Have an app idea? Don’t know where to start?

At Redops, we understand that the processes of mobile app development can be intimidating both for individuals and businesses, resulting in postponing or giving up great ideas. In order to give you a better picture of the typical processes of making an app, we’ve compiled a list of the essential steps to develop and launch your mobile app.

Gathering the requirements of your app

Once you have chosen the right partner to start your journey with you will need to gather the requirements of your app in a document.

For this, you can:

• Describe the main idea and desired features of the app in a sequence;
• Asses requirements to set priorities for the features;
• Draw a sketch of the app on paper.

This document will be the foundation of your future product and will allow the project manager to understand what is required to build your app. Each requirement will be discussed in detail with the project manager to better optimize it and find the ongoing & future trends of the feature.

Wireframing and user stories to better visualize

Wireframes show what goes where in the design in a basic mock-up, without focusing on details, colors or shapes. However, all the buttons, tabs, and placeholders are included, making it easy to imagine the final version of the application. Wireframes of different screens are connected to each other, creating a clickable prototype that demonstrates the flow of the mobile app.

An example of a wireframe we have created for one of our clients:

User stories show what a typical user can do in the mobile app. In this step, our team describes all possible features in detail in a document on a project management system. It’s important to think through every possible scenario to avoid changes or additions later in development.

Full mobile app design

After successfully completing the functional design of your app (the wireframe), it’s now time to work on the aesthetics of the app to complement its functionality. In this step, the designer will take creative assets like logos, icons, colors, and fonts, and apply those elements to the wireframes, further fleshing out your application. A solid design team will have the appropriate tools and applications to bring everything together into a quality, pixel-perfect prototype.

Mobile app development

There exist 3 different approaches for the development of the app:

• Platform-Specific Native Code recommended approach
  Separate code is written in its entirety for each mobile platform. Allows creating the most platform-optimized and effective apps.‍
• Cross-platform Native cost-effective in short term, however higher costs in long-term for maintenance and enhancements
  Some or a part of the code written is shared between mobile platforms, but the apps are run natively. React Native, Xamarin, and Native Script are some commonly used technologies for this approach. This approach is cost-effective in short term compared with the platform-specific approach, however, this approach is not so advanced yet, and in the long term issues that occur bring to higher costs.
• Hybrid not recommended
  Apps are built using web technologies, such as HTML or Javascript, and installed with a native wrapper. This approach is by far the cheapest, however, it’s quite problematic.

Quality assurance: App testing

Testing is one of the most important steps as it ensures the quality of the product. Testing should go simultaneously along with the development so that issues are detected and resolved at early stages.

Some steps of internal testing are:

• Functional Testing
  Ensures that each feature of the app functions as described in the requirements.
• Usability Testing
  Ensures that the app is user-friendly and functions intuitively.
• Device-Specific Testing
  Ensures that the app works properly on all of the various combinations of devices and operating systems.‍

After the internal testing at each sprint is finished, it’s time for you to test the app:

• User Acceptance Testing
  The app owner or the intended users will be performing this final test. Acquiring regular feedback from intended users is crucial to developing a successful app.

Store preparation

For sure you have heard a lot about SEO, but have you ever come across the term ASO standing for App Store Optimization?

Before launching the app, a crucial step is to think about an efficient app listing.

ASO helps to get a lot of organic downloads, with no money spent on advertising. But it’s not easy if you know nothing about it.

To start, this needs to be done:

• Keyword research to select the right keywords for the app
• Selection of the right app name
• App icon design. Creating an appealing icon is a very responsible task. This has a strong impact on the store listing visitors, conversion rate, and downloads as a result.
• Good app descriptions, subheadings
• Eye-catching store screenshots. For this, well-conducted research is needed to look for and find the best practices.

However, this is not a one-time job, for continuous success and improvement of the app listing need to periodically track keywords, do A/B testing by changing screenshots, icons, etc...

Submitting to Stores

• Apple
  Apple is quite strict when it comes to approving apps for their store. The approval process involves a review by a team of developers, inspecting every aspect of the app to ensure that there are no errors, and communicating any errors back to the developer. This level of scrutiny and feedback about why your app may have been rejected is why the approval process may take longer. For this step especially working with agencies is more preferred as they guarantee the submission of the app to the app store.
  
  
• Android
  The approval process for Android is a lot easier. First, the submitted apps are reviewed by a team of experts using automated tools. The main focus is to search for violations in the app, the presence of malware or spyware/violations of copyright/inclusion of sexually explicit content, etc...‍ After successfully completing this step, the app is forwarded to the second team of reviewers for manual review. Developers typically enjoy a lot more freedom in the general content of their apps, due to Google’s less stringent submission guidelines.

As you have already mastered the steps on how to convert the app idea into a submitted app on the app store, now let’s have a look at the path to find the right team for your journey.

Mobile development agency or freelencers?

First, you need to identify whether you are willing to trust the development of your application to a freelancer or to a mobile development agency.

For this one needs to understand the difference between the 2 experiences.

A freelancer hired for the development is a team of one. However, building an app requires more than just a code. In this case, you should also consider hiring a UI/UX designer, QA engineer, back-end developer, and project manager.

We all know “time=money”, particularly in IT the world moves extremely fast, and in order to have greater chances to win in this race, you should try to be the first to launch the idea with a high-quality app. However, ever thought that finding and trail-testing freelancers will take that time?

So after all, does a freelancer really cost less?

Agencies, on the other hand, provide the whole team that is used to working together without a headache. Moreover, agencies are more stable and resilient, they are grounded businesses and can’t just walk away from the project as a freelancer can.

What concerns the quality, sure freelancers don’t always produce low-quality products, however, agencies usually hold themselves to more rigorous quality standards such as mandatory QA. And finally, are you able to manage multiple freelancers, manage the communication between people that don’t know each other?

To conclude, when choosing the winner in a battle between hiring a team of freelancers or an agency first consider the size and complexity of your project. In the case of a small project, for example, a simple informative app with a few simple screens a freelancer developer with a designer is more than enough. However, for bigger projects, we suggest hiring an agency.

Also, be aware, schedules fill up pretty fast at app agencies, especially at good ones. So consider looking for one as early as possible.

Wonder where can you find reviews for the development companies?

Check us on Clutch https://clutch.co/profile/redops#summary

We consider projects starting with a budget of 5k$.