In 2023, mobile app downloads reached a record 257 billion downloads, with a projected $613 billion USD in revenue generated by 2025. These numbers and growth forecasts show huge potential for your app development, but only if they’re backed up with a proper mobile application development process.
In this post, we’ll look deeply at 5 key steps in a successful software development life cycle. Following this development approach, regardless of the size or scope of your project, will help you take one big step closer to getting a great and viable product.
And if you’re simply interested in learning what we can do, check out our mobile app development services here!
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The planning phase is extremely important in the app development process as it lays the foundation for every later development stage.
Conceptualize your application by considering your potential users’ persona: their prominent traits, their behavioral patterns, and their problems that your competitors have yet to address satisfactorily.
After conducting extensive research, lay down every piece of knowledge and insight that you have accumulated and start brainstorming.
Visualize how the app will benefit your future users and ultimately generate profits for your business.
It is also crucial to validate your ideas as soon as possible by putting together a prototype before investing a great portion of your time and resources into concretizing them.
With a prototype, you can gain early user feedback, modify your app, and guarantee long-run success inexpensively.
Once you are done with validation, proceed to write a comprehensive plan and timeline for your mobile app development process.
A proper plan keeps you from getting sidetracked and overspending your budget on miscellaneous things (and be sure to check out our guide to the best software development methodologies with insights into the agile methodology and more).
The design stage typically begins with devising an initial wireframe, which is an inexpensive method of evaluating different design ideas before the real work begins.
The wireframes lay out the overall structure and connections between different components of an application in the simplest form, without any intricate visual design involved.
Still, the wireframe gives us a generic idea of the placement of visual elements and the user’s action flow on the app. With the wireframes in place, the project teams of designers can proceed with their work.
A mobile application’s design team focuses on user interface (UI) and user experience (UX).
The UI is the application’s visual presentation layer. The front face attracts users’ attention and helps them stay attentive. Thus, creating an appealing UI should be one of your priorities.
On the other hand, UX encompasses the flow of navigation through the app. A good UX design streamlines a user’s navigation process, enhances the application’s comfort, and adheres to important web accessibility standards.
Note that the design phase should involve both the designers and the developers. A software application development team’s assistance can give designers more insights into user expectations, producing a coding-feasible design and allowing for a smooth transition from design to development.
The technical back-end development stage should be conducted according to your idea, overall application structure, and design for UX and UI. This stage will define your application’s technical performance, so you wouldn’t want to go wrong with it.
You must make two important decisions prior to this stage: which technology stack to utilize and who will develop your application. Experienced developers allow development to progress without too many bottlenecks, and the right technology will leverage the final application’s performance.
In deciding which technology to utilize, one important factor to consider is the type of application you are after – native or cross-platform.
Generally, native apps are applications with one source code developed for Android/ iOS only. They are highly compatible with devices’ nature and functionalities (Bluetooth, GPS, etc.). Hence, going native allows you to optimize the app’s performance to the highest possible level.
Arguably, the most popular programming languages for this are Java and Golang.
But you may be interested to check out our mobile app development trends guide!
On the other hand, cross-platform application solutions permit the reuse of the developed source code on multiple platforms.
Therefore, they ensure your mobile app’s scalability to various operating systems. Developers usually use frameworks like Flutter, React Native, or Ionic for this solution.
You can review your business requirements and goals to decide on your mobile app development direction.
With that direction in mind, pick out experienced developers well-versed in suitable technologies. The right combination shall make your app prosper.
A mobile app development cycle is not complete without the testing stage. Rigorous testing ensures that the app can properly handle the expected volume of user requirements with seamlessly functioning features.
Moreover, testing ensures that your app performs the same way across different devices. Given the wide variety of devices, this is extremely important for a mobile app.
A common misconception is that the testing phase is the final step of mobile app development. However, for testing to benefit the application’s final operations to create a truly high-quality app, it should have continuous integration with the development cycle as soon as possible. Successful application development is an iterative approach, and you should also note that testing must cover many levels:
Because, after all, it’s far from ideal to discover any bug, detrimental malfunction, or potential risks, just a few days before the official launch.
Mobile app testing process
The end of the launch day marks the beginning of the new stage: ongoing maintenance and updates for your application (since an app is never launched in a perfect state).
You should gather your users’ thoughts and feedback on the application’s performance and iterate upon that to facilitate the app’s evolution over time.
Frequent and effective updates show that you care about the users and, in turn, increase their commitment to your apps.
Just beware of releasing too many unnecessary updates within a short period of time, however. This can burden your app’s performance heavily, and people most likely don’t want large applications taking up space on their limited memory cards.
In short, it generally takes months to years for a mobile app to go through all these development phases to reach and survive on the market.
If you are looking for the right tech partner to join in the journey of creating a successful and viral application, get in touch with Fram^ today!
Since 2013, we’ve been building high-quality software for partners, solely focused on customer satisfaction the entire time. And we’ll happily help you successfully turn your ideas into reality with our mobile app development services!
