Avoid post-launch issues with our custom software development services. Improve app performance, scalability, testing, and user experience.
For a brief moment, everything appears to be going according to plan. The launch of the enterprise app excites teams, drives app adoption, and yields encouraging results along the way. And then, as teams use the app more and more, issues start to occur.
Apps become slow, users begin reporting bugs, and support requests become the new normal. As a result, app usage begins a slow and steady decay.
But why?
An Overview
Why Enterprise Apps Struggle After Launch
1. Testing Did Not Match Real Usage
Sometimes an app will perform brilliantly through all testing phases, only to bottleneck in actual use.
Testing commonly involves:
- A reduced volume of data
- A smaller volume of users
- A restricted environment
- A very small number of devices
In the real world, users have the ability to introduce a large number of users to the app at the same time. Users may introduce more data into the system, along with different devices and network conditions.
When an app is released into the world, issues that did not manifest themselves during testing may surface.
Build apps that perform beyond launch.
2. Performance Was Delayed
Teams may consider performance to be a task that can be completed at a later date.
By the time performance issues are resolved, users are likely to experience:
- Slow APIs
- Heavy database queries
- Long wait times
- Slow apps
To avoid major issues post-release, teams should consider API performance, database queries, data processing, and front-end load times.
3. The App Could Not Handle Growth
An enterprise application may perform well with a smaller user base and low application usage.
The more the app is used:
- Servers will have trouble keeping up.
- APIs will start to slow.
- Timeouts will become more frequent.
- Background tasks will begin to be processed even later.
An enterprise-level application should maintain stability as use cases grow and projected amounts of data are processed.
4. Edge Cases Appeared Too Late
Enterprise applications need to be able to manage different user roles, workflow implementations, and offer integrations and services under different conditions.
If an application does not thoroughly test each of these areas, some users may be left with broken behaviour or behavior that is inconsistent with the rest of the application.
For example, a user may be in a role where their workflow is broken, whereas an integration may behave completely differently under varying conditions.
5. Mobile Users Face Different Conditions
Mobile application development must account for different:
- Operating systems
- Screen sizes
- Network conditions
- Device types
An application that performs well on a top-tier device may not perform the same way on a mid-tier device.
That is why mobile testing should reflect the devices and conditions users are likely to face.
How to Prevent These Problems
Test Beyond the Happy Path
Test more than the expected user flow.
Check:
- High Volume Requests
- Large datasets
- Edge Cases
- Timeouts and Retries
- Incomplete data and failures
This determines how the application may behave when deployed.
Focus on Performance
Performance should not be an afterthought.
Throughout Development:
- Maintain the integrity of APIs
- Optimize database queries
- Eliminate unnecessary data processing
- Reduce load times on the front end
These will ensure that the application stays responsive when usage increases.
Plan for Growth
Even when an app starts small, plan for future demand.
Consider:
- Scalable design
- Background jobs and queues
- Loosely coupled systems
- Flexible services
Complexity should never be introduced for the sake of performance optimization. It should be for improvement.
Test Real-World Conditions
Before the application is fully developed and launched, test it using conditions that mimic actual use.
Use a variety of datasets, different devices, and slower networks. You can even use load tests.
Monitor the App After Launch
Testing does not stop when the app goes live.
Track:
- Response times
- Error rates
- User drop-offs
- Crash reports
Early visibility helps teams find problems before they affect more users.
A Simple Example
An internal operations application worked well in testing.
When the application went live, it started to misbehave by responding slowly to requests during peak hours. Mobile users even began experiencing timeouts.
We determined that the issues were not related to the code. The application required more performance and support for increased usage.
Eventually, we added optimizations for query response, background processing and load handling.
The application improved with the same product and better preparation.
Signs Your App May Have Problems
Watch for these signs:
- The application becomes slow
- Failures and heavy usage begin to show bugs
- Mobile users will become the most vocal
- The support team will become overloaded with requests
This may begin to show that the app is working poorly, that it can not scale, or that it has poor mobile performance or performs poorly in the edge cases of the application.
Conclusion
An enterprise app does not stop being tested after launch. Real users, real data, and real traffic reveal problems that controlled testing may miss.
To sum it up, realistic condition testing along with performance-focused app growth and constant post-launch app monitoring enables development teams to consistently provide a high-quality and reliable user application experience.
Because users do not judge how much effort went into the app.
They judge how well it works.
