Web Application Development Process

As a company owner or a CEO, you will most likely come across web application development. Which is mostly done to improve your marketing, showcase your business functions and improve the awareness of your brand. It is considered one of the core aspects of a modern business. In 2018 the global digital payment revenues were at $1,9 trillion, while the forecasts for 2021 were estimated at $6,9 trillion.

A web application is just like an interactive program that can perform and function like a mobile app. Such features as registration, data storage, personal profile, purchases are all included in it, which you can access through a regular web browser. All of them are developed according to a certain technological flow, which most of the web app development experts are sticking to.

Want to know what kind of flow we’re talking about? Read the contents below and observe how web app development is happening.

The contents of web application development are relatively far from being complex. While the development time required to develop a web application is less compared to the mobile one. And the majority of the work can be executed in parallel with the other development steps (like the frontend and backend development). Without further ado, let’s look at the core steps one needs to take to develop a web application.

The first thing you want to do is to correctly establish your product concept before you hit the concrete wall of core website application development. You need to understand what kind of business problem you want to solve and what kind of product you will provide. At the same time, you need to execute a good amount of research to fully understand your business insides.

Firstly, try to analyze your target audience. These are the people who are going to be looking through your web application. Try to ask yourself these core, but very important questions:

1. Age of your audience?
2. How does your idea solve the problem of your audience?
3. How often do they require your business needs?
4. What are the deciding factors for making purchases?
5. What kind of action do your customers need to trigger?

The next thing you need to implement is competitive analysis. The chances are: you are most likely not the only one who has tried or has already implemented a similar solution. It’s not a bad thing that you’ll be in the competition circle. Rather, by analyzing your main competitors you can get rich insights while developing website applications. Just to give you an example, here are a few of them:

1. Understand the set of features you need to develop
2. Gain an insight into the cost of website application development
3. Learn a lesson from the mistakes of those who have tried to implement a similar product and failed during a website application development.

Lastly, you want to develop a business roadmap. A business roadmap is like a directional plan for your company. It will build a path where you want your company to go with the methods of how you can accomplish it. It will provide you with an overall visualization of key business growth opportunities, a concrete timeline for the entire project, and the people who are involved in it. Here’s how you can apply it to the web application development process:

1. Concrete planning on website application development, marketing, and research stages with clear deadlines
2. Predicting growth in terms of users and revenue
3. How and when to hit the market with your website application development product

Another huge issue that lots of entrepreneurs and business owners seem to miss while developing web applications is the business analysis process. You see, when you perform business analysis of your web app development, you'll evade crucial risk scenarios where your entire business may fail.

For example, the most common mistake that lots of businesses fail to notice is the requirements mismatch among stakeholders, product, and software development teams. This results in a constant re-development process, which subsequently leads to delay in web application development releases and revenue losses. To avoid such risky situations, one business owner should have a team of business analysts. They are like a bridge among all different departments that are directly affecting web app development. They can decide what kind of features are feasible and what are the ones that should not be implemented.

By the end of this step, you and your team should have a bundle of things that will significantly boost your web app development. These include:

1. A concrete list of technologies and tools
2. The definition of your MVP (Minimum Valuable Product)
3. A prioritized list of tasks your development team will work on
4. The infrastructure of your product plan

After you have created a strong concept of your future product and a strong business model, it is time to visualize your idea. This stage is very crucial since the design is the first thing that your consumer will judge.

The first step towards its implementation is to create a wireframe. It is a visual layout of your future web app that depicts each relevant logical block that your users are going to see. Based on them, you will then create a dynamic prototype that will demonstrate your first user experience.

After you get to present your dynamic prototype to your audience, you’ll most likely need to record their feedback and make certain adjustments. You should do this, as you must reach their maximum potential level of satisfaction. That way you can at least consider that your product will certainly gain some traction.

As for the design tools, you can use either Adobe XD, Figma, or Miro board for wireframing, they are both excellent choices. For a dynamic prototype, you need Invision. It can combine all the design assets and create an action-like prototype that will operate as a real web app.

Finished your wireframes and design prototype layouts? Then let’s start with the core web app development, as it is the right time to do so. Generally, there are several steps that one should implement while going straight into it:

• Build a database - This is the process where every data type will be established for your web app to properly function.
• Frontend development - The frontend development process is focused solely on the elements that users have approved during the wireframing process.
• Backend development - The last step is to create a solid base where your clients will have an opportunity to directly interact with your server.

Most of the developers prefer to use various frontend and backend frameworks, designed specifically for web app development. Below we broke down the most popular and useful backend and front-end frameworks that you might be interested to follow.

Front End frameworks

1. React - This is a powerful JavaScript library that was created for building the user interface and it is a neat fit for all large business projects.
2. Vue.JS - Another relatively small and easy-to-learn JavaScript framework, which is good for most project sizes.
3. Svelte - Considered as a compiler rather than a framework and is fittable for small to medium web app development projects.

Backend frameworks

1. Ruby on Rails - This framework is good for metaprogramming, web programming, and the implementation of small projects.
2. Django - Django is a Python framework, mostly used in science projects for data manipulation.
3. Laravel - This PHP framework includes lots of tools, which are accessible and simple to use. Suitable for multiple types of applications.

QA web application development testing is an essential part of any digital product development. It ensures that your web app is completely free from any notorious bugs and glitches that may ruin users’ experience. There are two main types of QA testing, which are: manual and automated testing.

The first one has been all along with the development of IT technologies. Professional QA testers will look through the code and implement all kinds of testing, which is great. But on the other hand, it takes a lot of time for your web app development.

Automated testing has been created to significantly cut down the QA time and any manual testing processes. With that in mind, automated testing allows developers to directly create all possible worst-case scenarios and test them out with the available tools. Unit testing, Integration testing, load testing, performance testing, stress testing, regression testing, and other possible testing methods are available for automated testing.

Another thing to consider is that the product testing process is not a “part” of your regular web app development. It is rather an ongoing process and during this process, there are several types of testing that each developer should know, which are:

• Functionality testing
• Usability testing
• Compatibility testing
• Security testing
• Performance testing

Now that your core web app development is finally completed, you can safely deploy it live and maintain your web app development product. The deployment consists of two main parts: a domain name and a hosting platform. The domain name is a direct component of a URL that you can use to access a company’s website. The hosting platform is a remote platform where your web application will be located.

The maintenance part of your web app development is also not a quick one. You need to maintain your product during the upcoming years of service. And most of the time, you’ll be:

• Fixing software bugs
• Adding more Features
• Updating and Upgrading your web app
• Providing Customer Support
• Creating New Licenses

Overall, web app development is not that complex, as it might seem at first. The steps we discussed here are basic ones that touch the general concept of developing any kind of digital product. We hope this guide will help you in your early stages of digital product creation and give you meaningful insight into the web app development process.