Introduction

Whether you are still dreaming about building your own Web app, are in the planning stages or have already deployed, you will definitely appreciate this advice on how to build a successful Web app. We've gathered advice from five expert developers including Zoho who offers a comprehensive suite of award-winning on-line business applications.

Raju Vegesna, Evangelist, Zoho

Site: zoho.com

In our case, we build our web apps based on open standards. Not being proprietary is an important aspect. We believe in pure web apps that run on standard browsers (with no plug-ins etc) across devices/platforms/OSs. There are several aspects that need to be addressed for web apps though. Some of them include Reliability, Scalability, Availability, Security, Speed etc.

Arnulf Hsu, CTO and Co-founder, Central Desktop

Site: centraldesktop.com

Be crystal clear about your value proposition – in other words, know who your target customer is and what pain point your web app aims to solve. The more pain you alleviate, the more money you stand to make. Make sure that the most used features are generally bug free and that the user interface matches what your customers are used to. Make your app snappy – half a second might not seem like long but when you interact with a web app on a regular basis, it’s a lot. Always listen, respond and be transparent to your customers. Iterate quickly, and release often! And finally, get distribution whether it’s through Google ads, direct sales, OEMs, channel partners, etc. Now, stop reading and start doing.

Tim Wall, Director of Product Marketing, LightCMS

Sites: speaklight.com

To build a successful web app, you need to be alright with things being incomplete and in a continual state of development. There will never be a time when you feel that everything is "done," and you will likely never be able to launch things that function exactly like you want them to function. Your resources will always be limited, so you have to know how to constantly prioritize and hold up quality where it counts while letting more minor things slide. I believe it is this very delicate and difficult balance that allows an application to be successful over the long term.

Kyle Keller, Assistant Product Manager, ProjectSpaces

Site: projectspaces.com

Here at ProjectSpaces we follow the idea that "simpler is better". ProjectSpaces is a project management and collaboration web-based application allowing teams to share documents, tasks, project news etc. Based on our research, we've found that adding more complex or extra functionality / features generally takes away from the real work being done. Users need to be able to easily understand and use a service, or their rate of adoption decreases drastically. We have structured ProjectSpaces with the mindset of allowing users, even those who are less technologically saavy, to quickly login and take whatever actions they need to accomplish without having to take un-necessary steps or struggling to figure out how to work with the tool. Whether those actions are as simple as downloading a document, to something a bit more complex like setting up a series of Tasks and assigning them to other individuals, the user should be able to clearly understand the structure and process while accomplishing the goal as efficiently as possible.

Razi Mohiuddin, President and Co-Founder, Iron Speed, Inc.

Site: ironspeed.com

Successful web applications require three things. First, they must be developed in cooperation with the end users using rapid application development methodologies. Second, they must use the latest look-and-feel techniques as well as interactive technologies such as Ajax. Third, successful web applications require continuous improvement to meet changing demands and end user needs. It is critical to select tools that not only help meet these requirements, but also accelerate development such that time-to-deploy is greatly reduced.