Startups Stack Exchange Archive

Importance of UI for Webapplication

I am a novice Ruby on Rails Developer and I am planning to launch 1/2 Apps per month. I do this to to see if the App is successful and subsequently improve it after launch.

To save time I will not work so much on the Front End and just edit the HTML/CSS/Javascript code downloaded from Bootstrap Themes that are already developed for Smartphone, Tablet and Desktop.

This is my layout https://bootstrapmade.com/nice-admin-bootstrap-admin-html-template/

As my App is about having guest at your home, similarly to Airbnb, I saw how some of their pages are designed and to edit my current layout and follow this different design I may have to loose 2-5 days in my work schedule.

enter image description here

As I am a Full Stack developer I think the back-end functionalities are the most important thing right now to develope.

My Question is, what was the reason of success of Websites like Airbnb at their start? Was it the revolutionary Design or some other functionalities like reviews, facebook login..?

I read articles about Pieter Levels and I think the best thing is just do the App as fast as possible, without caring so much about the look (which if you see the layout is very good) at least at the start, but I may be wrong.

Thanks Best Regards Fabrizio

Answer 12185

It’s unlikely your approach will lead to success. You’re trying to fish for random web templates, and hopefully one of those will make you the next millionaire.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Web applications rarely worth anything by itself. I can easily outsource a web app to Indian contractors, and everybody else can do that too.

You’ll need:

UI is important, because you’re in a very competitive market. If you can’t do it properly for your first release, someone else would.

Answer 12266

This was twitter first homepage, so I think that for a new App web design and UI is not the most fundamental issue, but I accept your answer and I do agree with the following points:

  1. Sufficient funding

Depending on how much time/money you want to invest in an Idea you may evaluate if actually taking the time of investing on a custom html design, instead of just editing a nice bootstrap front end, like I am doing. Front End UI are sold for 10 Dollars and they look like the leading website in the market, so it is easy saving money there.

  1. Marketing, Planning and everything else

Depending on how much money/time you invest you can decide of taking some more time/resources on the other functions other developing the app, but I am sure it is a really bad idea thinking of developing an App in 1 year time span just to get all the Marketing and the other staff together. I think the best approach is taking care of Marketing and other staff after reaching 1 Million Users.

Still, you never wrote some actual number and said something more specific, as a good Marketing Plan and Industry/Sector Insight may give some interesting informations about the number of customer you may reach with a new product and how much they would be willing to pay for that service/product, presence of Competitors would also affect the price, but all this variables would only change your actual revenues.

It is a pretty clear that expenses for an internet/mobile startup are very limited, so few of us would not launch profitable applications if they have the skills to develop them, just because they would earn few hundreds or thousand bucks for month..

Anyway I accept your answer

Twitter first page

All content is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.