10 Necessary Steps to Launch Your App, and Development is Only One of Them
Let’s say you are a vibrant, and exciting though slightly overwhelmed startup. You know that a dynamic app is vital. But, financing, compliance, staffing, and other real-world business needs take all the time you have.
So, you’ve decided to find a decent development partner or a remote dev team, and you’re looking forward to what the relationship can deliver. Still, it would help if you really knew what was going on, if your expectations were realistic, and if you understood how to communicate and what to do besides the actual app development. Here’s some help in the form of a 10-step guide to launch your app and nail the development process.
Step 1 — Learn
Developing and launching an app presents challenges you may not appreciate. It makes sense to pursue some self-education in just what it takes to build a Web, iOS, or Android app. You may think you don’t need it, but in fact, you do. Even if you wouldn’t get all the details (which is true in practice), it would give you a general level of understanding of the development process and help to communicate with developers in a better way.
Remember, the more you know — the faster things will go.
For example, you can take a very informative, easy-to-follow free 4.5-hour lesson at Udemy or Udacity, or read some outstanding blog articles from gurus, like this one from Chris Ching.
Step 2 — Research to become a Pro
Only extensive research will show you what is already out there. App traffic depends on originality in core features, design, and content. You’ll want the final product to be as unique as you can afford in terms of user experience, look, navigation, and speed. And, you need to traffic through multiple channels, provide intuitive operation, and appeal memorably to users.
So you need to deep dive and test ~150 different apps. This rule applies to all types of applications — Web and mobile. Don’t worry if you can’t find enough competitors, just test all the apps of your competitors, then apps from your general industry, and the last — apps and sites of your potential market group (either B2B or B2C).
By test, I mean literally signing up, and using them. Sounds like a lot of work. And you will be rewarded accordingly. You will be surprised how knowledgeable and experienced you will become in 1–2 weeks of this process. You will learn about design, user experience, email marketing, push notifications, user engagement, and many more on real products. None of the colleges or courses would give you such expertise, only your own research. It will not only help you to become a “Pro” but to better understand how to build and launch your app.
Remember, to achieve success, you should do things which others don’t do.
Step 3 — Analyze the Process
App development is a process, one that developers like to roll out horizontally, at least for illustration purposes. You can expect lots of flow charts and Gantt charts, but you might ask for something that shows the dynamic of the process.
You can save time by bringing everything important to the table. You and the remote dev team (if you decided to go with them) have to head to the same page. You need to know what they have and can do, and they need to know what you have and what you need. SpeckyBoy reminds developers to “Find out as much as you can regarding what your client’s expectations are for how things should work and behave.”
You can’t expect any discovering cost until you both agree on the same expectations. So, it won’t happen in one meeting. You need all the input you can draw from your team, and they need time to address your wants, needs, and their abilities to satisfy.
You want to eventually walk away with a project plan, an estimated cost, and an illustration of provider tasks and your obligations as a client.
Step 4 — Specifics
Engineers really like specifics. They do not like nuance or inference. Projects are specifics-targeted. So, it helps to develop a checklist of elements you want to be covered. You can count on the remote dev team having a checklist, too.
Building apps for iOS, for example, depends on matching complex technology with specific needs in site navigation, design collaboration, image optimization, and more. This may be the most important early step because, if the specifics result from collaborative development, it should clarify a lot of tech mysteries you may not otherwise understand.
It also lays out the specifics of your written agreement. While you may approach such an agreement as a contract, the remote dev team looks at the contract as a project management launch. And, because these specifics form the basis for cost estimating, consensus on the detail is vital.
David Walsh lists Frontify, Hotjar, and TeamDesk, among Top Web Developer Tools You Need to Know About. Such tools clarify specifications, and they tie you and your dev team together.
5. Development
Customers are smart to look for options in design. A single model leaves too many questions unanswered and ideas untried. So, early negotiations should specify more than one prototype. Devs might load each prototype to wireframe certain capabilities.
This presentation is a key event for both sides, so they should take advantage of the opportunity to revise their checklist of specifics, identify misunderstandings, and finalize wants and needs.
It is the best opportunity to work in parallel, learning, and communicating concerns and efforts. This should produce a working model. Blogger Alex Sexton created The 15 Commandments of Front-End Performance, and if you are not comfortable, for example, with the programming language, you and your dev-team have to reopen that conversation.
6. Content
Web or mobile app traffic depends on quality content. And you are mostly responsible for the text content, videos, and audio content. The developer is responsible for utilization, customization, and implementation. So, don’t expect your devs to get the content upright for you. That’s your part of the job.
Though, this is an area for collaboration because designing layout influences copy size and options. But, this stage should produce a working model.
7. Coding
Here’s where the app developers take over. It’s their job to code the plan without changing the agreed-upon template. This involves some push and pulls between the programmers and the designers, especially when you have ordered dynamic elements.
But, developers work with a strong team commitment to fulfill your wishes and should do their best to deliver to specs. You can learn some useful things from the Kissmetrics blog, but, for most customers coding is the very reason you reach for help.
8. Testing
The best web apps are rich in content, utilization, and features. They are also vulnerable to security risks, available to widely diverse users, and dependent on broadband width and browser speed.
In this context, “testing” means repeated, automated, and manual testing. And, testing notches up with the complexity of features. Paul Irish helps you understand the necessity and process of testing in a video focusing on Web Application Development Workflow.
9. Optimization
For example, mobile apps are different from websites in terms of search engine optimization, and iOS apps prefer speed over memory. And, performance means dealing with the mobile app in sleep, start, background, and action. It also depends on graphics, core hardware, and platform compatibility.
Marcelo Fabri recommends these tricks that help you ask important questions.
10. Deployment
The entire process of app development focuses on eventual deployment. The iOS Develop Library prepares you for the iOS testing, certification, and deployment process. It’s meant to help DIY developers, but it also reminds you why you have contracted the process with a professional remote dev team.
Conclusion
DevTeam.Space keeps it simple: For an app to succeed, “it has to have all of the following traits:
• A great idea,
• A great development process, and
• Effective sales/marketing initiatives.”
It’s a bit amazing how foreign the language and art of programmers can be. It’s not just the operating jargon favored by the discipline; it’s also the ever-changing, constantly-evolving nature of the science. But, it’s not the language you have to learn.
As a client for remote app developers, knowing enough to converse and frame your specific needs helps immensely. Understanding the process that development from scratch follows helps clarify everyone’s duties and expectations even more.
It also helps to understand that you are hiring a team that expects teamwork and collaboration at your end. Your vision may be more vivid and personal than theirs, but only they have the means and tools to deliver it. So, you can expect a compromise to determine design and delivery.
Finally, this 10-step guide can only offer advisory parameters and some direction to other resources. But, it does serve to indicate how your interests benefit the most when you recognize the outcome depends on earnest communication, the negotiation between the optimum desired and the practically possible.
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