If you stumbled across this article, you’re likely considering developing your very own app. While the process itself isn’t simple, approaching it the right way can help you achieve your business goals.
There are risks when developing a mobile app and minimizing risk should always be at the top of your priority list, especially if you’re a startup. Gathering data and feedback will ensure that you move forward without assumptions. In this article, we’ll guide you through a data-driven approach to mobile application development that provides you with the tools to stay within your budgetary requirements and stick to a reasonable timeline.
The Main Mobile App Development Stages
There are several steps to developing an app:
- Market research
- Choosing your features
- Developing your design
- The development stage
- Release
Market Research
During this stage, there are key questions that must be answered to touch all bases of a successful market research strategy:
- Who are you catering to?
- Who are you competing with?
- How can you make you stand out from the competition?
- How will your application bring you money?
- What features will you add?
If you don’t have your answers ready, your app won’t be market-ready. Development at this point would essentially be money down the drain.
Choosing Your App’s Features
It’s worth noting that you don’t necessarily have to include all features right off the bat. An app is usually released in several stages, starting with the minimum viable product, or MVP. This is the stage, during which you gather market feedback and confirm your hypotheses. So try to prioritize the right features for your MVP stage.
Here is where you understand your target audience. You should be able to identify your users' needs and their pain points. Learn what is currently meeting their needs, study your competitors, and come up with a value offering that makes your product better than theirs.
One more thing you should consider is how these features influence your development timeline. If a feature doesn’t seem necessary for your first release, and it may stretch your development roadmap drastically, you’re better off releasing the first iteration without the feature. Remember, your minimum viable product should verify your market research and test a hypothesis. It should be rolled out quickly and without the inclusion of all features all at once.
A method you can utilize to help you decide on your features list is the Feature Priority Matrix
The matrix features two axes. The X-axis indicates the effort required for the feature while the Y-axis looks at the impact this feature has on your end user.
Effort — how resource-intensive is the feature?
Impact — how impactful is the feature for your user?
Risk — How difficult is it going to be to implement the feature?
Once you’ve determined the effort, impact, and risk of all features, you should place your MVP features in these 4 categories:
- Must-haves — Here you’d put the necessary features with the least risk.
- Can-be-dones — These features aren’t super impactful and can be added in later versions.
- Nice-to-haves — Not necessarily impactful but do set your product apart from your competitors. Although the cost and risks associated with these features render them improper for an MVP.
- Waste-of-times — Features that have a low impact on your end users and are associated with high risks and app development costs.
Once you’ve researched your market and determined your features list, you’ll be ready for the next step.
Developing Your App’s Design
We previously released an article detailing the Role of design in enhancing user experience. We recommend you give it a brief read to properly understand the process and its significance. In this article, we’ll provide a brief guide on the process along with some tips.
The first thing you should do is develop wireframes for your approved features. A wireframe is a schematic placement of your app’s screens. It’s monochrome and used by designers to create prototypes faster with minimal changes after the planning stage.
These wireframes do not tell the entire story, they’re just a blueprint.
Just like how you can’t build a house without blueprints, the same applies to your app.
If you don’t like how some features are shown, you can voice your concerns to the development team. If you’re working with a development team, you’ll have to go through many approvals, ensuring your MVP comes out exactly the way you want it while saving your budget and eliminating misunderstandings.
Designers then make a clickable prototype to simulate a working application, followed by the app design allowing you to test functionality on a real device. Once everything has been approved, you’re ready for development.
The Mobile App Development Process
This is the stage that will take up the majority of your roadmap. It can take a long time for your application to come to fruition. While it is possible to develop an MVP in less than 5 months, it requires a strong development team. If you’d like to learn how we developed an MVP from start to finish in such a short time frame, read our article breaking down our work with FinServices here.
During the app development lifecycle, teams collaborate in 2-week sprints to complete specific tasks. Developers write the code and designers focus on appearance. QA specialists ensure the app functions as expected, while project managers oversee the process, conduct meetings, and prepare reports for the app owners.
At the end of each sprint, a demo would be prepared for the client for testing. This demo can be installed on a device so that the look, feel, and functionality can be tested in real-world environments.
Once the app has been developed, designed, and passed testing, it should be released to the Apple App Store and Google Play.
App Release
Here are the stages of the release process:
- Creating store accounts: Either the client or development team can take care of this step.
- Preparation: The empty account should be filled with several crucial files in preparation for the build.
- Final build verification: The application should be verified, and its installation should be tested. The installation process is simulated through the app store. Android builds uses Firebase which offers a tool called App Distribute, while iOS uses TestFlight.
- Submitting the build for review: As always, you run the risk of your build being rejected, so workarounds should be considered.
- Final development stage: In case of any complications, this stage includes last-minute fixes before deployment.
- Publishing the build: The app is finally published and listed on app stores.
If you’d like to learn more about the release process, we have a full article detailing the App release process on different app stores on our Medium page. I’d recommend that you give it a look to get to know all the nuances of the app release stages.
Best Practices for App Development
To ensure your app’s success, there are a few things you should pay extra attention to:
- Ensure that your research stage is solid. If you overlook important details, your app will flop.
- Choose the right technology. You have the choice to go for native, hybrid, or cross-platform apps. Consider your budgetary constraints, your audience, and the difference in security and usability before you can make a decision. Choose your app development tools based on data acquired during the research stage along with your budgetary restraints.
- Test thoroughly. Don’t just test the download or if the app opens. Testing your app should be thorough to make sure it’s ready for your users.
- Pay attention to security. Your app may contain sensitive user information, so secure the app to protect your client’s data.
- Make your app a joy to use and own. You can do so by building an outstanding UX for your users. Pay close attention to app loading speed, convenience, and the overall experience within the app.
- Acquire user feedback to improve with later iterations. You don’t have to fully release the application to gather feedback. You can gradually release your app to a limited number of users to address any concerns based on user feedback before a full release. This is important for your app user acquisition.
The Importance of User Feedback
When imaga developed the FinServices MVP, we initially released the app with one single feature, which allowed us to launch the MVP early to gather valuable feedback from users. Over two years, we regularly updated the app every two weeks, introducing new features. We relied on feedback from the end user using a dedicated product analytics platform integrated into the app. We analyzed user behavior and this helped us prioritize the backlog concerning new features added to the app in later updates.
A product release is an ongoing process that goes beyond the launch stage. Always maintain communication with the end user and incorporate in-app feedback collection mechanisms to minimize negative reviews on app stores.
If you’d like to explore how we were able to launch an MVP for FinServices within just 5 months while utilizing feedback to form the perfect user experience, read our FinServices case here.