Smartphones have evolved into full-fledged knowledge guides in today’s world. And we’re not talking about the Internet and access to an infinite supply of facts and dates; we’re talking about educational apps that consistently rank at the top of lists of popular educational apps for Android and iOS.
Let’s educate ourselves about the major trends in the field of educational applications and best development practices, and must-have features that are required in the development of an educational mobile application.
Educational App Development Best Practices
Let’s go over a couple of best practices that can be found in all popular online learning applications.
Gamification
Adding achievements and user ranking to educational applications undoubtedly improves user engagement.
The following are some of the most common gamification characteristics found in leading apps:
- Characters that are animated
- Rewards and bonuses for a repeat performance
- Performance ranking of users
Elements of Society
Having social network-like features is another important aspect of a successful learning app. Duolingo, for example, allows you to follow other users, encourages you to share your progress, and rewards you for inviting friends. Other social aspects to consider are:
- Allow users to leave feedback on lessons.
- Encourage self-regulation by allowing users to flag content and comments made by other users.
- Include simple methods for sharing progress.
Lessons In Bites
Finally, pay attention to the structure of your learning materials. Bite-sized lessons that teach one or two concepts at a time appear to work best. People are more likely to quickly digest the information presented in this format.
Must-Have Features for a Winning Educational App
For the majority of educational apps on the market, content is everything. As a result, you must ensure that the content is as accessible and engaging as possible. As a result, every feature that serves this purpose must be included on your list.
Let’s go over a few must-have features that should be included in almost every interactive learning app.
Interactivity
The use of Facebook and Google logins facilitates onboarding, while the ability to invite friends allows you to scale up more quickly. You can also use the social aspect of learning to your advantage by encouraging users to comment and share their findings.
User Profiling
That is where the user’s virtual ego resides, along with all of the earned regalia — badges, points, and so on.
Notifications
There is nothing more powerful than a notification informing you that a friend has outscored you in a game. Users can use push notifications to keep track of their learning progress.
Application Of Artificial Intelligence
AI algorithms enable your solution to help learners solve problems by simplifying their experience. It can also be used to improve recommendations and streamline the learning process.
Build a Winning Educational Mobile App in 4 Steps
If you’re unfamiliar with the app development process, certain steps are repeated for each project, regardless of the type of mobile product you’re creating:
- Discovery
- Prototyping
- Development
- Deployment
Each step is filled with different activities that, in essence, remain consistent across projects, but there are some differences when it comes to creating educational apps. Let’s go over the main steps for creating an educational app.
Step 1: Discovery
In our experience, every successful project begins with a discovery phase, and mobile learning app development projects are no exception.
You will select a platform based on who your mobile solution will serve and for what purpose. Is your target audience more at ease with tablets and smartphones, or do they prefer a desktop web experience?
Your platform selection will, in turn, influence the technologies and frameworks that your development team will use.
Step 2: Validate by Rapid Prototyping
Once you’ve determined who you’re creating for, it’s time to put your concept into action. You accomplish this by designing the UX/UI and creating an interactive prototype that looks exactly like a real app. The plan is to test this prototype with the intended users and improve it based on their feedback.
STEP 3: Development Of Educational App
The development process is almost a cliche: programmers code and quality engineers test. Of course, there’s more to it, but unless you need to directly control developers, you don’t need to know. What you should know is whether there are readily available tools that can be used to jumpstart the development of your educational app.
Step 4: Deploy
Making the app available to the public may appear to be as simple as uploading it to the App Store and Google Play, but there are a few things to consider:
Don’t forget to stress test the server component
You need to know how your application will behave when a large number of people begin actively using it.
DevOps should be properly set up
DevOps processes should have been established during the development phase, but maintaining them post-release ensures that you will be able to ship updates seamlessly once your application is in the stores.
Think about ad hoc distribution models
When developing an educational app for staff training, you may need to restrict access to your solution to internal employees only. You can send them a file or a link via messaging on Android. On iOS, you must do this via Mobile Device Management.
The End Goal
The culmination of any mobile app development practice should be to promote learning in the best way possible, and that can only be achieved by making sure the above-discussed points are included in our ideal mobile application so that there are no hindrances.
In the end, if you need to get all of your queries in regards to mobile application development, get yourself aware of the best mobile app development service provider – InfiniSys. Visit the website to discover more the most about your ideal mobile application.