Every successful mobile application starts with an idea – a clear, fresh app concept. The idea for an app is your inspiration, your motivation to keep moving forward against all odds. It helps you concentrate on your project and see it through.

 

However, if you have no clue how to create and launch a mobile app, your development journey will become a disaster. Let’s figure out how to organize your application and ensure its success.

Expand Your Idea to Its Maximum

You may be wondering: “I have an idea for an app, what should I begin with?” The best way for you to start is to discover the full potential of your brainchild.

Implement the User Story Method

It’s a powerful agile development tool. It helps you understand your target group and find out about its interests. In a nutshell, the user story (UR) describes your end consumers, their goals and how they can benefit from your solution.

Express Your Concept on Paper

A great way to express an idea for app project is to visualize it. Start with building a customer journey mapping (CJM).

Basically, CJM is a directed graph depicting all the possible user interactions with your software. Proper CJM ensures high engagement and excludes “dead ends” (application pages leading nowhere).

For instance, imagine you forgot to add a checkout function to the cart page of your shopping app. Customers don’t know what to do next. Their lost time converts into frustration. And user disappointment is the last thing you want. That’s why CJM is integral to understanding a global picture of your app idea and software development in general.

Be Ready to Pivot

You may be surprised by how drastically your concept pivots after profound analysis. Remember the “Silicon Valley” series?  The main character started with an audio identifier idea and ended up with an innovative data compression application.

Make Sketches of Your Future App

You probably have some thoughts on how your app will look like. Just visualize them on paper to support your inspiration and share it with like-minded people.

All in all, the brainstorm stage includes the following milestones:

• Define which specific issues your app addresses;
• Use UR and CJM methods to think through user interaction;
• Decide whether your concept is optimal or you need to pivot;
• Make some initial design sketches.

Conduct Comprehensive Market Research

Now it is time for initial market research. It a crucial point to find out whether your app concept is relevant.

Search for Potential Competitors

One of the paramount objectives of market research is to check your scope for rivalry. Look for similar mobile applications and analyze your competitor products.

Figure out what their core benefits are, discover how they manage to keep their heads above the water. Learning from competitor experience, you receive a kick-start they did not when they began. With that being said, in-depth competitor research and subsequent analysis are vital.

Innovative App or Improved Time-Tested One: Decide on Your Strategy

Depending on research results you will need to decide between improving the existing app model or creating an entirely new product. Your choice also relies on the time left to marketing the product.

But why would you base your product on an existing one instead of bringing innovation to the industry? Here’s the kicker: nowadays users are lazy enough to prioritize familiar apps over something new, even if it’s slightly better.

For instance, you have come up with an idea to create your local version of OpenTable, online reservation service. As long as OpenTable is your one and only competitor, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Use its concept as the basis for yours and improve it so your app will withstand the rivalry.

On the other hand, let’s imagine you want to jump into the mobile messenger industry and get a piece of its revenue. The point is, this scope is overflown by nearly identical apps with similar design and identical functionality. This is where you have to think innovatively. Invent a new conversation concept or build extraordinary UI. Find the way to distinguish your product from the alternatives.

Test Your Idea

You have the application concept and research results. It’s time to finally test your idea for an app. Consider creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP).

MVP is a minimum raw version with only essential functionality. It won’t take an eternity to develop, and you will still be able to collect feedback on its relevance to users.

The Bottom Line

As you see, a viable mobile application idea is a combination of well-thought-out concept and in-depth market research. Be consistent, open-minded, passionate, and your idea is guaranteed to come to life.