Can you imagine how different the world of mobile apps would be in 2022? What kind of mobile app technologies would have emerged? And what’s the process to develop one? While we can’t predict the future, we can guess that the mobile app development process will go through at least 7 steps. Let’s take a look at them now!
Stage 1: Objective
It’s essential to have an objective in mind before moving forward with your mobile app development. Some examples of objectives include: Generate leads; Increase website traffic; Boost SEO rankings; Engage customers; Increase sales conversions; Offer exclusive content and products to customers. Also, a strong objective will help you eliminate potential competitors down the road by giving you a distinct advantage over them (e.g., if you develop an app that allows users to buy products without leaving your website, no one else can do that). Also, make sure to write down all steps required to achieve success and review them often during each stage of development. Don’t forget to set up clear metrics that will help you understand how well your app is performing once it launches.
Stage 2: Problem Identification
The first stage of development is problem identification. This is when businesses and entrepreneurs spend time going through some analysis to determine their strengths and weaknesses. It’s also when you identify what problems you are trying to solve. Many times an entrepreneur will have a good idea, but he or she needs to refine it before moving forward with mobile app development process. It’s not enough to just say I want an app; you need to be more specific than that if you want developers who can help bring your vision into reality. Next, they will conduct market research on that particular industry and look at successful apps within it to see how others are tackling similar issues and what features consumers want from their app experience.. This also helps identify opportunities for innovation in that particular space.
Stage 3: Ideation & Creative Briefing
For example, when you create a new webpage for your company and then ask people to go on that page. What do you want them to see? Do you want them to fill out a contact form or do something else? You might want them to sign up with their email address or call a number or visit your store or click on an advertisement, etc. The creative brief is answering all of these questions: what do we want people to do, and how will we accomplish it? What are our goals for our website? Where do we want people to go next once they’ve been there? What are we going to offer them if they follow through with our request (the call-to-action)? This stage includes designing concepts, creating wireframes and prototyping options. These ideas need not be set in stone; they’re just explorations of different ways you can accomplish your goals. This stage also requires brainstorming options before making decisions about features, functionality and content.
Stage 4: Business Strategy
Who is your audience? How do you reach them? What do they want? Where will you market your app to get them excited about it? This stage is all about research. Find out what's trending, who's doing well and where there are opportunities to capitalize on. Building an app alone won't cut it, unless you're already a big name brand. Users will not be able to find your app if it's buried amongst hundreds of thousands of other apps! You need to know how to stand out from the crowd and make sure people can easily access your app once they've downloaded it onto their device.
Stage 5: Requirements Analysis & Specification
On an enterprise scale, a software engineer’s role is often to produce quality code that suits specific specifications and requirements laid out by someone else. The 20-foot view of their work is a complex system or program doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. But a mobile developer works at eye level with their own creation, often cranking through hundreds of lines of code each day and doing so with a clear picture of how each piece fits into not just one larger product but one that might evolve into dozens or even hundreds. So when things don’t work as expected, every little thing matters—which means bug hunting can be more important than feature adding.
Stage 6: Budgeting and Cost Estimation
Have we allocated enough money and time to complete and deliver a robust mobile app within budget? No one likes a budget buster, especially one that doesn’t even get you to market. Your budget is your plan—so if something needs to be revised, you better know right away. Cost estimation is a critical stage of development, whether you are building an MVP or going all out with bells and whistles. The sooner you know how much it will cost, the more likely it is that your mobile app will make it past testing without facing too many roadblocks. Remember: You should always have contingencies in place just in case things go wrong; failing at anything can create great problems for your business.
Stage 7: Release and Post-Release Management
Apps are more than a collection of code—they’re also a service. Many apps keep evolving over time with updates and new features, which means there’s more maintenance to do post-launch. It also means that there’s more potential for bugs and issues that need to be addressed quickly. Getting software updates through development and production smoothly can help apps work better for users, which keeps them engaged and coming back—making your app even more valuable to you as it continues its life cycle. In addition, keeping an eye on user feedback will help keep people interested and engaged with your app well into its future. All these things factor into how long an app takes to build—and ongoing maintenance is part of that ongoing effort as well.
Conclusion
So, what has happened to app development? Technological advancements and advanced user behavior. The biggest event of all was probably Apple’s announcement of Swift language back in 2014. Ever since then, we have been witness to an unstoppable change – apps are becoming truly native; that is, they blend into their environment so much that one can no longer tell what platform or device an app is used on. A couple of years ago, it seemed like a distant dream – but now we have React Native on iOS and Android with Microsoft making its move with Xamarin (currently available only for iOS). Newer platforms, such as Facebook’s React Native also make it easy to create high-quality mobile apps. PixelCrayons is the best mobile app development company in India.
