How To Produce Development-Ready Designs For Your Apps

As skilled as you may be in putting your ideas or thoughts across, it is undeniable that you will not always get people to imagine exactly what action you’d like them carry out. This means there is no verbally fruitful way of explaining features, layout, actions etc within an app that an audience will fully comprehend.

When designing an app, the flow of actions from where the user starts and ends must be well thought of. Informative dialogue boxes, the relationship between app’s elements, consistency in design, hierarchy of each element- all play a vital role in forming the skeletal structure of your app.

Once the wireframe has been created, the content put in a systematic way and the design is ready, then prototyping is the next step to make sure the app is not just visually appealing but also easy in terms of navigation and functionality.

A prototype is a living example of not only how your app will look like but also the possible outcomes on the actions taken. This means a clearer idea on the app’s appearance and room for aesthetic improvement and functionality. Prototyping makes it simpler and helps figuring out the areas that need corrections and necessary improvements. The app through this, could go for alpha and beta testing where the users can use the app and give their feedback.

Paper prototyping may seem like a good way to put forth the idea you have in mind for your app and how it should look like. It may even be the best rendering out there. But when you put something static across to an audience- they will be forced to imagine the flow of actions and outcomes. This could create an understanding gap and moreover unnecessary confusion.

A rendition or a sketch will in no way give any user an idea of how the app will work- the actions and what comes next. A paper prototype will only show limited information at any given point. This limits user feedback, which is crucial for any app in its primary phase. What may work from a technical point of view, may not work from the aesthetic or function point of view. This means a lot of changes, improvement and back and forth, not to mention the time and money that would go into making minor tweaks or even change the entire design.

When a user first interacts with an app, he either ‘explores’ or heads straight to the app’s purpose or what it claimed to provide. This means an array of actions that in no way can be fully listed down on paper, or the outcomes or flaws that are exclusive to certain actions on the design.

Various tools like Adobe Illustrator, Sketch, Balsamiq help you create a well-structured wireframe where you can even save elements in libraries to reuse later, thereby saving production time. This also means faster and far less time in refining and improving the wireframe.

Designing the app is therefore no easy task. If your wire framing has been done on point and it’s the design that’s got you, then online is the best place to look for inspiration. Sites like Pinterest have numerous designs out there ready to inspire and be re-invented.

Softwares like Configure.IT, where the apps can be created with minimal coding, offer a variety of templates and customisation features. This means faster development of apps rights from the ideation, to wire framing, to prototyping and then testing.

Now you know – to produce development-ready designs, wire framing, consistency in design, user feedback and above all prototyping, play a huge role behind a well built app. So follow these steps & get creating, students, we’ve made our platform free for life for you, if you sign up this month!