Developing a successful mobile app that clearly reflects your business idea to your targeted audiences is not an overnight task. It requires a great deal of effort and a significant amount of time to build an Android or iOS application. Most people reckon that mobile app development is all about choosing the right technology stack and hiring a renowned mobile application development company. However, following the proper process, from beginning to the end, is equally essential to make your app a chartbuster on the PlayStore or App Store.
In the article we will cover the following steps:
Step 1: Launch the inception phase
Step 2: Create a phone app's Technical documentation
Step 3: Design creation
Step 4: Development
Step 5: Testing
Step 6: Release
First of all, you need to describe your business idea to the development team. This is what happens during the discovery phase, one of the milestones for mobile app development. During this stage, you and your mobile development team will clarify all the details of your future project.
During the discovery phase, the team will explore and elaborate on the concept of your app. Then, based on your app type, the team will define the scope of your project and technical solutions to implement.
For complex projects, we advise you to create an MVP - the minimum viable version of the product in order to test the user reaction to the application. Our analyst is always ready to help you determine the functionality required for an MVP. If necessary, we develop a server for managing the mobile application and an API service for transferring between the server and the application.
Also known as a technical specification or software documentation, this paper is a manual of your product with outlining requirements and business logic.
The document will include everything starting from an intro, the purpose of the app, all definitions of technologies to be used, testing to be done, timeframes, budget, and even concerns or doubts. This part is continuous throughout the entire development period.
To create Technical Documentation, our team conducts the following activities:
- Keeping ongoing dialogue with the client to identify the number of app users (buyer, seller, admin).
- Suggesting ways in which the project can be implemented.
- Determining the main functions of the app.
- Elaborating the level of requirement granularity.
- Suggesting the interface structure.
- Identifying the app architecture, i.e., types of interactions between the systems and subsystems.
After making technical documentation, the development team agrees on it with the client and estimates the project's scope and cost. Now that all requirements are clarified and user stories are written, the team will do functional decomposition to break user stories down to particular functions, prioritize them, and create a mobile app development project plan. Such a plan will include essential features to add to the app MVP and features to implement next.
UX/ UI designers will create the design of each screen for your app. During this stage, the team will agree with you on how the app should feel and flow. Here, designers will develop:
- The layout of app navigation.
- Icons.
- Buttons.
- Text fields
- And other visual elements.
Depending on your project's complexity, the mobile app design creating stage might take from one week to three months.
At the end of developing a design for a mobile app, you will receive:
- UX wireframe.
- Separate app designs for iOS and Android platforms.
- An interactive app design prototype.
Now the team will start the next phase of the app development life cycle, during which they will create:
- Front-end - in other words, client-side development, that is about tools and techniques used to create a presentation layer of the software for direct user interaction with it;
- Backend/cloud storage - a server/database part of coding and maintaining a technology that connects the front-end part of the app with the data access layer. During the development stage, one of the steps to developing an app, we provide clients with project updates. In this way, we assure work transparency and make sure the developers are on the same page as the client. Afterwards, quality assurance engineers test it out. Software testing plays a considerable role in mobile app development, improving and cleaning the final product. All the bugs should be squashed.
Typically, this phase begins during the development phase after the end of the first sprint.
The development team conducts testing, which is one of the steps to building an app. Our testers and QA managers conduct the following tests:
- Compatibility testing - running the app on different devices and screen sizes.
- Interface testing - checking the navigation, menu, and button performance.
- Device compatibility testing- how the app looks and performs on various screen sizes.
- Low-level resources testing - examining the app running on low battery, slow Internet connection, etc.
- Security testing - quality assurance of sensitive data safety
- Beta testing - preliminary focus-group examination of the app and getting feedback.
So we have come to the final stage to answer “How do you make a mobile app” question. The app is created and ready for the market launch.
Besides the need to compile the version, you also need to prepare information for publication. This process is very important for making a mobile app stand out from competitors, as well as for search engine optimization in app stores and search engines systems.
It is better to start preparing for publication in advance in order to have time to analyze the submission competitors and create your own content, which consists of: title, short description,
a detailed description, beautiful screenshots with titles, properties, seo, policies privacy, and, if desired, a video or gif animation.
And in order for the app moderation in stores to be successful, you also need to follow the rules and recommendations of each platform.
Moderation process takes on average 3 days on the App Store and 1-2 days on Google Play and Microsoft Store.
Conclusion
Mobile app development is not easy. There is no such "One-two, and it's done" scheme. Many stages can intersect with each other or run in parallel.
Now that you know how to build a phone app, the last thing that remains is to hire a development team to turn your idea into reality.
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