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18 Ways to Ensure Mobile App Performance - Part 2

Mobile apps are serious business, and mobile app performance is key. With this in mind, APMdigest asked industry experts – from analysts and consultants to the top vendors – to recommend the best ways to ensure mobile app performance. Part 2 of the list is all about mobile app design.

Start with Part 1 of the List

5. MOBILE APP DESIGN: KEEP IT SIMPLE

Access to information and business apps is essential for a successful mobile performance. Eliminating complexity in mobile app design while monitoring the health of the supporting IT infrastructure makes for a better end user experience. Because of uncontrollable factors outside the office such as inconsistent Wi-Fi strength, it's best to keep it simple.
Aaron Kelly
VP of Product Management, Ipswitch

6. MOBILE APP DESIGN: MINIMIZE NETWORK REQUESTS

Aside from proper back-end load testing, we found that the best performance gains are obtained by minimizing the number of network requests the mobile app requires.
Alon Girmonsky
Founder and CEO, BlazeMeter

7. MOBILE APP DESIGN: OPTIMIZE CONTENT

If you're not designing your apps with mobile users in mind, you are taking a big risk in terms of attracting and retaining your customers, and gaining their loyalty and commitment to coming back. Make sure to adjust your apps for mobile users. Even if you are using a third party to develop your mobile app, make sure to instrument the app itself to get some real user visibility. Also, if you try to push the same content out over mobile as you do over web, the site's performance will suffer. We repeatedly see organizations with fantastic web performance fall flat with mobile because they tried to push out the same content regardless of the device used to access it. If you want to win in today's omni-channel environment then you have to realize the playing field is not the same as it was a few years ago. You need to provide a strong digital experience across all channels and tailor it for mobile users."
David Jones
APM Evangelist, Dynatrace

Some of the most prominent sites on the Internet frequently experience performance issues thanks to oversized images that are not properly formatted for mobile usage. Mobile sites don't actually require full-sized images, and with an ever increasing portion of Internet traffic coming from mobile devices, optimizing images can serve as an easy means for companies to avoid losing users.
Kent Alstad
VP of Acceleration, Radware

Reduce the size of the site. We see many people who have a responsive site design, which scales the elements to fit the device on which the site is being viewed, fails to shrink images, Javascript, etc. When you're delivering 2 MB of data through images and video files, site usability design isn't enough to give you good performance; you have to shave off as many bytes as you can.
Drit Suljoti
Chief Product Officer, Catchpoint

8. MOBILE APP DESIGN: NATIVE APPS

While it's tempting to jump start your app development by using a hybrid approach, sharing code and resources with an existing web-based application, your mobile users will often have less optimal network conditions than your desktop web-based users. The best way to ensure mobile performance is to develop a native app, using local resources whenever possible.
Tana Jackson
VP of Engineering, SOASTA

Read Part 3 of 18 Ways to Ensure Mobile App Performance, covering the production side including Application Performance Management, monitoring and more.

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Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

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In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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18 Ways to Ensure Mobile App Performance - Part 2

Mobile apps are serious business, and mobile app performance is key. With this in mind, APMdigest asked industry experts – from analysts and consultants to the top vendors – to recommend the best ways to ensure mobile app performance. Part 2 of the list is all about mobile app design.

Start with Part 1 of the List

5. MOBILE APP DESIGN: KEEP IT SIMPLE

Access to information and business apps is essential for a successful mobile performance. Eliminating complexity in mobile app design while monitoring the health of the supporting IT infrastructure makes for a better end user experience. Because of uncontrollable factors outside the office such as inconsistent Wi-Fi strength, it's best to keep it simple.
Aaron Kelly
VP of Product Management, Ipswitch

6. MOBILE APP DESIGN: MINIMIZE NETWORK REQUESTS

Aside from proper back-end load testing, we found that the best performance gains are obtained by minimizing the number of network requests the mobile app requires.
Alon Girmonsky
Founder and CEO, BlazeMeter

7. MOBILE APP DESIGN: OPTIMIZE CONTENT

If you're not designing your apps with mobile users in mind, you are taking a big risk in terms of attracting and retaining your customers, and gaining their loyalty and commitment to coming back. Make sure to adjust your apps for mobile users. Even if you are using a third party to develop your mobile app, make sure to instrument the app itself to get some real user visibility. Also, if you try to push the same content out over mobile as you do over web, the site's performance will suffer. We repeatedly see organizations with fantastic web performance fall flat with mobile because they tried to push out the same content regardless of the device used to access it. If you want to win in today's omni-channel environment then you have to realize the playing field is not the same as it was a few years ago. You need to provide a strong digital experience across all channels and tailor it for mobile users."
David Jones
APM Evangelist, Dynatrace

Some of the most prominent sites on the Internet frequently experience performance issues thanks to oversized images that are not properly formatted for mobile usage. Mobile sites don't actually require full-sized images, and with an ever increasing portion of Internet traffic coming from mobile devices, optimizing images can serve as an easy means for companies to avoid losing users.
Kent Alstad
VP of Acceleration, Radware

Reduce the size of the site. We see many people who have a responsive site design, which scales the elements to fit the device on which the site is being viewed, fails to shrink images, Javascript, etc. When you're delivering 2 MB of data through images and video files, site usability design isn't enough to give you good performance; you have to shave off as many bytes as you can.
Drit Suljoti
Chief Product Officer, Catchpoint

8. MOBILE APP DESIGN: NATIVE APPS

While it's tempting to jump start your app development by using a hybrid approach, sharing code and resources with an existing web-based application, your mobile users will often have less optimal network conditions than your desktop web-based users. The best way to ensure mobile performance is to develop a native app, using local resources whenever possible.
Tana Jackson
VP of Engineering, SOASTA

Read Part 3 of 18 Ways to Ensure Mobile App Performance, covering the production side including Application Performance Management, monitoring and more.

Hot Topics

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

Image
Broadcom

From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...