One of the most important parts of a successful app is its feature set. The feature set helps you kick off your ideas for your final product; it’s the first step in creating a solid skeleton for the app.

Mobile app development is a process that requires constant modification and evolution. At times, your initial idea might solve an entirely different problem, especially as it evolves during the various stages of planning.

At Fueled, we encourage challenging discussions where products are analyzed, refined, and improved. We know if an app idea will succeed, how much money an app can earn, and what will become the next mobile tech trend. 

FEATURE SET: WHAT IT IS AND WHY IT’S IMPORTANT

A feature set is a high-level description of the functionalities that you want to include in an app. It’s a quantity of information that proves certain features are necessary to solve the user's problem.

For example, if someone needs to check the weather on mobile, the obvious solution is to develop a weather app. For this app to solve the user’s problem, it has to include the feature to view the daily forecast and information on temperature, humidity, precipitation levels, and incoming storms. Integrating GPS would make further sense, as users typically want to check the weather in their location.  

A feature set should not comprise a list of random ideas or be considered without a clear agenda. You need a hypothesis around the feature set that will give real value to the market.

“Do we need this feature to solve a problem? Is it going to provide value to the user? Would it be better to push the feature for later and do more research first??"

THE REALITIES OF BUILDING A PRODUCT

The number one goal is to build a product that clients can and will use. Your idea doesn’t need to be revolutionary or provide outsized value to your audience.

It is not a top priority for you to be creative— the constraints of software, hardware, and affordances are comparable to the user and their hands. Their interactions on the phone are constraints that allow you to be creative in the first place.

“It’s the knowledge base that you drive your decisions from, and the more experience you have with them, the more you use those bounds."

There are plenty of ideas in the world where the best solution is a Google form, website, or newsletter. Product Hunt began as a newsletter in 2013 where a closely-knit community shared upcoming products. When the founder realized the potential, he created a more practical blueprint and built Product Hunt into what we know today.

Keep in mind that you have to scale hundreds, thousands, even millions of people; your product needs to speak to them on a personal level. If someone is already committed to one app, they’re not going to use another app that displays identical features. Ultimately, the goal is to make users prefer your product over a competitor’s. 

PRIORITIES TO CONSIDER

Information architecture (IA) is the structural design of shared information environments. It focuses on organizing, structuring, and labeling content effectively and sustainably to help users find information and complete tasks.

IA helps create a better experience. It requires you to build and deliver your information where the user feels that their problem is solved — your product has given them the perfect amount of content they need. 

IA takes priority when building a good feature set, as it is more useful in growing inspiration for developers and designers. It will weed out superfluous bits of knowledge that can’t be beneficial to the user, but preserve the necessary details that will be.

“Ask yourself: What is the user actually going to be able to see? What are they going to be able to do?"

The skeleton should be written from the perspective of how the feature set will impact the user, as well as many other technical elements. The developers’ responsibility is to figure out if part of the value proposition is the technology it’s using.

If a hypothetical feature set involves blockchain, it would be useful to include it in a feature set, as it is a part of the value proposition for the user. If it’s just a miscellaneous feature that happens to be on the mobile and web platform, then the technology is not as crucial — or the user simply doesn’t care enough for it to be worthwhile.

PRACTICAL STEPS FOR A NEW FEATURE SET

First, think about the problem you’re trying to solve and build everything from there. That requires you to work backward from a mindset that tends to focus more on the reason you want to build the app.

Pulling your attention away from the reason and toward the issue allows you to fill out the complete picture. A young feature set that begins by addressing the problem will adequately display all the necessary pieces that fit together, as well as the levels of complexity that make up its DNA.

THE SLOW AND STEADY PROCESS

DEALING WITH NEGATIVE PUSHBACK

If there is collaboration with other departments, negative pushback is inevitable. When it comes to communicating information to app development companies like ours, it’s important to remember that the goal is to solve a problem and build a long-lasting business.

Not all app ideas will get far into the actual process, even with a lot of passion and enthusiasm to support their growth. At the same time, there can be several valid reasons that led you to arrive at any one feature. So how do we get to a place that’s good for everyone?

It doesn’t hurt to step back, trim off excess, and revise an idea the same way you would when you’re writing an essay or shooting a ton of film. There will always be content that must be cut off or revisited, especially if you want to chisel your skeleton into the best product possible.

At the end of the day, you should always think about how you can benefit the user rather than how you will achieve a certain goal for their idea: user needs come first, and your personal goals are secondary.

DEVELOPING FEATURE SET INDEPENDENT OF UX/UI CONSIDERATIONS

Unless the interaction is a core part of the value proposition, it’s wiser to develop a feature set without UX or UI in mind. Tinder is one fine example of an app that needs UX/UI elements incorporated into its feature set; its swiping mechanism is the main feature that people will use. But if your skeleton mostly consists of inputting information and receiving something back, then investing more in functionality is the way to go.

MOBILE LIMITATIONS

As technologically advanced as we are now, there are mobile limitations that slow down our progress.

Let’s say you want to send messages wirelessly. Your phone can send data without an internet connection, but you ambitiously want to include photos and additional attachments. There’s limited functionality for that, so when someone claims that two iPhones can talk to each other without LTE or Wifi, you have to recognize that there are still unspoken limitations.

“Ideas usually aren’t limited by hardware or software—but we have to figure out the cost and the proper way to build a plan."

EXPERIMENTATION FOR YOUR FEATURE SET

QUESTIONS TO ASK FOR YOUR MVP

A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) will allow you to take a hard look at the questions directly responsible for your product skeleton. Does your product improve the user’s life? Does it save them time and money? Will the user be willing to give up something else to use your app instead?

Because you might not have had the chance to test your product, all these questions exist as basic assumptions. During the experimentation process, include simpler methods to test your hypothesis while excluding the details that don’t. 

“It’s about testing your hypothesis quickly and efficiently— with the least amount of money."

HYPOTHESIS TESTING

Begin your testing by interviewing users and identifying the problems they’d like to see solved. Ask your questions in a way where your words pertain to the product, and see whether your idea can solve any real problem that people may have.

Once you figure out early wireframes or prototypes, return to the same users (or different ones! It’s a case-by-case basis) and observe how they respond to your blueprint. Determine whether they have a mental model of the product, and if they know how it provides value. Weigh their response against your own mental model and compare. How closely do they resemble each other?

You can also look deeper into the UI and conduct UX testing. You need to see if your mobile app design is developed in a way that users can easily figure out its purpose. Once you have the beginnings of a live product, you can directly integrate the desired analytics or behaviors into the app.

Features like heat maps, events, and funnels are all objective — you need to depend on them. Everything up to this point was subjective but now is the time to switch gears. This is the first objective piece of data that you’ll receive, and you’ll have to know whether people are using a certain product or not.

“You hear an idea, whittle it down to the problem you’re trying to solve, determine who has that problem, then conduct user interviews."

USERS

If you need to collect random, unbiased feedback, use resources like Craigslist and User Testing. Our digital age offers you the opportunity to reach all types of people as long as you know where to look.

Before you go out to reel in potential users, you need to know how to phrase your questions so the responses are not guided. Carefully structure impartial questions to acquire the answers that will end up helping your product.

After you develop a prototype, observe users and how their usage aligns with your personal goals for functionality. Make note of their feedback, modify the prototype into a more applicable product, and repeat the process until you’re ready to move on to the next step of app development.

CONCLUSION

Building any solution involves both challenges and potential. We strive to share our expertise to help. Sketching out the feature set essentials is a healthy precursor to the process that we unveiled, along with the hypothesis testing with a set user base.

You battle through unreachable expectations, maneuver your features around limitations, and make countless revisions to your app skeleton so that it can someday solve a problem that is prevalent in our everyday lives. Developing a solution for your target user base requires effort and dedication to refine and enhance your feature set.