So you woke up in the middle of the night and had this great idea for an amazing app -- you can picture it, you know it is useful, and you can imagine that many people would like it, too.
If this is your first-ever app development attempt, here is a brief guide on how to get from A to Z and make the project a success!
Step 1: Define Your Goal
Having a great idea is the starting point into every new project. Before you go straight into detailing though, you must clearly define the purpose and mission of your app. What is it going to do? What is its core appeal? What concrete problem is it going to solve, or what part of life is it going to make better?
Defining a clear goal for the app is also going to help you get there faster.
Step 2: Start Sketching
By developing sketches you are laying the foundation for your future interface. In this step you visually conceptualize the main features and the approximate layout and structure of your application.
Having a first rough sketch of your app helps everyone on your team understand the mission. These sketches should be used as reference for the next phase of the project.
Step 3: Research
This research has four main purposes:
1. Find out whether there are other apps doing the same thing
2. Find design inspiration for your app
3. Find information on the technical requirements for your app
4. Find out how you can market and monetize your app
While you may think that you have a revolutionary idea, you may get your hopes crushed very quickly. There are more than 1 million apps for Android and iOS, so building something that hasn’t been done before is nearly impossible. Nonetheless you must not get discouraged by those who may playing in the same arena. It is imperative that you focus on your own project and your user acquisition. Learn from the key features and mistakes of your competitors, and drop all other thoughts about them.
There is a great marketplace for designers called Dribbble. Designers use Dribbble to showcase their work to others for feedback and to get inspiration from fellow artists. It is probably my favorite place to look for ideas about design and implementation.
This is also the right time to look into the technical aspects of your app. Find out what your requirements are and get a clear picture of whether your idea is truly feasible or not from a technical standpoint. In most cases there will be an alternative solution to proceed on a slightly different route. This research extends into legal restrictions like copyright and privacy questions, giving you a complete understanding of your situation.
If you have connections in the industry, get an expert opinion on your idea right from the start.
Two other important points are marketing and monetization. Now that you have confirmed the feasibility of your app, you should think about your strategy of getting it out onto the market. Determine your niche -- know exactly how you can reach your target user and how you need to approach him to make him see the value and use the app.
Another important consideration is figuring out how your app is going to generate money. Will you charge your user to download it? Or will you offer the app for free but run ads on it? This model would require a large user base, so think about that as well.
There are various ways to monetize an app and it is up to you to decide on the channel you want to use.
Step 4: Create a Wireframe and Storyboard
In this phase your ideas and features fuse into a clearer picture. Wireframing is the process of creating a mockup or prototype of your app. You can find a number of prototyping tools online. The most popular ones are Balsamiq, Moqups, and HotGloo, which allows you to not only drag and drop all your placeholders and representative graphics into place, but also add button functionality so that you can click through your app in review mode.
While you are working on your wireframes you should also create a storyboard for your app. The idea is to build a roadmap that will help you understand the connection between each screen and how the user can navigate through your app.
Step 5: Define the Back End of Your App
Your wireframes and storyboard now become the foundation of your back-end structure. Draw a sketch of your servers, APIs, and data diagrams. This will be a helpful reference for the developer, and as more people join the project you will have a (mostly) self-explanatory diagram for them to study.
Modify your wireframes and storyboard according to technical limitations, if there are any.
Step 6: Test Your Prototype
Revert to your wireframes and ask friends, family, colleagues, and experts to help you review your prototype. Grant them access to the wireframe and have them give your app a test run. Ask them for their honest feedback and to identify flaws and dead-end links. If possible, invite them to your studio and have them try out the prototype in front of you. Monitor how they use the app, taking note of their actions and adapting your UI/UX to them.
The goal is to concretize your app concept before it goes into the design process! Once you start designing it is much harder to change things around, so the clearer the prototype from the start, the better.
How long does it take to build an iOS or Android app?
Step 7: Build the backend of your mobile app
Step 8: Design the app “skins”
Step 9: Test your mobile app again (yes, again)
Step 10: Revise and continue to build
Step 11: Refine each detail
Step 12: Release your mobile app!
This infographic from Kinvey provides a nice overview of the development of an Android or iOS app. It has been created from a survey of 100 developers and designed based on their feedback (Note: You will find the wireframing process in this graphic near the end, whereas many developers will create their wireframes at the beginning of the project.)
How long does it take to build an iOS or Android app?
Step 7: Build the backend of your mobile app
Now that your app has been pretty clearly defined, it’s time to get started on the backend of your system. Your developer will have to set up servers, databases, APIs, and storage solutions.
Another important thing on your to-do list at this stage is signing up for developer accounts at the app marketplaces you are developing for. Getting your account approved may take several days (depending on the platform) and shouldn’t be put off to the last minute.
Step 8: Design the app “skins”
“Skins” are what designers/developers call the individual screens needed for the app. Your designer’s job is to come up with high-resolution versions of what were previously your wireframes.
In this step it is crucial to include all comments from your prototype testers (see Step 6). After all, you are trying to build a mobile app that your target audience is actually going to use, therefore their feedback should guide you toward the perfect UI-User Interface.
Step 9: Test your mobile app again (yes, again)
Once your designer has completed the design skins, you’re up for another round of testing. Don’t think that you are all set with what you’ve done so far. Now for the first time you have your actual app concept completely in place, all the graphics inserted, and all text as it should be. Which means you can finally test your app in the way it will really look and feel.
To test your app, two great testing apps come to mind: Notable Prototypes (formerly Solidify) and Framer. These apps allow you to import your app designs and add links where needed to test the flow from screen to screen.
Step 10: Revise and continue to build
Once you’ve given your design a test drive and collected more feedback from future users, you should use these new ideas to polish your app idea. You can still ask your designer to change the layout, and you can still tell your developer to change something on the backend.
Step 11: Refine each detail
As you continue to build, you will want to have a constant look at your new app. On Android, for example, it is easy to install your app file on a device to test its functionality in a live environment. iOS is different—there you will require a platform like TestFlight to download and test your app as it proceeds.
This step is the last step in the app-development process. You can monitor your app all the way until your product is complete.
Step 12: Release your mobile app!
App marketplaces have very different policies when it comes to publishing a new app. Android, for example, does not review newly submitted apps right away. They’ll pass by at some point and check it out but you are able to instantly add your app to Google Play.
iOS, once again, is different here. Apple reserves the right to review and approve your app before it can go live. There is no set timeframe for this, but you can expect at least a week before you hear back from them.
To overcome this hold there is something else you can do: submit your app to PreApps. As you can probably guess from its name, PreApps is an app marketplace that gives developers the opportunity to reach early adopters (aka “lead users”—people who like to be first at trying out new inventions) and receive some of the very earliest feedback on your masterpiece.
Once you’ve gotten your app listed on the app stores of choice, it is time to market your app and get it seen, but that’s a topic for a whole other future article!
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