How many times have you had a great idea to create a fantastic product, such as an App, a SaaS, a game, or any tech platform, to solve a situation in your industry, but you do not know how to start and how much work and cost this will involve?
To make an app that works and doesn't burn your budget, you must do pre-work before developing it.
In this article, we want to discuss our process and how you can copy and use it. This way, when you start working with a dev company, you will know how to proceed.
Step 1: Research and Discovery
Mood board, trend board, reference board, UX research, and product search are all crucial in the research phase.
Whenever you have an Idea (not just in tech but in any industry and business), you must research the user pain and how this App will solve it.
You can implement different methodologies to make this process much easier and ensure it is worth it.
- User Research: Dive deep into user personas to identify their pain points and desires to understand whether they will use the app and purchase anything from it. Most of the time, we think that because there is a problem in an industry, users will buy the solution, but this is not always the case.
I will be sure to give you an example. Let's say that you invent a small plastic tube that works to take multiple bags in a supermarket, and it costs 5 dollars in retail; even if it sounds like a great idea, maybe the people are not willing to pay for it because they don't see the complete value on it, that why is important to make a user research and gather as much information of the product as possible to understand if a product is worth it to sell and if they are a considerate amount of people that are willing to pay for it.
- Competitive Analysis: We had thousands of projects weekly, and an entrepreneur always swore that he didn't have competition. If you think you don't have competition, think again! Most of the time, they are already a person who thought about your idea, maybe is in a different industry or used differently, but there's always at least one. A thing that could happen is that you don't have direct competition. Still, there may be indirect competition similar to what you do, which is good. Like Steve Jobs once said, "You can't look at the competition and say you're going to do it better. You must look at the competition and say you will do it differently."
- Align Business Goals: Know that your user will buy your solution; you can do it differently than your competition. Align this with your business model and work to create a high-value proposition that increases engagement conversions.
With this foundation, you will have a roadmap for what your design needs to achieve your desired success. And now, yes, let's go to the User Flow.
Step 2: user Flow
OK, I have all my research, ideas, and references. What should I do next? We will start working on the user flow for each app feature; a user flow is a flow chart showing the route your users will pass when using it.
Making a good user flow will save us a lot of time during the next phase, but it's expected to adjust the user flow during the Prototype, even in the wireframing stage.
A user flow can be long or short, depending on the App's complexity; in this phase, the UX team must consider all the cases a user encounters during navigation.
Example: let's use the case of a Sign-in and log-in flow. If a person has never created an app or SaaS, he will think it will be just a couple of screens when, in reality, it can contain more than 20; how could this be possible? Well, let's look it over quickly. The user will present different cases when you make a sign-in and log-in flow.
- What Happens if he needs to remember the password?
- What would happen if he didn't accept the terms and conditions of the company?
- What happened that he needed to recover his password)
This could create screens for each case, and they need to think during the user flow to avoid extra work during the Wireframing phase. Lucky for you, in Entertact, we created a sign-up template for the SaaS platform with possible cases that we know your user will find out sooner. Please feel free to check it out here.
Step 3: Wireframing and Design System
Once we complete creating the user experience based on our user flow, we pass to the Wireframing and Design System Creation; many companies usually leave the Design System for the last when it comes to the Prototype and concept phases; in our case, we preferred to integrate the design system in the beginning to save time when we pass to Prototype. In this phase, we create...
Step 4: Prototype and UI
Here is where we shine. There is usually a proof of concept before this step, but again, this will depend on the project that you are working on. In this phase, we start working on the app's style and all the buttons, brand, colors, images, animations, and 3D renders, with the complete and functional Prototype that will support the design.
Step 5: User Testing and Document Preparation
Once the Prototype is complete, the team starts testing before sending it to the Dev team; they need to ensure that every aspect and component inside the project is how it is supposed to be and that the App is as user-friendly as possible.
When we create a Project, we usually separate the Prototype from the Layout version. If you have crazy animation, you must have one version without the layout to animate and the other with the design so the developer can see the rules and structure of the app.
Step 6: Development Collaboration
Some UX UI agencies finish the pre-production part (which we discussed before), send the file, and leave the developer to create it, which should be different.
The development team must always be involved in the process, especially if you are working with an external dev team.
In our personal experience, when we jump to the UI concept design process, we always involve the dev team more since they are the ones who will tell if they can do something or not.
For example, let's say that you finished all the prototypes and the App will have an AI integration chat feature, but the development needs to learn how to do that; in this case, the mistake could have been avoided in the user flow phase.
Another example is if you want to integrate a cool 3D animation inside the app. Still, the Dev team may not know how to do that, which could be a mistake that could be avoided in the Prototype phase.
The Dev team needs to be involved in all the processes, so when we jump to the project's development, they already know what language they will use and what type of feature can integrate and work faster.
If the UX UI and dev teams are in sync, this will avoid making complex changes during production.
Step 7: Deployment
This phase can be very stressful for the team since once the dev team creates the deployment, they liberate the app for the final user (no more test house, no more beta testing; it is all to be used by the final user).
99% of the time, they can be bugs or optimization issues that should be fixed during the launch or even the integration of a new feature that resolves a problem that wasn't planned during the User flow phase.
In this case, the UX and UI team usually creates a design Spring to focus on that issue and determine whether it is worth adding.
Summary
Creating a mobile app is a multifaceted process that blends creativity with strategy. From initial research to ongoing updates, each step is vital to delivering an app that meets user needs and exceeds expectations.
This step-by-step process ensures your App stands out in a crowded marketplace.
At Entertact, we follow your vision of what is best for you and support you from the beginning.
We are as transparent as possible in achieving the best app possible before and after launch.
If you're looking to bring your mobile app vision to life, book a call with us today!
Let's make your App the next big thing.
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