Have you ever thought of building an app? I am sure that we all have a couple of great ideas for apps that could help us cope with our everyday tasks. But not everyone is able to go all the way from the idea to the real product. Today, let’s see how to do that. Maybe this post will inspire you to create a fantastic app!

Idea

It all starts with an idea. You need to specify what your app is going to be used for, its main features, how it is going to work, what feature is going to make it better than the competitors. On the one hand, it might be tempting to create a multifunctional app with lots of dazzling features. But, on the other hand, practice shows that less is more: create one or two features for particular purposes. That is enough. But it should be really good and work perfectly. If you are not sure which features are the clue ones, make a list of all the features you can think of. You will see what is essential and what is good enough but can be omitted.

Research

Research is a step that should not be skipped. Even if you have an idea and you think that it is gorgeous. Research is what you can do to get to know your potential customers. You are to figure out who they are, what apps they use, what problems they solve, how they do it, how this process can be improved. Marketing research will help you make sure that your idea meets your audience’s needs. If it really does, your way is the right one. With the help of research, you will have an opportunity of updating your idea and analyzing your main competitors. You need to find out their strong and weak points to create your own ones. Besides, this step will allow you to work out your pricing policy.

Wireframe

Now you are ready for wireframing. It means that you can make a skeleton of your app. It will not contain graphic design or visual elements, but it will show the main functional elements and what happens when you tap here or there. In a nutshell, it is a scope of your potential use cases and an explanation of how your app works. Why is it so important not to omit this step? It will allow you to find the basic problems in the work of your app. It is better to fix them at the early stages thus making the process of development easier and more productive.

Graphic Design

It is high time to create a graphic design for your app. Here I can give you a good piece of advice: if you are not a professional designer or the one who can perform this function, do not waste time doing it yourself. Professional designers will give you a high-quality result in a shorter time than an unprofessional one. Of course, you can study the basics to upgrade your skills and to have a better understanding of the whole process but it is better to hire an expert to get an excellent result in a short time.

Build the App

Finally, you come to this step — you start building your app. Here you must decide which way to go: to code your app from the very beginning to the end or to use a special platform for building and maintenance of apps. If your time and budget are unlimited, you can code your app from scratch. This option might be appealing to you as well if you are an experienced developer yourself and you know the process very well. If you are limited in your resources and time, you can use an app-building platform. This option is quite convenient as you might save time and money when you implement new changes in your app.

Test

This step will allow you to make sure if your app works the way it should, it is intuitive enough and has no bugs. Testing may engage a lot of stages. It depends on the complexity of your app. First of all, you and your team should test the app to eliminate all the obvious bugs and things that may affect UX in a negative way. After that, you can have a test among users. That is quite a substantial thing as it is so to say a real-world test =) But at this stage, you will see what should be fixed and probably changed. When the testing is done and the bugs are fixed, you can launch your app.

Marketing

Yes, marketing can be one of the steps of the process of app creation. This is how users will get to know about your app. It may include different strategies depending on your needs. You can use social networks to attract potential users, send emails, and update your website. One should not overlook it as your app is built FOR users. Sometimes, it is worth creating a landing page for your app. This can be done before you actually launch it. It should give the most prominent information about your app: its purpose, what it is going to look like, the story of creation, and a sign-up button.

Here is what the process of creation looks like in general. I hope this post will inspire those who are dreaming of building an app but have never thought how to do it in reality. If you have an experience like that — please share =)

Have a nice day!

Bradley Nice, Content Manager at ClickHelp.com — best online documentation tool for SaaS vendors