How to reduce web app development costs without losing quality?
During a time of the pandemic every entrepreneur tries to minimize their costs. In this article we share our ideas, that could help you achieving it.
Web App development, like other IT services, is not a cheap endeavour. Therefore — especially during a time of the pandemic, when every entrepreneur tries to minimize costs — you should focus on reducing web app development cost. But do you know how to do it right, that is, without losing the quality? In this article, you will find useful tips to help you achieve this. Enjoy your reading!
Plan smartly
Let’s start from the beginning, which is the planning process. Proper planning and drawing conclusions based on market data are the keys to the success of any business. The same is true for web application development. A good plan will allow you to reduce the cost of possible corrections and changes as well as the time needed for their implementation.
At this step, you should consider a few important issues that we mentioned below.
Customer preferences
When deciding to create a web app, first of all, you should get as much information as possible about your users, because they will determine your success. So, to build a successful web application, you should get information about the needs and preferences of your users and then create a solution that meets these requirements. It is the only way to make an application that users will love.
Why is it so important? Thanks to such efforts, you will increase your chances to the interest of your users. It is essential from the very beginning, because if the first release of the web app is not attractive, users may become discouraged and not use it again — even if you set the best advertising campaigns.
The competitors
During planning, you should also take into account the current market trends and analyze the solutions implemented by your competitors. Think about what they don’t have and what unique value you can offer your users. Remember that in this business, the principle of ‘differentiate or die’ has vast importance, so when planning, you should determine what the main features of your site are and what you want to interest users.
Plans for the future
Planning to build an app, you should take into account not only the first iteration but also the next ones. It means that if you plan to expand your business or add some new features in the future, the web app should enable you to do so. Today a well-developed web app can allow you to make simple actions even without engaging programmers. If you’re planning to make a lot of changes in the future, you should consider such an option, and its cost will undoubtedly pay for itself faster than you expect.
It is also worth highlighting the technical issues. The quality and readability of the application code are essential — it should be written in such a way that other software developers can easily edit it and implement any changes. Therefore, it is worth focusing on appropriate documentation and comments in the code, which will make the work easier in the future.
Estimated cost and time of application development
As you certainly know, good planning also means well-thought-out processes in terms of costs and time spent on their implementation. Especially if it concerns such important and relatively expensive projects as web application development, accurate budget planning for this purpose will help to avoid sudden and unforeseen expenses such as implementing improvements or adding necessary features.
Start small and prepare iterative development
Suppose you have an idea for a large and extensive application — great! But you don’t have to implement everything right away. Take a look at Facebook, for example. This service is continuously being changed, improved and expanded with new features. And it is a good strategy because launching a basic app is a safer, smarter, and cheaper way. What’s more, thanks to constant changes and news, Zuckerberg’s product is still not boring us and is continuously gaining a lot of new users.
So, first of all, you should consider and analyze carefully what will be the main functionalities and hallmarks of the application that will encourage users to use it — they should be implemented in the beginning. It is better to implement fewer options that will work well than many that will require improvement.
What’s next? Just trust the Agile methodology, which is based on the principle of progressively adding smaller, easier to manage and test feature sets that are implemented through iterative cycles called Sprints.
Remember always to be driven by the users’ preferences and try to implement in turn the features that are the most needed and awaited. This approach will make your application profitable, and you will optimize your costs by adapting them to demand. What’s more, over time it may turn out that the features you wanted to implement in the beginning won’t be attractive and it’s better to allocate funds to something else.
Consider outsourcing
Creating a web application requires the work of many specialists, such as software developers, UX Designers, Test Engineers, Project Managers, Scrum Masters, and Content Creator. It is also essential that each of them has experience in creating web applications. If you do not have such specialists in your team, finding them can be very time consuming and expensive. What’s more, you can’t be sure that they will work together effectively, because this would be their first common project. Hiring such people also involves high operating costs and the risk that once the most critical functions are implemented, employees will not have enough new responsibilities in your company to full-time working.
And this is why you should think about outsourcing IT services. Using the help of a web app company that has a significant experience in web applications development is a safe and secure way. You will not only be able to start working faster, save time and money on recruitment, but also take advantage of valuable tips from professionals who will help you achieve success based on their knowledge, experience and previously completed projects.
Originally published on: https://themasters.io
