Top 3 Lessons Learned Designing Android App

Introduction

Mobile Learning is the next frontier for education. So, recently we at Guru99 decided to create an Android App.

The problem was we had zero knowledge of Mobile App Development nor could we afford to hire a full time employee for this short project. Obviously, we decided to outsource it.

The first step of the process was to identify which features available on our site must be included in the app. After hours of brainstorming, we decided to keep the app simple and include just two features:

• Courses
• Quiz

Features like user login, point system, forum were kept on hold for later release.

Lesson 1

Initially, we planned to have a splash screen:

Problem

As per the developer, the total size of the app would be 2MB and with Splash Screen will bloat to 6MB.

Resolution

We removed the splash screen altogether from our design.

Lessons Learned

As per multiple studies, size of an application has an impact on its downloads. It’s okay to let go of excess stuff in order to reduce app size (Splash page in this case).

Lesson 2

Here is the initial menu we planned:

Problem

The Menu bar (above) was too cluttered.

Resolution

We shift the Menu Bar towards the top with only the essential Items (see below).

Lessons Learned

Simplicity trumps over all complex design fads. Hence we simplified the Menu Bar.

Lesson 3

We have loads of courses, few of which are in video format hosted on Youtube. Here is how they look in the app.

Problem

We wanted to give our user the best user experience. Hence, instead of using the native Youtube app, we chose to use the Youtube API, so videos can be seen in app itself. But as shown above, the videos would never load.

Many times, an app update notice was shown:

Post update, the entire app would crash:

Our developer suggested that Youtube API is an issue with Android version 2.3. To circumvent the problem, we limited the app to Android version 4+.

But as destiny would have it, many people reported issues with Video Lessons.

Resolution

We switched to using native Youtube app.

Lessons Learned

We were trying to implement the best user experience for the user. We had to pay the developer extra moolah just to integrate the Youtube API. We even forsaked our marketshare for Android 2.3 version users. But there are some technical challenges better left unsolved. Had we used the native youtube app right from the beginning, we would have saved tons of headache.

Hope these tips will help you jumpstart your app development.

We are currently developing a new version of the app, where a user can register, join a course, track his progress, receive reminders on no-completion of course and many other interactive features.

We are facing many issues already and will update this post, with more lessons learned!