How to Build Reliable Mobile Apps

A mobile app is an important element that you can use to complement your digital marketing efforts. To leverage this significant tool, you need to develop a reliable app that fulfills its objectives. To create good mobile apps, you need to have a concrete plan. We have come up with a plan that has proven its success in developing robust apps.

Here are the steps to follow:

State Your Objectives Clearly

The most well-received products or services are the ones that solve a particular problem. People are constantly looking for ways to make their lives easier. If you want to create a successful product (in this case the app), fulfil this desire. After all, necessity is the mother of invention.

This stage involves:

• Identifying your target group. Who do you want to use your app? Is it students, travelers, shoppers, church goers or other users?

• Identifying a specific problem that your target group are grappling with. Boil it down to the tiniest details.

• Determine how you will dovetail your app to solve the problem by addressing the small details you identify. It helps if you put down your objectives like writing on the paper, spreadsheet or other media. It will be easier to conceptualize it and adjust the specifics if you learn something new down the road. If you are not a big corporation or company, there is a good chance that you want to create an app to generate some cash. Decide whether you will avail the app for free download then earn through ad revenue and in-app purchases or you will make your users buy the app from the outset.

Do Your Research

Research on what your competitors are doing wrong or right from what the users say on the reviews. If it is a saturated industry, improve on their weaknesses to carve out a market for yourself. Learn about the common bugs that apps related to yours constantly struggle with to prepare yourself for the future or avoid them entirely. Do your research on Copyrights to ensure that you do not violate any such law to save yourself future embarrassment and losses.

Design the App

This is one of the most important steps. If you get it wrong, it can hamstring you before you even lift off. Try to get it right the first time.

There are a few essential aspects at this stage that you should address:

• Develop sketches of what your app will look like. It does not have to be perfect, but it will set you on the right path. For ideas, look at what expert designers are doing online. Do not forget to factor in what your target users are likely to respond to. Although you may not estimate this accurately, you can adjust your design later on.

• Decide what your back-end will comprise. Working with your sketches, determine what APIs, servers, and data structures that you will use. A company like Tech Fabric can help you with solutions to such technical details if you get stuck.

• Wireframe your idea. There are dozens of tools you can use to create a prototype of your app to bring it to life. You can also use Storyboard to create a semblance of what navigating through the app will look like.

• Seek a second opinion. It can be helpful to find people who will critique your design and give genuine feedback. Potential users and expert developers are the best audiences.

• Make changes as per the feedback. Make the necessary changes to your design echoing the good or damning feedback you receive.

Build the App

Once you have laid the foundation, this step should be pretty easy. It involves piecing together the different components.

• Create developer accounts on different platforms. If you don’t already have a Google Play store and iTunes developer accounts, now would be a good time to register them. Verification may take time and you would rather get that out of the way before you are ready to launch.

• Use a reliable platform to develop the app. These tools do the heavy lifting if you need all the help you can get. The best environments will help you create robust apps. Platforms like Xamarin and Appcelerator can help you create cross-platform apps easily.

• Set up the back-end of your app. Bring together the APIs, servers, databases, and storage.

• Design and Develop the GUI. Create the user interface along with the necessary navigation tools and skins. You are better off seeking help from an expert designer because your vision may be far removed from what users will consider aesthetically good.

• Analytics tool. Integrate an analytics tool to enable you to monitor user trends when you later launch the app.

Test the App

Now comes the moment of truth. The app is no longer a prototype; it is a complete entity with screens and buttons. Ask other people to take a look at your app at this stage. Request them to give honest feedback.

• Use testing tools. There are testing tools like Framer that you can use to test the working of your app.

• Beta testing. Google and Apple each have their way of testing apps. Apple uses Test Flight while Google allows you to install the app on a device for testing. Use the necessary avenues to determine how the app will work on the respective devices.

• Make changes. Where you spot technical problems, fix them. Take up the advice you get from other people to polish up on the app.

Launch the App

This is the ultimate step in this process. Here, you add your app to the marketplace. Google will let it go live instantly, but Apple will vet it first. You can add your app to the pre-app category on iTunes if you want early feedback before you go live. There are reviewers who provide feedback. They can give you valuable insights from a consumer’s point of view. If the reviews are good, that will be great news for you.

To sum it up, in creating the ideal app, you need a combination of planning, sound technical skills, high-quality tools, and honest feedback from helpful individuals. You will also need to conduct research and create clear goals that your team can follow.

Developing a reliable app is the first milestone. Now you need to figure out how you will market the app. When you market the app and rack up those numbers, you will also have to upgrade the app periodically to add new features or enhance security. Building and maintaining a successful mobile app truly is a never-ending process that hopefully, you will enjoy.