How to Redesign An App for Scaling: The Complete Guide

If your business has a mobile application, any mobile app development company can tell you that your app development does not stop once you launch the finished product. Wait, what?!

How can we call it a “finished product” and launch it if the development is not actually complete, you ask?

Well, it’s simple.

As your business grows, you need to scale up your app to accommodate your new business requirements.

In this blog, we will talk about what exactly goes into app redesign, how to do it the right way, and also take a peek at the most common app redesign challenges faced by the stakeholders during the development process.

We also tackle another important question that will undoubtedly be on every business owner’s mind: “How much will this cost me?”

Read on to re-invent your app in the smartest way possible!

How to Revamp Your App – Explained in 7 Simple Steps

Scaling up your application is simply the process of enabling your mobile app to handle a much bigger load of users without reducing its performance. The scaling of apps can be broadly classified into two categories:

1. Vertical scaling
2. Horizontal scaling

In order to prepare yourself and your mobile app for scaling, you need to revamp it so that it is at its optimal performance before you improve it and scale up.

1. Understand the Needs of Your Business

This is the first step in any process that involves investing in technology. You must understand what your exact business requirements are in order to figure out what sort of revamp your mobile app needs.

Consider the following questions:

• What are you trying to achieve with your mobile app?
• What sort of audience are you looking to target?
• What is the bar set by your competition?
• What does your business need to stay important in the market?
• What is the audience type and size that you need to cater to?
• How can you make the lives of your users easier?
• What sort of user experiences are you looking to design for your customers?

This list is by no means exhaustive, but it will put you on the right path to understanding your business requirements like the back of your hand.

2. Focus on the User Experience You Wish to Create

Nowadays, the art of creating exceptional experiences is what keeps businesses on their toes.

With every business in the global market trying to provide the best customer experience, it is important that your user experience stands out if you want to stay relevant in today’s market.

Your primary goal is to connect people to the products and services you offer. You can stay ahead of the competition only if you manage to connect your customers to the products they demand. Before someone else beats you to the punch.  

So, your primary focus should be on the needs and demands of your target audience and what they expect from you as a service provider.

Take your time with your mobile app revamp and pay attention to detail when it comes to your design and you will be just fine!

Also, take look at the UX best practices to follow.

3. Set Realistic Deadlines

You cannot scale up your mobile app overnight. Scaling up your app to meet large user demand while also maintaining, if not improving, your app’s current level of performance will take time.

And once you scale up, it will take you yet more time to reach your target audience effectively, even with the right digital marketing strategies and tools, so be mentally prepared to invest something crucial in your mobile app revamp project: time.

Haste makes waste is an apt saying to note in this case. If you hurry your tech solutioning and try to take shortcuts, you might end up having to spend more time correcting the mistakes you make. You might miss some minor details and rack up a huge technical debt. Or you might miss out on important capabilities and features that could potentially delight your customers.

So, set realistic time frames for your mobile app redesign and think about how to prepare your app for scaling up.

4. Focus on What Your App Can Offer

No matter how much you shell out to market your mobile app, if your product is no good, your traction will not last. Hence, it is important that you spend some quality time brainstorming on how you can add value to your market with your product.

What’s your end goal here? Create a product that your end users will love and keep coming back for. Which means your app must be easy to navigate, should function seamlessly, and have capabilities that are curated to make your consumer’s lives easier.  

To ensure that your chances of succeeding when you finally launch your app are high, you must steer clear of bugs and errors, bad UI/UX design, and overly complicated interfaces.

5. Increase Your Reach Strategically

It’s great that you want to revamp your mobile app and scale up to meet user demands. But, what’s the point if you cannot find the right users? And that’s where the importance of online visibility comes into play.

As part of revamping your mobile app for scaling, you will need to double down on your efforts to market your offerings and reach a wider and more diverse audience. This will ensure that when your finished product is ready for your market, your users will also be ready to embrace your efforts.

Increasing your reach organically is always the best approach that you can take. However, you will need to invest time and effort in increasing your organic reach. This is why you need to start taking steps to increase your brand and product awareness even before you start the actual process of scaling up your app.

6. Put Yourself on the App Store Map

A big part of preparing to scale up your app is also planning what happens after your app redesign: the grand reveal!

If you want a strong customer base, you need to make sure that your app store presence is also strong. Make sure your app stands out from the millions of applications on Google Play and App Store.

Now, there are many ways to optimise your presence on the app store of your choice. But, the most effective way would be to go the visual route. The creatives you put out for your audience and the screenshots you use to display your apps’ capabilities must be capable of getting the attention of your users.

If you manage to grab the attention of your end users as soon as they land on the app store, your work is already half done. The next part would be to keep holding the interest of users with detailed descriptions and interesting information about the capabilities and features that your app can offer to them.

7. Listen to Your End Users

Get feedback and lots of it!

User feedback is important because it helps you get an idea of how well you have managed to connect with your target audience. It will also help you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your mobile app, which in turn will help you play to your strengths and fix the problems that your app may currently be facing.

In fact, feedback should not be limited to just your uses. It should come from all stakeholders –  both internal and external. After all, who would know your mobile revamp needs better than the developers who are actually working on it?

Of course, simply gathering feedback is not going to get you very far. You must also implement effective strategies that will help you to convert the feedback you receive into tangible results that your users can enjoy.

How Much Will an End-to-End App Redesign Cost You?

Every business has its own set of distinctive requirements, hence tech solutions for businesses must be tailored to their needs in order to get the maximum outputs. As such, your app redesign will depend upon multiple factors such as:

Your current app’s proficiency and existing capabilities

If your app is already a good one that has reasonable traction with your user base, app redesign will only include the cost of scaling up. However, if your app already has a lot of technical debt, then you will first need to invest your time and resources in fixing all the errors and bugs so that you do not carry them over to your evolved app.

Your Business Requirements and the Technology that is Suitable  

The extent to which you need to scale up will be purely dependent on your business requirements, which will also play a role in the cost of your app redesign. For example, if your business requirements are small and cater to a small audience, you might only need a quick scaling up solution.

However, if you need to scale up considerably and meet the demands of a global audience, you might need a much bigger tech team and also invest in more advanced technology.

The Amount of Work that Will Be Involved in Scaling Up Your App

App redesign might sound simple, but it requires a lot of long hours and creativity to execute well. The costs you will incur while revamping your app will depend on the complexity of the project and the number of developmental hours that go into making sure your app is top-notch.

Since your business requirements are unique, developers may also face unprecedented app design challenges which might take time to resolve.

The Technical Expertise That is Required for the Project

We might have made app redesign sound simple in the above blog, but we can assure you that a lot of nitty gritty things go on in the back end to make sure your final product is ready to go!

You will need a dedicated team of solutions experts working on your mobile app revamp to ensure that you get things done right and within stipulated deadlines. And who pays their salaries? Your initial investment, of course!

The Timeline in Which You Want Your App Redesign Completed

Now, this is an obvious factor that will also play a role in determining the kind of money you will have to shell out to make your app redesign dream a reality.

If you are on a tight deadline, you will have to incur higher costs as your tech team will have to compensate for the long hours put in by their resources, hire extra resources to have more hands on deck for different tasks, or even outsource particular aspects of your app development.

Suggested read: Raising Startup Investment: Finding Right Investors & Alternative Fundings

What Can NeoITO Do for You?

We can help you get the most value for your tech investments. We have close to a decade of experience working with businesses big and small to help them realise their dream tech products.

App redesign is not child’s play, and if not done under the proper guidance, your whole mobile app revamp project can become drawn out and end up putting a big drain on your resources.

If you want to chalk out the best course of action for your app redesign, you’ll first need to make sure that your current mobile app and your business are both prepared and ready for scaling up. And our team of experienced tech express can do just that!

We will not only give you the best consultancy services, but also help you understand the most effective ways of implementing the solutions we make for your unique business needs.  

And, of course, at the end of the day, your success is our success, so you can rest assured that we will do everything in our power to help you revamp and scale up your app to the best-fit product for your marketplace.