Developing an App: Step-by-Step Guide to Choosing the Right Developer

When you realize it's time to develop an app - you're going to take your business to a whole new level. In the technological age, software development has become inevitable. More than 2 billion people around the world use smartphones and can provide all these services to their company with mobile tools. Turn your potential audience into loyal customers with attractive, functional mobile applications. But where do you start? When you are developing an app, you can face a real challenge. Here you can find some guidelines that can help you build and promote your app. Get off to a good start, you're halfway there.

Plan your project

Get key ideas or key questions that you need to address. List the most important issues and consider whether existing digital solutions can be found.

  • Determine the needs of consumers. Walk in your shoes and see what they are looking for. Try to predict which features are missing. You can use the Google Keyword Planner to see your ideas and see how many people need what you are trying to do. Take a look at evaluations to see if your solution might be better than the current one. Your program should be something that people want to use.
  • Think about the key features of design. List all the resources you want, or develop a mind map that visually highlights them. More details will help to develop process evaluation.
  • Create a list of the smallest features. For the first version, depending on whether it works or not, you do not need extra features, just "good". Look at the list of functions you developed earlier by selecting only the essential features. It can help you save money initially and get in touch with your customers faster.
  • Pay attention to the design. An attractive and easy to use design is very important to promote your business and your brand. Many business owners think that the basic design is sufficient, mostly functional. Do not make mistakes. If your project is very basic, and even difficult to understand how to use it, the whole project is a failure. Design is not just about its appearance, but about the user experience.
How to develop an app?

First, you must decide whether to develop a native, web-based or hybrid program. Let's have a look at the difference between these types.

Developing native programs

Native applications are platform-specific software optimized for a variety of devices, such as iPhone and Android-based phones. The benefit of developing such a program is that it takes full advantage of interacting with the operating system, with the primary benefit of reducing errors.

These are applications that can be downloaded from Google Play and Apple Store.

The main advantages are:

  • Provide users with faster, more reliable, faster experience
  • Reach a wide range of functionalities
  • Shipping notifications are also available in the native programs if you need them

In other words, they are great, but cost a lot more than web-based applications.

Web-based solutions

Web-based applications are programs delivered through a browser like Safari or Chrome, you can also download it. They are simpler, cheaper and can be developed faster than native applications. But its drawbacks are as follows:

  • They need an internet connection to work
  • Developed specifically to achieve certain features (such as special syntax checking, or some design patterns, or complex calculations, etc.)
  • Less attractive than native applications
Hybrid app

If you are not a great professional a hybrid development (multi platform) is not the best method. To make a professional hybrid solution is two to three times more expensive than creating another kind of software because of the complicacy of architecture, testing and maintenance for all platforms. And at the same time you need to avoid conflicts between them. Totally to avoid the conflict is impossible - the real possibility is just to minimize the quantity of bugs. As several different platform provide controversial demands to the software development. Of course, this solution may not be as fast as a native app, and due to internal conflicts, there are usually some errors, but it is not important for many users and it is highly recommended by young developers that it is highly recommended.

Tools and Technologies

Also, choose whether you want to develop native, web, or hybrid applications, and you need to choose a way to do this. There are several options for building mobile applications for your business:

  • Free software tools
  • Default redefinition
  • Open source code and frameworks
  • Developing custom solutions

Let us familiarize ourselves with these options and collect the strengths and weaknesses of each of them.

01

Free design tools

If you do not want to hire a design company and do not have coding skills, you can find free development software on the internet to do it yourself. Video tutorials, manuals, and software building sites will help you develop the first mobile product. You only have to choose the type of software (business, social media, music, etc.), choose your favorite in thousands of possible models, customize it with add-ons, complete information about your company, you're done.

Advantages:

  • Quick and easy way to develop an app
  • No coding
  • Free development

Disadvantages

  • Limited functions
  • Monthly maintenance costs
  • There is no guarantee that it will work on all devices
02

Standard redesign

The concept of "standard applications" is not widely distributed, but is well known among users of the JMango360 development tool, the most popular e-commerce platform. This is an app builder that easily integrates with Magento shopping applications. If you're satisfied with the features available for standard ecommerce platforms, this is the best solution for adding some custom graphics. The main disadvantage is that you can not change or customize the solution or add other features.

Advantages

  • Save time
  • Easy to do
  • No coding

Disadvantages

  • Limited Function
  • You can’t change the design of the app without changing the user interface (UI)
03

Developing iOS applications: Open Code Resources and Frameworks

If you have enough programming skills, use these features because they will save a significant amount of time. The idea behind open source is that developers create their own applications and allow other developers to use their own code and make their own changes. Therefore, developers do not need a lot of time to write the entire code, ie there is an existing base, you just need to add its functionality.

Advantages

  • Save time
  • The result is a complete app

Disadvantages

  • You must be a developer with good coding skills
  • You have to spend a lot of time to fully understand the code
  • For example, you have some restrictions depending on the license
  • You may not use it for commercial purposes
  • You should make your changes to other users
  • There is no guarantee that there is no error in the code

In short, developing an open source app may be good for those who have just learned programming skills, but this may be good for those who want to develop software to make money.

04

Creation of custom apps

You can hire a team of developers like us. Just tell us what you need and we'll find the right digital solution for you. You are always in control of the situation.

Advantages

Depending on your growing business needs, the features, changes, and changes to the app are not limited.

  • High quality product
  • Investment can bring benefits

Disadvantages

  • Time-consuming
  • More expensive

Here are some links to the platform for building free DIY applications and tools:

  • Popular platform for compiling applications: Jmango360
  • Magento open source e-commerce platform
  • App Builder Software: Android App Inventor
  • Website: www.goodbarber.com

If you need a high-quality professional tool - the right solution is to order from an app development company.

Estimate the cost of developing your app

Without discussing in detail, how difficult it is to develop a software solution is difficult. Here, we describe the process to develop your app and say approximate and realistic prices for a business tool.

Therefore, the development process consists of several parts.

Create MVP

In discussions with the customer, we have identified the functionality of the app and the customer's request. Then we conduct the research to develop a minimum viable product (MVP) - a working software program with basic capabilities and a detailed evaluation for further improvements.

Design

As long as we have fixed everything, what should be included in your MVP layout, our designers will work on the software interface to organize all the components in the most useful way. The user experience test helps make the app better and more user-friendly. We have created several hundred of projects, so just contact us and we’ll share the ready examples, which are correlated to your industry. Your partisipation in the design process can be very helpful. Think in advance - what type of design you like, and we’ll be happy to implement some elements of the provided style to answer your wishes in visualisation of your software.

Next Phase - Development

The professional developer team is responsible for the architecture creation, programming of the functionality, updates and maintenance of your app. They determine the most effective way to meet your needs. With the coding skills, our IT team creates high quality products for you. Quality assurance is an important factor in our work. Department of QA to ensure that it can function and function properly.

Mobile or Web

From our experience, we can help you effectively start your applications on the Apple Store and Google Play and reach the audience in the most successful ways. We have prepared an illustration and a description of the project to attract its clients and make their return on investment viable.

Of course, each project requires its own cost estimate. The best way to give us real data is to call us and describe your ideas in detail.

Contact us

Developing an app with our professional development team is a good value for money approach. As we are not only realise projects right for your business, but also continues to support it after launch. With over 9 years working in IT, we have the experience in developing iOS and Android software apps; we use a variety of programming languages ​​to create native, web or hybrid applications for you. Contact us today to stay ahead of your competitors with a new business software.