App Development
We can help you through the whole app development process, from figuring out a mobile strategy for your company, to design and development of your app, through marketing and promoting your app.
Mobile Strategy
Before you dig into building an app, you need to figure out your company’s mobile strategy. Not all companies need an app, and thinking about your mobile strategy will help you decide whether you need an app, a mobile-optimized website, or both. Some questions you should consider are:
- What is the purpose of the app? Is it promote my company’s services? Is it to make my employees more productive? Is it to be generate revenue through app store sales?
- How will an app help my bottom line?
- How would my existing customers make use of an app to increase the value my company provides them?
- How will the app attract new customers?
- How would an app help my employees perform their duties more effectively?
Designing Your App
Once you’ve decided you do need an app, and what kind of app you’d like to build, we’ll sit down with you and figure out the design for the app. This includes things like:
- Figuring out what screens the app will present, sketching what the screens will look like, describing how they will behave, etc.
- Whether any graphics design or art work will be needed.
- What kind of back-end server support the app will require.
The design phase is critically important, and you’ll need to be heavily involved in order to ensure the design is what you want. Once we have a good idea of what the app will do, we’ll provide a cost and time estimate. If you decide to move forward, we’ll also provide a schedule for development, testing, and deployment, as well as a detailed functional specification that describes in detail the behavior of your app.
Developing Your App
At this point, you can sit back and relax while we do the heavy lifting. We’ll keep you updated on our progress, and we’ll periodically provide test versions of the app (also called adhoc distributions) as features are completed.
Testing Your App
Once your app is fully implemented, we’ll begin beta testing. Generally, our client will perform testing, and report any problems to us, but we can arrange for professional testing if you wish. Of course, we’ll fix any problems that turn up during testing.
Deploying/Publishing Your App
This step generally means submitting to the app store. We can assist you through the submission process (which requires you to register with the Apple developer program).
Maintaining And Updating Your App
Once your app is published, you’ll likely want to add features in the future, and resolve any issues your customers encounter. We will provide bug fix support for a year after your app is published, after which we’ll provide bug fix support for a yearly fee. Adding additional features to your app means going back through the design and development process.
