The mobile app market is the most appealing and exciting market for entrepreneurs today as there lies an endless array of possibilities just sitting there waiting to be grabbed upon. We see that day by day how the real world objects are turning virtual and that is the sole concept behind these apps if you like something and didn’t find its digital prints then just create one. There are various steps involved in the developing of a mobile application and it starts from just an idea and that idea can even take you towards the road to become a multi-millionaire and if not, then at least some guy who developed freaking cool apps.
The app market may seem very subtle when viewed from outside but is extremely tough on the inside and a lot of work goes into making one simple app. The process involved may contain a large number of people, teams, phases and much more that you really don’t wanna get into. So without further ado let’s start and dive right in and explore how actually the process goes in the background.
The idea
The very first step is the inception of the idea and Once you have the idea for your app, that’s where the journey begins. As we are looking at building an app for managing Olympiad, so we’ll be talking in that context only so as to give a relatable example to befriend the process.
Research phase
The first phase before doing anything is the research phase, So you and your team gets down with loads of caffeine for the night and brainstorm over the ways on how to make that idea of yours into reality and this is the most enjoyable and fun filled part throughout the process. There are certain aspects to look at while you’re in this phase :
- Target audience: Always set your target audience and consider what they would want from your app.
- Search app store: App stores are like gold mine of information and you can gather data from
- Research competition: similar apps like yours and see where they fall short, user feedback and much more.
- Find flaws: Finding flaws in your idea would help your app in a great manner as you can encounter a problem if and only if you know about
Design phase
The design is the most creative and appealing part of your app, which is visible to your consumer and gets them in the mood to try on your app. The design phase can also be subdivided into different phases and they are as follows:
1. Creating a mental prototype
It is important to know what exactly you want to create, have a mental prototype ready so that you can explain anybody interested and try to draw your ideas onto a whiteboard for better visual representation and understanding.
2. Wireframe
List down all the key objectives, features, components, and underlying working to create a complete blueprint of the app, which in turn help the developer in the creation of the app in later stages.
3. Storyboarding
This is where you link everything that you have created till now that is basically you map out the journey across your app in the most detailed manner.
4. Backend
The wireframe and storyboard will help You define what features to perform so as to define the functionality of the app. We do not implement functions in this phase, we just have to define them.
5. Prototype
We build an MVC (Minimum viable product) to completely design the app. It helps to validate our idea, gather feedback and help to take the product development in the right direction. *A minimum viable product (MVP) is a product with just enough features to satisfy early customers and to provide feedback for future product development.
6. Feedback
After testing the MVP, the shortcomings should be taken care of, so that they would not create a problem and disrupt the development cycle of the app in the future.
Development phase
After successfully completing the designing phase, now you know what you have to build and you can work upon your app without facing any difficulty on the theory part. The developers can now set up the storage, database, servers and API’s so as to initiate the build. You should keep in mind that your app should reach a vast majority of the audience so that the resource requirements must not be that high as to your app cannot match this very objective. The application will go through three stages:
- Alpha stage: The app comprises less functionality and has a lot of bugs and is not exposed to any kind of audience.
- Beta stage: The app is completely compiled and is in the runnable mode with some light testing done previously. This version is made available to close groups and Beta testers for generating feedback to create a more stable version of the app.
- Release candidate: It is the refined version which is thoroughly tested, bugs are fixed and can be used by the targeted audience.
Testing phase
You have reached this stage means that you are almost there and now all you have to do is tie the loose ends and voila! There can be many ways to test your app such as:
User experience: The app is provided to the user through which feedback is taken and worked upon for the refined build.
Beta test: The app is made available for trial download to interested users who are known as Beta test: and the reports and feedback forms can be generated. The testing should be on taken care as early as possible during the development lifecycle as the cost of fixing bugs would increase as the complexity widens along with time.
The Launch
Now the final step is to deploy your app and get it out in the real world where the people can download and use it. There’s still a lot to do in your plate from setting up the developer accounts in App stores to creating landing pages and advertisements for your app. You had to optimize your app so that it would be exposed to more users and play with the keywords while doing SEO (Search engine optimization). And that’s how you have completed the journey of your idea becoming a reality and the journey till now is a big one and definitely not an easy one but it is the hardships that make the journey enjoyable.
