In a perfect world, businesses would have enough time and resources to build and maintain every original mobile platform they desire. But in our world of deadlines and budgetary restrictions, we must decide where to invest our limited manpower to best serve the user experience.
It’s widely known that developers cannot afford to neglect the mobile experience or treat it as an afterthought. This is as true in travel and hospitality as it is in financial services or any other industry. But brands also need to determine whether an app is necessary for a given project or if the website does the job.
Fork in the code
Thomas Bailey, global lead of experience technology at Publicis Sapient in Boston, said when deciding to cover various platforms and channels, it’s critical to make providing value to customers the number one priority.
“When we come in part of what we do is evaluate how our partner is going to do business and the goals they’re looking to achieve. And we’ll determine from those a set of requirements to help us make that recommendation,” Bailey said. “Making sure you’re available everywhere as quickly as possible with the least amount of effort and time is really what we’re targeting.”
Software engineer Ilia Lekhter leads a technical team for Publicis Sapient in Boston. He works on every stage of software life-cycle projects and engages directly with business partners to understand the complexity of their problems.
He said project requirements and strategy ultimately drive the architecture for various solutions. Overall, native applications, software programs created for specific devices, should add value – not merely adjust websites for phone screens.
“It really just depends on the motivation of the client and what you intend to do. Is it going to be a long-living application? If so, there’s going to be some merit, even in a simple application,” Lekhter said. “At some point you may want to integrate the app with the device’s security capabilities or more complex features if they are mentioned in the roadmap.”