What are the 10 major steps to be followed while you develop an app for your business?

Before you start the development process of an app, you should think why you need an app. Is it because your competitors have already built an app? Is it because you really faced a problem that can be resolved only by the advent of an app? You need to ask several questions to yourself and those answers will determine if your app can be successful.

Let’s’ look at the 10 major steps to be followed while you develop an app for your business:

1.  Idea Generation: Check if you really have an app idea. If you have an idea then you can check on the next step. If you don’t have an idea, just think of the probable solutions to resolve your issues. List down the problems that your business face daily and make a note of the best solutions to resolve it. If you think you need an expert advice you can hire an app developer and make things easier.

2.  Recognize the need: Validate the demand of your app using Google Keyword Planner. You can make out how many people are seeking similar service like yours. You can even create a landing page and highlight your app idea by seeking the user interest.

3.  List down the app features: Make a detail of your app into a document. You can take the help of wireframing tool if you want. Give a detailed description of each feature in a way that you jot down all the steps in a flow; how a user will use your product and each feature and so on.

4.  Delete all the non-core features: From the flow and features document you prepared, start looking closely at features that you can remove. Offer only the core value of your app idea.

5.  Design first: App Design is as important as development. Some have a misconception that design doesn’t require much attention but app development process needs to get focus. That’s not the case. The design will determine how the user will feel an app. While choosing your app developer, go for the person who gives value to the design part too.

6.  Hire a developer/designer: You need to do a lot of research here. You have to choose the best app development company in a cost-efficient manner too. Before finalizing on your developer, just have a look at the portfolio of their previous works.

7.  Create developer accounts: You must register for a developer account with the respective app stores to be able to sell your app through their platform. Google’s Android charges $25 a year and Apple charges $99 annually. You have the option of registering as an individual or as a company if you already have one formed.

8.  Integrate analytics: Analytics help you track downloads, user engagement and retention for your mobile app. Make sure you use tools such as Flurry, which is available for free, and Localytics, that has a free and paid version.

9.  Get feedback quickly and improvise: Once your app goes live on the App store, the first set of customers’ usage and behavior will give you insight into how to improve and enhance your app. Enhancements and changes are constant, so keep an eye on user feedback and keep building.

10. Introduce features: You built version one with limited features and only the core offering. Now is the time to evaluate and introduce the remaining features that were left out in the initial version. You will know through analytics and feedback whether the features are relevant anymore.

Apple introduces Swift programming language

With the introduction of Apple’s new Swift programming language, we see a big change in iOS application development. Objective-C and Swift are used for iOS application development. Swift with the most popular programming on the Internet, according to Tiobe index. The application developers for iOS find Swift to be much easier to work with and we can be sure that more developers would be using Swift in 2016.

Multiplatform app development is on the rise

Flutter was unveiled at Mobile World Congress (2017) and is currently in full use. This framework is the only mobile SDK providing reactive views with no need for a JavaScript bridge. Another promising solution is Kotlin/Native, a technology for compiling Kotlin to native binaries. It allows you to develop native apps with the help of native libraries and instruments (Xcode, Android Studio). All of the native platforms’ capabilities are available through Kotlin / Native.