Phase 1. Gathering Information: Purpose, Main Goals, and Target Audience

Aim:

Determine mobile app goals and success metrics

What do we do?

• Send you The Data Duck App Thinkathon

  This includes questions like

  • What problem (or problems) will your app solve for your customers?
  • What features will it include?
  • What is your app’s core appeal?
  • What platform (or platforms) will you use?
  • What are your competitors doing? Do they have apps? If so, what features do they offer?
  • What is your overall app development budget?
  • What is your timeline for development? When will you launch your app?
  • How will you market and promote your app?
• Once we receive the app thinkathon, we work with you to -create a functional requirements document and a quote

If you need help with research, contact us! We provide product research services.

What do you need to do

• Set time aside with your team and brainstorm your way through the app thinkathon
  
  Expert tip: In many cases, determining your app’s features and benefits is a balancing act between your overall app development budget and your in-house capabilities. However, when it comes to prioritizing functionality, research shows that app design should emphasize customer engagement over exclusive services.

Result

Once you’ve decided upon your feature-set and your app’s MVP (Minimum Viable Product) with our strategy team, our business analysts create user stories (an idea of how people will use your app and what they will use it for. These stories outline a user and their end-goal, as well as the pages/navigation they use to achieve this goal) and a quote. The quote depends on our engagement type .

Estimated time

1-2 weeks

Phase 2. Planning: Wireframe Creation

Aim

We use the Functional requirements Document as a guide to wireframe the app. The Data Duck’s wireframing process helps refine the ideas and arrange all components of the design in the right way. This process help us develop a clear understanding of how proposed features and ideas fuse together into a functional app. Wireframes helps us demonstrate the relationship between each screen and how the users will navigate through the app.We focus on the user experience and keep in mind the differences in the way people use a mobile app versus a mobile website.

What do we do

Send you module wise wireframes

What do you do

Go through the wireframes and give us feedback

Result

A prototype When we say prototype, we don’t mean a fully-designed and functional app. The prototype at this stage should be designed around specific features or functions that are the most important for your project, so they can be tested and validated after you begin development.

Estimated time

1-3 weeks

Phase 3. Technical Architecture, Cybersecurity plan and Tech Stack

Aim

Our technical architect and cybersecurity specialists use the wireframes as a guide for the backend structures we’ll need to create to support your app—think APIs, data diagrams, servers, data integration, and push notification services.

Phase 4: Visual design

Here we select design elements, such as color scheme & typography that's both attractive & easy to use. Our decisions are based on scientific reasons specific to the personas developed by UX designers.

Phase 5: Development

Develop according to the engagement method you’ve chosen - ideally in sprints that get you to your users quickly. Building rapid and easy iterations of your app allows your product to be tested with real users so you can adapt it based on their feedback.

Working in this way will save you a lot of time and money as changes can be made in the most efficient way, rather than coming to the final build and realising you need to make a bunch of changes.

Phase 6: Testing

We test the app as a whole and fix any bugs that may arise

Phase 7: Deployment

The time taken during the deployment stage in the process can be broken down into two main areas: submission and review

While submitting your app to either the App Store or the Google Play Store, you’ll need to create a developer account and share a few things:

• Company and contact info
• Screenshots
• Descriptions
• Icons
• Demonstrations

Our graphic design team can help you with the screenshots, icons and demonstrations.

Estimated time

up to 2 weeks