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How to Create a Functional Educational App
How to Create a Functional Educational App
One of the sectors that are experiencing exponential growth in the digital era is the educational sector. Digital devices and applications are becoming available to all age groups, and students can now benefit from various educational apps. The global education software market is predicted to grow by approximately 27.47% in the forecast period between 2018 and 2022.
As the education sector becomes digitalized, there’s a need to develop relevant applications that assist the learning. However, before developing any app, it's essential to understand the psychographics of the core users. Here are some of the most important factors to take into consideration.
1. Ease of Access
Accessibility of an app is one factor that makes it successful. The app you create should contain multiple ways to solve a problem, and each approach should be easy to find and explore.
If an app is hard to access or explore, users will soon become disinterested. They’ll then switch to other apps that serve the purpose better.
2. Intuitive User Interface
Every education app should have an interactive interface if the users are to benefit from it. The users should understand the interface and not have to memorize anything. In other words, it should be self-explanatory, with only a short learning period of the patterns, behaviors, and model of the application.
3. Technological Updates
Digitalization aims at helping users make full use of technology in assisting the learning process. As technology changes, so do new features come up. Educational apps need to be created in a way that they can be upgraded in a way that delivers more value to the user.
The ability to update an application to accommodate new developments may just be the differentiating factor.
4. Synchronization to Share
Any application created today must be easy to share. Adding social share plugins is an excellent motivator for users. For an educational app, the sharing feature makes it easy to send information or assignments in multiple channels.
How to Make an Educational App and Features to Incorporate
You can make an educational app in three easy steps. The good thing is that you don’t need to have coding skills to be successful in this task. You can get an app template where you’ll
- Choose the app layout you desire. Here, you'll personalize the app in a way that improves user experience. The design depends on your target audience and their level of interaction with digital applications.
- Add the features of your choice, depending on what you deem fit for the learners. The next section looks at some of the ideal features to incorporate in your educational app.
- Publish the app to various app stores where learners can download them.
Educational App Features
The list of features to include in an educational app is endless. Only incorporate them depending on the situations where the app is used and their relevance to the user. Remember the features you integrate can make or break your app.
There are over 2.2 million apps available on the Apple App Store alone. This points to the level of competition there is in the mobile app industry, and why you choose the features of your app carefully. Here are a few useful ideas.
1. Video-Based Content
Let the users of your app be able to view and listen to pre-recorded lectures or lesson delivered by lecturers. This way, they'll quickly gain access to the classroom any time, wherever they are. Make the videos easy to zoom, rewind, or fast-forward, download, and save for later.
2. Interactive Content
Ensure the content you provide is
- Mobile friendly
- Based on the target audience
- Includes fun facts and interesting statistics
- Is understandable and worth reading
Since not all students are quick learners, you want to ensure that the content will keep them interested.
3. Live Tutorials and Sessions
Live sessions for students are crucial to help them polish their skills. They'll allow them to interact with the tutor and ask their queries live and get immediate feedback. Consider creating a virtual environment in a classroom by adding the “chat now” feature.
4. Gamification
Students have a fascination for gadgets and games, and they learn more through experiments and fun games. Nothing could be better than including healthy and useful gamification in your digital classroom.
5. Planning and Scheduling
Education is a structured process, and an app with plans, goals, and final terms will enhance the learning process. This is a feature that’ll be quite useful for students who struggle to keep up with the rest.
These are just among the few useful features you can include in your app. Others will be relevant depending on your market research, target audience, and the overall goal of the app.
Final Thoughts
As the technological market continues to grow, different sectors are becoming positively affected by the trend. Among the industries influenced by technological changes is the educational sector.
Educational apps are making learning more fun and interactive than ever before. When creating one, the above-given factors and features will prove to be quite useful for enhanced learning.