Desktop, browser, and mobile app development is no easy task. When 70% of regular projects fail, it’s hard enough to manage a project. Creating a software application is another challenge altogether.
That’s why refining your app development process is essential to delivering a quality product. Below are six tips that will help your app development team get the job done.
1. Get All the Details From Shareholders
You can’t start a large product with a limited amount of information. Unfortunately, that’s sometimes what you’ll get when you get assigned a new software product. In these cases, it’s almost impossible to figure out what your shareholders want because you don’t have any insight into their ideas.
That’s why getting in touch with your shareholders to discuss goals, requirements, and expectations is crucial to creating a better app. Whether your communication is through email or a face-to-face meeting, the information you gather will help guide your product development.
This process doesn’t stop with an initial meeting, either. You’ll need to maintain contact with your shareholders as your project progresses to gather feedback on the product.
2. Mockup Your App With Wireframes
The next step to creating a successful project is to get an idea of what exactly you’re going to build. It isn’t easy to do this if you just start the creation process without any planning. You need to get an idea of what product you’re going to create by making wireframes.
By doing this, you’ll get a good idea of how your entire app will work before you start development. Your wireframe will help you design your initial layout. It will contain all your app screens and tell you how those screens interact with each other.
Your wireframes will also help you develop the customer journeys for your users. A customer journey will help you determine where people are when they interact with your app. This will tell you the critical moments when users will start and complete essential tasks.
3. Start With the Basics
A lot of project managers make the mistake of trying to create a giant application in the beginning. They try to add as many features as possible in an attempt to impress the shareholders and users. Unfortunately, this is often a mistake.
Before you think about creating a giant application with a ton of features, start with the basics. Ask yourself what the critical features of your app will be. Make a plan to build out a basic product before making a complex one.
Doing this will help keep your project more manageable and easier to understand from the start. You’ll get the initial version to your shareholders quickly, so they can check over things to see if their expectations match reality.
4. Learn to Iterate Quickly
Just like it’s essential to start with a basic product, it’s just as important to take what you learn from your first version and use it to improve what your developers created. That process is called iteration.
Using iteration in the desktop and mobile app development process to quickly come out with new app versions will help you stay on track for success. This process will also help you get feedback from your stakeholders on what you need to fix or add for a more successful launch.
Of course, you don’t only need to rely on your stakeholders for feedback. You can also gather a small group of test users to use your app. You can use their feedback to learn what your actual users want and iterate on what they tell you.
5. Automate Standard Tests
While it might seem like a good idea to manually test your app before release, it actually isn’t. Testing your app takes a lot of time. It also requires a particular skill set to get done correctly.
It’s much better to automate tests so you can get faster feedback. You can do this by building an automated test suite that will execute the same tests every time you roll out a new application build. This will allow you to get accurate data each time you run the playwright tests and build up a library for running these tests in the future.
Of course, you won’t be able to automate every part of your app. However, automation will help you learn which parts of your app are working as intended and which ones you need to fix.
6. Invest in Quality Assurance Testing
Speaking of testing, you need to have an excellent team to handle your quality assurance testing. Quality assurance is an integral part of the app development process because it helps you ensure your app will work for your users.
This process isn’t only about making sure the features of your app work correctly. It’s about connecting with your users to ensure your app delivers the features they need in an app.
Some companies have an in-house team for this job. However, businesses often outsource this task to third-party companies. A business like https://www.qualitylogic.com/ can look at your app and develop a quality assurance testing plan to help you create a great app.
Don’t Stop Refining Your App Development Process
There is a lot that goes into software development, and no project will always be the same. You’ll need to work on your project management style and your app development process if you want to adapt to ever-changing needs. Keep running small experiments with your strategy until you land on a workflow that constantly delivers great results.
If you want to learn more about project management and how you can improve your management style, check out the blog for even more great advice.
