Mobile applications are everywhere. They’re actually in our pockets, on our wrists, and in our homes. There’s an app for everything.
Many of them started as simple ideas turned into reality by a developer. But how exactly does this happen? How do developers convert ideas into applications?
App devs follow a comprehensive method that starts with analysing the project requirements and tests the application. This blog walks a reader through different stages in which an idea is converted into an application:
Analyse Project Requirements
The actual first step in converting your idea into an application is to analyse project requirements. To do this, app devs understand the problem you are trying to solve and why it needs solving.
They might think like a user and a problem-solver at the same time.
Carrying Out Market Research
Market research is actually vital to the success of any app development project. It will help you understand the market, competition, users, etc.
Providing Information About Similar Apps
Are there similar apps already available? Are they free or paid? How many downloads does each one get per month? What features do these apps offer that yours doesn’t (yet)? What makes them unique from one another?
Developers can answer these questions through their rich experience in developing and implementing different such applications. This can also be done by carrying out a patent search.
Prioritise Application Features
Once you’ve developed your feature list and identified the most critical features, it’s time to prioritise them. Before you do so, however, the developer can consider whether any of these are “nice-to-have” or “necessary.”
Choose App Development Framework, Programming Language & Tools
The developer takes account of a few critical decisions about the technology stack. The best way to do this is by starting with a choice of a programming language and framework.
Various frameworks are available that can speed up development time while helping developers avoid common coding mistakes when designing applications at scale: Ruby on Rails (RoR), Django, and Laravel are among some of the most popular choices out there today.
Design System Architecture
Designing the architecture is a critical step in the app development process. It’s the backbone of an app, and it should be designed to meet your project requirements.
Develop Front-end And Back-end
Front-end and back-end are two sides of an app. The front-end is the user interface, while the back-end is what does the work behind it.
The front-end is what you see on your screen, like a button or a dropdown menu. The back-end is what makes those things work in the first place: the “views” part of MVC (Model View Controller).
Test Application
It’s important to test your application early and often. You need to ensure that it works as intended in different environments, with other browsers, operating systems, and devices.
This is why developers use an integrated development environment (IDE). An IDE has all the tools they need to do their work — right there in one place.
Having A Plan And Sticking To It
There are several things you should consider when developing an app. Developers must be clear about what they’re trying to achieve and how they will achieve it.
That’s it for the step-by-step guide on how a developer takes account of different steps to convert an idea into an application.
You’ve learned about all the major steps in the process, from planning out requirements and features to choosing languages and tools, through developing the front end and back end before testing.
