What are the Pitfalls to
Avoid When Designing Softwarel ?

Choosing the right development technology for your software is crucial. Indeed, its performance, its ease of use and its scalability will depend directly on it. At Edana, we always take the time to analyze the details of each project in order to implement the right solutions that will allow it to meet the expected objectives. Unfortunately, it is very common for an unscrupulous or unskilled provider to develop a business tool or an application with a CMS-type system (pre-built and limited solution), leaving the client with a product that is difficult to use because it is not adapted to the real needs of the end-users, does not perform well (because it is poorly optimized and slow), and is extremely limited in terms of the improvements and evolutions that can be made to it, which handicaps the company in its future development. We can’t count the number of customers who come to us with this type of software to be rebuilt. Let’s be clear, using such a pre-built system can be adapted in some rare cases but it must however be optimized and adapted in depth by software engineers in order to rid it of the embedded logic that limits the possibilities of designing an adapted solution. This is rarely done because it requires very advanced skills.

Some companies specialize in a specific type of software and sell it to organizations wishing to go digital. This can be for example an archiving tool or a CRM to manage customer relations etc.. Although these companies propose an adaptation of the solution to the specificity of the customer, in the majority of the cases, these solutions remain heavy and very badly adapted to the subtleties of each organization (the parameter settings allowing to personalize the software are not fine enough). They are indeed built to be used by as many companies as possible, the counterpart being that they do not provide the functionalities that are crucial to the efficient management of a particular company’s activity, whereas custom design, such as we practice at Edana, allows a perfect integration of the software within the organization and an adaptability to its particularities and processes. Another danger lies in the proprietary aspect of these solutions. Indeed, these softwares do not belong to the customer but to the supplier, the operations of the company (and its data) are thus trapped in the hands of the latter whereas the realization of a customized software allows to keep a complete control on its processes, to decrease its costs and brings a highly superior flexibility (evolutivity of the tool, perfect integration within the chain of value of the company). It is thus advisable to pay attention to this when choosing a software solution.

When looking for a software or web development agency it is normal to compare the prices of the services offered, it is then tempting to turn either to the most expensive offer thinking that it reflects the best quality, or to the cheapest offer by wishing to reduce the amount of its investment. Unfortunately, this does not work well because there is a multitude of providers on the Swiss software engineering and web development market and they all operate with very different business development strategies. It is therefore crucial to also focus on the technical and strategic aspects of the proposed service. Any good software or application development company must accompany its client and allow him to make the right decisions, starting from the project costing stage. It is therefore important not to reduce the choice to the sole question of the budget at the risk of ending up with an unusable finished product.

The creation of a truly efficient software that is adapted to the achievement of a company’s objectives requires the intervention of several experts (UX designer, software engineer, front-end and back-end developer, database specialist, system administrator, interface designer, QA specialist…). One of the most common mistakes when starting a software creation project is to entrust its realization to a team that does not have all the necessary skills to conduct the project. Indeed, having all these 360° expertises in-house is relatively rare in the field and it is easy to entrust your project to the wrong team. It is therefore important to perfectly identify the strengths and weaknesses of each provider before entrusting them with a mission.