THE 3 PRINCIPLES BEHIND SUCCESSFUL APP DEVELOPMENT

By Kevin Miller, CEO RunRev

There is an old adage that says a workman is only as good as his tools. This may or may not be true however as any developer will tell you, the difference between creating a good App and delivering an exceptional App often comes down to a few things. At RunRev, we believe that the delivering exceptional apps should not be limited by a lack of functionality or flexibility in the development software you use. Rather, the development platform should aid the process, whether that is unleashing your creativity or improving your productivity and work rate. It is why we designed LiveCode as a real-time, multi-platform development environment, so that developers can focus on the things that turn good Apps into exceptional Apps. To succeed, any App needs to have the right mixture of inspiration, features, and functionality and be beautifully executed. But in my opinion there are some things missing from that mix that take the whole process to another level.  Those keys are 3 P’s – prototyping, productivity and price.

The ability to prototype a new App or make changes to an existing one has many benefits. Top of the list is the fact that developers can demonstrate to users and management how the final product may look and behave and make any necessary amendments in line with the project’s stated goals and expectations at a far earlier stage. This in turn removes the need to recode and rework an App, thereby reducing the overall cost and development time. Prototyping also offers a way to check that the project is on the right tracks without creating too much of a distraction.  There are various tools available that let you mock up the visuals of an App and these are useful. But there are very few that allow you to rapidly prototype the full functionality and user interaction and try it all out on an actual device. LiveCode is different in that it allows you to do just that.

Alongside creativity, productivity must surely rank as an essential trait to developing successful Apps. At one level, productivity can be seen in terms of how many Apps a developer can create in a given time. At another level, productivity can also be viewed as a way for developers to focus on the task in hand and iteratively develop high-quality Apps. We embrace both definitions of the term and have endeavoured to make LiveCode easy to use. Our emphasis on using an English-like language allows users to write code that makes sense using expressive, memorable syntax. The result is that anyone else that may get involved in the project can easily understand what the developer is trying to accomplish.

Price is the final piece in the puzzle and one that can open Apps development to a wider audience. Many more people are choosing and wanting to get involved in Apps development work. The ranks of professional developers are being complimented by a new generation of developers, for whom coding is not their first language. In developing LiveCode, we sought to appeal to both the professional and casual developer by offering a feature rich development platform. With an entry price of £76 for individuals, our LiveCode for iOS package is affordable for all. For professional developers, the main price for creating an App is a function of time spent, something that LiveCode dramatically reduces compared to any other iOS development platform.

The continued popularity of the iPhone, iPad and increasingly Android-based devices presents developers with ongoing opportunities to develop a wide range of Apps for both platforms. By incorporating key features, such as prototyping and productivity, into the LiveCode platform and making app development more affordable will, in my opinion, change the way developers look at creating Apps in the future.