When a Mobile App Is Worth Building

An app icon feels like progress. It is also a second product: store review, updates, push permissions, and a design that has to work with one thumb. Build it when the job is mobile. Skip it when the job is a form people already finish in a browser.

The cases that justify an install

• Field teams who photograph, scan, or update a job on site
• Repeat use that benefits from a saved login and offline drafts
• Time-sensitive alerts the user has agreed to receive

Start where the audience already is

If customers arrive from search or a shared link, a web app reaches them without a store. You can still design it for the phone. Many products we ship begin as a responsive web app, then add a native app once the workflow and the audience are proven. That order keeps the first release about the business, not about two codebases.