For businesses or entrepreneurs looking to expand their reach with mobile apps, the process of creating, developing, and launching them can be extensive. There are many steps that come between the conception of an app idea and launching it, but once you have a good understanding of what to do in each phase of development, the process will feel rewarding and the end result will be viable. As your business begins mobile app development, read through this guide to help you successfully manage the app’s development lifecycle.
Ideation and Research
To come up with the idea for a great app, you have to first come up with a winning idea. To appeal to the masses, your app must offer a solution to some kind of problem in the world today. You can start your research by interviewing people or doing online surveys. You can also conduct market analysis based on people’s interests and online activities. These initial steps will help you get a good idea of what kind of app you can create that is related to your field and will fill a gap in the market.
Once you have some ideas rolling, it is good to define your audience so that you have a specific group of people in mind as you develop the app. Look into their demographics, preferences, and challenges to understand the kind of app they will use and enjoy. Put yourself into the shoes of your target audience to create an app that you would want to use.
Planning and Strategy
To begin the planning process, you will need to start by setting a product roadmap. This means that you have to break down the process into small milestones. To set goals for your app in the planning process, use the SMART system. This stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This system helps entrepreneurs set and achieve realistic goals in the development process.
This is also the time to enlist the help of experts in app development. You can bring your ideas to a company that offers mobile development services and the tech professionals there will help you iron out the wrinkles of your app design. They can help you decide the kind of technology you want in your app and how advanced you want to make it. It is in this phase that you can also make a list of the key features that you want the app to have. This will help lead to the first iterations of design and layout.
A big part of the planning process also includes budgeting. If you are working with a limited amount of money, you should allocate your expenses wisely and hire only essential staff in the early stages of app development. As your app gets closer to launch, that is when you can start allocating more of your budget to marketing and maintenance.
Design
This is the phase of the app lifecycle where you will work with tech professionals to decide on a layout and make sure that the app looks good on a mobile screen. You can start the design process with very basic sketches just to get an idea of what you want it to look like on the homepage when a person first taps on the app. Remember to also include where you want your logo to go and what color scheme will go best with your logo.
In the design phase, you should also create many iterations of the design and test them out to see which ones are the most intuitive for what you are trying to achieve with the app. This is the step that will likely take the longest as you and your team work out the kinks. To best manage this step and generate as many ideas as possible, you and your team should make as many versions of the desired design as possible to compare and likely combine many different designs to create the perfect layout.
Development
Within the development stage, there are four things to focus on an agile methodology, back-end development, front-end development, and integration.
Agile Methodology
When jumping into the development process, use an iterative approach like mentioned above, with each iteration looking a bit better than the last. This proves that you will have flexibility throughout the process and will strive for constant improvement. This prevents stagnation in the development of the app. Even the smallest tweaks with each new version will lead to a big improvement in the end.
Back-End Development
Along with the app development, make sure to build a strong server-side architecture for security purposes but also to be able to store data no matter how much growth the app has. This is the step where you need to create a login system for customers as well so that their data is kept safe within their accounts on the app.
Front-End Development
This kind of development evolves around the user experience. Making a user-friendly interface that offers offline capabilities, interactive elements, and responsive design will make your app a fan favorite from the start.
Integration
Creating API integration early on will help your app work better with other software. For example, integrating third-party APIs for using features like Google Maps or payment services like PayPal, will make using the app much easier if you are expecting in-app purchases to be a big part of your business. APIs are basically used to enable two software elements to communicate with each other within the same platform, like in an app.
Deployment
Before launching your app, you must make sure that you comply with Apple App Store and Google Play Store guidelines before approval. You can then launch a beta version of the app for real customers to try it out and give their feedback. Once you have a good idea that the app is ready for the public, it is time to launch. This is when the marketing team comes in to start sending out promotional content across social media channels to promote the app.
Post-Launch Maintenance
Once an app is launched, this does not mean it is perfect, there will always be things to improve upon, and making tweaks here and there and sending out regular updates is always good to do.
When greeting an app, a user-centric approach is always the way to go because, at the end of the day, they will be the ones on the app the most. Follow these steps to successfully manage your app development and launch process.