In today’s world, software is a critical part of every industry, and the success of businesses often depends on the quality of the software they’ve built. The difference between a good software product and a mediocre one lies in the ability to meet user needs and provide a positive user experience. And one of the key reasons why so many companies go astray is the underestimation of the discovery phase.
The simple truth is that developing a high-quality software product is a real challenge that requires careful planning. Thus, don’t go too fast and spend time on profound research and brainstorming before the development starts. In this piece, we’ll dwell on factors you need to consider to build good software and stay competitive in the market. Save your time and plunge into reading!
Start your web app development planning with operational features
Thinking about building a successful software product, you should think about its operational ‘filling,’ or, in other words, how to combine the needs of a business and the potential customer. Luckily, in 2023, you shouldn’t take this rocky path alone. You can shift this responsibility to a reliable IT provider and order custom software development services for startups.
In this case, your devoted partner will start the development planning with the following aspects in mind:
- Budget: This factor will determine the choice of technology, the size of the team, and the scope of the project. Therefore, you’ll be asked to decide on a realistic budget before the development begins.
- Usability: It refers to the ease of use of the software by the end-user. A good software product should be intuitive, user-friendly, and provide an exceptional user experience.
- Functionality: This feature describes the product’s fit to the image advertised to the public. Check whether it meets the user’s needs the way it’s promised and then go further.
- Efficiency: It’s all about quick performance without any glitches. Thus, your IT provider should think about how to make the software optimized to the maximum.
- Correctness: All functions of the software should perform accurately, which calls for thorough testing to avoid any bugs or errors. The types of testing should be chosen beforehand as well.
- Security: When the software is used to process sensitive data, it’s essential to leverage robust security measures to protect it from unauthorized access or theft.
- Safety: The IT partner will prepare a plan on how to prevent any risk of harm to the user or other stakeholders. Besides, the grounded testing will be held to avoid any potential safety issues.
As you see, there’s a lot to ponder about before the implementation stage. Hence, it’s almost impossible to do it on your own, especially if you don’t have similar experience and engineering expertise.
Take care of your software quality through transitional characteristics
In addition to the operational features, software quality can be enhanced through transitional characteristics, which are essential for long-term software maintenance and updates. Get acquainted with the key points below!
- Portability: If your future software can be run on different platforms and operating systems, it’s a great advantage in your shopping cart. Hence, you’d better ensure that your IT product is designed to be portable from the very start to avoid any platform dependency issues later on.
- Interoperability: It’s the ability of the software to communicate and work seamlessly with other software systems. If this requirement is met, you’re less likely to face any integration issues in the future.
- Adaptability: Good software is one that can be modified and updated easily. Making it adaptable, you’ll cut down development costs and time-to-market.
Isn’t that all I need? Not exactly. We’re coming to the maintenance matter now.
Keep your software open to changes and updates
Software development is a continuous process that requires constant changes and updates. Therefore, good software should be designed to support further modifications and reduce the redundant developer’s efforts in this way. Usually, that’s what is meant by reusability.
If your software components can be reused in other software systems, it saves your engineers plenty of time. Ask your IT partner about this nuance at the initial stage and discuss the web app design thoroughly to avoid extra efforts in the future.
In addition to reusability, consider the other maintenance-related markers of good software:
- It should be flexible: Adapting to changing user needs and business requirements is a must-have to win the competitive battle.
- It should be modularly designed: Modularity implies that each component of the software can be developed and tested independently. With this rule followed, any changes will be implemented quickly and without any disruption to the overall system.
- Your software should be easy to scale. Usually, scalability is a ground for handling an increasing amount of workload and users over time. Thus, it’s critical to care about it to preclude serious performance issues or downtime.
Check yourself once again before you start building it
Before starting the development process, ask yourself a few critical questions to ensure that your software satisfies business requirements and user expectations.
- Is your software functional enough to meet the user’s needs and requirements?
- Does it have an attractive design that provides an exceptional user experience?
- Can it be easily changed and updated to adapt to changing user needs and business requirements?
- Can the code be reused if necessary to avoid any redundant development efforts?
- Does it run smoothly and without any bugs or glitches?
- Is it well-documented to ensure future understanding of the product specifics?
- Does it have a strong security strategy to protect sensitive data from unauthorized access or theft?
- Can it handle a large amount of traffic without any performance drop?
- Will you be able to test and maintain it easily?
- Is it easy to use and understand?
If you have ‘yes’ to all these essential questions, you’re ready to move further. If you have any doubts, make a step back and work on ensuring a firm ‘yes.’
Prevention is always better than cure
Developing a high-quality software product would be prone to failure if you skipped the well-thought planning stage. Take into account both operational and transitional characteristics of the future software to ensure it meets both business and user needs. Then design it in a way open to changes and with a strong focus on maintainability. Deep analysis before development can save you time, money and prevent potential issues from arising in the future. Take the time to plan and design your software, and you’ll benefit from its long-term life.