7 Best Practices for Developing an Educational App

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The switch to remote learning has significantly boosted the educational app sector. In the past, most educational apps could either provide tutorials or be a connecting link between writing services online with best authors and students. But currently, companies are rolling out products for teachers, instructors, and even non-academic staff.

This article will explore some key considerations for those planning on developing an educational app. Continue reading to discover the best practices that guarantee success.

Find Your Target Audience

Before you start working on an app design, you must figure out your target audience. Ask the following questions to help you determine your target audience:

  • What are the project’s objectives?
  • What are the demographics of the app’s potential users?
  • What features will users need?
  • How should I communicate with them?

Conducting in-depth research about your target audience will help you and your team create products that users love. And besides, you will come up with a fantastic app that meets all requirements.

Create a User Persona

A user persona is a visualization of the app’s potential users based on research data. For instance, the typical persona of someone who would be interested in essay writing service reviews by NoCramming is a young person in high school or university.

Although most of the information that makes up the user persona comes from market research, your project can narrow things down depending on the product. So by creating this user persona, you can help the designers, developers, and marketers channel their resources into making your app the best product online.

Invest in UI/UX Design

Companies often skip UI/UX design and go into app development straightaway. In most cases, developing an app without outlining a concept leads to products that fail woefully.

To avoid this problem, always work with UI/UX designers at every stage of the project. They know how to gather information from users in order to build products that resonate with your target users.

Besides, UI/UX designers will help your developers make sense of the app’s features by creating components and style guides for the product. As a result, you will end up saving more money that would have gone into wasteful design iterations.

Request Feedback from Users

Another reason you need UX designers and researchers when creating an app is to gather user feedback about the features on the product — or those you want to add. Instead of building an app hoping people will gravitate towards it, you can get firsthand information from your target demographics.

For starters, you can ask them what they want to see in the app’s final version. Then you can request suggestions for improvement. Ultimately, you can ask some potential users to test the app’s beta version before releasing the stable alpha version to the public.

By following this feedback strategy, you will end up with a product that addresses users’ needs directly.

Incorporate Visuals

Young people have a short attention span, so they won’t hang around to read massive blocks of text in your app. If you want to grab their attention — and keep it for a long time — you need to add images, illustrations, animations, and videos to your app.

How do images help? As the saying goes, a picture conveys in one frame more than a thousand words can. So, if you can make the story stick by adding an image, use it to your advantage.

Besides, students love other visual imagery like infographics and quotes. So, adding these features to your app will increase its overall appeal.

Test the Final Product

If you don’t want to lose money or tarnish your company’s reputation, you should never release an app to the public without proper testing. You can hire QA specialists to conduct several rounds of rigorous testing in order to ascertain that the product delivers on its promise.

Moreover, testing the app will help you spot bugs and vulnerabilities that could harm the user experience—or even cost your business money in the long run. So, don’t skip testing.

Set Up a Monetization Plan

You are probably building an app to help students, but you have to monetize the app at some point. And this is where your sales and marketing team comes in. These experts can help your business develop a plan for monetization to convert usage into profit.

Some monetization models for educational apps include:

  • Paid subscriptions;
  • In-app purchases;
  • Ads;
  • Exclusive contracts;
  • Freemium models (free or premium);
  • Sponsorships and paid partnerships.

You can combine multiple monetization models to increase your earnings from the app. Just make sure that the monetization plan you choose doesn’t affect the user experience negatively.

12 Must-Have Features for an Educational App

Educational apps differ from traditional apps in terms of available features. For instance, you don’t need flashcards on a fitness app, but this feature is necessary for a language learning app. Here are some features that every educational app must have:

  1. Intuitive mobile-friendly user interface;
  2. Personal dashboard;
  3. Flashcards;
  4. Two-step login;
  5. Progress reports;
  6. Scoreboards and leaderboards;
  7. Messaging;
  8. Push notifications;
  9. Offline content;
  10. Payment options;
  11. File sharing;
  12. Social media integration.

You can discuss adding other features with your development team. But everything you include should serve a specific purpose instead of just beautifying the app.

Conclusion

Building an educational app requires a deep understanding of your users and in-depth research to shape your objectives. With an experienced team of developers and researchers, you can figure out your app’s target audience and user persona.

After that, your designers can create prototypes to help developers build the app using visuals and user-friendly design principles. Ultimately, don’t forget to test the app before deploying it. This will help you provide a bug-free app that will generate massive ROI for your company.

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