Choosing to get an application built for your business isn’t as easy as it may sound; all the more why it shouldn’t be tread lightly. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s rocket science. In the current times, the process of mobile app development requires a lot of pre-planning – right from the kind of approach you might want to take. For example, some business owners prefer to speed things up and therefore their agencies open up IDEs, work on things that work perfectly together, as well as complete quick QA tests before submitting them on the AppStore. On the other hand, some businesses also go with a more intricate, comprehensive approach where they select a meticulous app design, run elaborate tests on a lot of devices for usability, performance checks and then have a full beta lifecycle before deployment. It may appear similar on the surface, but both the processes would yield entirely different outcomes, with its own specialization and features – something that as a business owner you need to have a solid insight before going in.
For the people who aren’t into coding, the mobile app development life cycle (MADLC) is like a black hole from which nothing emerges. But instead, it doesn’t have to be like that, because unlike popular belief, the MADLC can be divided into eight phases, they are:
Credits: Quytech
Phase 1: Prerequisite Analysis
Laying the solid foundation of an idea is only the beginning of it all. The most crucial part of the app development process is to understand it in full, including its scope, uniqueness, as well as the financial and technical details involved in it. As a business owner, you may carry a preconceived idea, but your agency and developers need to get the clear, bigger picture of your app to make it beneficial to the end-users. Some of the standard questions include:
- What pain points would your app solve?
- What makes your app better than others?
- Which framework would be best suited for your app?
- Is there a requirement for such an app currently?
- Who is the target group for your app?
There’s no one way to get this process done, but all of the ways include the brainstorming and explanation processes. Once this stage is completed only then your app development phase can proceed further.
Phase 2: Wireframing
This is the phase where your app gets the beginning of its USP – in other words, its features and functionalities. The wireframe building is what brings your application all out in sketches, to identify any underlying problems beforehand, or organize ideas to the app design components respectively.
Developing the wireframe can also serve as the roadmap/foundation on which further functionalities can be worked out on.
Phase 3: Weighing In Technical Feasibility
Your app is what is on the outside, because of its solid backend system. In the app development process backend development holds a lot of weightage because, in the long term, it is only responsible for your app’s impressive performance on various devices, frameworks, as well as users.
Phase 4: Building The Prototype
The prototype is the first thing that gives you a sense of the right direction to your application. In other words, it is a miniature, less-advanced version of your app that helps you to gain insight if it would uphold the purpose it was designed for, without going all out on its complete development. You can also conduct several surveys to fully gather information on its performance, as well as provide access to your business stakeholders to have a first look at your app.
Phase 5: Designing
As per studies, as much as 46% of customers are less likely to purchase from other shopping options, as long as they’re using the business mobile app. Therefore, in order to include the right design elements for your mobile app, you’d need it to perfectly align with your app’s marketing, technical, as well as financial aspects.
Since app designing plays a huge role in deciding the time of deployment of your app, it makes this phase a multistep process.
Phase 6: App Development
Once you’re done with the above phase, it is the time the initial stage of app development starts; where all processes that took place till now, comes into a whole. As the development phase begins to the fullest – including rigorous coding and debugging. For most agencies, the agile methodology of app development works the best, since it brings a lot of flexibility on board.
Phase 7: Testing
It’s always a good call to conduct early testing as the mobile app development takes place, for the benefit of the developers to fix any bug as soon as it occurs. However, testing an app covers a lot of details including that of security, performance, usability, etc.
Phase 8: App Deployment
This is the phase where your app is all set to launch and hit the app stores. But it does include a lot of work done since your hired agency needs to be proactive in working things out based on the feedback from the audience, as it also includes further support and maintenance to bring in new functionalities and more.
Now that you know what all goes into the mobile app development scenario, we hope from now on you’d be more involved and informed about the processes in the app development – right from the research stage to the deployment stage.
In case you’re a professional seeking exciting, new opportunities to explore technology, here are some of our recommendations:
Tack Mobile
Their innovative mobile app development solutions stand out in the industry for their immersive user experiences. They also specialize in building tech solutions for smart, connected devices. Currently, they’re hiring for Senior Android developers in Colorado, and are worth a look.
CodeClouds
Being in the industry for more than a decade, CodeClouds is well-known for its unparalleled expertise in web development and eCommerce services. From full-stack development, UX/UI designing, brand management, to iOS and Android mobile app development – they provide technology-enabled solutions for all your business requirements. They’re currently recruiting for software developer jobs in kolkata and many more across India and New Zealand, for you to choose from.
Cheesecake Labs
Be it developing react-native, iOS, android solutions, they have delivered successful tech products known to empower your business agency. They also come with loads of experience with teams of specialists across many domains and are currently hiring remote, full-stack software engineers among other profiles.
