OUGD504 Studio Brief 02 - The True Cost of Building a Mobile App (Forbes Article)

The True Cost of Building a Mobile App (Forbes Article):
I thought that as I am designing an app it would be interesting to look at the sorts of costs that go along with that.

- Capital mostly goes into software.

- Your mobile app—must be better and more engaging than the one your competition offers.

- Apps require a strong conceptual foundation, good planning, an excellent ecosystem and top-notch talent in both the design and engineering phases.

- Research is essential - take the time to make sure nothing identical already exists on the market. It also helps to develop a few core use cases, taking into account the target audience and how your app will play out in both the short- and long-term.

- What platform to build for.

- Selecting a creative team.

- Conceptual work begins by sketching out the key functional flows, followed by detailed wireframes and then the visual design. These steps can involve a lot of work—as much as two to three months depending on complexity. They can also require significant revision and even rethinking of the initial requirements. Many clients, for a variety of reasons, are eager to move quickly through this phase, but they often regret it downstream when costly revisions are required or a less-than-ideal end product is unveiled. It’s better to work out the kinks early, in collaboration with your design team, than pay dearly for expensive mistakes later.

- Feedback through usability testing - working prototypes.

- Thorough testing and feedback is needed to make sure it fits users preferences and needs.

- Just as with the design phase, the success of coding relies on quality people. Moreover, experienced software architects and engineers can keep needless delays and bugs to a minimum, while simultaneously making sure your app is optimised and scales in the long run. They may charge a bit more—but their talent makes them a bargain in the long run.

- Before you can actually release your app you need a cloud services provider who will not only host it, but also power and maintain the back end systems. 

- Make sure that your provider can scale quickly as needed.

- Maintenance is another key consideration, both for your service provider and your development staff. Apps stores are competitive places and bad news travels fast—so make sure your team is available for bug fixes, updates, downstream version testing and so on.

- Despite what many think, it is a major investment of time, money and vision. You should expect to involve a team of six to ten people for about six months or more. Moreover, a high-quality, enterprise-class mobile app will involve not tens, but hundreds of thousands of dollars. Again, it’s essential to be guided by the idea that you get what you pay for.

My thoughts:
Reading through this article has been really interesting because it makes me more aware of how much process and production an app must go through. All of this will be extremely expensive, if I was thinking of trying to create an app I would have to contact freelance designers. However as I am designing this for a client  ':Platter' I would only charge them for my design mock ups that they could take to a separate developer.

App design once created has to be constantly worked on to keep up with trends and avoid bugs, it is a constantly evolving piece of design.

RESOURCE:

WEB
- http://www.forbes.com/sites/groupthink/2014/11/11/the-true-cost-of-building-a-mobile-app/2/#573e08a97e1a