Everyone is talking about low-code development. There are many different platforms, allowing software more quickly and effectively than with traditional development methods to create.  

Forrester’s John Rymer wrote that low code has the potential to “make software development up to ten times faster than traditional methods.” When creating software, time to market can become one of the most important benefits for you.  

Regardless of the platform, you choose to use, there are a few rules that will help your company get the most out of low-code development. 

10 key elements to consider while opting for low code software : 

1. Get to know the platform and its possibilities. 

After you’ve decided on a low-code platform, make sure you and your team spend time learning about the platform. It is best to allow all team members, including business analysts and product owners, to invest time in exploring the platform. The time spent on this is not lost – it is well invested as it later increases the value of the solution. 

An example of this is when we gave our customers the opportunity to create a mobile app from a web application. Since the web application was built using responsive web design (RWD), it generated a hybrid mobile app that was usable with just a single click on Android and iOS. The customer was satisfied because the solution is used by more potential customers and the costs were very low. 

2. Avoid unnecessary personalization. 

One of the main advantages of low-code platforms is the predefined components. 

They are designed to be universal, but of course, not all of them will meet your business needs. In this case, you will need to customize or create your own components. This is probably time for development costs. If you are familiar with the predefined components, you can use these and shorten development time. In addition, the components can give you more value than you yourself at the beginning could imagine.   

3. Focus on the project’s business needs. 

Do you understand the general requirements to start a project? Discuss these with the team and try to identify similarities across the system, e.g. 30% of the application is a list view with a search function and a filter, etc. This way you can start the app development with a carefully chosen component that can be reused. 

4. Don’t overdo it with UX / Visual Design.  

Low-code platforms offer prepared UI libraries that can be used quickly and easily in projects. Their great advantage is that all of their components are consistent. 

From our experience, UX specialists and visual designers have a high priority at the beginning of the project, when the processes are defined in the software and when we discuss the first elements of the user interface. Over time, the support for these roles decreases significantly. After the first phase of the project, the low-code development team should already be familiar with the UX and visual design guidelines for the rest of the area and meet these requirements. 

There may be a situation later in the project where UX and visual design support is required. In this case, these experts can be asked to make a contribution.  

5. Product owners should be constantly engaged. 

Discuss this with your product Owner at the beginning of the project to emphasize how important their availability will be. 

Remember that communication between the development team and stakeholders must run smoothly in order to ensure success.

6. Get the solution tested as soon as possible. 

With the development speed of low-code, you can create functions very quickly. Normally, you have to present a demo of the completed work to your stakeholders. 

Occasionally, after testing, you have a list of changes that need to be implemented – and remember that the faster you can implement them, the more time-efficient your project will be. Nobody likes having to take into account changes during the user acceptance test phase at the end of the project, as this also entails other changes (domino effect). 

7. Ask for help from the low-code community

If you get stuck with your development, you can always ask for help on community pages. People who are active on such sites are enthusiastic about low-code platforms which means they may already have solved your problem and are ready to share the results. The low-code community also creates components that can be used to meet certain business needs. 

8. Remain positive.

If you have never tried the software with a low-code platform to develop, it can be a big change for you, your team, your customers and for the entire organization. Hence, you need to invest some time to get used to it first.

 Summary 

Market demand for software development will grow at least five times faster than IT in 2021. Low-code platforms were created to help companies increase the efficiency of development. However, to achieve its full potential, you need to be well prepared. Our toolkit is designed to help companies plan their software development strategies in advance and leverage best practices with little code, thereby reducing time to market.