Today, we have mobile apps for all our daily needs, like travel, shopping, groceries, lifestyle, fitness, food, etc. People prefer mobile apps for convenience and ease of use, and the number of mobile app downloads worldwide has been increasing. Statista says consumers downloaded 255 billion mobile apps, which is more than 80 percent from 140.7 billion app downloads in 2016. Statista even predicted that the mobile app revenue will reach around 613 billion US dollars by 2025, up from 318 US dollars in 2020. Hence, every business is moving towards mobile apps to cater to their services, and mobile app development is skyrocketing.
How to develop an app in 2023?
Materializing your idea and building a successful mobile app is often not straightforward and takes a lot of processes. Let’s unravel the mobile app development process by breaking it down into simple steps.
1. Brainstorm your app idea with your team
Any successful mobile app today was once someone’s idea. Once you get the inspiration and vision for your mobile app, discuss it with your team. Ask for your team’s views, check whether such apps exist, verify the market for that niche, and analyze competitors. This simple basic screening will let you not duplicate any app idea and save time and money. Moreover, brainstorming the idea with your dedicated app development team will allow you to come up with innovative ideas and marketing strategies and stay ahead of your competitors. Thus, you can build a helpful app that addresses your target audience’s needs.
2. Conceptualize your idea
Once you and your team finalize the idea, the next step is to detail and execute it. Decide the desired features based on your app market and target audience’s requirements. It’s better to have a dedicated team to interact with the targeted audience and better understand their needs and pain points with the current app or website in the market. That will allow you to come up with features and functionalities that better address your target audience’s needs. Besides, it would be best to determine how to monetize your app and include relevant features. For instance, you can charge by having in-app purchases, paying for upgraded versions, in-app advertisements from third parties, pay-to-download, etc. Since it will influence the app’s UI design, deciding all the functionalities and monetization options in the early stage is mandatory.
3. Create user journeys and wireframes
Once you finalize the app’s features and functionalities, it’s time to create a wireframe and define the user journey of your customers. Simply put, you must design your app’s layout in such a way users can readily navigate and complete the desired action. Of course, everyone wants a user-friendly interface with clear instructions. Wireframing allows you to place all the needed buttons and screens in the desired place, helping you build a user-friendly interface. At this stage, make sure you decide on the design and how your app functions and looks, as it will be challenging to rebuild if you want to change it later.
4. Design the User Interface (UI)
Next is the UI design. The user interface is where your customers will interact with your business. Hence, make the interface user-friendly and compelling by including relevant graphics, appropriate descriptions, instructions, fonts, and text. The design team can create a mockup to evaluate the design’s look, feel, and usability. Thus, designers can keep enhancing the design quality, accessibility, and visual consistency of design. Many handy design mockup tools, like Adobe, Figma, etc., are available in the market that help designers convert their concepts into apps.
5. Development
The integral part of the entire process begins here, development. Once the designers are done with the front end, and architects are done with the databases, code development seamlessly connects both the front and back end. Development is often a long-term process and demands the collaboration of various teams. For instance, developers often must interact with business analysts, designers, testing teams, and other managers to build the application. The development process usually depends on the type of app you want to develop, like a native app, hybrid app, or cross-platform app. Programming languages also vary depending on the type of application—for example, Swift for iOS apps and Java and Kotlin for Android apps.
6. Testing the app
Testing the app continuously and every feature for its intended functionality should start early. You need not wait for the entire app development process to test the app. Testing simultaneously will help you detect bugs earlier and fix them quicker. The key is having a dedicated and experienced testing team who can test the app for various functions like security, design, compatibility with other apps, loading speed, and other features. The more particular and detail-oriented they test, the better they identify potential bugs with the app. Testing is often an ongoing process even after the app’s launch. Beta testing is the second phase, where the end users or potential target audience who will use the app in real test the app for errors. More than errors, they can provide feedback about the app’s features, looks, and functionalities. Thus, you can enhance features or add new functionalities to improve the user experience.
7. Publish & promote your app
Finally, your app is live on app stores, whether on Google Play Store or iOS App Store. However, the job doesn’t end here. Promoting and marketing your app on various platforms will inform your audiences that such an app exists. Posting about your app on social media and other relevant platforms will fetch you extra brownie points by attracting people of all ages.
Conclusion
With smartphones and high-speed internet, consumers prefer apps over websites. Hence, a mobile app is mandatory for any business, regardless of your industry. Are you a business owner looking for a customized mobile app that meets your business requirements and customer needs? Get in touch with a reputed mobile app development company to make your app dream come true.
About The Author
Ashley Rosa
Ashley Rosa is a freelance writer and blogger. As writing is her passion that why she loves to write blogs related to the latest trends in technology and sometimes on health-tech as well. She is crazy about food.
