Every mobile app project goes through irreplaceable development stages, consuming time and resources. Since you cannot compromise on the app development output and quality, you must be highly cautious in planning the development stages and time for app projects. The development time and cost vary greatly depending upon the app features and user experience (UX) challenges.
To make your planning more manageable, we will discuss the development time for each project stage. Though every app project is different, and the variable app features play a significant role in consuming other development times for separate stages, at least the discussion below will provide a basic understanding of the time required for app projects to conclude.
Brief the development time in Project Requirement Document (PRD)
A Project Requirement Document (PRD) with all the details of the mobile app development project, including the timeline and resources for each development stage, is the primary and elementary step for successful app development. With a detailed project requirement document loaded with details of every background, it becomes easier for the developers to stick to the timelines and overall project deadlines.
The well-documented development stages and a precise timeline ultimately help developers maintain optimum efficiency while reducing development costs and challenges.
The time required for idea building and research
The app project and idea-building research consume nearly 1 to 2 weeks, depending upon the project niche, features, and complexity. The market research and ideation corresponding to an app project involves the areas such as market and competitor analysis, creating user personas, defining key value propositions, and deciding the monetization plan for the app.
Many businesses need to pay more attention to this stage, and this undermining ultimately impacts their app product in the long run. This preparatory stage should always be the foundation for a successful app project. Well-grounded research ultimately helps an app project to stay tuned to reality and accordingly figure out features and User Experience (UX) attributes.
Time required for app idea validation
So, now get down to calculating the time required for validating the app idea. The validation of the app idea always comes after market and competitor research. Generally, a whole week is needed to validate an app idea. At this stage, all the market insights and knowledge gathered through market research comes into play.
Apart from using the market knowledge you already got through research, you can also conduct separate interviews with potential users, validate some hypotheses, check the app flow, etc. This is the step to evaluate further and improve the app idea based on how it can be tuned to the user requirements.
Both market research and idea validation ultimately create a strong groundwork for the developers to pursue an app idea. Based upon this validation, the creativity and execution stages are tuned to user requirements.
Time required for building an app development strategy
A strategy for app development also involves how you will make revenues from the app product and how it will find resonance among the target audience. App strategy purely focuses on the business aspects of the app project, and hence it is vital for the app’s success.
Some of the critical stages in the app development strategy involve technical documentation, creating a roadmap, estimating cost and resources, and planning monetization and revenues through the app. A detailed approach ultimately offers a transparent view of the entire app product so that all stakeholders and the development team remain on the same page.
Time required for app prototyping
You have total clarity on the app project with proper documentation, market research, idea validation, and strategy building. It is time to put all your ideas and strategic decisions into an app prototype. In this respect, you must know that the development process never completely renounces research and frequent iterations are often standard with new insights from the developers.
Now, to be precise, an app prototype is fa4 from a fully-functional app product. An app prototype showcases the fundamental way to deliver a functional digital solution. The prototype may offer a countenance of a working app but lacks certain interactive features, such as active animation and some useful app features. An app prototype is usually built for testing the most elementary app features. Based on the experience of most app projects, designing a clickable prototype needs a week.
Time required for UI/UX design
Finally, another crucial step involving UI/UX design is significant and consumes considerable time. The UI/UX design process involves wireframing the app and evaluating and fine-tuning the UX attributes based on the user requirements and app objectives.
A simple and basic app’s UI/UX design process requires just 3 to 4 weeks, while the time needed for a mid-sized app design varies from 8 to 10 weeks.
Time required for development and testing
Since the vast majority of startup apps try to develop feature-rich apps to impress their audience and to stand apart competitively, development excellence is a necessary experience for the app project’s success. If you are building a cross-platform or native app for iOS and Android, deploying the app and testing it across platforms is of seminal importance. When you develop the back end and the front end of the mobile app in parallel, it may take up to 2 months.
Finally, it would help if you left sufficient time for app testing. You should leave no stone unturned for testing your product, from extensive mixing to the unit and user testing to more time and resource-consuming security and performance testing. Most app products require around 15 days to 1 month of testing time.
Summing It Up
So, figuring out how long it takes to build an app in simple terms takes a lot of work. It involves a lot of calculations and estimations. But if you start with meticulous planning and documentation, making the correct estimate of time and resources becomes more accessible.
