Mobile applications have become an essential part of our lives. Today, we have an app for virtually everything from paying bills, hailing a taxi, ordering food, or even walking a dog.
Want To Develop an App? Here Are the Development Stages You Need To Know
If you have a brilliant idea, you are probably thinking about developing an app for your startup.
However, the thought that it will take forever to have your app ready may be one of the things holding you back.
But the good news is, app development is a fast process that often involves five simple steps.
Five App Development Stages
1. Idea Development
The first stage of app development involves identifying the target audience, research the competition, and establishing the app’s goal and objectives.
You will also have to select the mobile platform for the app – Android or iOS, examine the project feasibility, specify the requirements, and identify the minimum viable product (MVP) with the help of your technical team.
Doing all these will help you understand different delivery milestones and the possible costs for each.
2. Design
Design is the second step where your app’s UI and UX design happens.
The purpose of this step is to ensure that your app is intuitive, interactive, and user-friendly. In other words, app design will help ensure that the end product has a polished look and delivers a seamless and effortless user experience.
The design phase often involves creating wireframes, style guides, mockups, prototypes, and user testing. Managing all UX design requirements can be complex. Mitigate errors and optimize the process by hiring an experienced UX design agency.
Wireframing
The initial design phase is wireframing the app. Simply put, this involves drawing detailed sketches or a storyboard to help you see how the envisioned product will look like.
This phase aims to help arrange all design components correctly, refine the ideas, and ensure that the proposed features and ideas fuse perfectly.
Style guide
Creating a style guide involves documenting your app’s design standards, including the navigation icons, hover states, and dropdown fills. Usually, a style guide will define:
- Your app’s color scheme
- How the app design will reflect your company’s branding rules
- The font family for text in your app
The primary purpose of establishing a style guide is to ensure consistency among your mobile app developers.
Put differently, following a specific style guide will eliminate the possibility of mismatched parts and disjointed design, meaning your app will look and feel consistent.
Even as you establish a style guide for your app, make sure that you consider app design guidelines from Google for Android apps and Apple for iOS apps.
Prototyping
The next part in the design phase is creating mockup displays and prototypes.
Prototypes, in particular, help simulate the app’s workflows and the user experience that will be present in the end product.
In other words, you get to test and make any modifications to the design and functionality of your app before the actual product launch.
Some of the standard tools used for high-fidelity mockups and prototypes include Adobe Photoshop, WireframePro, InVision, Marvel, andUXPin.
3. Development
Once all usability issues identified in the design phase are fixed, the app development stage will begin.
This phase usually involves creating the client-side development – front end – or the presentation layer of the software that users will interact with. The app development stage will also include developing the back-end or the part that connects the data access layer to the front end.
Usually, programming languages like Java or Kotlin are used for Android, Objective‑C for iOS, and Flutter or React Native for cross-platform development.
4. Testing
Now that the app is ready, the development team will now test the app to ensure the product meets the specific expectations on quality, security, usability, functionality, and device compatibility.
However, software testing is a complicated process. If done manually, developers may spend more time maintaining, patching, and testing codes.
The good news is that an automation tool like TestProject can help automate web, mobile, and API testing to ensure a superior quality product, thus saving on maintenance costs.
5. App Release and Support
Deployment is the final stage of software development.
While this may seem like a pretty simple phase, you have to keep in mind that different app marketplaces or stores will have varying minimum requirements, and you must fulfill all this before submitting your product.
More importantly, make sure you keep an eye on new trends and feedback, so you can upgrade your app’s features to match users’ expectations.
Conclusion
Now that you know the critical stages involved in app development and what happens during each stage, there is no reason you shouldn’t turn your idea into reality.
Whether you choose to hire a development team and develop the app yourself, make sure you create a fantastic product that will solve the specific needs of your target audience.
_________________________________________________________________________
Some other articles you might find of interest:
Understand how you can maximize your time to grow your business:
Time Is Money And Your Most Valuable Resource. Use it Wisely to Build Your Business
https://www.thekickassentrepreneur.com/time-is-money/
Looking for effective ways to drive and increase traffic to your startup website?
SEO Traffic Guide To Boost Your Blog Rankings
https://www.thekickassentrepreneur.com/guide-to-boost-your-blog-rankings/
Looking for effective ways to drive and increase traffic to your startup website?
3 Top Reasons Why Startups Fail and How Not to Become a Victim
