You can admit to the fact that mobile apps have become an integral part of our daily lives. Without them, we cannot carry out our usual tasks. The point is, we are somehow connected to mobile apps, from playing games to ordering food to our doorsteps; apps never fail to disappoint us.
As these apps are full of features, have you ever wondered who makes them, and how they are being made? Well, if you are searching for answers to those questions, then we are glad to tell you that this is the right place you are looking at. Instead of jumping right into the various app development stages, we thought it would be right to first mention the importance of mobile apps. Even though you are familiar with them as users, but a business owner, you may have no idea what an app is capable of doing in the first place.
Some Benefits That a Mobile App Offers
Being a best mobile app development company we know why an app is considered to be a crucial element in a business, which is the reason why we decided to enlist some of the benefits that you can get if you care to make an app for your business.
Escalates Customer Engagement
This is hands down the most important benefits of having a mobile application for your business. As the title suggests, an app helps you create a direct marketing channel between you and your customers, which allows direct and effective communication. With the help of an application, you can send out notifications to your customers, and if customers find that information relevant, then they would definitely become the loyal ones.
Provide Value for Customers
Mobile apps make it possible for you to digitalize any loyalty program that you may be offering your customers. Rather than giving out the old-collection card, you can make it possible for your customers to receive their rewards via the mobile app. The results that you’ll get will be an increased number of downloads and better customer retention.
Increase Accessibility
It allows businesses to send notifications to their users/customers to let them know what services you are offering and if there are any changes in them. Other than that, it helps you in creating a strong relationship that ultimately allows further development of your customer base and your brand itself.
Stand Out From The Competition
As many businesses are choosing app development, there are still many companies that don’t prefer making one at all. So, this might be the right time for you to build an app and stand out from your competitors.
Unique Services and Payments
Mobile apps are known to be having various features that make businesses go nuts over them. Among those features, quite recently we came across payment feature that let us make purchases without using cash. Nowadays, most of the businesses out there that have their own application, are integrating payment options that can carry out payments via debit and credit cards.
Also Read: 10 Wearable App Trends That Are Said to Be Dominating in 2019
Different Phases of Mobile App Development
Now that we are done with explaining to you the benefits of having an app for your business, it’s time for us to enlist and elaborate on various stages of mobile app development.
The Research
Everything starts with an idea, and as far as the mobile app development process is concerned, you need to have a unique idea. Work on that idea and make it a solid basis for an application. While doing that, make sure your initial analysis includes actual demographics, motivations, behavior patterns and goals of your target audience. Always focus on your customer no matter what. Once you are done with determining your customer’s characteristics, start working on what they need in the first place to make their life easier.
This phase is quite an important one since this is where you lay down all the necessary groundwork for what is to follow next. Before moving on to the next phase, we recommend you to run substantial research. Another important aspect of this phase is analyzing your competition.
Wireframing
Once you are done with all the research, it’s time for you to document and wireframe the app. It is initially done to understand future functionalities. Drawing detailed sketches of the product that you first thought of helps you unveil any possible usability issues. Sketching seems a bit rookie step but it is proven to be an effective communication and collaboration tool. When you’re done sketching, wireframing will help refine the ideas and arrange all components of the design in the right way. In this stage of app development, you can easily overcome any technical bugs that are found in the backstage development.
Technical Feasibility Assessment
If you managed to come this far then you must have got the idea that the back-end system is now able to support the app’s functionality. It is mainly done to check whether your app idea is technically feasible or not, as you need to get access to public data by sourcing public APIs. Another thing that you need to look out for is the fact that requirements depend upon app formats (smartphone, tablet, and wearable) as well as the platform. By the end of this phase, you’ll get to know whether your idea is feasible or not, as far as its initial functionality is concerned.
Prototype
It is highly recommended to build a prototype of the app. You can’t discern the touch experience until and unless you use the App and see how it works, flows, and are there any bugs of any sorts. So, build a prototype that gets the app concept into a user’s hands as quickly as possible to see how it works for the most common use case. We recommend you to use rough instead of exhaustive wireframes in this particular phase. This will help you see if you are taking things in the right direction. In this phase, you need to involve the stakeholders, allow them to touch the prototype as they’ll provide you with feedback which you, later on, can implement in your work.
Design
Once you are done with prototyping your app, you can now jump on to the coding stage. The first thing that you need to know is that your user experience designer makes the interaction between design elements, while the user interface designer builds the look and feel. Both UI and UX determine the character of your application. This is the only app development stage that has got various review stages. In those review stages, you’ll get blueprints and visual directions that let you inform your app developers/designers how the interaction should move, feel and flow. The duration of app designing depends on your project scope and budget. Meaning, it can be completed in a single sitting or can take a team along with a lot of hours. And at last, we recommend you to create multiple variations of a screen by experimenting with the layout of present navigation, buttons, and other visual elements.
Develop
Being an app development company, we can say that the development stage usually starts early on. As a matter of fact, once an idea becomes matured enough in the conceptual stage, a working prototype is then developed that checks whether there are any flaws in the functionality of the app that later helps the developer to carry out work accordingly.
With the progression in the app development process, the app goes through a set of stages. This is also a stage where the proposed functionalities are incorporated within the application. While the app is being developed, developers tend to test out to the app, though issues can be found. After that, the app is released to a certain group of people/users that carry out further testing. Whenever the bugs are determined and fixed, the app then moves on to the deployment stage where it’s ready for initial release in the public.
Testing
We recommend you to take app testing quite seriously, as nobody out there would like to use an app that is full of bugs. Other than that, it can help you save funds. The more the dive deep in the development cycle, the more money it’ll cost you to get rid of bugs. Application testing is hands down the most crucial stage in the app development process. So, that’s why it is highly recommended to make sure that your team of testers checks whether there any issues in usability, compatibility, security, stress, interface checks, and obviously the performance.
Deployment
If your app has cleared all the testing rounds, then we are glad to tell you that your app is finally ready to be submitted. Before even doing that, you need to know that different app stores have their own policies. Now that your app is being used by users all around the world, it doesn’t mean that you are done with the app development process. In order to retain your users, you need to provide them regular app updates and make sure to fulfill their needs at all costs.
Final Thoughts
Are you looking for a company that can help you out in the app development process? Well, we are glad to tell you that your search has finally come to end. Fluper, being a top-rated mobile app development company in Rochester would be happy to help you out in the best possible way.
