What is the roadmap to create
a successful application ?

04/02/2021
Roadmap application
Even if no success stories are the same, there are however some good practices to put in place when you want to create a web or mobile application.

Know your users (personas)

The first point is of course to know who you are talking to. For this you can write personas. They will allow you to define the habits, the characteristics (age, professions...) of your users. You can list as much information as you think is relevant to identify your targets.

To help you get to know your users, don't hesitate to read our article: The importance of user research and some tips to start.

Does your idea meet a need or a desire?

The goal is to make sure that you are not building your product or service around an idea but around a problem and moreover aimed at a large market. Even though your solution may be aimed at a niche market.

To do this, all means are good, interviews, e-mails, messages on linkedin, online surveys, advertising on social media. Talk to your targets as soon as possible to challenge your solution, collect feedback and validate the problem or switch before moving on to the next steps.

At this stage, it is quite possible that your pitch has not yet been honed and this is quite normal. Your speech will become more and more impactful and concise with practice.  

You can also design a landing page that you can share with your prospects to present your solution and retrieve emails from early adopters. There are different simple no-code tools to design a landing page such as Hubspot or Webflow

Identify your competitors

When designing your landing, your solution or your business model, it is important to know your competitors. You can then monitor and rework your positioning and the added value of your product in relation to your competitors.

To start, a simple google search with the main keywords of your project will allow you to find out about already established competitors. If the search does not give anything conclusive, then your idea might be innovative! 

Define a Business Model

Business model
If you are not familiar with business models and want to synthesize your market research to focus on developing your solution, the Business Model Canvas will be your best tool. 

Concretely it consists of different sections that concern: 

- the financing of the company
- the value proposition
- the target client segment
- the cost structure

The conception of your application

In parallel to the points we have just seen and which concern more the marketing and strategy part of your project, you will have to think about the design of the solution. We have chosen to focus on 2 main points that we master at MobileThinking:

1) Design

Make your own or find a partner for the design of your application. Both can be viable to some extent. In case design is not your job, you can always take a paper and pencil to sketch the user flow of your solution, even if it means writing word for word what you will find on each interface.

Of course, if the exercise seems fuzzy or complex, you can write specifications for your solution and send them to a design agency that will create for you the first wireframes that you will validate together as you go along.

Depending on your budget but especially on the craze generated by marketing, you will then have the choice to present to your users an interactive prototype created by the design agency. This will allow your prospects to validate the application before moving on to development. 

2) Development

Software development
Below is a non-exhaustive list of parameters that will influence the development cost of your application: 

- What level of UI (User Interface) do you want?

In other words, UI concerns the graphic environment in which the user will evolve (buttons, navigation, typography, visuals...).

- How can the user register?

Would you like the user to be able to register via an external service such as his Facebook or Twitter account, via an email invitation or in a more formal way with his email and password.

- Can an administrator manage multiple user accounts?

Can a user be considered as an admin? What is often the case with SAAS solutions, a "Super User" can then manage multiple user accounts.

Other parameters:

- Can the user view data via a dashboard?
- Can he download content (images, video, file)?
- Is it possible to categorize information?
- Is it possible to share information with other users? 
- Is there a map to geolocate a person or track a movement? 

The list is still long but it is possible to iterate on the development of your application by defining what is called a MVP (Minimum Viable Product) in order to control costs.

After the development phase, and before the publication of applications on the blinds in the case of mobile applications, a reception phase is often planned to improve the application and solve possible bugs. 

Conclusion

The roadmap for developing a successful application is therefore complex in the sense that it requires juggling a number of areas in which one is not always an expert.

Whether you want to challenge your project and design your prototype by organizing a Design Sprint or take charge of the development of your web/mobile application, you can count on our team of experts.