Mobile apps of different businesses are all peculiar in their way. They differ in functionality, complexity, and intended use. Applications available on the app store and play store are all diverse, and hence there is no universal approach to the process of getting a mobile app developed. In such a competitive world, businesses must have a mobile app to obtain maximum benefits.
“When I’m working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.”
— Freeman Dyson
That said, nowadays, making a mobile app is not rocket science, but to develop a successful mobile app, extensive pre-planning is required. That said, if you are looking to get a mobile app developed for your business, you must know the processes that are involved in the app development lifecycle.
Each stage involved is crucial right from planning to the testing phase to ensure a high-performing and well-maintained app. Let us take a detailed look at each step.
Planning Stage:
The first stage involves research about the industry you are operating in and also about your competitor apps. This can be done in two ways, mobile strategy and business analysis. During the planning stage, you not only determine the look and feel of your app but also establish a detailed promotion plan, and ways in which you can grow your business.
Requirements:
After knowing the scope of your project, listing the requirements becomes easy. You can now easily carry out a detailed analysis of all your deliverables and goals, feasibility and risks of the software. You also need to work with the stakeholders to make sure that the project meets their requirements and is up to their expectations.
Design:
Now, that the development team is aware of what needs to be built, they move on to the designing phase. In this phase, they design the architecture of their project, the UI, UX, and technology stack that they will use. In short, they need to determine everything from database design to workflow. The development team may establish some mockups, discuss the alternatives available, create prototypes and also ensure that both hardware and software are suitable.
Development:
After the design of your app is finalised, its coding starts. This phase can go on a bit slowly, but if the previous phases were properly documented and explored, the developers can get a minimal viable product or MVP ready for the stakeholders to evaluate. This phase is a bit risky, as there are chances of feature creep if you try to add some extra functionalities that were not there originally. If things go well during this phase and the milestones are cracked clearly, then the team may push the MVP ahead onto the testing phase.
Testing:
During this stage, the MVP of the app is put through the paces. The MVP developed may have bugs, security holes, slowdowns, or other issues related to how the data is handled. Such problems are discovered during this phase. Also, every stakeholder will have the opportunity to engage with the product. You should also bring in user groups so that they take out issues that are not very obvious for the people involved in design and development. The developers can run several kinds of tests that include automated unit tests, integration tests, etc to try their best and find all possible flaws.
Deployment:
During this phase, the developers know that the product is working as expected and that the issues are all fixed. It is now time to make the application available for the public so that it can do what it is made of. The process of deployment can be painless based on its complexity and if a suitable deployment method is used. Irrespective of whether the app operates as a standalone or is a single service that operates with other systems, the product is released and open to use.
Maintenance:
After the software is up and running, and despite being tested rigorously, the app can still behave in unexpected ways. Users usually have a knack to find bugs that seemed impossible for the developers. The support team along with the developer team will continuously monitor the code to ensure it stays maintained. Your app will require some inevitable fixes, users will also ask for some integrations or the underlying technology may change. To keep up with all of this, you will have to launch new versions and updates often.
Conclusion
Mobile app developers usually follow the above mentioned seven steps to work on every project they undertake. However, they are also flexible enough to easily adapt to the specific needs of their clients. Though every project is unique, the mobile app development company in India process always contains a series of processes described above. You need to build your app and bring it out from just a mere concept to a viable product.
Organizations are required to master the stages of app development as this enables them to customize the system as per their exact business needs.
