The first thing to think about when ordering the development of a mobile application is why the company needs it . Will it be an external solution for clients or an internal one for employees. What problem do you want to solve with the application: increase the life cycle and customer loyalty, visualize complex projects, simplify product orders or optimize work processes. The functionality and, accordingly, the cost of the application depend on the purpose.
After answering the question “why”, you will dive into the application development process. It takes from 380 to 2900 hours, requires the involvement and coordinated work of the customer’s team and Neti specialists. Read our article to find out what stages of work await you and in what order.
Stages of mobile application development for iOS, Android, Windows
The stages of developing a mobile application for iOS, Android and Windows are approximately the same. But you need to decide on the platform for which the shopify website design application is written in advance. If you are developing solutions or selling something exclusively to owners of iOS or Android devices, it makes sense to choose the appropriate operating system. Choose a native approach and create an application in the “native” language for the OS, for one platform.
In case your target audience uses both iOS and Android, and you are not ready to lose either one, we recommend choosing cross-platform development . With this approach, you will get an application that works equally well on all devices, without significantly increasing the budget.
Otherwise, the order of development actions for iOS, Android and Windows is the same, and it begins with drawing up a technical specification.
iOS, Android, Windows
Preparation of detailed technical specifications (TS)
Drawing up a technical specification can be called, without exaggeration, the most important stage of mobile application development. Specialists return to it throughout the entire process.
What does a technical specification include:
- Functional requirements. The main part describes: what functions should be in the application; access levels for different users; how data is exchanged; what services and how the application will be integrated with; components (push notifications, screens, authentication, etc.); what elements will be used to administer the application. In general, everything related to the application functions.
- Non-functional requirements. This section describes the requirements for performance, security, and server support. Sometimes information on how to handle errors and error reports (logs) is also added here. Design and user experience.
- General system requirements. We return to the purpose of creating the application and describe it. We add what operating systems the solution is designed for and approximately how many users.
- Examples of descriptions of screen elements.
Sounds complicated. In reality, the process of drawing up a technical task takes about 50 hours. It is really labor-intensive and we at Neti.mobile try not only to take into account the customer's wishes as much as possible, but also to make an application that will be easy and pleasant to use. Our team analyzes future users: creates a description of characters, develops a user story (user scenario or story), forms a customer journey map (user roadmap or travel map). After the analysis, based on the data received, a technical task is formed. And this is where the stages of mobile application development only begin.