Quick guide on creating your own mobile app.

Nowadays mobile market impresses us with the great amount of applications of every kind. Nevertheless, the most demanding and sophisticated customers by no means always can find that exact application, which can utterly and completely satisfy their needs and wants. That is why the idea of creating of your own mobile applications seems to be so appealing.

The algorithm provided in this article will be helpful to both specialists who are creating the performance objective and to those people, who have already come up with the idea of a mobile application, explored market and target audience, researched the demand for this idea and are ready for the next step.

Step 1. How to make an app? Define your goal first!

Before you start developing a mobile application, you need to define the objectives of the project. The presence of such goals at the very beginning of the project is a key factor that will help answer the question: whether the development of your application is headed in the right direction.

Here are some examples of the objectives of the project:

• To create an application for the promotion of your products or services;
• To create a non-profit entertainment application.

Are you ready to support your app daily? Two factors you need to think of when determining the objectives of the project:

1. An application that does not require daily administration;
2. An application that will be the main daily work for you and your team.

Step 2. Draw a sketch of your application.

If you have already come up with the idea of your mobile application, you definitely imagine what look your app will have and how the information will be printed on the screen.

Before you try to express your ideas on paper, you should think over the following questions:

• What basic actions within the mobile application will be taken by the customers?
• What information should be provided on each screen?
• What sequence of actions will the application have?

Step 3. Define the areas where you would like to take the initiative and where it will be easier to hire specialists

In the process of the developing the mobile application it is very difficult for one person to accomplish the duties of the researcher, project manager, accountant, content manager, designer, developer, tester, marketer, advertiser, etc. That is why it is economically reasonable to hire freelancers.

Working with freelancers, you should ask them to sign a non-disclosure agreement and employment contract, where their responsibilities, your requirements, and payment terms will be indicated. Be ready to meet resistance.

You have another option – to apply to the studio which is developing applications. In this case, studio takes the entire project management, and you will evaluate and accept their work. It is a good choice to work with the studio if you have a bigger budget or you cannot pay the production process a sufficient amount of time.

Step 4. Hiring team

What specialists you will need:

– Designer

If you are not a designer, you need to know that the design of the application consists of three components: information architecture, interaction design and visual design. Find one person with the skills in all those areas is possible, but be aware that for the creation of design all three components are required. If you have your own designs, the designer can start the work.

– Developer

If you are not a developer, then hire this specialist in the way you hired the designer. The sooner you will communicate with the developer, the faster it will become clear whether your project is feasible technically and how much will it cost. Using your sketches, create a document that describes what your application is doing and who are its primary users. Sketches and this document will enable a developer to get time estimate and development costs.

Hint! The less clarified your technical requirements are, the more costs will be allocated by the developer to the ‘unforeseen expenses’. So be as accurate and detailed as it is possible.

– QA Engineer

The main mistake of app owners is to launch an app to the market without a thorough testing. As a result, low rating in the AppStore or Google Play, lots of users’ complaints, a significant damage to the reputation… and yes – an incredibly huge wasting of time and money.

When hiring testers, make sure to pay attention to the following factors:

1. Your testers are able to test your app on all available devices and operating systems.
2. If your app is geo-sensitive – make sure your testers are located at the same location as your users are.
3. Think about the way you are going to control your testers, because you absolutely don’t want to pay for 8 hours when in fact they spent on testing no more than two hours.

When hiring testers with Ubertesters you don’t need to worry about testing process and can totally focus on development and marketing. All you need is to specify the location, platforms and OSs you want your app to be tested on. Enjoy transparent reports via your dashboard with your testers’ session tracking. You can be sure that you pay for active time only.

– Specialist on marketing and promotion

Several useful tips on your marketing strategy:

• Use social networks. Think about how your application can be integrated with social networks, and implement this functionality in it. At a minimum, create accounts for your application on Facebook and Twitter, and use them to communicate with users and get feedback.
• Promoting before launch. Start promoting your application in advance, before it is ready. Use the journalists and bloggers, and let them write about your application. The more interesting your application is, the more likely they write about it.
• Plan several releases of the application. It is not necessary to include in the first release a set of absolutely all the features that you have come up with. Create a list of features and design the application so that these functions can be added gradually. This tactics will enable to release periodically new versions of the application, and it will help to increase your sales.

To convert your idea into a quality application is an interesting and exciting challenge. And you will definitely make a progress if you think over very carefully every detail of your application and hire the right team that can bring your ideas to life. Good luck!