Steps to design a mobile app

Many businesses want to reach out to their target audience easily. Developing a mobile app is one of the ways that can help you reach and improve direct communication between a business and its target audience and getting sales.

An app can also help raise brand awareness about your business while getting engagement from users in your app. Mobile apps can also get you sales when you put your products and services on the application for users to view and make a purchase.

What is a mobile app?

A mobile app is a type of application that is designed to run on mobile devices that a business can use to help achieve its goals. It operates using Android and iOS which are operating systems.

Android: This is an operating system developed by Google.
iOS: This is an operating system developed by Apple.

10 features that make a mobile app unique

Simplicity

A mobile app needs to be simple in its design because a user’s attention span is short. Therefore, you will need to build an app where it is easy to navigate so that your users don’t lose interest easily and leave your app and go to your competitor’s app.

Speed

Having a fast loading speed is very important where it will reflect on your user’s experience. A mobile app with fast speed will make your users continue using your app.

The ideal loading time for your app should be no more than 2 seconds or you will risk losing your users.

Good image resolution

To have an effective mobile app, you will need to have a good image resolution in your application which will ensure that your user stays on your application and gets you the sales that you need.

In-app payments

Having an integrated payment gateway is important for every app where it will create a secure and fast checkout process.

It also gives your users the impression that your website is credible and eases the process of buying your product or service.

User feedback

Asking users for feedback is an important feature to include in your app where it will make your users feel valued because their opinion is included. You can also use this feedback to improve features in your app.

Advantages of developing a mobile app

Generates sales

Mobile apps help generate sales very easily. The first step is through people making orders through the app because it is easy to use which will get you more sales. A business can also charge money for using the app.

Reduce the cost to serve

Mobile apps allow users to access information and make purchases without needing to contact customer service. Having all the information found in the app reduces the cost of having a service such as a customer support.

Enhance your customer experience

Mobile apps give a great customer experience to the users because these apps are designed for mobiles’ screens. Apps also give you instant access to channels where you can contact businesses such as chats.

There is also the option to turn your location on where it can be used to enhance the service provided such as in the Uber app which is used to find your location to get you the nearest car that will drive you to your destination.

Gives you a competitive edge

You can also gain a competitive edge where you can build your application with custom features that will make your business unique than its competition. It will make your business have a competitive advantage especially when other competitors don’t have an application.

Expand your market coverage

You can expand your market coverage which is the process of assessing the market and determining how much of the market you want to cover. Mobile users are a great segment of the market to target where an app can help you by reaching out to those users and generate lots of sales for your business.

How to develop an app in steps

Generate an app idea

The first step for creating an app is to develop an idea for it. There are many ideas that you can create from either adjusting existing ideas where you can add variations to it, combining existing ideas together to get a new idea, or creating a solution for a problem that you or other people face.

Determine your objectives

After coming up with the idea, the next step is to define your objectives for building your mobile app. To define your objectives, you will need to know who your target audience is so that you can develop objectives accordingly.

These objectives can be any of the following:

Offering a solution to an issue that people are facing
Promoting awareness for your brand
Reaching your target audience

Perform market research

You will need to perform research on both the market and the competition to find opportunities and to understand if your app’s idea matches your target audience’s needs and has the chance to grow.

Therefore, you need to conduct research about:

Your competitor’s apps
The price of using the app if you will charge for it
Use resources such as Google trends to determine if your app’s idea is in demand
Insights from people both online and in real life

Write the features of your app

In this step, you will need to imagine the perfect version of your app when brainstorming with people in your business where it’s important to document every detail about the application including the features that you want your app to have.

Each mobile app has a different set of features. For example, if you are building a social networking app, you can include features such as:

A place for users to create their account
When creating an account, users can use an email and password for signing up
A username, profile photo, and bio for users

Prepare to design your app

Now, you are ready to start with designing your app by planning what the users will see and how they will interact with the features in your app.

You can start by developing a wireframe which is a sketch of the visual layout of your app including features.

After creating a wireframe, you will need to create mockups or prototypes which represent how your app will look and resemble the closest appearance of your final design.

Before developing your app, you will need to create your mockup or prototype. You can use tools such as Sketch, Fluid UI, and Adobe Suite

Build the app

In order to code your app effectively, you will need to select the programming language and the operating system , whether its Android or iOS, that you will be using for your mobile app.

So, you will need to know what your budget is and have a mobile app development team to build the app.

You also have the option if you don’t have any coding experience to use an app building platform to create your app which will save you money and time but will offer you poor performance such as lags and lack of customization.

So, the best strategy for building the app is to have an app developmental team that will build your app because you can easily customize your app to suit your objectives.

Test the app

After you finish building your app, you will need to test it to see if there are no bugs. The app needs to offer a friendly user experience too so you will need to conduct an internal and external test.

Internal testing is where the development team tests the app like the end users. While the external test is when you give your app to someone outside your business for testing.

The aim of this testing is to fix bugs if there are any and correct any issue that affects the user experience.

Launch your app

Submit your app to the app store to launch it. This is the place where your app will be downloaded by users. However, you will need to get approved by the Apple’s App Certification Team for applications made through iOS. While if your application is made through Android, you will need to get approved by the Google app store team.

Here are some tips:

Make sure your app qualifies: Review the app store guidelines so that your app doesn’t violate any of these guidelines.
Fill out app metadata: The meta data includes information about your app such as the title, description, screenshots, videos, and keywords that will help your app to rank on Google store.
Submit your app for review: This is where you submit your app to the app certification team to be reviewed.
Wait for the reply: You will then need to wait for someone to manually review your app that you’ve submitted where they will check if your app isn’t against the app store guidelines and doesn’t provide a negative user experience.
Get approved: Within 2 to 3 days, you will either get an approval or a rejection. If it’s a rejection, you can fix whatever they don’t like and resubmit it.

Develop a plan to market your app

In order for your app to spread faster, you will need to develop a plan to market your app. Here are some of the ways that can help you market your app:

Build a landing page for your app

You can use your website or a marketing campaign to put in them your landing page for your app which will include:

A clear headline at the top of the page
An explanation video or short introduction paragraph
A mockup or apps screenshot
A complete list of all benefits and features
A CTA to install your phone application

The landing page shows the purpose of your mobile app while showing the benefits and features that will help solve a problem that users have.

Use app store optimization

App store optimization is the process of optimizing mobile apps to rank higher in an app store’s search results. The higher the ranking of your app in the app store, the higher that it will be visible to users.

In order to have effective app store optimization, you will need to understand the keywords that users search for when searching for apps similar to yours.

Other app store optimization factors that you should consider are:

App name and title
Keywords
Description
Total numbers of downloads
Ratings and reviews

So, you will need to create an app store optimization store strategy using all these factors to get your app to rank higher

Run a paid to free campaign

If your app is a paid one, you can go free for a period of time where it will get many users to download your app and use it before charging money for it.

In conclusion, designing an app takes planning and execution so that you can build one that will solve a problem that your users are facing and provide value for them. An app has many benefits that will help a business grow and increase its sales. It also offers a competitive advantage for a business making it unique and different from competition.

Osolutions

Steps to design a mobile app

What is a mobile app?

Android: This is an operating system developed by Google.

iOS: This is an operating system developed by Apple.

10 features that make a mobile app unique

Simplicity

Speed

Good image resolution

In-app payments

User feedback

Want to know about the best mobile app design practices

Advantages of developing a mobile app

Generates sales

Reduce the cost to serve

Enhance your customer experience

Gives you a competitive edge

Expand your market coverage

Read our guide about the types of mobile apps that you can use for your business

How to develop an app in steps

Generate an app idea

Determine your objectives

These objectives can be any of the following:

Perform market research

Write the features of your app

Prepare to design your app

Build the app

Test the app

Launch your app

Develop a plan to market your app

Build a landing page for your app

Use app store optimization

Run a paid to free campaign

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