As a business, if you want to build engaging mobile apps that instantly establish your market presence, you first need a skilled and reliable team of app developers versed with the best practices, skills, and know-how to shape a successful app. The app project needs developers with experience, coding skills, exposure to several projects, and communication skills. Above all of these, you also need to take into account the competitive development cost when hiring an app development company.
In this blog post, we are going to explain all these key considerations that you need to take into account when hiring mobile app development services. We believe after you go through this brief article, you can be confident of all the steps and best practices for hiring the right team for your app project. Let’s start.
Prepare a project requirement document (PRD)
To begin with, you should have a clear understanding of the app idea and the technical requirements to shape it to perfection. This is something that you need to show to the development company and explain the things you want for the app. According to Imperoit, a leading app development company, the key aspects that the project requirement document (PRD) should mention are the following.
- First, explain the app objective and the purpose for users to use your app.
- Explain how the users are going to use and interact when using the app.
- Give some credible examples of competitor apps.
- Now give a detailed overview of features and functional needs.
- Pen down a long-term project vision.
Go deeper into the portfolio
As you start your search for app development companies across platforms and get acquainted with hundreds of companies with different capabilities, it becomes difficult to make a choice, right? This is why it is advisable to evaluate the portfolio of their projects first.
You can search for development companies through well-known directories and B2B review platforms like Clutch and good firms. Thanks to these platforms you can easily compare development firms and find the right choice. Some of the crucial considerations you need to pay attention to include the following.
- The key development services they offer
- The major skills and areas of technical expertise they boast of
- The minimum size of most of their app projects
- Number of developers they have
- The development approach, process, and method they adhere to
- The customer and industry ratings and reviews they receive
- The average hourly rate they get for projects
Android and iOS knowledge
With so many technologies and frameworks making a buzz in the app world, we often forget that the app developers primarily need to have a solid command of the iOS and Android operating systems. Apart from the platform-specific design and development guidelines, the developers should also be well versed with all the latest tools and trends used by these platforms.
When hiring app developers whether, for a native or cross-platform project, you should expect them at least to have a general understanding of native programming languages like Kotlin for Android and Swift for iOS.
Make sure they follow the best process and practices
Any app development project needs to undergo a process ensuring industry-acclaimed best practices in order to become successful. An app development process and the methodology make a great impact on the execution and outcome of any app project. With a great development method and process, an app project can not only ensure faster speed but also reduces development cost.
Here are some key attributes to look for in the app development methodology and process.
- Ensure collaborative brainstorming on the app idea before hopping onto the development lab.
- Make sure you have a well-articulated execution plan befitting the app idea.
- Make sure you have prioritized all the app features and UI elements so that an MVP can be released quickly with the core features.
- Make a review of how many ready-to-use components you can utilize for the project besides the custom UI materials.
- Ensure persistent focus on Quality Assurance (QA) testing.
- Ensure adhering to platform-specific submission guidelines for smooth approval and store deployment.
Faster release cycle
As we know that most app ideas are enough explored and experimented and hence any idea with even a slight degree of uniqueness should not delay if you are serious about making competitive gains. This is also true for app update release cycles. Faster time to market ensures staying ahead of the competition and frequent updates make users satisfied.
Building the app and releasing it quickly can help your app to become discoverable easily. On the other hand, faster update releases ensure addressing user concerns, security and performance glitches, and requirements for value addition more smoothly.
App development cost
Ultimately, for hiring an app development company you also need to take development cost into consideration. After you have reviewed all the key factors and technical aspects and made a shortlist of the most credible development companies for the project, you can now compare their rates. Though cost remains a key determinant, it should be taken into consideration only when the qualitative parameters are met.
QA Testing expertise
Last but not the least, app developers should be well versed with the best testing and debugging practices and tools. Some of the tests app developers need to carry out include performance testing, integration testing, load testing, unit testing, security testing, etc. Apart from writing custom test scripts, the QA team and the developers should also be versed with the leading automation testing frameworks and tools used by successful app projects.
Also read: Android Development Trends
Conclusion
With all these key considerations, you have a comprehensive idea of how to screen app development companies for the app project. Instead of remaining biased toward big names, you can always find promising startups and many mid-tier development companies that fulfill these requirements.
