However, you'll almost always need professional experts to help you with the process. But what's even more important before starting the project is to do the preliminary work on your end, even before contacting a digital agency. This preliminary work should not be underestimated.
Coteries is an agency specialized in mobile application development and in this context, we regularly meet people who have the idea of creating an application. Often, from the very first minutes of the discussion, we notice that they had not thought about many important aspects (which is quite natural).
In order to help you in the development process and in launching your project, we have listed 22 different questions you should ask yourself. This will give you a clearer idea of how the project is going and what information we need.
Your answers, and the decisions you make, will help us to go in the right direction, to fully understand your idea and to develop a powerful and effective application.
General information about your project
Understanding the essence and goals of your project or business is essential. It will also help us define the scope of the project. The more we know about your idea, the smoother the design and construction process will be. With, of course, a better result!
- Can you explain the purpose of the mobile application in a few sentences?
- What is the “real” deadline (that is, not "yesterday")?
- What are the risks with developing the mobile application (what could go wrong)?
- What are the business goals of the mobile application?
Your customers and the competition
It is important to know exactly who will be using your mobile application and who is involved in the project.
- Who are the target users?
- Who are the main players?
- Are there competitors (direct or indirect) to your application?
Funding and revenue
Your budget will influence (massively) what can be developed. Maybe we could start with an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) with basic functionalities to test the usefulness of the application? Or we can also directly build and launch a full version.
In an ideal world, the needs of your customers define the version of your product. But in reality, your financial capabilities will probably limit the scope of what you can develop: you need to prioritize the desired functionalities and... make decisions! You also need to think about your business model (which will pay and generate revenue from your mobile app).
- What is the development budget?
- What is the app's monetization strategy? You can launch a free application, but one way or another, someone has to pay to fund it (sponsors, advertising, etc.).
- How will your customers buy?
Technical characteristics
We are getting to the serious questions. The technical side of the application is very important and is perhaps the most difficult to answer if you are not familiar with development.
But don't worry, if you don't have an answer yet, we'll be happy to help and explain these things to you.
- What features do you want to include in your application?
- How do you measure the success of each step of the process?
- Will multiple versions of the app be launched?
- Is the project flexible, in the sense of being able to publish several successive versions of the application?
- What features should you absolutely have or are useful to have? List useful features in the specification.
- What are the underlying assumptions?
- How is it going to be hosted and who is going to take care of the maintenance over time?
- What data points will your customers need to get from the app?
Design
Design may be the easiest aspect to take into account, but... it's not! This is perhaps the trickiest part of the project. Between what you have in mind, what we understand about your idea, and then what can be developed (on time and on budget), there can be a huge gap.
Before proceeding with any technical development, we strongly recommend that you design the complete user experience (UX). Usually we do a” Design Workshop in 7 days ” to conceive it (sometimes less, sometimes more, but 7 days is most of the time the right length).
- What are the design considerations/constraints that the application must take into account in order to work well?
- Are there other applications that the customer likes that could be used as inspiration?
- What is the user journey and experience?
App promotion
Your mobile application is now ready to be launched. But... the work is not done. After development, you should promote the app and encourage users to download it, register (if necessary), use it, and why not buy!
- How do I find the application when it is ready to go online?
And how about post-launch? What is the plan for learning and improving? Do you have a plan to continue to generate downloads, learn, and improve?
Last tip, if you're considering starting a new business (and want to include an app), start by defining your value proposition, then the Business Model Canvas. These tools will help you in the creation process (design thinking) to have a clear and global image of your project.
As already mentioned above, we can help you with our Design Workshop, which will give you all the basic elements you need to create a mobile or web application.
Finally, when you are ready to enter the development phase, we offer you the offer Sprint Development. Based on your project specifications, we'll assess the number of sprints needed to reach your goals.
