Mobile apps play a very big role in everyday life. People use mobile apps for work, education, sports, communication, shopping, and more. So if you want your business to be successful, pay attention to the development of a mobile app.
But don’t forget that the goal of any mobile app is to make people’s lives easier, not harder. This means that the app should work seamlessly. And your main goal when developing a mobile application is to create a quality product that will meet the expectations of potential users. So before you start working on the app, it is important to clearly define which stages of app development you need to consider. It is also important to understand what you need to pay special attention to at each stage.
If you have an idea and want to turn it into life, our article about the seven main stages of mobile app development will be useful for you.
Prepare a good plan
The creation of any product begins with planning. A well-drafted project plan guarantees the successful realization of the product. At this stage, you need to do market research. You need to clarify the following questions: “What place in this market do you want to take?”, “Who are your competitors?”, “What applications do your competitors produce?”. This research will help you understand exactly what kind of app you need to create. You can use these approaches to get the most effective research results:
- Business analysis. This method will allow you to estimate the cost of the app and the return on investment (ROI) of the mobile app. The information obtained will allow you to plan the budget for software development more effectively.
- Mobile strategy. This strategy includes a market study for your product. Here you need to make a portrait of your potential user and understand what kind of product they need. Also at this application development stage, you make a promotion plan for your application.
Planning is a very important stage of app development. You will be able to reduce the risks of financial losses, identify weaknesses of the project and eliminate them, and make more rational decisions.
Define the requirements
Once you’ve figured out what kind of app you need to create and who your target audience will be, you can move on to defining the requirements for the app. The requirements can be general or very detailed. They should match the specifics of the business, the requirements of the user, and the system on which the application will be deployed.
Create an application prototype
In this step, you create a visual presentation of your future product. Now you can imagine what your application will look like. This information will help you correct all possible shortcomings, preventing some difficulties before you start developing the product, which in the end, will help you to release a quality application faster, minimizing the expenses for corrections.
At this development stage, they create:
- Sketch. Here you can already see what your application will look like, the logic of the work, the interaction of the application tabs.
- Wireframe. It allows you to evaluate the structure of your application.
- A clickable prototype. You can test how your application will work. You can immediately see possible problems with the app and fix them accordingly.
- App Skins. Connect all the wireframes of your app. Now you can understand how the final version of your app will look and function.
Start with the development
The stage of developing a mobile app can be divided into two parts:
- Front-end development. This includes the development of the client part of the application, establishing the possibility of user interaction with the application. The task of front-end development is to ensure that the application works flawlessly on different devices.
- Back-end development refers to the server and databases. At this stage, developers create APIs. This is where the business logic and data storage and retrieval are built.
As a result, these two parts, back-end and front-end, come together to collect and transmit data.
Provide quality assurance and testing
So you have your app ready and you can’t wait to release it to the market. But there’s one more step waiting for you – quality assurance. This stage will allow you to detect any possible problems in the app before your customers notice them. And hence, you can avoid user complaints about a poorly working app and thus build a positive reputation for yourself.
At the quality assessment stage, you can test the compatibility of the app with different operating systems and devices, check how the app will work when the board is disconnected or overloaded. You can detect possible security problems with your app. You can also use beta testing. this form of testing allows you to find out how potential users will use it, to identify problems that users might encounter.
Only after testing everything thoroughly can you launch your product on the market. This way you can be sure of its quality.
Launch the ready application
Once you are sure that your app works perfectly, you can launch it into the marketplace. Your mobile app can be placed in stores such as the Apple iTunes App Store if it is an app for Apple iOS, and Google Play Store if it is an app for the Android system. Make sure that your app meets the requirements of these stores. Their requirements are outlined in the manuals.
Also, when launching your product, you should take care of an advertising program to promote the app successfully.
Provide ongoing support
Once your product is in the hands of your users, it is a work in progress. Even flawless applications sometimes crash for a variety of reasons. To ensure that your application runs smoothly, you need to provide ongoing technical support. You can use a cloud service or admin panel to do this. Once an app is released to the market, it may still need Bug fixing, Code refining. Also, don’t forget about regular updates of the app. New versions should also work flawlessly.
Final thoughts
In this article, we have described to you the basic stages of developing a mobile app. But, they may differ depending on the features of your company, the peculiarities of your product. You may need some additional steps. If you need to develop a mobile app, Inoxoft will be happy to share its experience with you and take over the entire development process.