Smartphones now account for 70% of digital media time in the US. Also, more than half of all internet traffic is now mobile. Mobile commerce is playing one of the most important roles in modern digital marketing. So due to such popularity of mobile devices, many businesses decide to develop a mobile app.
If you don’t have a mobile app development in-house team, we recommend hiring a custom mobile app development company. To do so, you’ll need some basic knowledge about the mobile application development process.
Mobile App Development Process Steps
The mobile app development process requires thorough planning. We will guide you through all the mobile app development stages including pre-development, development, deployment, and the post-launch phase.
Pre-development phase
The pre-development phase starts from the moment you come up with an idea of the mobile app and until you create a software development strategy and choose the mobile app development software. It can be divided into two categories:
- Market research and competitor analysis;
- Requirements gathering & development strategy planning;
The development phase
The development phase starts once the chosen mobile app development company starts creating and delivering your software. Here is a list of things to consider during this stage:
- Platform or operating system – iOS, Android, PWA, etc and mobile operating system;
- Online & Offline operation blueprints;
- UI/UX design plan;
- Detailed project documentation that will include app’s features and specifications;
- Security and accessibility measures;
- Data protection policy.
- Mobile app connection with web applications.
The post-development phase
After you complete your mobile app development, you have to launch it and maintain its operation. Post-development mobile app development tools are:
- Testing. You should dedicate time and resources to test your software to confirm it works seamlessly.
- Product launch. You should wisely execute your promotion campaign and launch your mobile app. Also in this stage, you should think about sales process engineering.
- Maintenance. Keep your app updated and make sure all the errors can be fixed in the shortest time.
As we’ve listed the pieces that are essential for the app development, let’s talk about the development team. What kind of specialists a mobile app development company has to include into your project?
The Development Team Structure
Mobile app development engineer
If you decide to build a native app, you should hire both an Android and iOS developer. If your choice is a cross-platform application, one engineer is enough. However, if you are building a complex app, we recommend hiring a team of developers for each platform so they can break down the workload between them.
Backend engineer
You will need a backend developer to enable the frontend of your mobile app development software. The backend engineer’s involvement in the mobile application development process depends on the complexity of your app.
UI/UX designer
A user-friendly interface is vital for your app’s success. Even though cutting on the design can be tempting, we recommend investing your time and resources into the strategic design from the very beginning. User-friendly design can also increase your sales as the user’s decision to buy something from your app highly depends on how easy it is to make a purchase.
Often one designer can do both UI and UX, so you can just hire one specialist.
QA engineer
A quality assurance engineer should test your software on every stage of development. By performing regular testing, you can fix minor mistakes and foresee any large bugs in the latest stages of the development.
Again, the number of QA engineers needed for your project highly depends on the complexity of your mobile app development software.
Project Manager
A project manager is the person responsible for making mobile app development happen. He is in charge of establishing a development process and communication within the team. We highly encourage you to add a professional project manager to your team. Managing the project yourself might be tempting at first sight, though our experience shows that it only can work for really simple projects.
Going into the mobile app development process unprepared can be risky. It can result in a waste of time and resources. However, if you invest a decent amount of time into the preparation, you mitigate the risks of unforeseen mistakes and avoid potential delays and financial losses.
In this article, we highlighted the project development stages and the requirements for every stage. We also narrowed a software development team structure you will need for the mobile app development. Obviously, there can be a lot of individual specifications for each project that even top mobile app development companies can’t predict beforehand. Though we recommend you to thoroughly prepare for the kick-off of a software development project and hire a professional mobile app development company.
