Successful iPhone apps, much like Rome were not built in a day. Unlike the founding and buildup of Rome, App development uses a tried and tested approach to help manage the project and the outcome.
This article lists the eleven essential steps necessary to develop successful custom iPhone applications. This list is not all inclusive, but stick to these general guidelines and your understanding of app development should be clearer.
Come what may, there will always be an increasing demand for custom iPhone applications in the market; the reason behind this demand is the fact that the iPhone users want better and innovative apps for their devices each time they visit the App Store.
Thus, it is crucial that iPhone developers and designers must take care of certain steps that are essential for building custom apps for their end-users. Let us take a look at some of these steps:
1. Analysis of Project Brief
Developers and designers are briefed about the project by their clients’, which essentially is the start of the process of design and development. As can be imagined, the project brief is of utmost importance and they must understand it well to make a wireframe of the app they will be developing.
This calls for a thorough analysis of the project brief, which gives them a clear and well-defined understanding of the project and the demands that it has placed on them.
2. Feasibility Study
This step of the project determines whether the project is technically feasible; and if it is feasible, then what will be the resources required. This in turn allows the determination of the estimated cost of the project and also the delivery timeframe.
The feasibility study also determines whether the concept of the project will be able to offer the kind of benefits that the client wants. If the team finds that the project lacks feasibility, they offer suggestions to improve its feasibility.
This step also includes an overview of the existing system and the proposed system, its problems and the goals that need to be achieved. The whole idea behind doing a feasibility study is to ensure the viability of the project and in case a few aspects of the project aren’t viable, to find an alternative that can be implemented as a part of the project master plan.
3. Risk Assessment
A project development process will be incomplete without assessing the risks involved. Risk assessment consists of identifying the potential risks and the corresponding preventive measures.
There are plenty of problems that may occur during the course of project development. If these problems are identified before the process actually begins, the development team will be better prepared should they arise.
These risks may be related to the scheduling of the project or more often than not are of technical variety. Some of these risks can include:
- Failure to identify the complex functionalities associated with the iPhone
- Coding errors
- Potential failures during module integration and many others
Risk assessment allows the project to be on track for on-time submission and also makes sure that the project doesn’t exceed the budget.
4. Requirement Gathering
The next step of the iPhone application development process is requirements gathering. This is the stage where the developers must take into consideration both the client and user perspective and identify the tools and technologies, which will be utilized in developing the app.
For this purpose, it is essential that they must keep both client requirements and user expectation in mind while zeroing in on the tools and technologies that can best satisfy their demands.
5. Planning
The entire planning process consists of identifying the actual tasks that will be performed by developers and the methodology that will be employed to optimally complete tasks.
Essentially, it breaks down the entire project into smaller, manageable parts. Defining the resources and tasks, making a schedule and are some of the important considerations while planning the project.
6. Resource Allocation
A company has resources in terms of its tools, technologies, infrastructure and manpower. As and when the planning stage is complete, these resources can be allotted as per the needs of the project and the tasks involved in it.
7. Clearly Defining and Assigning Roles
Clearly defining the roles helps assign responsibilities to the right people, who have the right talent to perform a particular task. This can be done by assessing the expertise and experience of the professionals, relevant to the current project.
For instance, the roles can be that of a Project Manager, Project Leader, Team Leader, Developer, Analyst, and Designer etc. When such roles are defined in the beginning of the project, there are less chances of conflict at the later stages.
8. Design and Development
During the design phase, designers will collaborate with developers and analysts to assemble an app designed per the app’s concept. This stage includes the creation of a detailed design document supported by a mock-up to illustrate various user interface elements, and the actual design of the app itself. This is accomplished with regular feedback from the developer.
After this, the developers will manage the database and generate the code to build the app how the designer envisioned it.
9. Control
Basically, the project control process is all about supervising the project in an effective manner. It involves evaluation of the progress, tracking the changes or deviations from the plan.
Additionally, control is also about managing the unexpected delays effectively so that project deadlines are met and also ensuring that the budget allocated by the client for the project is not exceeded.
10. Testing
During the test phase, all aspects of the app are tested one by one for their functionality and performance. It involves bug tracking in the code, checking the proper functioning of the features and integrations, and whether the system meets the designated quality standards or not.
A system can be tested any number of times – during the coding phase and after the coding phase (checking the beta version of the software) so that product flaws are minimized prior to submission.
11. Submission
Submitting the finished project – an iPhone app in this case, is the last and final step. The developers themselves can submit the app on the iTunes Store and wait for Apple to approve it.
However, no one knows for sure, on what grounds Apple will reject the App and thus, it is mandatory that developers stick to the iOS guidelines right from the beginning of the project until the end. Also, they should try to make the app absolutely bug-free since correcting bugs after an app is submitted, can be time consuming and cause the app to receive unnecessary negative reviews on the App Store.
Carlos is an expert in iPhone application development with MyFirstMobileApp.com who loves facing challenges of all sorts. This explains his love for adventure sports. He’s a passionate writer as well and shares his write-ups on different guest-blogging sites with other like-minded people.
