How to Create an Educational App for Android and iOS
The e-learning niche is not particularly new for the global customer. It’s been growing before the pandemia with $138 billion in 2019 and is going to reach $404 billion by 2025 according to the Holon IQ report “Sizing the Global EdTech Market”.
Continue reading to get a full overview of the e-learning world: the market’s state, niche peculiarities, and the most important things to consider before you create an educational app of your own.
EdTech Industry Overview: Numbers and Trends
According to Holon IQ, a platform that provides data and analysis of developments in the global education market, the pandemia gave an extra kick to the e-learning market growth: the CAGR predictions went up by 3.3%, and the market size — by $63 billion.
Current e-learning industry trends include:
1. Extended reality (AR and VR);
2. Homeschooling;
3. Artificial intelligence;
4. Gamification;
5. Massive open online courses (MOOC).
Benefits and Challenges of Educational Apps
A proper educational tool benefits three groups of customers: teachers, students, and business owners (i.e., employee training).
Benefits for students:
- Immersive learning;
- Easy information access;
- Stress-free learning process;
- Collaborative environment.
Benefits for teachers:
- Individual approach;
- More ways to engage learners;
- Room for creativity;
- Transparent communication.
Benefits for business owners:
- A competitive advantage;
- Time and cost efficiency;
- Sustainability.
The most significant challenges of edtech innovations are lack of social interaction, access to the Internet required, advanced devices, lack of mentorship, and emerging demands to school teachers.
5 Ways to Monetize Your Educational App
So how do edtech startups earn their money? Here are some working monetization practices to consider before you start an education mobile app.
1. Freemium. You should consider several features that add value to your main offering and go beyond basic MVP ideas.
2. Subscription. It’s better to offer several subscription options that give users freedom of choice (for example, free, standard, and VIP subscriptions).
3. Commissions. You have two options: either charge a commission for publishing a course or for every course enrollment.
4. Paid product. It means users make a one-time payment and enjoy the full range of features.
5. In-app advertisement. You should keep in mind ads policies, especially if you create a learning app for kids or K-12 students.
What Are the Basic and Advanced Educational App Features?
Here you’ll find a fundamental list of features to develop a learning app. Basic functionality refers to MVP development, while a combination of advanced features creates a unique portrait of your application.
Basic Features
1. Sign up;
2. User profile (dashboard);
3. Search;
4. Course (details and creation);
5. Payments;
6. Course menu;
7. Test creation;
8. Push notifications.
Advanced Features
1. In-app messaging;
2. Comments and forum;
3. Voice command (AI);
4. Video streaming;
5. Offline mode (lesson downloading);
6. AR/VR experience.
How to Create an Educational App in 5 Steps?
Where exactly should you start to develop a product of your dream and fulfill your ideas? No, don’t rush to find a development team in the first place — it’s better to spend some time for research and consideration.
1. Define your goal
First, there should be one specific app idea that aims to solve the customer’s problem. What will it be? Take some time to define what exactly your application is aiming at. It’s great if you have a team or partner who can help you brainstorm and determine the app development’s goal.
2. Conduct market research
Continue with market research that covers two crucial factors: your target audience and potential competitors.
After drawing an image of your target customers, you can learn their habits more deeply by reading forums and social media. Subsequently, it will help you figure out what platforms (mobile, desktop, or both) and operating systems (iOS, Android, Windows, or macOS) to use.
The competitors’ overview will help you frame up your idea and find your market niche. In other words, you will create an app that your customers are ready to use at the moment.
3. Test out your idea with a prototype
At this stage, you can address a professional team who can quickly build the app’s prototype before developing an educational app. It will make your idea tangible — something that you can show to your target audience and then discuss with marketing and development teams.
4. Build an educational app
You can discuss the tech stack making sure the team has enough tools and expertise to see the work to the end. Under any scenario, a project manager should provide you with a development plan that proves that these experts know how to create a learning app from scratch.
5. Finish it up with deployment
The work doesn’t end up with development and testing — any app also passes the deployment stage. It helps to gather all the development pieces and optimizes your product to meet its users.
Continue reading this article in full to learn more details and practical tips on education app development.
