Developing a Mobile Application: Steps to Follow to Ensure Success of It

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Introduction to the internet has connected the world, and now we have come closer to each other than ever. As the internet has provided us with the global platform where every business gets a fair chance to showcase their services and earn users, competition is becoming fierce each day. Therefore, the expectations of the users are rising, and so the businesses are evolving to fit themselves in the criteria users are deciding for them.

However, the modern world demands faster and reliable solutions to their problems, and it has introduced us with smartphones and mobile applications. The applications are serving every purpose of users and are allowing reliable services on their fingertips. Therefore, there has been a constant rise in the demand for applications, and now the businesses are using it to offer better services to their customers. Here are some exciting results on mobile applications and their usability concluded from the research conducted by Statista:

Mobile application revenue is estimated to reach 188.9 Billion US dollars by 2020. According to Statista, in 2016 it has already reached 88.6 Billion US dollars.

According to research conducted in 2018, the most popular mobile application category is of communication and social with scoring 98% mobile reach, while web browsers and utility & tools scored a second and third position with establishing 97.3% and 96.5% mobile reach accordingly.

The average user uses at least nine application daily on their smartphones, and during the month, they use up to 30 applications.

The e-commerce market has reached to 2.304 Billion US Dollars revenue worldwide and is estimated to reach 4.88 trillion US Dollars by the end of 2021. 

Therefore, the applications are gaining over traditional websites and other methods of doing business, and hence it has become essential for companies to own a dedicated mobile app. However, if you are not aware of the development process of an application there are vast chances of failing at developing it that can suit your business requirements and address every query of users. Hence, here is a small overview of the development process and the stages that require attention to be paid to ensure you craft an application that is best in the market. 

Start With Market Research

You as a business owner already know and understand the primary purpose that you want your application to serve. However, as there are billions of apps out there working for the similar purpose, it becomes essential to figure out how you can make your application unique from all the available options out there, and it raises the requirement of performing thorough market research. 

Performing market research can guide you through the entire process of brainstorming which can help you decide on the features and functions you are providing through the application. Also, you get a chance to have an insider look into the existing applications and can list out their pros and cons to keep them in mind when you are developing an application of your own. Overcoming the drawbacks of other applications increases the chances of your app getting popular in the market as you offer better services than your competitors and hence the users are attracted to it. 

Therefore, the application requires to be well thought and planned before beginning with the actual process of development. Knowing the audiences, you target to answer and fulfill their expectations and demands from the application which leads to a better understanding of the features to be included in the application. 

Developing an application from the potential user's perspective is essential as it can lead to the success of your application and it helps in making your app more user-friendly. 

Jott Down the Objectives

Once you have performed the market research, you now must have a list of features and basic functionalities you want in your application to provide a better option to the target audience of your use. Now is the time to check them and remove the excess that may not be required or are not to be included leading to the limitation of resources like time and money. 

You must carefully decide on the features and explore them thoroughly to understand the working of each and clear your concept on them. As you have to make your development team understand the motive behind each feature and function you are planning on including in the application, it becomes essential for you to first develop the understanding by yourself and thus you can explain it more clearly.

Also, setting the goal for completing a section of work in a limited amount of time to ensure you complete your application development task in time. Ensuring no complications lag you behind in your decided timeline can be achieved by planning everything out within an organization and make the continuity and reliability in the tasks performed.

Creating Wireframes

Once you have finalized the list of features to be included in the application, the next phase comes of designing the looks and feel of your application. As an attractive user interface plays a pivotal role in influencing users to use the app again, finalizing the design and how your application must look is a crucial step. 

Things to keep in mind when designing wireframes for your application are:

• Ease of Use
• Attractiveness
• Optimized use of Spaces and Buttons
• Choosing the appropriate tool
• Responsive design (Must be fitting perfectly in every resolution)
• Create Identity for your brand
• Make It Unique

From all the points mentioned above, choosing the appropriate wireframe designing is crucial. As there are numerous tools available in the market offering services for creating and designing excellent wireframes, selecting the one that does help is difficult. As some of these tools are paid or require monthly subscriptions, selecting the optimum one for best prices or on a freemium basis helps your expert designers to work on your wireframes and make them perfect to create an application that delivers excellent user interface and makes use of all the available resources in a screen.

It will also give you a glimpse at what you require to do in the next step of the development process.

Designing the Backend

The wireframes you have created will include all the details of the data that is needed to be stored in your backend for ensuring smoother transition and serving your users better. Therefore, the next stage consists of backend design where you will be deciding on what your database should include and from where the data is required to be collected and stored. 

As designing the database is no creative work, it limits you to an extent, and your wireframes must be compatible with the small changes or updates it has to suffer due to the lack of enough flexibility in designing the database.

Prototyping the Mobile Application

The next stage comes of prototyping the application to check for dead links and collect feedback on the appearance and the flow in which the app works. As the wireframes of the app get finalized, the prototype of the mobile application is required to be developed to let the developers understand the flow of the application, and it also helps in keeping a check on the parameters where your application is evaluated visually by the users.

Getting this work done from the professionals is necessary as it requires support from an excellent tool that can help in creating an application that follows and works in a perfect flaw to deliver superior results. A hiring developers possesses a thorough understanding of the development process and can help you build wireframes and prototypes according to your requirements specified. 

Development Phase

You have successfully reached the most crucial step of the entire process, an application development. A single stage where many methods and actions are included to get the final output in the form of an excellent application. This stage is more inclined towards technical aspects as it involves deciding the platform, the flow of development, tools, and frameworks to be used and many more.

Asking out for expert suggestions becomes essential here. Hiring developer or developers at your rescue or outsourcing the work to a reliable and professional firm depends on your choices and most importantly, budget. Getting an application developed is not easy and requires pretty much experience and knowledge to get the task at hand done with efficiency and excellence. 

Also, the choice of frameworks and tools to be used for development is required to be done carefully to secure the code and maintain the coding standard according to your requirements. Hence, getting this task done from experts is necessary that too in a pre-decided timeline to ensure you can conduct thorough testing of your application to make it more reliable and error-free.

Rigorous Testing

After completing the development of your application, it is time now for testing it. Make sure you plan a thorough testing strategy and get your app tested and verified on every aspect. Testing the application becomes necessary to avoid any mistakes or errors that may come after some time, and this may give your app users a reason to quit using it. Therefore, avoiding such situations becomes mandatory for you and hence the testing phase holds its own importance.

There are numerous testing strategies out there that can be used to perform rigorous testing of an application to make it more robust and objective-oriented. Choosing the ones that can help you get your app tested on every essential aspect is required. Conducting the testing of your application in a continuous manner helps in encountering even the slightest chance of error and fix it as it is found before the deployment. 

Also, getting the functions, features and flow of the application checked from other users than you and your development team can help you understand the common queries that your users may raise when using the app and you can make your application more user-friendly than before. 

Deploying the Application in the Market

Finally, its time to get your application rolling in the market to earn more users and increase the customer base. However, there are billions of application available in the App stores and creating a stand for your application is required to be done before deployment. You should concern your marketing consultants to start promoting the application in the competitive market out there to gain attention from the potential users and interest them in trying out the app even for once.

Also, as the application is launched in the respective app store, (Apple App store for iOS and Google Play Store for Android applications), there are standards of each to follow to get your application launched on these global platforms. While Google Play Store remains slightly liberal with the rules they follow, Apple App Store has made it mandatory to follow all the rules and standards to get your application featured on the store. Therefore, considering the regulations and standards set by these platforms, following them can earn you a chance to get referred to the potential users by the stores and other users. 

Hence, considering the aspects of promotions and Application Store standards, your application must be fitting in to get popular and earn you more users. Do not forget to share the details of your application on your social media platforms to let your followers know that your application is ready to be launched and when you are launching it.

Releasing the Application

Once your promotions and marketing have reached a peak, and many users are inquiring and are interested in knowing more about your application, you can safely choose to release your application in the market. Therefore, releasing your application in the app stores at the specified release date is necessary along with updating the user reviews and ratings to let the viewers know how your application is serving the users and the reviews can influence more downloads of your application along with posing a chance for getting your application featured in the top lists.

As the process of developing a mobile application completes, the maintenance phase starts. It is vital to keep an eye on the performance of the application and get the errors fixed on time with delivering frequent updates and new and optimized versions of your application. Allowing the users to share their feedback on using it and considering them to improve the performance of your application adds a plus point in your account, and the users trust your brand as their requirements and feedback are considered by you.

All the key components of the application development process have been mentioned here and ensuring that they are present in your application helps you in getting an application developed that performs best and delivers the result that you and your application users are expecting which is the single formula for achieving success.