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The continual conflict between speed and quality is no stranger in software development. Compared to traditional web applications, the mobile app development cycles are much longer, causing problems for both developers and entrepreneurs. The more time you spend on your app development, the higher the cost.
However, there’s more than just budget at risk. Time-to-market can also greatly influence whether a product is a runaway success or a cloned solution.
Presently, there are multiple resources that can be used to expedite mobile app development. If you’re an entrepreneur seeking to bring your vision to life as swiftly and effectively as possible - without compromising on quality, here are some great suggestions for shortening the timeline for mobile software development.
1. Low-fidelity wireframes as a guiding blueprint
Before jumping right into the time-consuming mobile development process, it’s recommended to employ low-fidelity wireframes to outline and arrange the app layout from a design and architectural view. With frameworks, you can quickly experiment with a variety of ideas, structures, and architecture, then touch up your selected concept through follow-up wireframes.
In addition to giving your UX designer greater direction in establishing the user interface, wireframes will give your developers a deeper understanding of the functionalities you want to add. Having wireframes also makes sure everyone is on the same page and unified under the same vision.
Digital wireframes can be easily created using image-editing software like Adobe Photoshop and Figma. Visily - AI-powered wireframe tool is another excellent choice for fast-moving teams and non-designers. Equipped with drag & drop features and diverse pre-designed templates, the platform makes it easy for teams, regardless of size and skills, to create app wireframes.
2. MVP launching
Instead of entering the market with a fully developed, sophisticated product without fully knowing the market demand, launching a minimum viable product (MVP) is a better approach to validate your concept and build up your quality.
Launching with bare minimum core functionality, the MVP development approach entails frequent deadlines and releasing little and often, allowing companies to sustain momentum and keep their development cycles streamlined and laser-focused.
Once your first MVP is released, you can gather feedback to help define subsequent releases and plan additional features. By providing only the capabilities your users desire, you can obtain the maximum return in the shortest amount of time.
The worst-case scenario is that your MVP will show there is no market for your app. Yet, this is the largest time-saver as it saves you from wasting resources building a product that no one truly wants!
3. Go Agile
As the Agile technique centers around incremental and iterative steps to completing projects, it favors short release cycles and frequent deliveries. That’s why it’s the perfect method for MVP creation.
Agile teams usually operate on very short iterative cycles or ‘’sprints’’, where new elements are added and released in short 2-4 week periods. Throughout the mobile development cycle, teams also involve continuous testing, permitting them to generate app features and test them simultaneously.
4. Cut your app development time in half with cross-platform tools
The first question pops up in all entrepreneurs’ minds whenever they come up with a new idea for a mobile app: Which platform(s) will I be supporting?
Confining yourself to a single platform means you’re constantly limiting your potential consumers and the reach of your product. Nevertheless, building numerous platforms takes a lot of work! Developing and maintaining several codebases can double or triple your development time.
Hence, more and more companies are opting for cross-platform development tools to assist them in designing for all the major platforms at once. Solutions like Xamarin, Flutter SDK, and Adobe Phonegap entitle developers to target multiple mobile platforms like Android and iOS using the same codebase without having to write native code for each platform separately.
Hybrid apps do have certain drawbacks, though. These products tend to use a significant amount of memory and perform animation with less fluidity. Many startups have utilized them to quickly gain market share before switching to native apps to deliver a more robust solution.
5. Reduce non-critical activities
Why waste time reinventing the wheel when there are plenty of platforms dedicated to delivering pre-made assets and applets that you can easily integrate into your core product with no coding required.
For instance, the Unity Asset Store offers thousands of resources, including characters, special effects to uScript prototyping and visual scripting tools for gaming apps to add on without any additional coding.
6. Outsource developers for non-core development features
Does your project entail one or more tasks that fall outside of your team’s area of expertise? It might be a good idea to seek outside assistance in this case.
For instance, your in-house developers have lots of expertise in creating Android apps, but you also plan to release them for iOS. Rather than having them struggle through iOS development, get an outsourced digital engineering team with proven experience to support your in-house team.
With the help of remote developers, you can accomplish more work in less time and have the ability to flexibly scale your team to meet the changing demand of the project.
7. Adopt automated testing to enhance app security
Automating your mobile app testing is an excellent strategy to deliver a secure, high-quality app while accelerating development cycles.
Automated testing allows you to perform a suite of tests simultaneously that would normally take hours to finish manually and increase test coverage.
Built on top of Selenium and Appium, Katalon Studio is a comprehensive AI-augmented platform that addresses the strong demand for test automation in CI/CD and DevOps. The solution supports web, API, mobile and desktop application testing across Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems. It has a unified set of features that range from test authoring, execution, management, to analytics reports and CI/CD integration.
In Conclusion
As the time to market progressively becomes an important factor in deciding the success of a mobile app, speeding up the mobile app development process is the priority of many startups and enterprises. You can more strategically plan your entrance into the mobile app industry through our share of these approaches.
Nevertheless, every time-saver comes with its limitations. So, if you need help selecting the one that suits your project needs, feel free to contact us to discuss your requirements in detail. We can provide consulting and suggestions to help you deploy apps faster without compromising quality.
Discuss your app development project with us now!