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Create an application: tasks, stages, and deadlines

Mobile phone apps are booming. Let’s analyze how long does it take to create the application and what steps you need to go through to release the relevant product.

Smartphone owners spend most of their time on the phone in various applications. It is the application that allows the seller of goods and services to establish and maintain direct communication with the customer. And if the program responds to the user’s functional requests, the more relevant and attractive the product will be for investors.

How to start application development

So, the mobile application is a software that runs on smartphones, tablets and smart watches.

As a rule, the startup business model already contains the primary project documentation. In it the customer describes what goals and tasks the application should solve, a description of the target audience and its needs. Questions to be answered at the beginning of the project – how many people do you need to develop a mobile application? What will be the cost of development and implementation time?

Usually there is a team that works on creating the mobile applications, which includes:

  • Project Manager
  • UI/UX designer
  • Coders
  • QA

If you have a choice, either to hire freelancers in each specialty or contact the agency where the team works well, it is better to choose a second one. This will help to save both time and finance, as freelance does not give any guarantees that you will get the expected result in the specified time frame.

Mobile Application Development Steps

Main steps:

  • Creation and completion of project documentation listing the application’s goals and objectives, description of functions, programming language definition, preparation of the final TT and scope determination of the application
  • Development of the interface, visual part of the application
  • Backend development
  • Testing and debugging
  • Release, start-up and support

A feature of application development is that there is no clear sequence of stages. Some of them may go hand in hand as the development of the application is under constant review and priority functions are identified. Often, in the process of work, for example, when creating a minimum viable product (MVP), decisions are made to abandon certain functions and add others instead. The advantage of this flexible approach is to optimize the development process, to respond quickly to possible budget changes.

1st step

At this stage there is an introduction to the project. Sometimes it has to start from the beginning – to do research of the market, competitors, target audience, formulate a unique trade offer, define the main functions of the application. The main technical requirements for developers – designers and programmers are being described. This is necessary in order to agree on the development budget, duration and expected functionality. The more additions, the bigger the budget and the longer it will go on.

Deadline: from month (depending on whether the issued TT)

2nd step

At this stage, the main development of UI/UX design considering the wishes of the client preferences. This concept includes screen rendering, button design and placement, font selection, color palette, creation of background images taking into account usability and manuals App Store and Play Market to design the application. All this is done in accordance with a strict design concept, which is based on the corporate style and branding of the company. To shorten the time, design development can go hand in hand with application development.

All layouts are usually created in Figma, Zeplin, or Marvel app.

The UI/UX design development includes:

  • Mindmap – structuring the expected user behavior when interacting with an application (not always used)
  • Vibryframes are stylistically simplified images of content and design elements to understand their interaction.
  • Concept and layouts of the application – create all screens with user paths.
  • UI-kit – a collection of all elements that will be involved in the interface (not always used)

When creating a design you always need to take into account the important aspect – its adaptability to the different sizes and screen formats of mobile devices, to understand how the design will look in a running application.

Deadline: from 2 weeks to 1 month (depending on the difficulty of the project)

3rd step

Backend development can be carried out in one of three ways:

  • create multiple versions for known platforms
  • used code, which is universal for all platforms
  • Web version application code is created using HTML, Cascade Style Sheets and JavaScript in third-party environments

Here it is important to properly organize the sprint team – solving short-term problems, for example, on the implementation of each individual function. The result of each stage of programming is recorded and completed by creating a demo.

Deadline: Depends on the difficulty of the project.

4th step

QA-testing is performed after each completed programming phase. Tests functionality, performance, design, bug fixes, application operation on different platforms, mobile devices, firmware and configurations. At the request of the customer, MVP testing can be conducted with the involvement of a limited audience of target users.

Deadline: as a rule, 25-30% of the time allocated for development is set for testing.

5th step

The finished product is published in the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store, is moderated. This is not the end of creating an application, as it is necessary to continue to identify and correct errors, add new features, improve performance, etc.

Deadline: from a week to infinity

Summary

The speed of application development depends on functionality, detailed technical specification, qualitatively conducted analysis of the audience and its needs. Expert, well-coordinated team will not exceed the budget when developing a mobile application, flexibly building work and priorities at each stage of creation of a new product.