How to Make a Perfect Mobile App in 6 Steps

The mobile applications market is white-hot. Over the last few years, mobile devices like tablets, smartwatches, and, of course, smartphones have totally changed the way people get information and interact with it.

A Statista survey predicts over 310 billion downloaded apps by the year 2020 with total revenue of $189 billion. As of the first quarter of 2018, there are millions of apps available in the app stores:

You can find more than 2 million apps in the Apple app store and about 3.8 million items in Google Play. For Blackberry and Windows, there are 234,500 and 669,000 mobile apps respectively. 

According to another Statista report created in 2017, the fastest growing app category is shopping (e-commerce). Games, on the other hand, have slowed down. 

So, if you are thinking about creating your own app, you won’t have a more opportune moment than now: the demand is very high. This article will guide you through all steps that you need to pass on the way to your mobile application.

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Step 1. Planning & Business Analysis

It is very hard to overrate this phase of the development process. Thorough planning helps to understand where are you now and how to get to the desired point. The perfect situation is when you connect your app development team or at least share your research with them before the actual start.

For the first input, you need to study the market and check if there is any demand for your idea. This step will help you understand trends and probably to fine-tune the features. Even if you haven’t found anything that looks like your idea, don’t worry. Probably you have just invented a new unicorn. At The APP Solutions, we also provide our clients with experts in specific industries in case their business dwells in a rare or highly specific field.

After you have decided on the idea, you need to check your competitors carefully. Use the SWOT-analysis to underline their strengths and weaknesses and adjust your strategy.
At this stage, you also need to make user personas analysis and set up KPIs.

By the way, in case you are worried that your idea might be stolen, you can always sign a non-disclosure agreement with your developers’ team.

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Step 2. Technical Feasibility Assessment

It is possible to conduct the first step without your development team, but for step 2 and further, you definitely need them to be on your assistance.

Detailed technical documentation can help you determine all project features and set up milestones. Being at this step you are to decide what kind of operating systems and devices you want to build an app. Each platform has different specifications and requirements as well as types of gadgets (smartphone, tablet, wearables).

Step 3. Prototyping & Design

How to create your own app and not screw it up? Prototype it! It seems to be obvious, though many clients are trying to skip this phase. The working model of your future app helps “to translate” the idea from your language to the one that your development team understands.

Both for iOS and Android operating systems, a professional UI/UX designer is required. Our experts base their work on the material design (usability principles of every particular OS) and UI-guides.

We divide the process into the following steps:

• Creating a sketch. (The very first and draft version of your app on paper that sets up the main logic, number of screens, and the way they interact with each other.)
• Creating wireframes. (Provides the visualization of the draft app structure.)
• Creating a clickable prototype. (The initial stage of app creating itself. Helps to find out and analyze all possible use cases. Generally, after this stage, the customer together with your team discovers a significant amount of logical breaks and technical inconsistencies in the idea. But this fact shouldn’t upset you. The more issues you find and solve before coding, the more time and money you save.)
• Designing app skins. (At this stage, we collect all wireframes and put them together to improve the design.)

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Step 4. Creating Your Own App: Development

Congratulations! We have reached the most exciting and challenging phase. The first thing you are to decide is to stick to the native app or to develop a cross-platform one. At The APP Solutions, we develop native applications, which means that in the end, you have the custom app for every operating system. This type of development allows reaching faster performance, provides better security, and helps ensure users with a better experience.

Also in many cases, it makes sense to start with MVP or minimum viable product. This is the very first version of your application with only the essential features. It allows you to make a quick start with release and to test the viability of your idea. MVP helps to reduce the time for development and to occupy the market niche before your competitors.

In general, here is how the MVP model looks like:

The approach that will make the development process even more flexible is to implement an agile method due to the importance of rapid interaction, collaboration, and transparency between your team members.

The questions “How to create an Android app” or “How to create an app for iPhone” always entail the other one: “How long does it take to build an app?”

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Step 5. Quality Testing

It is common to test every part of the product manually and automatically while creating your own app. The type of QA method depends on the project, but here are the most common types:

• Requirements testing (validates the requirements with technical capabilities.)
• Compatibility testing (running the app on different devices and screen sizes.)
• Interface testing (checks the navigation, menu, and buttons performance.)
• Low-level resources testing (tests such resources of the device as a battery, memory consumption, and temporary files storage.)
• Performance testing (checks the app performance with and without an internet connection and running on low battery.)
• Security testing (provides quality assurance of user data safety.)
• User acceptance testing (involves the user partaking to check the usability and the general impression about the app.)
• Beta testing (the beta trial gives users access to the app with the application stores to get feedback from the larger audience.)

After your application is ready, the QA team starts to test whether all code parts of the app work correctly together. It is important to check all security issues carefully to protect the privacy of your users.

Our team also pays a lot of attention to the app performance and the stable operation of the system under the influence of various external factors. Quality technical documentation that you have created in step 2 will be very useful here.

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Step 6. Publishing & Maintenance of Your App

Finally, your app is released and it’s time to show it to the world. You can do it by yourself, or ask your mobile app development team to help you. In both cases, app store optimization is highly desirable. It helps users find your product in the endless ocean of options. The high quality of promotional materials will make your app also desirable.

To track users’ activity and endorse acquisition and retention you may also need some tools. The marketing team of The APP Solutions helps clients choose tools and set up analytics if needed. A general list of major marketing metrics is as follows:

• The average revenue per user
• Cost per install
• Cost per loyal user
• Love ratio
• Retention for a given period

For more information, please check our blog article 5 Key Mobile Marketing Metrics.

Even now it’s too early to relax. After the release and publishing, there still remain bugs to be eliminated. Our team ensures all projects with three months of free bug fixing. Also, don’t forget that technologies evolve faster than light speed. It would be perfect if the same team takes care of every next version of your application.

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Takeaway

It is quite normal to face difficulties during such hard and labor-intensive work as making your own app. Many factors are affecting how you create an app. The key ingredient to your success is the professional development team, who will share the passion of your idea, help extrapolate the latest trends on your projects, and will make every effort to create the app that will only complement your business goals.

Denys Vetriak

administrator