How to control the development of a mobile application?

As a result of the explosive growth of mobile technology, more and more companies are creating their own mobile applications. This allows you to retain loyal customers and attract new ones who are much more comfortable placing an order and choosing a product or service using modern gadgets.

At the same time, this area is still quite young, and many customers do not always understand what and how to do when monitoring the progress of work. Today we will focus on the issues of monitoring the work of the contractor to create a mobile application for your company.

Before you control the work of the contractor, you need to understand what you should get based on the results of its activities. In any case, the commencement of work is preceded by the signing of the relevant contract, under which you receive all rights to the results of the contractor’s work after paying for his work.

You should also get source materials for interface layouts. Best if they are in PSD format. This eliminates the need to install additional programs. In addition, you will have to pass the design specification. This is a detailed description of all pages of the application, its interface, which indicates all the links between the screens and the features of each page.

After the application is ready, the developer must assist in publishing it in the appropriate section of the App Store or Google Play. You should also get the source code of the product and other documentation. You need to get the source code without fail. Perhaps in the future you decide to turn to another contractor for help, or for some reason this company will not be able to continue working with your application.

You can maintain the application in the presence of source code yourself. There will also be an opportunity to contact a company providing such services. Of course, few people want to deal with someone else’s code, and perhaps you will be asked to rewrite the application again. But with the source code, you will have options for supporting and developing the application.

During the development process and when signing the contract, it is necessary to stipulate the minimum conditions, the implementation of which you will monitor at each stage of development:

• List of Application Requirements

You must have a list of product requirements agreed with the contractor. This is detailing on each screen, possible states and transition logic.

• Technical Positions

When signing a contract with the contractor, be sure to indicate for which operating systems and their versions the application is being developed, with what types of devices it should work.

• Dates for each stage of work

The whole process of creating an application needs to be divided into stages. Each stage has its own deadlines agreed with the contractor. For objective reasons, the timing can be adjusted, but only after agreement with the customer. For its part, the customer can (it is in his interests) to control the observance of deadlines at each stage, analyzing the finished parts and elements of the application.

At the stage of signing the contract, in the interests of the customer, pay attention to the following points:

• The contract should indicate the deadlines and breakdown by stages of work
• Transfer of detailed technical specifications and detailed descriptions of screens to the customer
• Obtaining by the customer the source design and code, format and method of transmitting this data
• Types of devices (screen resolutions) and operating systems that the application will support
• Who will have the right to use the application and code
• How to publish the application on the App Store and Google Play

Control over the work of the contractor is necessary. But in everything you need to know the measure. Do not strive to take complete control of every step of the contractor. This is likely to only harm the common cause, lead to a missed deadline and can negatively affect the quality of work. Few people like it when they “stand above the soul.” Moreover, it is better for someone who is not an experienced professional to know what and how to do. After all, you first need the result