Tips for application developers from Eliza Troika (ShopAlike)

Eliza Troika led by mobile development department in ShopAlike. Despite his young age (27 years old girl), she has accumulated enough experience to share practical advice on the development of mobile applications for different platforms. Her experience will be of interest to all new developers, so we publish an interview with Eliza on the pages of "MakRadara".

- Tell us a little about yourself.

- I work in LadenZeile / ShopAlike more than 3 years. In this company, I had a great opportunity to build the most mobile development department from scratch. I have been waiting for three developers who could not wait to get down to business and start working on the application. Before that I was engaged in graphics and design for PC-programs, and then applications.

Work on mobile applications is very different from working on the PC-programs: UX and UI designs are arranged differently, and screen size forces think differently. It is therefore quite easy to make an application, but to provide a quality experience of interaction is not so easy.

- What programming languages ​​do you use in your applications?

- For Android, we are working with Java, for iOS - with Objective-C, and for Windows Phone - with C #.

- What special skills does it take to become a good mobile developers?

- Personally, I like the head of mobile development, to appreciate their enthusiasm and dedication of employees. You need to really want to work on their product and to treat him as his child. Only in this case you do not close our eyes to new possibilities for improving the product.

In addition to this, we need an analytical mind. You should know your key performance indicators to validate any decision. Not everything that you think is the biggest advantage for the user, in fact, such is. To find out, you will need to spend a lot of tests, gather analytics, check indicators.

- As you develop applications for multiple platforms?

- We have developed a "native" application from scratch for all major platforms. Cross-platform development has never even been on the agenda because we had enough resources.
Since not all so lucky, I think that every developer need to sit down and think about how to appointment of its application and about what would be the best approach is for him: native, hybrid or Web site.

I think that the development of native applications helped us to get recommendations from Google Play and the iTunes, thanks to which we have achieved a high level of downloads. But, of course, it does not cover the costs compared with a hybrid or web application.

- What is special about the mobile application development?

- We were lucky - we have a self-sufficient team, which is independent from other departments, such as the backend or IT. This is a big plus. We also are working on the Scrum method, which allows you to dynamically develop and improve the performance and productivity due to the review of current activities on the daily meetings. I recommend it to everyone, not only in the development of applications, but also for personal development.

- What challenges did you face when developing?

- As for Android, one of the main technical challenges - it is fragmented, as each Device manufacturer adapts the operating system by itself, as, for example, Kindle Fire or Nexus. Therefore, we have to deal with different technical specifications and operating systems. For example, it costs a lot of work to support the Android Gingerbread (2.3.x), while working with the latest libraries to improve the performance of applications.

As for iOS, it took us time to adapt the application for iOS 8. And the more new techniques to add, the greater the chance of unexpected problems. We beta-tested application, but when a new Operating System, it is still found a lot of bugs has been released. It is difficult to balance the desire to quickly launch the application and assurance that everything will work fine.

As my colleagues say, the main problem - is to study the features of the latest platforms and languages.

- How important is it to run a custom application startup?

- Of course, it is not necessary at the outset to develop the application, but should be ready for the growing mobile traffic and adapt the site for mobile devices, providing its users with a convenient interface.

- What are the success criteria for the application?

- The main criteria for us are the use and interaction, rather than the number of downloads, as some might think. You can buy a lot of cheap chips doing to download the application focus, but the level of uninstall, session duration and CLV (customer lifetime value, customer value of life) at the same time decrease.

Average rating, organic plants, switching user mobile viewing application and the level of recurring meetings - these are some of our key performance indicators.

- Are there many women in the field of mobile development?

- I think a lot of them, but they are not visible. We have a lot of women ShopAlike developers, but have to admit that I'm often shocked by how few women speakers at thematic conferences. This is particularly surprising, given the fact how many women mobile startups founded or led by a mobile marketing and technology in large companies. So I do not know why exactly.

- What are the five tips you will give mobile developers?

1. Do not try to develop your own design - use native or standard form and shape for each system.
2. Use templates.
3. Do not concentrate all their efforts on only one platform.
4. Do not lose your curiosity and do not stop learning. Mobile development - a very rapidly changing business.
5. Follow the work of other developers. For example, Jake Wharton (Jake Wharton) is very steep.

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ShopAlike.ru - this is an aggregator of clothing online shopping, shoes and household goods. ShopAlike / LadenZeile - is a product of the German company Visual Meta GmbH, owned by media holding Axel Springer. Now the company is developing in 19 countries around the world, including in Russia.