swiped right, side menu is used for additional functionality (feedback, tech support, company info, etc.