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App Design: The Process, Costs & Timeline to Get Your App Ready Faster, Better

Specno

4 App design steps for saving up to 90% on your MVP, ensuring the best user experience from the get-go and rolling out in a matter of weeks

App design is one of the most crucial stages in creating a new product.

Your user interface is what ultimately delivers the user experience, which will, in the end, determine the success of your product.

What is the process of designing an app, though? How much time should you devote to it, and how much should it cost?

About app design

We’ve mentioned before that research shows 95% of people feel user experience is key with any new app. Therefore a lot of tech companies have found that going back and refocusing on their UI to give a better experience has actually helped increase their revenue.

Now, let’s see how to get those same benefits even before you rush to development…

4 Crucial app design questions for a better end-product

1. What is the ideal app design process?

App design is more science than art. There are some critical steps in the app design phase that can make or break your product. From properly describing your product’s purpose, objectives and users to creating the right system architecture and testing ideas rapidly during wireframing, we’ve compiled a complete overview of the 6 vital steps for any design process.

Discover all 6 and more in our post on how to design an app and how to incorporate user-friendly design in e-commerce apps.

Also explore the benefits of cross-platform vs native app development and an in-depth exploration of new app development.

2. How long does it take to design an app?

They say your UI can make or break your product, especially when you neglect or try to rush the app design phase. But the design of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) should take only 1–3 months, depending on the product’s complexity.

Explore a complete app design timeline, with 5 cost variables and an index for measuring your app’s complexity, so you can get the complete picture of how long your product will take in our post on app design time.

3. How much does it cost to design an app?

They say it pays to do your research, which might be doubly true for app design costs in a global economy. Since we at Specno are South African-based, our clients have the benefit of high-quality assurance coupled with favourable development costs – often up to 90% cheaper than elsewhere.

See a complete app design cost breakdown, with a list of variables to help you plan and save better in our guide to app design costs.

For a breakdown on the costs of the actual coding, testing and deployment of a new product, see the guide to app development cost.

4. Where to get someone to design your app

It should go without saying that working with an agency VS a freelance designer is in most cases faster and more preferable. At Specno, for example, we’ve built dedicated design and development teams and systems, to allow us to test ideas more rapidly and deliver work faster.

That’s why we’ll always recommend you employ a specialist app development agency.

And to get the full picture of timelines and options for launching a new product, see our guide to how long it takes to create a new app.

Also, see why it's important in our roundup of the impact of digital transformation on South African businesses and how to incorporate user-friendly design in e-commerce apps.

Get us to design your app for you

There’s a lot that goes into designing an app that actually works the first time, and that’s why we at Specno spent years developing the best app design team for usability and user experience – proven to give you better user engagement and retention.

To get your app designed beautifully with an immersive user experience, contact Specno now.
(You’ll get a response immediately.) 

You might also be interested in…

Worried about your product’s performance? Discover 9 critical causes of low app engagement and and 7 common causes of low user growth, then learn how to calculate your app engagement rate. And then see exactly how long it takes to validate an idea, the business reasons why you need to test your app idea and how to check if an app idea already exists. Also see how to increase app engagement and how we helped bolster engagement and conversions on SA's No 1 digital job management system, ServCraft.

Plus: See the 8 instant business benefits of a UX audit, a breakdown of the UX audit process, what goes into a full-scope UX audit and redesign and discover how long UX audit should take.

Also get on top of your product's profitability with an in-depth look at optimising your app conversion rate. And get the full picture of what's required for best-practice app development with our guide to the optimal app development process, 9 vital things you need to know even before you start developing an app, and see how long your product will actually take to build in our guide to app development time, what a week for an agile development team looks like and an in-depth exploration of new app development.

And see what we're doing to develop SA's tech ecosystem with the exclusive Founders Den.

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Specno Team