Are you wondering how to create an app? Have you got a killer app idea with the potential to culminate into a remarkable business?
Well, it is understandable if the app development process at the onset looks daunting to you. With many layers of details and multiple touch points, building a mobile app from scratch is a lengthy process. Creating an app is a fairly expensive investment, approaching it right is the key to make it worth spending. Hence, by streamlining your approach, you’ll be surely enabled to extract maximum value for your users and your business in a systematic manner.
This article is all about helping you understand the different milestones of the app development for your next project. Without further ado, let’s have a look at this ultimate app development checklist you must go through while creating an app. It will help you validate your app idea and launch it quickly –
The ultimate checklist to create an app:
1. Identify the app’s purpose and relevance for your target group
The first and foremost step before kick-starting any kind of app development exercise is to analyze and ascertain the purpose of building the app and the type of individuals it is being built for.
Ascertain Your Target Group For Building The App
From a business perspective, you must attempt to gain clarity on who exactly comes under your intended target group and how building a mobile application is going to provide value to them.
An app might be a solution for most people, but it still may not apply to everybody. You must know how this investment is going to help you more than owning just a website, or whether your app’s value proposition is actually worth it for your user to download yet another app on their mobile phone and not delete it immediately. Thereafter, you must also conduct proper market research before deciding your way forward.
If your analysis after all this makes you feel positive about the prospect of building an app, only then should you go ahead with it.
Moreover, you must make it a point to ensure that your goal and target group is well documented so that the actual app developers and the team working on it don’t suffer from any kind of information asymmetry or communication gap.
2. Conduct a thorough competitor analysis
The next step for you is to thoroughly scan your niche and look out for the rivals. You need to understand their strategies and approaches in order to win your target audience’s interest.
You can conduct a Competitor SWOT Analysis and figure out the key areas in which they’re performing well.
Conduct A Competitor SWOT Analysis
You can look out for pointers such as the striking features, small details, and whether their app is paid or free.
You must scan their customer reviews to understand what kind of appreciation or criticism they are receiving.
You need to fill in all other brains behind the app (i.e. your teammates) about your key takeaways from this analysis.
3. Device a meaningful planning
It is the time to plan out your unique value proposition in some detail and assess how exactly can you compel a customer to do what you want them to do.
Device A Systematic Plan To Achieve Your Goal
At this step, you must engage in proper discovery and define your app project from a holistic perspective spanning the design and development aspects. You should be aware of the mistakes to avoid while building an app.
You need to figure out that what level of functionalities your app must include, and what all is important in aiding to achieve its purpose. We’d suggest that you slate down the number of possibilities you want to leverage your app to benefit your customers. For instance, whether you want it to enable promotions, loyalty programs, support and so on.
As you focus on the big picture, you need to take a step back and analyze the assumptions you’re making at every stage, for they might come in way of seamless implementation. In the brainstorming sessions with your team, figure out the things that will ruin your mobile app user interface.
Pointing out these concerns in advance will help your app go viral easily. Moreover, you also need to figure out if you have your branding elements in place, else you need to build a plan for getting that part covered.
4. Ascertain your budgetary allocations
No project can start without factoring in the economic aspects.
App development as a fact is a fairly expensive investment, the cost of which depends on the level of customization and functionality you opt for. It is highly recommended that you must start with developing an MVP app and discuss with your developer that how much would your app’s MVP cost you?
Moreover, taking all the factors into consideration, one’s your app is ready, you need to acknowledge that you’ll require more funds to market it.
Allocate Budget Based On The Right Considerations
So, figure out how much does it cost to outsource app development. If the success of your app necessitates extensive details and features, you need to make sure that you have the funds. If you are constrained, you must drop out the not so engaging features. As you decide on your budget, you must have a clear picture of the monetization strategy – whether your app is free, paid or freemium.
This can give you a proper sense of how much you should be spending the most. Leaving this part out for later is not advisable.
5. Choose the right app development platform
Choosing your mobile app building platform is a crucial step because it categorises your target audience based on the platforms they prefer to use. You need to make a choice between native apps vs hybrid apps development.
Mostly, the app makers prefer both iOS and Android platforms as they have the largest audience base. However, you can opt for any platform according to your requirements and later expand it to the other platforms.
Choose The Most Appropriate App Development Platform
Even though it’s possible to have a significant part of common coding across operating systems, one-size fits all approach isn’t particularly advisable. For every additional platform that you make your application accessible for, your app development costs and the number of users you can target will simultaneously increase.
Depending on your budget, target group and the key objectives, you need to figure out the appropriate platform(s) to build your app.
6. Pick the right mobile app developers
It’s time to finally entrust someone to carry out the technical part for your business app. Apart from just knowing how to create an app, the actual implementation considering all the aspects is all you need.
To ease out the pain of finding the best app developer, we have listed all your possible concerns in this guide on how to choose the right mobile app developers in Australia.
Hire the Best Mobile App Development Company
This is an important decision, for a wrong choice can completely derail you from achieving your goals in addition to draining out a significant quantum of resources. If you try to build your app with a DIY approach, it might save you some money, but can get you into a lot of complexities.
As someone who is not savvy with the process, understanding the implementation can take up a lot of your time. Moreover, the missing post-implementation support can be an additional hassle. Freelancers, on the other hand, may be among the most economical choices for getting an app developed by the professionals. However, since they operate as solopreneurs, their exposure in a wide variety of projects is often limited.
It might be a problem if you want to build an app with complex functionalities. Their lack of a team also results in a higher cycle time to complete the development process, getting you into the unnecessary delay. Moreover, freelancers are often unable to help significantly with post-launch support. In that sense, delegating companies with the task is a safer choice, even if it comes at a slightly higher cost.
Organisations are usually equipped with greater manpower and tend to have much more expertise and experience in handling different types of projects.
You must go for the app makers who use agile development methodology in their approach. The best services need not be the expensive one. You can find one to help you with your specific functional needs to keep it within budget. With careful consideration of the above factors, you can choose one and accordingly delegate the task.
7. Set the timescale & communication channels
Whoever you entrust with the job of building your app, you must set clearly defined project milestones. The process of app building is a lengthy one and includes many steps such as planning, designing, programming, testing, approval, deployment and support. It also requires the involvement of different people at the different stages.
It’s very important for you to set predefined timescales for the different steps in a mutually agreeable manner with your app developers.
Set Predefined Time Bound Milestones
In case the time horizon looks very long, you can prioritize the key features that are most important, and try and set the schedules accordingly in consensus with the team.
You must establish absolute clarity on the project stakeholders and key contacts. Doing so is important to ensure friction-free communication flow.
8. Get started with the multifaceted implementation process
As the project implementation starts, there are a lot of elements you need to take care of. The application with its design, content and backend together must contribute to an improved user experience.
The layout and navigation aspect is quite critical, which you must instruct your app developing teams to sort out with wireframing. Getting them to create blueprints of screens prior to design and coding can get a lot of small details taken care of, making your app user-friendly.
Building A Wireframe
The reasons why anyone will download your app is for its content. Hence, that too must receive paramount importance in terms of being crafted valuably and relevantly.
The content part is something that you need to thoroughly work on and provide to the team in core terms, which they may refine further with a professional touch.
9. Prototype, test and improve
Post-intervention at all the right places and discussions with your developing team, it’s also important to have them to build a prototype. Doing so helps to practically uncover where exactly are the loopholes in your planning and implementation.
Prototype, Test and Improve your Mobile App Regularly
If you are doubtful about certain aspects and features, prototyping can help you get the most relevant answers and indicate towards the best kind of improvements. Once you have a prototype, and you’ve tested it, you can use the feedback to improve further.
With all of that in place, you can then get the team to finish the remaining work with the app and the coding of the backend in a consistent style. Consistency always helps in the long run. Also, it’s important that at this step, you’re secured of the fact that the app takes care of data security.
With all of the above taken care of, you and the team can look out for final glitches and fix them before you’re ready to launch officially.
10. Work on the app promotion
Once the app is ready, you need to promote it and get the desired return on your investment. One way of doing that is going through these simple hacks to improve your app store visibility.
In order to be able to do that, you need to work on a well-defined pre and post-launch plan.
Have An App Promotion Plan Ready
This includes working on the app store optimization to make your app discoverable and promoting it across all the relevant channels.
Doing so successfully requires careful thought and planning, which you should never defer to the end. If your new app launch requires training of employees or user training, you need to factor that in too.
You also need to ensure that the app developer sets up the in-app analytics for you, so that can gather relevant insights from the traction and use it for further course of action. Â Moreover, you need to sort out your social media integration as well.
This checklist has covered all the prerequisites to build an app. We hope this article has answered your query on how to create an app.
Need more assistance? Connect with Melbourne’s best app makers and launch your app like a pro.
