Even though we are seeing new web applications being developed every now and then, most of them often fail or do not survive for long to meet their requirements. When applications developed by high profile companies fail, it comes with an embarrassing and damaging publicity that can cripple or even bring the companies to a halt.
Modern web applications are built around Applications Programming Interfaces (APIs). APIs are computing interfaces that allow applications to communicate with each other. When building web applications, developers are able to implement these APIs, meaning that they do not write code from scratch. This not only saves time spent in development but also comes with many other benefits of integrating with APIs.
That notwithstanding, some of the web applications still fail. Even though web development and programming has existed for many years, and processes have been refined to prevent applications from failing, developers often make similar mistakes that aid in the failure of their applications.
However, we have web service monitoring platforms that help in detecting failures and errors and send alerts to developers to fix any issues that might affect their applications. These tools have contributed a lot in avoiding the failure of web applications.
Reasons That Contribute to the Failure of Web Applications
Understanding Consumer Requirements
Sometimes, business owners come up with brilliant ideas that will require a web application for complete implementation. They share their ideas with their in-house development team or even engage the services of third-party developers to come up with the web application.
The developers help in implementing these ideas and come up with an equally brilliant web application that meets the requirements of the business owners. However, they fail to engage the end consumers of the application to find out what they would need in a new application. This renders the web application useless when released to the market.
Solving Problems That Do Not Exist
Every web application needs to solve a certain problem, or rather a problem that exists. Before coming up with an application, the application owners need to conduct enough research to make sure that they are not just releasing an application to the market, but they are releasing an application that solves a problem.
Further, developers need to find a gap that exists. Some just go ahead and develop an application that works in the same way as multiple other applications, some of which have already established themselves. Such applications have very high chances of failing.
Targeting Wrong Markets
As stated above, developers need to identify a gap before coming up with web applications that fill the gap. Furthermore, while identifying this gap, they need to make sure that the application they are coming up with not only covers the gap, but is required by their target consumers.
For instance, in a town made up of a big percentage of farmers, developers might not reap enough benefits coming up with an application that does not help the farmers in any way. They need to make sure that they develop applications that the farmers need.
Pricing
Sometimes, developers spent a lot of time and resources building a web application. They then come up with a brilliant application that meets all their requirements and those of their target customers.
However, to compensate for the effort they put when building the applications, they incorrectly price them thinking that their consumers will not have any issues with the pricing. Consumers will most likely get an alternative application at a reasonable price even if the alternative does not have as many features as the original application.
Conclusion
Finally, developers need to be keen about the time they take when building their applications. An idea remains just an idea not unless it is implemented. When implementing your idea, you might take a lot of time and someone else comes up with the same idea, implementing it before you. Developers who avoid these mistakes have a higher chance of their applications meeting their requirements and surviving for the longest time possible.
