Develop Your First Mobile App in 8 Easy Steps

As technology is shifting towards smart phones thus developing a mobile application is essential to grow and promote your business worldwide. So, if you are thinking to develop your own app to become productive and to simplify time consuming business processes in just few seconds or minutes, then consider these 8-step guide to get you started and bring your mobile app development idea to reality.

Identify Your Objective

Keep your mission and purpose of your mobile app clear. First, you must ask yourself that whether your idea will entertain people, provide a service or solve a problem? What part of life is it going to make better? Or Why will people use your app? The answers to these questions will provide you with a direction and help you to fulfill your app development goal faster.

Market Research

Research is imperative as there are more than 1 million apps for iOS and Android. The four main purpose of research is to find out the design inspiration for your app, whether there are other apps doing the same thing, information on the technical requirements for your app, and how you can market and monetize your app. Be focused and never get discouraged by the existing similar apps. Learn from the mistakes and key features of your competitors and drop other thoughts about them.

Start Sketching & Wire framing

Lay the foundation of your future references by developing sketches. Visually conceptualize the approximate layout, the main features and structure of your application. The rough sketch will help your team understand the mission and can be used by them as a reference for the next phase of the project.

After sketching, create a prototype or mock-up of your app with the wire framing process. You can find numerous prototyping tools online. Balsamiq, HotGloo and Moqups are the most popular ones which allow you to add buttons functionality and drag and drop all your placeholders and representative graphics into place. Create a storyboard for your app and build a road-map to understand how the user can navigate through your app and the connection between each screen.

Testing Prototype

Revert to your wire frames and ask family, friends, experts and colleagues to help you review your prototype. Give your app a test run by granting them access to wire frame. Identify flaws and dead end links by their feedback. Invite them to your studio and let them try out the prototype in front of you. The main aim is to concertize your app concept before going into the design process.

Mobile App Design & User Interface

Mobile App Design plays an important role in the success of mobile application. A developer should focus on platform design environment, UI Design and motion of Multi touch Devices. As an app developer, he should understand the usability of mobile app in the mind of users and design app screens accordingly. The feedback that you have collected from your targeted audience will guide you towards perfect User Interface.

Define & Develop the Back End of Your Mobile App

Draw a sketch of your APIs, data diagrams and servers that will work as a reference for your developers. It will be helpful for the people who will join the project, as self explanatory diagrams will be there for them to study. Modify your storyboard and wire frames according to technical limitations.

After defining your app clearly, get started at the back end of your system. Set up databases, servers, storage solutions, and APIs and sign up for developer account at the app marketplaces you are developing for. It takes several days for account approval and that shouldn’t be left to the last minute.

Retesting, Revision & Deployment of Mobile App

After completing your design skins, retest your app in the way it will feel and look. Test your app with the two amazing testing apps that is Framer and Solidify. These apps allow you to import your app designs and to test the flow from screen to screen.

Once you have collected feedback from future users and given your design a test drive, polish your app idea. You still have the time to ask your designer to change something on the back end and the layout.

Have a constant look at your new app and monitor it all the way. Test your app functionality in a live environment by checking that your app is installed easily on android and iOS. For iOS TestFlight platform is required to test and download your app as it proceeds, whereas for android, app is easy to install.

Mobile App Release

There are different policies for different app marketplaces when it comes to publishing a new app. For example, Android does not review the apps that are newly submitted right away. You can instantly add your app to google play as they will check it out and pass by at some point. In case of iOS, before going live, iOS will review your app and then approve it. To overcome such kind of hold, submit your app to PreApps that will help you to receive very earliest feedback on your masterpiece and will provide you an opportunity to reach early adopters.