As mobile devices’ use continues to grow at unprecedented speed, mobile apps’ demand also increases exponentially. Mobile applications have literally taken over almost every part of our lives from enterprise operations to day-to-day tasks. Many companies are now looking on Mobile app development companies side to help develop software solutions that will allow them to survive the challenges in the market in this digital era.
However, developing and designing mobile apps is a tedious process that comes with multi-stage steps, which need to be religiously followed to ensure that you get a high-quality product that offers a solution to your digital needs and is also future-proof. Here we look at 10 proven steps of the mobile Professional App development life cycle to better understand what the process entails.
1. Research and planning
The first step in the mobile app development lifecycle plays a critical role in shaping the cycle’s other processes. You need to determine the objective that the app should serve, its audience and the platform where the app will operate.
Moreover, the app developer should also research the competitor’s existing product, including its works, what it offers to customers, and the key aspects that are lacking it. This will help you come up with the next-generation mobile application. Apart from ensuring the other steps flow well, researching and planning give an idea about the time and capital investment required for the project.
2. Conceptual prototyping
Once you gather all the details about the project and also plan for the whole process, you should now make a conceptual prototype of the software product exploring your idea and also using the details acquired from the research. List down all the functionalities and also create a flowchart on board or draw a sketch of what the app should look like.
The step will serve as the first representation of the details and ideas acquired in the first step. Still, in this step, you should discuss the functionalities and attributes with other development team members. Listen to their views and opinions to be able to make corrections where necessary. Discussing the project prototype with other members is likely to give you a unique idea of how to develop or design the app.
3. Business Estimations and Insight
After research, planning and building a conceptual prototype of the app, the next step should be determining the business insight to define what the app should meet. The step helps you develop a test plan document that defines the app’s objective and the testing scope. This helps the developer perfectly estimate your app’s cost while also providing a feasible real mobile app concept.
4. Technical feasibility assessment
Analyze the visuals on the project and then go further to determine if there are limitations in the backed system when supporting the app’s functionality. Examining your app idea’s technical feasibility helps know whether the product will perform well and offer the intended solutions.
Besides, it is also significant to identify the platform that you will employ in app development. Mobile application development has different requirements, and the needs depend on the platform that you choose to use, whether iOS, Android or both.
5. Create an Actual Prototype
Create an actual prototype of the mobile application that you intend to develop to experience how the app flows and how it works. Building the actual prototype helps put the app concept into the user’s hands, which allows the developer to identify limitations and areas that need improvement.
For this step, you can use rough wireframes to understand whether the project is proceeding in the right direction.
6. Mobile app design
The next step involves designing the mobile app before development while using UI and UX technologies. The UI (user interface) creates the feel and look of your app while the UX (user experience) designer is responsible for design elements interaction. Mobile app design is a multistep phase that involves informing engineers about the envision product, visual direction and how the interaction should flow and feel.
However, the step can be successfully completed in a single day or a few hours depending on the app budget, project scope and the complexity. You should also remember to play around with the navigation layout to create multiple variations of the screen.
7. App Development
This step actually begins when you enter the conceptual stage and then advances to creating the actual prototype. The actual prototype validates the assumptions and functionality, which helps the development team understand the project’s scope better.
The app development process then advances to a set of stages, including the core functionality step and then the second stage where the proposed functionality is incorporated. The app will have gone through bug fixing and light testing at this stage, but there could be some issues present still.
The app is then passed to the next stage for further testing by external users. Once bug fixing is done after testing, the app then moves to the next step, the deployment phase.
8. Testing
After the development stage, where the light testing and bug fixing are done, the app is the sent to the next step that involves thorough testing to confirm that the software product is ready for deployment. It is advisable to test the app earlier and often as you advance to the next stages as it helps keep the final costs of testing low. Fixing bugs for apps in the deployment phases costs more than when done in the early stages of development.
Remember to check the original planning and design documents while conducting your tests to ensure that the app meets all the listed requirements. The app should be tested for compatibility, stress, usability, performance, and interface checks in this step. The step also involves user acceptance testing, which involves giving the app to a few people in the target audience to comment on their experience. It is also important to ask pertinent questions to determine whether the mobile app work is better for the intended users.
9. Deployment and launching
The next step after the app has passed the testing phase is deployment, which means that the app is ready for submission. You should then arrange for a formal launch of the app before launching it on the target platforms. However, it is important to understand that different stores have different requirements and policies for launching an application.
Once the app is launched, the feedback will come in, which will lead you to the last step of app development.
10. App Enhancement
Unlike what most people think, app development does not end at the launch. Once you receive the feedback from the hand users and some of the people in the target audience, you will need to add new features and updates (enhancement) depending on the comments you get from the users. This will ensure that you get a high-quality mobile app that offers great user experience and helps address business challenges.
Conclusion
Understanding all the key steps in mobile app development, helps you deliver robust software products that offer impactful solutions to businesses and companies. It also helps you perfectly come up with the cost estimation while ensuring that you include what you spend on reaching and adopting new technologies and emerging trends. We also believe that the top 10 proven steps of the mobile app development life cycle will help clients keep track of the process and know when to contribute.
If you are looking for a reliable mobile app developer, TechTIQ Solutions is worth your consideration. Our company has a proven record of delivering cost-effective and meaningful digital solutions that help businesses achieve sustainable growth and better engage with their customers.
We make sure that we adhere to the proven steps in mobile app development discussed above while ensuring that our clients are involved in every step of the process through a collaborative approach. Our expertise is spanned across a wide range of IT services.
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