Mobile app development is not for the lazy or faint-hearted. No matter how educated or experienced you might be, bringing your idea to life requires a great deal of time and effort. It may even require a financial investment, such as hosting a marketing campaign or paying a designer to create certain visual elements.
The best you can do is find ways to reduce the amount of time and money required to develop an app. A great way to do this involves leveraging today’s technology. In doing so, you can bring down the length of the development cycle and stay ahead of the competition. Here are some effective ways to save time and money when developing a mobile app.
Prioritize Creating an MVP
An MVP or Minimum Viable Product represents the core functionality of your app. By focusing on releasing your MVP as soon as possible, you can streamline your development cycles and maintain a steady momentum.
It also allows you to obtain valuable feedback on your app that will help you shape subsequent versions. Worst case scenario, your MVP could reveal that there’s no market for your idea – but this is the biggest time and money saver of all.
Leverage Cross-Platform Development Tools
It can be difficult to determine which platforms you should develop your app for. On one hand, restricting yourself to a single platform limits your potential user base. However, developing for multiple platforms can be a painstaking process. Fortunately, cross-platform development tools allow you to get the best of both worlds.
By allowing you to develop for multiple platforms on the same codebase, you can eliminate the need to translate, rewrite and recompile your code. Some popular cross-platform development tools include Xamarin, Flutter SDK and NativeScript, among others.
Utilize Mobile Testing Tools
Testing your app for bugs, errors, vulnerabilities, and incompatibilities is key to ensuring that you’re putting out a satisfactory product. This process can prove time-consuming when you’re developing for multiple platforms and devices. Check out this list of mobile testing tools by The QA Lead that will help you automate and streamline the testing process.
Explore Your Ideas With Wireframes
Wireframing involves rendering a basic representation of your app’s user interface. By creating different wireframes, you can run through a variety of potential designs and structures in a short period of time. You can then follow up with subsequent wireframes to refine and optimize your concept.
A wireframe can be put together using graphic design software or even just a pen and paper. The simpler the process, the faster you can run through different designs. This way, you don’t have to go through the lengthy process of coding a new interface when exploring ideas.
Use Third-Party Assets
The internet is home to a plethora of third-party assets that you can simply drop into your development environment. This includes graphics, sounds, and even paragraphs of code. A few well-chosen assets can help you save time while still putting together a high-quality product.
Conclusion
Using these strategies can help you significantly reduce the amount of time you spend developing an app. Creating your own efficiency-enhancing strategies can pay off in the long run, so don’t hesitate to innovate.