Why Discovery is a Key to App Success
Statistics for newcomers into the mobile app business can be both very motivating and discouraging. With roughly 100,000 new Android and 30,000 iOS apps being released every month in2021, various sources suggest that only five to ten percent of consumer mobile apps actually succeed. Sounds challenging, doesn’t it?
The most common reasons for startup failure include lack of product-market fit, team dissonance, flawed business model and product mistiming. At first, the idea might sound absolutely brilliant, yet there are no guarantees that the app is going to survive. If you want to know how to start an app and become one of the successful five percent, the discovery phase is what you should first focus on.
In this article you will learn how discovery allows for app idea validation and makes it possible to create a scalable product roadmap. You will see why discovery is so important, even though at the very beginning it might sound like an additional budget-consuming service that is not as crucial as development.
What is the Discovery phase in Mobile Development?
The Discovery phase is usually an initial stage of app development which is aimed at app user research, exploring the product-market fit and establishing project and business goals and the roadmap to achieve them. On the development side, discovery is the phase of the project when one identifies the application structure, its features and stack.
One of the key components of discovery is business analysis which allows for a deeper understanding of the target audience and the market, which, in return, becomes a basis for the user interface and scope of the app that exactly corresponds to the needs of prospective users.
Product discovery also gives space for app idea validation before execution; it allows for making changes and updates in the development process, and often may even inspire adjustments to the initial idea. The perks of discovery are obvious when it comes to budgeting ‒ instead of rewriting features that won’t satisfy users’ needs, discovery enables a start-up to align development so that the final product will meet their audience’s expectations. Consequently, every stakeholder of the project will have a deeper understanding of the user’s interaction with the product as well as the challenges they might experience.
It is important to mention that discovery is not just for startups. Quite often businesses have operating IT-infrastructure that needs rebuilding, expansion or redesign — it can happen, for example, when a mobile app doesn’t perform as desired. In this case, discovery can be useful for businesses through:
- Revisiting existing mobile product strategies
- Upgrade the product’s technical components, improve product’s scalability
- Redesign product features based on existent user feedback
- Enhance business performance by utilizing dynamic mobile app solutions
Discovery also answers two important business questions ‒ how much money is needed to implement the idea and how much time it will take. Without prior product definition and research, scope changes will likely occur during development, making it very easy to back off from the original agreement on the product, timeline and budget. Discovery also ensures that the project is delivered on time and no major changes or stoppers occur during the product’s realization.
While many would desire to code immediately and create a product that would incorporate all possible features, we usually suggest investing more time and effort on finding out which core features can provide a useful and entertaining experience for the users, gather real feedback and adjust further development based on it. This approach goes hand in hand with the concept of an MVP ‒ a product that provides a minimum set of the most important features. Discovery allows us to define opportunities for user retention and build a product that is based on real feedback and research but not optimistic assumptions.
The Discovery Phase Inputs:
Once you decide to start your product journey with the discovery phase, you will be certain how to create a mobile app from scratch. It rewards you with a set of deliverables enough to confidently move into software development. Below are the main outputs of product discovery.
Product Vision. Product vision is usually a high-level document that describes the project in context — it defines the users and how the product is going to serve as a solution to an existent problem. It also identifies marketable features and describes what differentiates our apps from competitors on the market.
Customer Journey Map. A scheme which illustrates how the customer is able to navigate from one screen of the app to another. CJMs reveal areas of improvement for the to-be workflow and help to pave the way to the customers to better achieve their goals.
User personas and user stories mapping. The user personas concept is the foundation of empathic User Experience (UX), as it transforms data into a real-life character who wants, needs, motivates and frustrates. The goal is to make the final product in accordance with preferences and needs of a specific group — the target audience of the app — defined by their goals, likes, age, geography, gender, occupation and personality.
Backlog. Look at the backlog as a breakdown of the work that the team needs to perform to develop a mobile application. Everything that needs to be done will appear on the product backlog, usually in the format of epics and user-stories. Backlog communicates what gets done, when and by whom. It also ensures transparency and illustrates the team’s progress on achieving the desired outcome.
Architecture. High-level outline of the system infrastructure that illustrates existing dependencies between its components. It can also include recommendations for the best suited technological stack as well as third party component analysis, such as payment system integrations, and cost of licenses.
UX/UI concept. An exceptionally useful component of the discovery phase is the UI/UX concept. Not only does it demonstrate how wireframes of the CJM are going to be visualized, but also allows for a detailed assessment of the complexity of the user interface for the Front-end developers, thus ensuring a more exact estimation of development cost.
Prototype (app emulation). An app prototype is the closest realization of your idea to the actual product. It is your turning point ‒ by testing it with users and gathering feedback you can identify if there are any missing features or roadblocks that need further improvement. Testing allows you to validate your idea and polish the UI before you dive into development.
The prototype also creates a great option for achieving stakeholder and investor buy-in. It is quite common for startups to start to look for investments from the very early phases and a well-conducted product discovery allows for interested parties to see the real potential of the product.
Discovery phase proposal. Based on the findings of the discovery phase, the vendor provides a proposal for an app development which would meet all the client’s needs and business requirements. It incorporates development roadmap and estimates (usually in person/hour), deadlines as well as ensures the optimal team composition.
The deliverables of product discovery services might vary from one company to another. The list above describes the standard set of outcomes, yet each and every project is individual and might require other specific analysis. Discovery is based on the vendor’s experience and expertise in specific fields of mobile development, approach to business analysis, and the project team's ability to collaborate.
Final thoughts
While it can be tempting to omit investing in product discovery services and dive straight into coding, we believe that discovery is essential in designing and developing a product that will scale on the market. Forming a common understanding of the product and its goal, audience and features enables the development team to maximally contribute to the app, while the MVP approach makes it possible to test the features and satisfy users’ expectations.
With more than 10 years of experience in the industry we have implemented many different projects and some of them started as ideas that later grew into multinational businesses. We learned through experience that the discovery stage is a strategic investment into the product and now we are here to help your business to create a product that will truly add value to the users and perform well on the market.
Contact us to discuss your app idea and let us start your mobile app development with a strategic approach :)
