App building takes quite a bit of time, though it varies a lot. It depends on several factors like the scope of the application, target audience, budget and the volume of features to be integrated. Mobile App building is a creative process and it is done by a number of highly skilled and enthusiastic individuals, who work with a lot of enthusiasm to produce something extraordinary or amazing. And so, like any other creative work, there are numerous factors involved that influence overall time frame of development.

Before you decide to design and develop, you should be clear about the different steps involved in the process

• Validating your idea – You need to validate your generated idea and primary purpose of the mobile app to make sure it will serve the need. Know about what customers want by interacting with your core customers and sample target audience. Based on their answers, “you can meet their needs and develop clickable prototypes.” It’s not necessary to build whatever your target audience requires. Ideally, it should serve the basic pain area initially and other features and enhancement could be rolled out from time to time. Divide the development requirement in phase and at the start of every phase, it needs to validate again with help of customer reviews and concern.

• Build a product statement – A product statement is normally made for people to be aware of the product. Normally it states the product’s name, target consumer, key benefits, primary differentiation from existing ones etc. A statement will contain important words that will highlight the product’s importance or benefits to the users. Every single person working on the mobile app development should be aware of this product statement, so they can connect well with the product and make sure every single detail is right.

• Create a prototype – It’s important to have a defined prototype of the application in place before you start with the development process. it should include several details like sketches, wireframes, elements, and features of the app and drawings.  A clickable prototype will be the best option, as it gives a feel of the app, even before it is designed and developed, saving considerable time and resource.

• Build your MVP – Be sure to create a version of the minimum viable product, with sufficient features, provided to the customers to satisfy them and gain their feedback for future development purposes.

The various factors governing the app development process

There are certainly other factors involved that can extend or reduce the aforementioned timeline. It is said that quality work needs a bit more time and hence many development processes can vary from product to product. Many applications are intentionally made to pamper their users with a long range of features and this extends their production timeline to a greater extent. Let’s have a look at the factors below.

• App Scope: features, platform, and screen size

Before the development process begins, the research team must make a clear plan regarding what features the app will contain, the screen sizes it will serve, and also the targeted platforms. After the plan is formulated, the estimated production time and budget can be calculated.

• App development budget

The budget for any development process determines how long it will run. Whether iOS or Android apps, both involve a certain production cost. The production cost must be assessed for determining the entire schedule and the total timeline. Budget determination helps in different ways. For instance, if the app maker is clear about the period up to which it will be funded, it can help determine the scope of features that were earlier tough to decide.

• Proper usage of the right skills and expertise

An app development process involves a gathering of differently skilled people as well as experts in their line of work. For the process to go on smoothly and to deliver the appropriate end results, the production team involved should be lined up with the right people at the right job.

• The right mentality and app production process

Often the makers work with the mentality that they can build an app anyhow within a constrained time period, market it subsequently and earn healthy bucks. This ideology often leads them to failure. A good app making process needs to be sketched before the production begins. This will smoothen the different edges of problems associated with the production. A good app development process also ensures an end to end the flow of creativity.

So keep these factors governing the app development process in mind if you want to develop a mobile app.