Companies are releasing more mobile apps because the number of smartphone users is increasing. In 2020, there are around 2.8 million mobile apps within the play store and therefore the number is merely increasing. As there's a trend towards mobile technology, it becomes crucial for you because the business owner knows the method of efficient mobile app development.
6 Step Application Development Lifecycle
1. Discovery Phase
You may have already got thought of your app idea, which may be a good place to start with. Before you directly hop on the mobile app design and development phase, you ought to research more on your app idea. you ought to dig for detailed information about your audience and therefore the competitors. When you’re through with your primary research,
2. Designing
At now, you'll have already got the expectations about your app aesthetics, including some features that you simply wish the app should have. If you're outsourcing the app development process to a third-party development company, you ought to have your SOW (Statement of Work) document and NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) signed with them. Once you have all of the aforementioned things processed, you'll perform mobile app designing.
Design a wireframe
Every innovative mobile app design starts with sketching and wireframing. At this stage, your goal is to draw your app idea and integrate the features that you simply will want into the fully functional app. the aim is for instance the app concept you've got. There are many mobile app designing tools available within the market that you simply can use to make your mobile app’s wireframes.
Creating Final Design and Clickable Prototype
Once, you’ve finalized the wireframes, you ought to build the ultimate version of your mobile app design (UI/UX). However, it's also crucial for you to create the interaction design prototypes so that you'll showcase your app idea to an investor or your board members. We advise you to prefer incorporating your brand guidelines to your app UI/UX design.
Also, you ought to create the opposite supplementary things like a storyboard, project roadmap, and mobile app sitemap. These are going to be required by the backend development team to know the app functions and choose the simplest set of technologies. However, as per the technological limitations, you'll need to alter your design.
3. Development
It requires a big amount of steps and processes to develop a mobile app. Because almost 64 percent of the businesses like Google and Adobe, outsource their software development process, I like to recommend an equivalent to you. Here I’m mentioning a guide for you to know when and why outsourcing the IT development process is fruitful and the way to try to do it effectively. Also read: know about software outsourcing company
The mobile app development stage includes two subsets:
Frontend – this a part of development that focuses on the user side of the mobile app. In other words, the event team is going to be performing on the face of the program with which the user will interact. confirm that the front-end is in-line with the designed prototypes.
Backend – A part of development guarantees that the entire system functions well. Usually, the backend is mentioned because of the server-side of a mobile app. The backend is liable for making the app reliable, secure, scalable, and integrable.
Whilst developing the app, it's recommended to adopt a mix of Agile and Waterfall development methodologies. it'll enable you to launch your app within the fastest possible time and adopt the user feedback with frequent app updates.
4. QA or Testing
This phase of the event cycle of mobile apps is usually left untouched or given much attention. But, from the event perspective, it's the foremost crucial part. Testing the appliance takes place when you’ve completed the event of the app concept, and have perfectly streamlined the front and rear of the appliance. During the testing phase, you'll need to rigorously test the app in several real-world scenarios to smell out and resolve the technical issues.
It has to be understood that this phase of testing the appliance doesn’t mean that the app won't require further changes and updates within the future. there'll be a requirement for updates as per the feedback received from end-users. This testing phase is simply to make sure that the event is on par with the wants and expectations.
5. Release
Before you release your mobile app, you would like to possess a transparent strategy about its promotion and pricing strategy which can impact your App Store Optimisation strategy. At this stage, it'll be beneficial if you furthermore may involve your marketing team within the development process. Your marketing team will help the event team to optimize the app for app stores, which eventually improves the discoverability of the mobile app.
In the App Store Optimisation (ASO) process, your team is going to be performing on optimizing the app title, descriptions, category preferences, etc. the first task is going to be to research the market and look for keywords that will be utilized in the title and descriptions. Also, your team will pick some high-quality screenshots of your app. These screenshots will display on your mobile app download screen on the AppStore.
Once, everything is in situ and therefore the app has passed the testing phase, it’s time to make some buzz with marketing write-ups and collaboration with influencers. you ought to promote your release with bulk email marketing and social media marketing. Here, the thought is to realize awareness and to realize a big boom in download numbers, which can enable your app to create the needed momentum for sustainable growth.
6. Maintenance
Okay! you've developed a tremendous app and released it on the app stores. But, let me remind you that an app doesn’t operate the principle of “set and forget”. A mobile app requires consistent care and updates to stay up with the increasing expectations of the users. it's been evident that if an app doesn’t have continuous maintenance, the app won't only lose existing users, but it'll also see a decrease within the rankings.
Irrespective of the criticality of maintaining the mobile app, app owners often forget to stress thereon. love it or not, your app’s performance and likability depend upon many external variables like mobile operating systems and hardware, which are more likely to vary over time. the subsequent are a number of the variables that are susceptible to change with time:
Hardware: Smartphone companies and makers keep innovating and periodically launch new devices with advanced capabilities per annum. If your app doesn’t utilize the newest hardware technology, it'll get obsolete over time.
OS: per annum both Google and Apple come up with their improved mobile OS. These improvements are often associated with design and user experience improvements. Your app must be compatible with these latest versions of mobile OS and will utilize its full potential. In 2020, both natives also as hybrid apps can leverage the OS capabilities.
Programming language and frameworks: Your app also will need to be upgraded as per the updates in programming languages and mobile app development framework. Sometimes within the future, there can also be the time once you will need to change the mobile app frameworks.
UI/UX improvements: With changes in time and technology, user behavior also changes. Gone are the times when the mobile designs were only hooked into skeuomorphic designs. for instance, there's a trend for dark themes within the mobile app segment, and more and more mobile app owners are implementing it into their apps.
Usage patterns and user feedback: Your user base will mature as your app gets older. With time, you would like to enhance your mobile app’s UI/UX and support the feedback and usage patterns of your users.
Security enhancements: Data security may be a hot topic nowadays. Everyone wants their data to be handled with care, and it's up to you to seek out security flaws in your mobile app and solve them with a replacement update.