Too many people spend too much time jumping into “building” mobile apps without first learning all the mission-critical steps involved in doing it right. Consequently, they end up losing a lot of money and sometimes months or years of their lives. Jumping headfirst into development is great if your main goal is to learn a new skill or build a quick product for a hackathon. However, if you’re actually trying to turn your idea into a functional mobile-first business, you should be extremely careful about how you approach the process of mobile app building.

Here are the six (surprising) steps that go into creating a mobile app before you ever touch your first line of code.

1. Market Research & Customer Development

First, you need to identify precisely who you expect to use this app. This about geographic location, age, gender, socioeconomic status, phone type (iPhone vs. Android), etc.. Ideally, this process will involve you going out and polling prospective customers to gauge their level of interest in the app, as well as determining whether your app will actually solve their needs.

To really make sure you nail this step, I recommend exploring these slides on the basic underpinnings of customer development.

2. User Stories

In addition to thinking about who you want to use the app, you also want to think about how, when, where, and why these users will be using the app. This will inform your user stories. Plot out your top 5 most likely users and how they’ll want to use the app. Write out, in plain english, their desired goals. Then, one at a time, write how they’ll accomplish those goals, step by step, via the app.

In addition to thinking about who you want to use the app, you also want to think about how, when, where, and why these users will be using the app. This will inform your user stories. Plot out your top 5 most likely users and how they’ll want to use the app. Write out, in plain english, their desired goals. Then, one at a time, write how they’ll accomplish those goals, step by step, via the app.

Here are two very helpful links for understanding user stories:

1. User Stories Overview
2. User Stories In-Depth

3. Featureset Definition and Technical Specification

Elucidate which features you’ll need to incorporate in order to fulfill your user stories. Be aware how much time/cost each feature could potentially add to your app. For instance, you may want your users to be able to share content to Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest, but in order to add each additional social network functionality, it could entail an additional 10–20 hours of design/development time, which could drive up building costs and timelines. Additionally, you need to be aware of which features are possible (technologically, legally, socially, etc.) on which devices and in which locales. It would definitely help to chat with mobile product experts as you complete this step in order to make sure your technical specifications all line up.

Ideally, you will come away from steps 1–3 with a full Technical Specification, which is basically a document describing, in words and minimal graphics, what your app will do and how it will do it

Here are two excellent links for tech specs:

1. Full Overview of How to Make Tech Specs
2. Sample Tech Spec
   (see graphic on left)

4. Wireframing

This is the phase where you map out exactly what the skeleton of your app will look like. The link below will let you download a very clean set of sample wireframes from the mobile app development agency Fueled.
http://fueled.com/docs/Fueled-ShopSuey-iPhone-Blueprint-Presenter.pdf

Here’s a sample image from the PDF:

5. Graphic Design / Logos

This phase lets you settle on your precise brand image / color scheme that will pervade the entirety of your app and promotional materials. This link will let you download some sample branding mocks from the New York mobile development agency Fueled:

http://fueled.com/docs/Fueled-CourseHorse_Branding_Concepts.pdf

6. UI/UX Design

During this phase, you fully bring the app to life with colorful depictions of what the end-user will ultimately see. This link will let you download a beautiful set of sample designs from Fueled:

http://fueled.com/docs/Fueled-Elevatr-iPhone-App-Designs.pdf

To see steps 4–6 in action, you should take a look at this amazing video that the NYC-based mobile development agency Fueled created to showcase their full design process.

7. What’s Left?

All the previous steps combined only cover about 30–50% of the actual app creation process! The remaining (and oftentimes the most expensive) steps include:

1. Frontend Development
2. Backend Development
3. Testing / QA / Bug Fixing
4. Launch Prep (Marketing, PR, Advertising)

I will save those steps for later discussion.