“A well-designed mobile application seldom has great app architecture as its foundation.“
Mobile app architecture is a neglected subject, and many people ignore it while building a mobile app. Even Google doesn’t recommend any specific architecture. Apple took a different approach and suggested the MVC architecture.
It doesn’t matter whether you are building your app in iOS or Android; having a robust mobile app architecture will benefit it. You can have a great idea, hire Top Mobile App Development Companies, spend millions on app development, do thorough market research. If you don’t spend time thinking about the mobile app architecture, it can prove a chink in your armor.
Mobile app architecture is the lighthouse that guides the ship of your mobile app development. Let’s know about it in detail –
What Do We Mean by App Architecture?
Let’s start with the basics first; what is mobile app architecture?
Mobile app architecture is a set of rules that allows mobile app developers to build a structured mobile app. You can think of it as the blueprint of a mobile app. You follow the blueprint diligently, and you will have a great mobile app as the ultimate result.
The mobile app architecture decides every decision that goes into app development, like the UI/UX, which platform to choose, the technology stack, and how the data will move inside and outside the app.
Problems Occur When Ignoring Mobile App Architecture
Many present-day app developers fail to recognize the importance of selecting the exemplary mobile app architecture. It is due to the developer’s lack of experience and knowledge, or due to their sheer negligence, or in a case that the developers haven’t gone through fundamentals of mobile app development guide. Overlooking this vital step in the design and planning stage of building a mobile app can prove to be your Achilles heel.
A few problems that can arise due to the lack of robust mobile app architecture are:
- The app becomes difficult to develop
- Maintenance of the app is a headache
- Lots of errors creep into the app
- Code becomes unreadable
Testing the source code without mobile app architecture is tricky, resulting in missing unit tests of critical functionalities. Bug fixing and refactoring become way more complicated in the absence of robust mobile app architecture, making the app challenging to maintain. Some inexperienced developers start without investing time in building robust mobile app architecture, thinking they are saving time. Indeed things may seem fast at first, but as time progresses, they will find some roadblocks.
Factors to consider while building your Mobile app architecture
Type of device
The type of device you intend to run your mobile app plays an essential role in deciding the app architecture. For example, the configurations of Android and iOS devices will differ in certain aspects. You need to take into account the following factors before deciding the kind of mobile app architecture.
- Screen Size & Resolution
- CPU Characteristics
- RAM Memory
- Storage Capacity
- OS and an additional layer of OS by different companies
Bandwidth Scenarios
There are many regions in the world where Internet Connectivity is a significant issue. While deciding the mobile app architecture, you need to care for a scenario when your user might need to work in an area with low internet connectivity. The app should be able to provide a certain minimum amount of features without the internet. You should keep the bandwidth requirements of the user in mind while designing the mobile app architecture.
App Navigation
Mobile app navigation plays a vital role in deciding the success ratio of a mobile app. If the navigation is not proper, the users will get frustrated and fall over to your competition. You certainly do not want that. Hence it is better to provide navigation that proves to be the path of least resistance and puts a minimum cognitive load on the user.
There are many navigation methods to choose from:
- Single view
- Stacked navigation bar
- Scroll view
- Gesture-based navigation
- Search-driven navigation
- Tab controller
You should choose the navigation method depending upon the user’s habits. It will ensure that your mobile app’s interface is intuitive, shortening the learning curve for the user.
Real-time Updates or Push Notifications?
Decide up front whether your app will require real-time notifications or push notifications.
As the name suggests, real-time notifications are those notifications that are delivered in real-time without much time lag. A prime example of real-time notifications would be a stock market app. millions of dollars can be made or lost in the stock market just within a matter of milliseconds. This is where real–time notifications can prove to be a boon.
Non-real–time push notifications, on the other hand, are not concerned about providing real-time updates.
Real-time updates are costly and not necessary for all kinds of apps. There is no need to go with real-time notifications if your app does not need them. On the other hand, real-time notifications are a must for some kinds of apps, like sports score update apps and stock market apps.
While finalizing the mobile app architecture, While deciding the appropriate mobile architecture, you will need to decide whether to provide real-time notifications or push notifications. While real-time notifications are great, they can prove to be costly. Also, consider that some apps, like stock market apps and sports apps, require real-time notifications.
What are the different layers of mobile app architecture?
Usually, there are three layers in a mobile application.
Presentation Layer
While designing this layer, the expert app developer is concerned about the app’s presentation to the user. They will need to determine the correct client type according to the app’s features. The app developers will also have to select the correct data format and use reliable data validation techniques to protect the users from invalid data inputs.
The UI/UX design elements are decided in this layer. Based on UI/UX design principles, the mobile app designers need to finalize the theme, fonts, colors, and other UI/UX details in this layer.
Business Layer
This layer is concerned with tasks like validation, security, exception management, logging, and caching. The business layer can prove to be very complicated, and you should use a distinct business layer wherever feasible. We advise you to separate your tasks into various categories to reduce the complexity of the business layer.
Service Layer
Between the presentation layer and data access layer lies a newer and quite less common – service layer. Here, the service interface is defined and enforced to provide translator components. These components translate external data contracts and server infrastructure’s business layer. The primary job of the service layer is to decouple the presentation from data models or business logic. In other words, there could be more than one presentation layer such as mobile, web, or even virtual reality component using the same service layer. Furthermore, business logic or data models can be upgraded without affecting any presentation layer.
Data Access Layer
The data access layer is concerned with facilitating secure data transactions to and fro from your app. Therefore, choosing the right data access technology is critical for a mobile app’s success because data privacy is valued more than ever in today’s world.
This layer consists of data-specific components such as access components, utilities, helpers, and service agents.
You can use table-based identities, which will allow you to render a simple design structure for data storage and data transfer.
The data access layer manages all the data connections that your mobile application will need to function correctly. It also handles the CRUD (Create Read Update and Delete) operations and data sources.
Summarizing the working of the different layers in Mobile App Architecture
The presentation layer is concerned with the aesthetics of the app, the design, and how the user will interact with the app. The data layer is concerned with the data sources, synchronizing them and ultimately providing them to higher levels. The business layer is concerned with the kind of data that the data layer provides and it ensures that the data matches the requirements of the presentation layer.
Choosing the suitable Mobile App Architecture
Now that you have a basic understanding of what constitutes a typical mobile architecture, we move on to the actual process of selecting the correct mobile architecture for your app.
Audience Analysis
Knowing your customer is the essential thing that will decide the direction of your mobile app architecture. First, you will need to identify your targeted audience and analyze their personality. It will enable you to identify the right platform and understand the user experience (UX) that your audience expects from your mobile app.
Knowing your customer is the essential thing that will decide the direction of your mobile app architecture. First, you will need to identify your targeted audience and analyze their personality. It will enable you to identify the right platform and understand the user experience (UX) that your audience expects from your mobile app.
For example, if you find out that the sales professional prefers Android devices over iOS devices, you will need to focus on developing your mobile app on Android.
To determine the correct mobile app architecture, put yourself in the shoes of your customers. Think about the kind of experience that your end users are looking forward to from your app.
Identify Key Functionality Requirements
Identifying the essential functions that your app will require is one of the most critical steps to determine the course of your mobile app architecture. There is no point in overloading your mobile app with features that you won’t require.
For example, building a news app for content consumption will be massive, as it will require a lot of informational content to be dispersed within a limited period. The key here is to develop a cross–platform app that will allow you to build once and deploy on multiple platforms. For such requirements, a Progressive Web App (PWA) can prove to be beneficial.
Similarly, for applications like file manager, where you require offline file access, a native app would be a better solution. It is because; a native app can leverage the full capabilities of the hardware of the device.
Which Particular Platform to Focus Upon?
In case you want to focus on a particular platform. First, it would be best to build a native app.
If you plan to launch your app simultaneously on all the major mobile app platforms, consider going for a hybrid app. Building a hybrid app is much more cost-effective and time-efficient than building a native app. Consult with the best mobile app development service providing company before moving ahead with the decision.
Offline App Functionality
Another critical aspect that determines the type of mobile app architecture is the aspect of offline app functionality.
For instance, enterprise users just can’t afford to stop working, and hence they need offline functionality in the mobile app they are using. We are not saying that your app should be able to function fully without an internet connection. Even if some core functionalities function without the internet, it would greatly help the enterprise users.
PWAs (Progressive Web Apps) can prove to be the best solution if your app wishes to provide offline functionality.
What are the Niche Requirements?
While designing the mobile app architecture, it is essential to consider the user’s industry-specific or niche requirements. Taking care of the niche requirements is critical as it ascertains that your app cares for the users.
For instance, building SEO,–Friendly mobile apps is essential when catering to the retail industry. It is because there are very few chances that your e-commerce app will succeed in retail if people find it difficult to search for your app. If you have an app that sells eyeglasses, for instance, you should make sure that your app pops up on the first ten search results of Google. Without good SEO and ASO, your e-commerce app will die premature death.
Time Frame
If you want to take your mobile app to the market first and are not bothered by adding too much functionality, you should consider going for a PWA. However, if you have the time and the resources, you should consider building a native app to deliver the best possible experience to your users.
Analyze Skill Sets of Development Team
Is your mobile app development team equipped with all the required skills? Are they proficient in various mobile app development technologies like C, Swift, iOS, Java, Kotlin, React Native, and Flutter? These are some of the questions you should ask your mobile app developers before deciding on the appropriate mobile app architecture. Deciding on your hired mobile app developers’ proficiency level is critical. Even if you decide to go for a mobile app architecture in which your developers are not proficient, the plan won’t execute.
Conclusion
The mobile app architecture is the backbone of your mobile app. It provides the blueprint for developing the app. You get a clear idea about the kind of app you intend to develop and the difficulties you will face in building the app. think of mobile app architecture as a plan and we all know what happens when you don’t have a plan.
Designing robust mobile app architecture is a critical step in ensuring the success of an app.
Mobile app architecture allows you to pre-decide all the essential factors that play a significant role in deciding the app’s outcome. By designing robust mobile app architecture, you will ensure that your app is successful.