7 Phases of Mobile App Development

App development is undoubtedly one of the most sought-after skills globally, and the niche is on the verge to take over every business.

By Rameez Ramzan

The daily life routines are integrated with mobile apps such as Uber, Airbnb, WhatsApp, etc. While every Tom, Dick, and Harry dreams of building an app that rakes in fame and fortune simultaneously, it isn’t an easy task.

App development process needs patience, process, and persistence. In order to meet all of these three starting points, one should be aware of the process and steps involved in the app development process. Before you go into the app lab to develop your dream, let me explain the core phases involved in the app development process.

The Dwelling Point

Every app is an idea before it becomes actively usable and before initiating the app development process, ensure that your analysis about buyer persona, app goals, demographics, behavior patterns and motivation is spot-on or else, try to refine the idea till it conveys a solid clarity to you or your team.

The essence of this phase starts the core work on the project so that before moving on to the next stage, you can brainstorm and make an initial image of the app. You can dwell on the competitor’s app to grab insights about the competition of the app.

Detailed Wireframing

Well, app development includes wireframing but here is the catch – detailed wireframing is the key to draw an excellent understanding of an app. Put your focus on sketching a highly converting user experience, and by writing the word converting, I meant a user experience that keeps its user stick to the app.

While drawing app screens, trace all the steps involved in building an app. Wireframing will enable you to communicate with the client with your perceived approach. Moreover, drawing all the necessary elements of an app will eventually result in kickstarting a crystal clear app development process with a defined app building goals.

Inspecting Technical Aspects

You may have envisioned all the graphical aspects of the app but here is a tedious part – diving deep into the back-end areas of the app. From app functionalities to app completion, you will be focusing every tiny technical aspect of the app. While many ideas look spectacular on paper, they are pretty tricky to execute technically.

This phase will determine the technology to be used in the app accordingly with the platform and devices involved. iOS and Android development have various distinctive technicalities attached to them, and you would be brainstorming accordingly.

Building a Prototype

Building a mockup or prototype is essential to feel all the rights and wrongs or an app including the touch experience, user interaction, and flow. A point not to be missed here is building prototype rapidly is the key because it is developed to observe the use cases and issues reported by them. Developing an initial app concept will let you know if things are going right and in the defined direction.

Moreover, the prototype will get user insights and feedback that will help you in improving and scaling up the app accordingly. It involves rigorous dedication, informal sketches and a lot of hours to build a prototype but once you are through it, rest of the phases will become more comfortable.

App Designing

One of the core aspects of an app comes into play, and that is – coding. While designing an app sounds easy, expect it as the most draining phase of an app development process. While user experience deals with distinctive design elements of your app, the user interface will give your app the desired feel and look. Along with the visual directions, blueprints are also involved in the process.

Don’t forget to create multiple variations of app design including buttons, theme, navigation, and much more. App designing will make you reach to the real look of an app, and after it is done rightly, you will have the exact app screens of an app to be built.

Core App Development

From the very first step, the development phase has started, but after finalizing the app design, core development kicks off. Initially, basic functionalities of an app are developed, and at the second stage, rest of the essential features are integrated.

Using agile methodology is one of the most recommended ways to develop an app. It breaks an app into separate small sprints that make it easy and efficient to create an app. It lets you code and build your app with constant improvements, flexible planning, and early deployment.

Furthermore, in the coding process, the app gets distributed among internal and external app professionals so that the bugs get fixed, and the app gets to the next phase that is quality assurance.

Testing the App

App testing is must, and it is feasible to test an app to cut the cost and identify latter bugs. While application testing is a detailed process, ensure the testing of right aspects or else, your effort will go vain. Moreover, apps are to be tested for their usability, security, compatibility, user interface, user experience, stress, and performance. User acceptance testing is another way to check whether the app is working with the intended users or not.

All of these testing’s will gather the real-world insights whether the app is working well with the desired users and with intended features and functions.

Wrapping It Up

All of the aforementioned phases are prerequisites of developing an app. From the start till the end, all of the efforts are to put with sheer focus, persistence, and creativity or else, you will end up building an app that is most likely to have bugs and issues.

While every phase holds importance, it is essential to dwell all the phases well and to develop a top-grossing app; you need to take care of every aspect very carefully.

Moreover, the whole app development process depends upon the amount of money and time invested in it, and it is a crucial factor that decides the fate of an app.

Rameez Ramzan is a Senior Digital Marketing Executive of Cubix – mobile app development company.  He specializes in link building, content marketing, and site audits to help sites perform better. In his leisure time, he likes to read blogs related to Content Marketing and by the way, he is also a big fan of Neil Patel.

App development stock photo by /Shutterstock