Organizations of all industries and business models are turning towards mobile applications to improve brand experience, increase conversions, and sustain business growth.
Developing a mobile app is a complex process. This app needs to reflect your brand identity, match your website, and encourage consumers to both download the application and convert within it.
It may seem daunting to know where to begin, so let's start with something vital: the idea.
There're several ways to improve an existing idea and shape it for a future project:
The Remix Approach
To come up with a great app idea, you can put a twist on an existing idea or try to combine elements from various apps that you like and serve your business. If you can solve a problem that an existing app has, you can bring great results for your company and your customers.
Think of a few apps you use very often. Is there a way you could take the most useful features and blend them to offer a new solution?
Simplify and Solve Problems
The simplest ideas produce the greatest results.
These simple ideas rarely come out of brainstorming. They’re born from an actual problem. If you have this problem and you’re trying to find a solution for it, other people are as well. And if that problem can be solved with an app, that’s a really good reason to develop it.
Research and Improve
There’s always room for improvement, so if you think there's an app that is lacking a useful feature, chances are that you aren’t the only one to think so.
One way to figure this out is to check the reviews and ratings for the original app. Are people complaining about the same thing? Are they complaining about something different?
Research and listening to user feedback and improving an app based on it is probably the biggest driving force to the success of the project.
Development Stages
The creation of an app involves a lot more stages than only programming. Here are a few of them:
- Planning: Learning the client's expectations, creating a plan for further cooperation and the upcoming stages, setting goals, and preliminary due dates.
- Analysis: Creating technical documentation, choosing technology, and all the needs to make it happen.
- Design: Creating the screen's layouts, interactions, choosing or drawing icons, prototypes, etc.
- Development: Actual development starts here, where you need to combine design with the technical requirements and make it all work, including integration with third-party services and APIs, if necessary.
- Testing: Testing goes along with development (at Simplex, we fully support test-driven development), but it's also a separate stage to check all possible scenarios and system loads.
- Release: Letting other people enjoy your app by making it available at Google Play and Apple App Store.
- Support: There is always something you can improve after the release, perhaps even a helpful user might recommend a feature. Therefore, you need support after the release of the app as well.
Apps for Android
There is no one-fit-all solution when choosing a technology stack for iOS and Android app development. It mainly depends on project goals. So, if app speed is a priority, you may sacrifice a sophisticated interface by making it simpler instead. Evaluating all pros and cons of Android app development is another factor that can help you define which OS to be first.
Apps for iOS
Nowadays, you are offered a wide range of opportunities to speed up the iOS app development process.
Even though Apple sets strict app development requirements, the iOS platform does not have a wide device fragmentation, which facilitates the development process and makes it more stable.
In general, developing an app for two platforms at the same time is the right way to choose, though it requires double the effort since the difference between Android and iOS app development is rather big.
If it happens to be problematic, you need to decide what app to build first.
Now, let's focus on the actual development stage.
Once you and your team have decided on what's the best for this project, you'll have to go over a list of choices and strategies to get the most out of it.
Here are some highlights of what you shouldn't forget about that process.
Create a Concept
Define the overall concept of your app. What objectives you want to reach and how the mobile app will help you do so?
This will create a vision for the team and the project and inform the functionalities and design needed to reach your business goals.
Let's Talk Money
Although this may seem like a later step, you should think about how your app will make money pretty early on, as it will influence the UI design.
The most common ways to make money include in-app purchases and upgrades, a fully eCommerce app, pay-to-download, or in-app advertisements from third-parties.
Must-Have vs. Nice-to-Have
It may be a mistake if you try to pack too many features into your mobile app's first version. A better option is to divide them into desired features and necessary features, and only include the necessary features in V1 of your app.
User feedback will let you know what other things are customers looking for later.
User Interface
Once the wireframe is approved, you can design the interface, add graphics, colors, and more to create a compelling and well-branded experience.
Testing Environment
After the app is designed the heavy lifting begins, and the actual code is written. The best way to do this is in a test environment, so it can be tested throughout the entire development process.
More Testing and QA
Every mobile app should be tested hundreds of times throughout development. A dedicated quality assurance expert should conduct thorough QA tests, which will ensure every single feature works the way it's supposed to.
If they catch a bug, developers will be able to fix it before the app is launched, ensuring users a smooth experience.
Target Demographic
App stores allow companies to input photos, videos, and content that can help target appropriate audiences.
To market your app, both on the app stores and your website or social media channels is imperative to a successful launch. Plus, it will increase downloads, resulting in more revenue for you and more visibility within the app stores, too.
Feedback And Updates
App development is never truly done. Users will provide feedback, customers will leave reviews in the app stores, bugs will happen, and your company will want to add new features from time to time.
All of these items mean that a new version of the app needs to be developed, whether it’s a small fix or a major update.
As always, you can develop your app yourself if you have the right resources and skills within your company, or you may also choose an outsourced team of developers.
If you need any help, contact us here and tell us about your project. We’ll help you with anything you need and advise you at zero cost.
You can learn more about our services on our web.