Applications are something that most of us use nearly every day. While billions of apps are downloaded and used on mobile phones, mobile apps aren’t the only types of applications out there. Web application have a lot of uses for consumers. They are becoming more and more common for companies to use as well.
There are many web applications of all kinds out there that people use. However, for some companies, it makes more sense to make them in-house. With that in mind, this article is going to look at some important things to remember when building a web application for your company.
Use a Log Monitoring or Management Tool
What good is a web application if it is continuously experiencing multiple issues, rendering it useless. While some issues aren’t preventable, monitoring your logs can help you keep an eye on the health and status of your application. Logs can provide you tons of information and insight on events and issues, but monitoring manually is next to impossible.
Thankfully, there are a variety of different log monitoring tools out there. A common debate is Loggly vs Splunk. These tools can automatically monitor and manage your logs, and alert you when an issue is found. This will make it incredibly easy to see and fix the issue before it becomes a big problem.
Make Sure to Test it Frequently Before Implementation
Testing is one of the most important parts of the creation of any application. It should not be glossed over in the development phase. Without testing, you won’t know for sure whether the application will work as intended or whether the employees using it enjoy it and find it intuitive. Extensive testing should be done on every function of the application before it is ever officially released.
Sometimes you’re on a deadline to get the application released and that can add some pressure. However, it is important to only release a product once it has been fully tested. If not, you might need to pull the application back and fix it if it’s not functional, which causes more issues and could annoy your staff. Of course, testing doesn’t stop once the app is created and you need to consistently test the application throughout its lifetime.
Make Sure the Code is High Quality
In order to create an application in house, you will need some programmers to create the code. With programming being one of the most desirable and important job skills of the future, you should have no problem having (or finding) people to help write the code for the app. However, it is important to know that not all code is created equally.
Some code out there is low quality, while other is considered high quality. But what makes high quality code? While there is no dictionary definition of “high quality code”, there are a few different characteristics of high quality code that you should look for. The code should be correct, should function as expected, should be clear for anyone to read, should be maintainable and should be efficient.
As a result, you need to make sure that the code within your application is high quality. It will not only work better, but also lead to less potential issues in the future. If you bring additional staff on and they are given existing low quality code to work on, it will take them much longer to get comfortable and start updating or extending the code.
Hopefully this article has helped you learn some of the most important things to remember to do when building a web app for your business.
