The days of cell phones with buttons, small screens, and the sole capacity of making a call are long gone. Instead of phones, we could consider present-day smartphones as iPods, Internet cafés, TVs, cameras, and other technologies all compressed into these multi-purpose gadgets.
According to research, an average smartphone has over 80 apps installed, and in the US, people spend about 90% of their mobile time using apps.
Mobile applications are great solutions for businesses who wish to make their services readily available to their customers. Moreover, mobile apps are suitable across niches, user interests, and target audiences.
Thus, this article covers the key stages of the mobile application development process, step-by-step, from developing your idea to monitoring the app’s performance post-launch.
.1 Complete Product Discovery Phase
The initial stage in the app development process is product discovery.
Product discovery aims to reduce ambiguity in the development process and set the app-building procedure on the right track.
Collecting data on your market, competitors, and the intended audience will ensure you’re making data-driven decisions that will pay off once the app is launched.
.2 Hire a Reliable Mobile App Dev Agency
Unless you have an in-house team of mobile app developers, you’ll have to outsource your project.
Moreover, it’s wise – but not necessarily crucial – to collaborate with an app development company with relevant experience in building mobile apps for your industry or target user region.
.3 Map Out Your Development Strategy
Now that you’ve signed the contract with your partner agency, it’s time to blueprint your mobile app development process.
Share your ideas and previous research regarding the app – whom it’s meant to serve, what problems it’s supposed to solve, and what features it should boast.
.4 Iterate Design Prototypes
The design process starts by focusing on the user experience.
Designers consider your app’s information architecture, the content it will include, and the best way to represent it to the target users. Moreover, the design team will integrate into the prototypes info on what user data will be collected, and what actions the users will be able to perform.
.5 Let the Professionals Code
Now it’s time for your developers to shine.
The majority of the work in the development phase is done by the agency, with very little assistance from you as their customer. Using the chosen technology stack, your dev team will code your app’s front-end and back-end, transforming ideas and sketches into a real-life app.
.6 Perform In-Depth QA Testing
Quality assurance is one of the key stages of a successful mobile app development process.
QA testing guarantees that your product meets the quality and performs the functionalitiesas designed. During testing, QA professionals will evaluate your product’s overall user experience, software functionality, performance and stability, potential security concerns, etc.
Additionally, they will examine how well your mobile application works with various hardware and operating system configurations.
.7 Deploy, Maintain, and Optimize
Once your mobile app is ready to go onto the market, publish it on platforms such as Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.
But don’t think the job is done – because you’re just getting started.
Your first task is to sit down with your development agency and make arrangements for all post-launch support on their side. This should include future upgrades, app maintenance, bug fixes, etc.
Last but not least, optimize your app’s presence on app stores to target your ideal consumers, rank for relevant, high-volume keywords, and appear at the top of user searches.
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