Application development and maintenance
If you are about to get your app developed and don’t know yet which company to choose and what should be done, we have prepared this article for you where we list the main steps in app development and maintenance. Based on our expertise, we hope you will find it useful.
Where to start and how does everything work?
Since the audience has shifted towards the heavy use of smart phones, you want to offer them the most convenient way to use your product, which is the mobile (or web) app. Mobile apps today are impressive: they have great amount of features, they are personalized and they are number one place where deals happen.
Before reaching out to the development company make a list of desired features for your app. Include their its appearance, major components, desired platform, etc. This list will serve as a guideline for developers.
Next, do a research among the development companies. Some of them may specialize in iOS apps and some are experts with Android, or hybrid. Try to find a match between your needs and the company expertise. In case you are not sure about the company or do not know exactly what you need, do not hesitate to contact them and ask directly what they do and whether they can develop your app as you see it.
After you find your perfect development company, explain to them what you want and make sure you both have the same vision. After you agree on the budget and timeline, developers will break your project down into smaller parts so it would be easier to manage them and they will think of system design as well.
An important thing to remember: ask for constant communication, updates and task log. Schedule weekly meetings to make sure everything goes according to the plan and to know what stage of the project you are on. Communication and process transparency are crucial but some companies may ignore that and this is a sign that many things may go wrong during collaboration.
Upon finishing certain parts of the projects, the company will have its QA (quality assurance) engineers to test everything and to search for any bugs that have to be fixed. The final development stage is implementation where company makes sure that the app runs on various systems.
And this is it?
It certainly is not. A reliable and high-standard development company will also offer you maintenance service for your app.
Maintenance is making sure that everything works as it’s supposed to and there are no errors or bugs. Company specialists will keep an eye on your app and ensure its seamless work. Also, you may want to implement new features to your app in the future and the company will do that as well.
This sounds like a great deal of time that you and development company will work together but this is necessary if you want quality for your app. After all, only those who developed the app know how to fix it and make it better.
Tips that you may want to remember
There are some things that you want to check before starting to work with the company:
- Ask for their portfolio: make sure they have enough experience with similar kinds of applications
- Meet the team: get to know with whom you will be working. It is important that you can trust these people so ask for their skills and their vision for the future work.
- Keep the track of time & task log and ask for reports. You don’t need to know the exact parts of the code (unless you want to) but you need to know what’s been done within a period of time
At Celadon we always stick to the following: transparency of processes, honest and constant communication and excellence of our work. We know how important your product is to you and thus we are approaching all our projects with great care. We don’t want to say that we are the best – we are doing our best to keep up with your expectations and exceed them.