The 8 Steps to a Successful App

Daniel Tam

August 13th, 2022

App development refers to the process through which applications, whether mobile or desktop, are made. While there is not a set step-by-step procedure, most of the time app developers follow a similar path to creating a fully-functional application.

Pictured above is Ready Maker, an application that can be used to help students learn about App Development.

Planning

In the planning phase, the developers create a strategy for the promotion of the application and hopefully what leads to the success of the application. During the planning stage, the app developers normally identify what it is that they want to achieve before completing a business analysis. The business analysis helps the developers determine whether the application they are trying to create is reasonable given the social demand. If the business analysis provides a favorable result, then the developers may start planning the logistics of how they are going to develop the application.

Technical Development

After a plan is developed, developers must specify what technical specifications and stipulations there will be. The technical portion of the planning process provides the “blueprints” for the application. With these “blueprints” the app developers will begin prototyping.

Prototyping

During the prototyping phase, developers will create a rough draft of the application. The basic User Interface ( or UI for short) and other major visual components are finalized in preparation for only minor revisions as the development progresses. After creating a prototype, the next step in the development is to give the visual shell a finalized look and the actual functionality of the application. This is where the true development process begins.

UI Designers might utilize services such as Proto.io to assist them through the prototyping phase.

Development

The developmental phase is split into front-end and back-end development. App developers separate into two teams based on skill and experience. Front-end developers are in charge of completing the application’s look and feel, while back-end developers are responsible for the functionality.

Front-End

For front-end developers, HTML, JavaScript, and CSS are the three most popular programming languages used. Front-end developers utilize HTML for the basic structure of the application, while JavaScript is used to dictate the behavior or different elements of the application, and CSS is used for the actual presentation, formatting, and layout of the application.

Above is an example of a Cascading Style Sheet used to format in Hypertext Markup Language

Back-End

Similarly, for back-end developers, there are a variety of languages used to provide apps with their functionality. Popular languages used in back-end development include PHP, Python, Java, and Node.js. Java is one of the most efficient languages, especially for Android app developers, Python is used for control and management, and testing of the application, Node.js is used for synchronization between server and client allowing real-time interactions between user and server, while Ruby is used for automation and data processing.

Quality Assurance (QA)

After development is completed, the quality assurance phase tests for near-perfect performance of the application before finally releasing the app to the general public. However, as we have all experienced, bugs come up every so often as increasingly more users use the application.

QA is an ongoing process based on feedback from users after the initial release.

Release

Once an app has been completed, it is released to the public through one of the many platforms available for app deployment. Some such examples are Firebase, Google AWS, Vercel, and many more!

Now that you know the app development process, go ahead and build one yourself!