Table of Contents
GPS navigation applications can come in handy in plenty of situations, including when you’re running late to work and need to find the quickest route possible, or when you’re out exploring new terrain and want to find the closest hike or bike trail. The thing is, while they may seem simple at first glance, GPS apps are complex pieces of software that require careful planning, testing, and execution to bring everything together effectively. Luckily, there are lots of tips and tricks to help ensure that your application goes smoothly from start to finish—here are just a few of them!
Steps to Build a GPS Application
Here are the steps to build a GPS Application:
1) Define Your App’s Goal
If you’re building an app, it should be tailored to fit a very specific goal. A goal is essential because it helps you figure out who your target users are and what you need to accomplish with your app to make it successful. If your purpose in developing an app isn’t clear, chances are that many people won’t download or use it. So why would they? Without knowing what your focus is, they won’t know why they should bother installing your application on their mobile device(s). For example, if you wanted to develop an application that delivers information about new movie releases based on location (e.g., when in the proximity of certain theatres), think about whether there is demand for such information and users who might want it.
2) Select The Technology You Want To Use
Once you’ve settled on an application type, start making a list of potential technology options. Start with existing solutions and then add them to your list until you have no new ones left. This list should include off-the-shelf, open-source, and custom solutions. The value in doing so is that it forces you to do research into each possible solution, identifying what features they provide and how much time, money, and expertise will be needed to get them up and running in your system. A big advantage of going through this exercise at an early stage is that you can quickly identify if there are any ways you could use existing technology to reduce development time or costs.
3) Choose An Appropriate Project Management Tool
Choosing an appropriate project management tool will help you manage your team and tasks much more efficiently. There are several project management tools available online such as Trello, Basecamp, and Asana. The most important thing is to choose one that is going to work well with your team. You can also use multiple tools if necessary. Trello, for example, is good for creating boards to organize tasks and lists of action items but does not have good reporting features or many other collaboration features. It’s great if you need something simple like cards on a board but doesn’t have a lot of resources to devote towards learning how to use it effectively. It works great in teams of all sizes and has integration with Salesforce if needed.
4) Analyze Your Competitors
Before you start coding, it’s helpful to think about what your competition is doing. After all, if you want to provide something better than what’s already out there, you’ll need to study what people are actually using. Web apps like SimilarWeb and Alexa can give you some very valuable insight into how much traffic different sites receive (Alexa tracks both desktop and mobile). Other competitors may offer tips or tutorials on how they developed their projects, which will give you an idea of where your project should head.
5) Do your research
It’s important to do your research before you begin building an application. Check out other similar applications and see what they offer users, but be sure to check out other apps in totally different fields too. By checking out how other people are doing things and looking at their mistakes, you’ll get a better idea of how to implement your own ideas, which means that your finished product will likely be even better than some of those other apps on store shelves right now. It can also help you decide whether or not it makes sense to build an app in general—is there really enough demand for something like what you have in mind? Or is it just another one of those killer apps that might be interesting to about 5% of the public?
6) Test With Real Users
Before you spend time and money creating your app, it’s important to get feedback on whether it’s useful and usable. What problem does it solve? Is there something better out there already? While user testing (either in person or through online resources) is crucial, user testing also brings up ethical issues such as informed consent. If you are meeting with users, inform them that you’re not selling anything, your goal is just to learn how they use products so that you can make a better one. If your app requires access to information on users’ phones, let them know in advance what permissions it will require so they can decide if they want to share that information with you. Always try to obtain written permission and give people a way to opt-out of participating.
7) Create Your High-level Roadmap
The first step to building an application is deciding what kind of app you want to build. This is where your business goals come into play, and it’s also where your industry knowledge comes in handy—what’s already on the market? What works, and what doesn’t? You need to create high-level concepts that you can then build out in more detail during development. At a minimum, you should have four major milestones: basic MVP (minimum viable product), prototype, beta, and fully functional product. Of course, if possible it’s even better to develop these stages iteratively and continuously!
8) Get Feedback From Experts And Customers
Your best chance of building a successful application is to get feedback from people who are experts in your field and those who would use your product. Be sure to make all of your development- and beta-testing time available. You don’t want to spend months coding only to find out that no one wants to use it! By getting customers involved in the development process early on, you’ll be able to determine if your application has any market potential—and if not, you can scrap it before wasting hundreds or thousands of dollars.
9) Set Deadlines And Priorities, And Stick To Them
Being busy is fine, but if you want to make sure you’re getting important things done in a timely manner, prioritize those projects and deadlines. For example, try setting up two buckets of tasks—urgent and not urgent—and schedule time to focus on only one or two of those tasks each day. When your list starts piling up, take time to complete projects with high priority before jumping into ones that will stretch out your timeline. Putting off big-picture items isn’t worth it when it means you’ll fail to get smaller details done in time. Deadlines shouldn’t be scary or stressful; instead, they should encourage you to get things done quickly so that you have more time later to sit back and enjoy life with family and friends.
10) Always Promote New Releases
Whether you’re building an application for iPhone or Android, it’s important to remember that your software is always subject to change. The hardware and operating systems are evolving, as well as competitors and market conditions. You need to keep up with all of these changes and adjust your product accordingly. It might seem like a daunting task at first, but there are some tools that can help you do it without much effort. To find out more about what’s involved in developing an app, check out our Top 10 Tips for Developing Apps. If you are interested to learn new coding skills, the Entri app will help you to acquire them very easily. Entri app is following a structural study plan so that the students can learn very easily. If you don’t have a coding background, it won’t be any problem. You can download the Entri app from the google play store and enroll in your favorite course.
