How to Prioritize Features for Your Mobile App

 When you embark on building a mobile app how do you know what features to include and what to leave behind or save for later? If you have a great idea for an app you may want to include everything right out of the gate. This can be detrimental for several reasons and may not ultimately meet the user’s needs

Let’s look at why and how to prioritize features for your mobile app.

Why Prioritize Features for Your Mobile App.

If you have an idea for a mobile app you may already know what you want to do and what your end goal is in your mind’s eye. However for many reasons, it most likely will not be possible to do everything you want to right out of the gate, and it may not be the smartest approach.

If you try to put every feature into your mobile app from the start, you may encounter these obstacles:

1. It is usually cost-prohibitive.
2. You are taking a risk building features you think are needed but might not be.
3. You stretch out the time it takes to get to market, which can open the door for others.
4. You may accidentally launch with features that should have been premium features that could have been monetized, but now can’t.

How to Prioritize Features for Your Mobile App.

In order to prioritize your app features, you will need to step back from the excitement of your new idea and take a more clinical, logical approach.

The idea is to

1. Start smaller.

2. Test your hypothesis.

3. Get feedback from the client.

4. Improve the mobile app incrementally.

The goal is to prioritize according to what is:

1. Critical and absolutely necessary.

2. Important but not necessary for the initial launch.

3. Neat or cool, but not necessary for the initial launch.

Let’s take a look at these categories in depth.

Critical or Absolutely Necessary

Features that are critical are only those necessary to launch the app to some initial test users and which put into action the primary app features. You can sort out these features by asking questions like:

1. What are my app’s killer features?

2. What is the ultimate value my app brings?

3. Does this feature solve the user’s most important problem?

4. Is this feature something you should save as a premium feature for later monetization?

5. Does this feature support an initial objective or a future objective?

6. Is this a nice to have feature?

7. Is this merely a cool feature but not the core feature?

Important but Not Initially Necessary

Features in this category can be saved for app improvement and upgrades, and some may even be able to be added as premium features to monetize your app. These features are those that are important, high quality, or that would be very nice to have and for which users might even be willing to pay. They are features that enhance the primary functions of your app. They typically make the app even more convenient to use.

Neat or Cool but Not Necessary

Those features that are neat or cool need to be evaluated as to their actual contribution to the value of the app. Are you putting too much stock into a cool feature, thinking that it will be what makes or breaks the app? If so, maybe the cool feature is a primary feature OR you may be putting too much emphasis on “cool” vs. “utility”. In some cases, “coolness” is part of the major selling point of the app. In that case, it is part of the primary features.

Also for launch, we don’t want to overcrowd the app with features that make it difficult to understand or difficult to use. Let your user base mature and get comfortable using the core features first, before adding to the complexity. You have to win over their hearts and minds and keeping it easy and simple is the way to go. Think as Apple does. Apps that are streamlined are much more user-friendly and likely to succeed.

Do You Have an Idea for a Mobile App?

At Charter Global Interactive we specialize in helping you build your mobile app from the ground up. We’ve helped customers all over the US with their digital solution needs. We can give you expert insights and suggest how you can build a mobile app and prioritize your app features.

Request a Call or contact us at (888)-326–9933 for a free 15-minute consultation to discuss your mobile app idea. We offer full digital solutions to power and grow your business.