Mobile App Phases.
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This phase is on us, no charge.
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Ideation assistance – Got an idea, but it’s a bit fuzzy around the edges? We can help brainstorm – tightening/expanding the idea, or filling in some of the most important and nuanced feature/function details.
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Defining Goals, Scope, and Timing – you tell us and we’ll listen carefully, asking pertinent questions as you go.
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Deliverable: A non-binding informal estimate range of cost and time.
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This phase is on us, no charge.
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Deliverables: After the initial conversation, and a mutual agreement to proceed, we formulate a more precise cost and time estimate and a project timeline, along with the rest of the typical legal paperwork (contract, NDA, etc.).
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Upon acceptance of the cost and time estimates, project timeline, and completion of the contract, NDA and other legal paperwork, we kick things in gear…
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Mutually agree to and establish methods of communication and frequency.
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Email, conference calls, face-to-face meetings, texting, Skype, slack, or some mixture of these are typical, but we customize the mix to your preferences.
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We generally like to do emailed status updates on a weekly basis that include progress, issues, and other pertinent details.
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We like to save con-calls, Skypes, and face-to-face meetings for phase endings/beginnings, demos, testing, and problem-solving on issues that either require or can clearly benefit from those formats.
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Deliverables: A single document that defines the communication channels, process, frequency, and roles and individuals involved at both our company and yours.
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A great app starts with a great UX (user experience) and UI (user interface) design. So before even one line of code is written, we get one or more of our designers connected with you. They begin, with your vision and assistance, creating the UX definition and overall design.
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Once the UX is defined, the UX/UI (or additional UI) designer begins the work of creating the UI design that maps to the details of the UX design.
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The UI designer periodically reviews progress with you, in order to gain feedback and fine-tune the deliverables all to be used in the next phase (development):
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Starting with wireframes – a set of rough draft, greatly simplified layouts of the app screens and navigation paths,
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A polished, presentable and detailed visual design,
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Optional branding – app/company specific logos, icons, etc.,
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Style Guide – standardized details that apply throughout the app, such as margins, padding, shadow style, color pallet, typography, iconography, animation types, etc.
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At this point, our app developers take the baton, and run with it. Working from the UX/UI deliverables, they begin building your world-class app for iOS, Android, or both.
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Our back-end developers (which may be 1 or more of the app devs), design, implement and test the back-end that the app talks to over the internet – typically (but not always), this includes:
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Various cloud-based services on AWS, Google Cloud, Azure Cloud, or an other similar cloud services provider.
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Other 3rd-party providers, such as optimized network edge-based search (such as Algolia), image processing, or optimized CDNs (Content Distribution Networks).
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App and back-end developers work together to develop and informally test, as they go, the various pieces and the app+back-end as a whole. They periodically make the work in progress available for you to play with, and informally test yourself in order to gain feedback and course-correct as needed.
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We outsource formal testing to several professional quality assurance testers. All have training and vast experience in testing software within a formal process. They’ll find the out-of-the-way, hard-to-find bugs that the developers and your people haven’t already caught. The output of this activity may cause the app and back-end to be kicked back to the developers for bug-fixing or possible UX/UI design and implementation modification.
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As an option, we can arrange and manage usability testing provided by a specialized 3rd party testing service which makes use of ordinary end-users of the product. Specific features can be tested in isolation, or as a holistic combination. This will provide a combined summarized & detailed report on user impressions and possible areas for improvement within the product. Improvements can be made either prior to launch or in subsequent updates, based on your preferences and requirements.
Once development and formal testing have completed, it’s time to release your app to the world or a smaller alpha/beta users group. Handling the various details and processes of app store submission (Apple iTunes app store and/or Google Play store) can be daunting and confusing for both first-timers and out-of-practice old-hands alike. We can assist in a few of the major components:
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We can handle the setup of the app store developer accounts for your company. You not only own the app and back-end code, you own the app-store developer accounts associated with the app. This allows you full control over subsequent updates, download, usage and crash data, responses to end-user reviews, related app-store marketing assets, etc.
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We can work with your marketing team (or act as one if you have none) to create and polish the required ancillary app store items ( images, descriptions, privacy statements, etc. ).
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We can handle all of the steps required to submit and sheppard the app through each app store’s approval process for publishing to the public (both have their own unique and obscure pitfalls), to ensure the fastest and most timely release of the app.