Top 10 Best Practices of Low-Code Software Development

Low code development has already become a norm in the software development industry, and using low code in different industries will only increase over time. Low-code software development is the most viable method in the current world.

However, you should follow many intricacies and practices if you want to get the most out of your software. So today, we will discuss the top 10 low-code best practices with some bonus tips.

We won’t bore you with the basics of low-code development, so let’s get right into the tips.

Practice #1. Know Your Platform Before You Get Started

It’s not just about picking a low-code platform and going with it. It’s about choosing what fits your business requirements.

With all your requirements for the present and future in mind, start getting to know different platforms with thorough research before you make a choice.

Get familiar with all the platforms out there in the current market. While each is well-reputed, they all have unique pros and cons for each.

Increase your familiarity with the platforms till you find one that you can effectively use to its full extent to give your product a competitive edge.

Remember, you don’t always have to be a master of the coding arts to know the right platform. All you need is a basic idea of what you need and how a low-code platform can help you achieve said goal.

Practice #2. Only Customize When Needed

Many product designers and developers decide to customize everything when developing in low code since they have much extra time on hand from reduced coding efforts.

But this can be a detriment to the success of your product. The true goal of any product is to hit the market as soon as possible and start collecting feedback.

When you’re over-customizing everything, you delay your feedback-gathering process even further.

Low-code platforms come with hundreds of prebuilt templates and other elements you can drag and drop to create your application. The more you customize, the more complex the process gets, resulting in a delayed time-to-market.

Try to create your desired product with prebuilt components as much as possible. Only go for customization when you have a specific brand image or message that you want to project through your product and need the product to look and function accordingly.

Practice #3. Team Focus Should Be Goals As Well As Skills

When creating your low code development team, remember to create a team with open-minded people who have a clear concept of the goals of your project. The team should also understand the intricacies and the capability of your chosen low-code platform.

When the team is familiar with their working tools, they know the most efficient methods to bring your desired features into reality.

Practice #4. Make The Team Aware of The Use Cases

Discussing the highest requirements with your team and determining how much your team can achieve within the deadline is best. Low code development can meet software requirements as much as a team can customize and utilize it.

With a great team, they can use their skills to compare and improve other use cases and implement them in your project.

Practice #5. Plan Future Features With Scalability In Mind

It’s always good to be a few steps ahead of the curve. When you break down the project into smaller tasks, the project becomes more achievable.

When creating smaller tasks for the project, make sure to create plans for future features that you can add and scale in the future.

Practice #6. Get More Feedback With Frequent Releases

A half-baked solution will forever sully the reputation of your brand. To prevent this, you need to create a complete minimal version and release it for public consumption.

When you’re releasing a smaller, complete version, you can solve the core solutions of the target audience.

You can also gather user feedback to implement and improve the application. The more releases you create with user feedback implementation, the more feedback you can gather.

With increased feedback collection, the product development team can align the final product more with the target audience’s requirements.

Practice #7. Always Listen to What The Low Code Community Has To Say

Low code community consists of experts who have mastered the art of development with minimal coding and have created multiple successful applications with their choice of low-code platforms.

These communities are always full of helpful entrepreneurs and product owners happy to help with feedback and suggestions on upcoming products.

Always listen to low-code community members. Their experienced feedback and suggestions can help you improve your application even further.

Practice #8. Select A Platform That Complies With The Best UI/UX Practices

Low-code platforms always come with standardized UI frameworks and components. They can help you create a simple application with standardized components.

When creating applications with low code, you need to create applications that add value to your application with a UI that can offer the best User Experience (UX).

Practice #9. Select A Platform That Fits Digital Transformation Requirements

There are many platforms out there that cover only a few aspects of digital transformation. Digital transformation is a continuous effort where many initiatives can fail due to insufficient effort.

Pick a consistent platform for building across various use cases and ecosystems to ensure your time and efforts aren’t wasted. The platform should also be able to scale your business according to your digital transformation plan.

Practice #10. Always Be Mindful of The Prospectors

A solid product comes from constant communication with the low-code community and the target audience. Your users are the most valuable asset who should get as much control and interaction with your product as possible.

As for different issues arising during the development cycle, there is a high chance that someone else in the low-code community has faced the issue before, and there is an answer that you can find and implement as well.

Allow users to collaborate with your product development team through user feedback to meet your user’s needs accordingly to ensure the greatest possible User Experience (UX).

Bonus Tips To Maintain The Best Low Code Practices

• Regularly scan for low-code platform updates and take advantage of new features.
• Utilize low-code project management tools to help track the progress of your low-code development project. 
• Ensure low-code developers follow low-code best practices and the low-code platform guidelines. 
• Document low-code design patterns and best practices for low-code development.
• Always have a goal in mind when planning low-code development projects.
• It is essential to test low-code development projects, so ensure integrated testing during low-code development stages.

Why Mendix Is Perfect For Your Business

Mendix is the best low-code platform for the current industry, simplifying application development for web and mobile applications. Mendix’s current low-code capabilities empower any scale of businesses to create applications on an enterprise scale.

The platform also has a free version that can help smaller businesses start with a basic application.

To Wrap It Up

Low-code software development is a part of the modern software development ecosystem. But when planning to get the most out of your software development lifecycle, you need to pay attention to every possible detail with your team to get the most out of low code development.

Low code best practices bring the best out of your application, and Impala Intech can help you do that! Contact us today if you want to create a great application while maintaining all the best practices for low-code application development.

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