App Development Methodology – why it matters?
To put it simply, a software development methodology is a way of organising the steps taken to complete your app project. To clarify, we’re talking about a discussion of the project’s overarching goals, scope, and audience, as well as its design concept, guiding principles, and core values.
A methodical & agile strategy for development helps cut down on the amount of time and money spent on development.
The approaches used in the development process can vary from team to team. Their primary objective is to increase productivity in the workplace by standardising communication across employees. Since the discussion over the ideal technique has not yet led to a consensus, the choice of a specific approach is usually individual. In addition, the method used for the development approach should not be blamed for the success or failure of the project. Here, the team’s organisation, coherence, accurate research and findings of business analysts, as well as the wording of the client, are equally crucial. Depending on the stage of the project, combinations of techniques are also an option.
In order to meet the demands of mobile development, developers must meet specific criteria. Development methodology selection is crucial in this case because of the correlation between expanding capabilities and spending limits. Here, promotion and conformity with the criteria of the retailers each receive a significant amount of focus and consideration. After that follows the process of selecting the technical stack, which varies depending on whether the application is native or cross-platform.
Methodologies like Agile, Kanban, Waterfall, Scrum, and many others are utilised in the process of developing mobile applications. But as you can tell by our company name, the majority of the time agile approach is favoured, because of how effective it is at reducing risks. It is also regarded as a fantastic solution for bigger apps since it enables you to add flexibility to processes and react to the market by making use of the appropriate approaches for mobile application development.
No matter how big the business is or how complicated the product is, it’s crucial to structure and make sense of the process. Methodologies, which help maximise efficiency with both time and money, are what you need in this situation. Every single methodology comes with its own set of benefits and drawbacks, which must be weighed against the scope of the project and the people who will be working on it.
It is essential to have a solid understanding that although the software development methodology offers assistance in the planning and construction of the development process, it is not accountable for the technical component, and this aspect should therefore be handled independently.
Get in touch with WeAgile for your UK App Development.
What are the most popular app development methodologies?
We’ve made a list and a short description of the most common app development methodologies; however, the list has been put together in no particular order.
Agile Development Methodology – as we mentioned earlier, this is the most popular one of all app development methodologies. When compared to other development methodologies, agile development is both the most adaptable and versatile. The Agile methodology emphasises the importance of constant communication between the team and the client. In this way, the project will benefit from less room for error and fewer inconsistent approaches.
Waterfall Development Methodology – the entirety of the app development process is depicted as a linear flow of sequential steps. At the same time, you are not allowed to move on to the following stage until you are certain that you have successfully completed the stage before it.
Lean Development Methodology – One of its primary selling points is that it can develop a product more quickly and cheaply at the expense of efficiency because of its strategic orientation. Methodological flaws: the vital necessity for an experienced business analyst.
Scrum Development – because of its adaptability, Scrum development is popular for use on a wide variety of projects. Companies that are in a perpetual state of flux tend to be the biggest fans of this approach. With Scrum, even the most laborious projects can make faster progress because to its brief initial meeting and concluding evaluation of the finished product. While it can be useful for larger teams and more complex projects, Scrum is overkill for smaller groups and less experienced workers.
App discovery workshop
As a well-known mobile app development agency, WeAgile strives to create only high-quality apps that generate significant ROI for our clients. In order to accomplish this goal, we organise app discovery workshops to serve as an essential first step in the process.
An app discovery workshop should be the first step of any app development. When first-time entrepreneurs consider developing an app, they have a lot of questions in their minds, and most often the first question is – where to start? Right now is the optimal time to develop a fantastic mobile application and have at least a satisfactory rate of return on investment.
However, this is only doable if you are capable of developing an application that offers genuine benefits to its end customers and distinguishes itself from the myriad of other apps already on the market.
The truth is that, contrary to popular belief, designing and developing a spectacular mobile app is not an easy undertaking. In order for app development to be effective and meaningful, meticulous planning is an essential component. App discovery workshops help our team at WeAgile figure out what our clients want and how best to meet their needs. The discovery workshops also help us plan out what the app’s most essential features and functions are, as well as its most user-friendly interface and the best tech stack for the purpose. Our developers will execute the vision and make sure that we produce the finest long-term asset possible for your product concept based on the blueprint that was arrived at during the discovery process.
Having said that, let’s take a more in-depth look at what exactly an app discovery workshop is, as well as how we try hard to be of the most assistance to you throughout the workshops that we host.
There is a lot of consulting that goes into an app discovery session. The majority of companies have a general concept in mind for the type of app they want but have little understanding regarding the specifics of app development. App discovery workshops are sessions typically offered by result-oriented app development agencies like WeAgile to aid entrepreneurs and companies that want to develop apps in better understanding their own needs and preparing a relevant prototype of their application.
All of your preferences and the demands of your intended audience are taken into account as we do a thorough study and discuss with you to develop a plan that fits within your budget for the app build.
App UX/UI design
Let’s start with the very basics. UX stands for user experience – it is what people feel when they use your services. An app’s user experience (UX) begins with its visual design, which is developed by UX designers. UX needs to be crafted in a way that makes people become repeat buyers.
UI stands for user interface – enhancing the User Interface (UI) of a mobile app entails working to improve both its visual appeal and its interaction. It focuses on creating user-friendly interactive widgets (e.g. a button, an icon, other visual elements).
Mobile app development relies heavily on user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design. We’ll examine each of these in greater depth below.
Great and fancy features do not always do the job, as they might not be appealing to your target market. The app’s UX/UI design enhances the user experience and customer happiness, which eventually helps grow the number of users of the given application. Due to the high level of competition in the current market, a distinctive design may be the only way for your product or service to stand out. In order to have an impact you in saturated market, you need to hit the mark quickly and ideally – with the first time. When using the app for the first time, the initial impression is the most important. Therefore, following design principles will aid in making a favourable initial impression.
An organization’s brand awareness can be made or broken by the quality of its user interface and user experience, therefore these areas are especially important for new businesses.
But it is equally important for established businesses too – a company’s brand value and reputation can only grow if its customers are happy, so prioritising customer satisfaction is crucial. Users are more likely to stick around and become loyal to brands that prioritise their user experience and needs. If you want more people to use your app, you need a solid user interface (UI) that loads the app quickly and gives the users a great navigation experience, appearance and feel. Building a reliable customer base is the ultimate goal.
By adhering to these fundamentals of user interface design, you will be able to steer clear of two pitfalls that consumers encounter while engaging with a mobile application. These pitfalls are mismatch between our internal goals on one side and the expectations and availability of information or feedback from the app on the other. The five design concepts listed below will serve as a UX/UI design guideline.
- Consistency – most mobile app users already have their own mental model of what a typical user interface looks like, as a result, the user expects consistency among the apps they utilise.The more familiar your product is, the easier it will be for users to learn and the better their experience will be. This is also advantageous for all designers because it eliminates the need to reinvent the wheel. When it comes to UI design suggestions, any mobile app designer must consider consistency.
- Scale (size matters) – designers use a scale to indicate importance and rank in a component composition. To ensure that users can readily recognise the elements in the interface, the aesthetically appealing design should not use more than three sizes.
- Visual order – your users won’t have any trouble comprehending the layout if it has an effective visual hierarchy. It is important that the components of the user interface be arranged so that it can be read from most important to least important. This principle governs the mobile app’s distribution experience. If you can’t figure out where to look on a page, it’s probably because the layout lacks a clear visual hierarchy.
- Balance – it is important that the design is well-balanced so that the user’s eye can easily distinguish between different parts of the mobile interface. When it comes to striking a balance between the components that make up the user interface of your mobile app, using whitespace can be an extremely helpful tool.
- Contrast – appropriate use of contrast in design allows for clear differentiation between UI elements. Appropriate colour pairings can be used to implement the contrast principle – this can be very well seen on iOS.
App Development Sprints
According to Atlassian a sprint is “a short, time-boxed period when a scrum team works to complete a set amount of work. Sprints are at the very heart of scrum and agile methodologies, and getting sprints right will help your agile team ship better software with fewer headaches.”
Sprints are most effective when used in development that is continuous and in situations where it is difficult or inconvenient to specify what “done” looks like. User input may be collected on a consistent basis, and design changes can be made in response to changing requirements within upcoming sprints.
Most app builds benefit most from a two-week sprint cycle, which is what we use here at WeAgile. This ensures that users of the app receive frequent updates that include any necessary bug fixes.
Before we begin the sprint, we determine what work will be completed and delivered at the end of the sprint. In order to deliver the greatest possible value to the customer, the requested additions and enhancements are analysed and ranked according to one of the following four categories:
1) High Impact, low effort
2) High Impact, high effort
3) Low impact, low effort
4) Low impact, high effort
If needed, several sprint cycles can be used to plan out large features, while still delivering smaller features at the conclusion of each sprint.This way, we never keep the app users waiting for too long before releasing a value-creating feature or enhancement, even if a larger feature takes couple of sprints to complete.
For customers that have only a prototype and no software as of yet, we plan out many sprint cycles that will produce a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) as rapidly as possible, often within eight weeks. This will allow the customer to get feedback on the product as it is being developed, and the company’s founders can rapidly begin to create a user base and begin testing the market about the assumptions they made with the initial design.
Meetings between the development team and the founders or stakeholders are essential for effective sprint cycles. We believe that inviting the people who started the company or those who are closest to the clients to join in our frequent sprint reviews and planning meetings will be beneficial because their points of view will be invaluable. The founders of a startup are frequently the individuals who are closest to the company’s first consumers and are in a position to provide feedback at this time. As the number of customers continues to rise, we incorporate their comments into our sprint reviews.
App Submission and Publishing
The process of uploading an application to the Google Play Store for Android and the Apple App Store for iOS is not quite as easy as pressing a button “launch”, but it is also not as difficult as it might initially appear to be.
It is very important that the app which is about to be submitted to any of the two most popular app stores, has been thoroughly tested before the submission. It’s crucial to test the AdHoc version of your software, which is identical to the app store version.
Another thing to keep in mind is that for the app to be successful, it has to be optimised for app store search. Both Google and Apple use comparable criteria to determine an app’s position in its respective app store’s rankings.
Experts from all over the industry agree that the following are the four most important factors to consider in order to achieve a high ranking for both iOS and Android apps:
- Reviews (positive)
- App Downloads (the more, the better, of course)
- Branding & visuals (app UX/UI design which we talked about earlier)
- Keyword usage (in the description and the app name itself)
There are countless manuals on Google about how to submit an app to the Google Play Store for Android and the Apple App Store for iOS, so a simple Google search will give you all the answers, in case you are trying to do it yourself. However, if the WeAgile Team is building your app – you won’t need to worry about a thing, as we will take care of any technical aspects of the process.
App Maintenance
An app’s development and launch are just the beginning. In today’s world of pre-orders and hurried debuts, even the finest developers can’t get rid of every bug before the app opens. To maintain their high quality standards, apps need a lot of maintenance. As a result, one of the most important phases of the development lifecycle for mobile apps is maintenance. You should therefore designate a separate budget solely for the maintenance.
There are various types of maintenance and we will look at each of them here.
- Corrective maintenance. You can take care of corrections, flaws, and defects in the application functionalities by using corrective maintenance. This will allow you to keep the app running smoothly. Design, code, and application logic issues are also included in the maintenance.
- Emergency maintenance. The issues that would arise quickly and without warning, which could create a very frustrating experience for your app users, so the issues would need to be fixed immediately (or at least let the users know that you’re aware of the issues and are working on fixing the app as soon as possible).
- Adaptive maintenance. Adaptive maintenance requires you to keep track of any modifications you make to the programme in order to ensure that the system is always up to date. It’s possible that you’ll need to make some changes to the working environment, such as the operating system, hardware, or software. These changes could have an effect on how the application runs.
- Perfective maintenance. You will notice new or altered user needs as a result of the latest mobile trends in terms of features and functionality. A perfect user experience can be achieved by proactively considering user feedback and attending to functional improvements in the source code.
- Preventive maintenance. Preventive upkeep means taking action to reduce or prevent a problem from occurring. The emphasis is on lowering programme complexity and enhancing maintainability through code rearrangement, optimization, and documentation updates.
Even if your app was not built by WeAgile, we can still help you with the app maintenance. The WeAgile team will happily support you app and make sure it does not have any issues after launch, and keep it up to date and relevant to the users.
Are you ready to build your app with us? Get in touch with the WeAgile team to find out about an MVP build or a custom development package option for your app. We’d love to partner with you to create the best app of your lifetime.
