Custom Application Development: Best Practices for 2023!

Let’s say that you need forum software to start your own online community. Is it challenging to spot one these days!?

I bet not, especially with off-the-shelf apps like VBulletin, phpBB, BuddyBoss, etc. In other words, finding an application that meets your organization’s needs has never been easier!

Still, there are always cases when a publicly available application can’t be used to address your unique organization’s needs. In such circumstances, the only choice is to hire a professional team to develop your custom application!

Well, there are a lot of differences if we look at the process of buying off-the-shelf software vs. custom application development.

For starters, you can get started with a “publicly available application” immediately after buying it and setting it up on your systems. On the other hand, there are a lot of steps involved with getting a custom application developed.

In addition, there also are the risks of missing deadlines, miscommunication, UI challenges, and so on.

However, there are steps you can take to ensure a friction-free custom app development. So, today, we will look at custom application best practices to help you navigate this tedious process!

But let’s first explore a quick definition!

What is custom application development?

Custom Application Development is the process of developing and deploying a tailor-made application for a specific user (or users) to fulfill specific needs and solve unique challenges. Instead of focusing on generic market needs, a custom-developed application, instead, focuses on the special case of a single organization and its struggles, thus aiming to resolve them!

For example, the Uber Application is one of a kind and was developed from scratch to meet a certain business idea, a specific business model, and specific needs.

Also, custom applications can be web-based or offline, depending on the end user’s requirements!

When an application is developed for the general public, its price is usually very affordable. Everyone’s paying a reasonable fee, and the owning board gets fair compensation through economies of scale.

On the other hand, a custom application is built by keeping the requirements of a specific individual or organization in mind. Moreover, it will exclusively be accessed by that very individual or organization rather than going to the public market. This justifies the expected bill a developer can present to the company later on!

But there are also benefits of pursuing a custom application development…

For instance, it can help you automate certain practices in your organization, thus reducing your business’s monthly expenses. In such a space, a custom-developed app is regarded as a long-term investment & its anticipated ROI can be measured over the next few years.

Let’s now discover 8 custom application best practices

To ensure that you face no problems in custom application development, make sure to follow the following best practices and guidelines:

Look if any alternative already exists, then define your requirements

Defining your requirements and goals should be the first step, even before spotting a suitable company to take care of your application. 

Ask yourself, what’s the main reason you thought about getting a custom application? That’s an excellent place to start!

You can then list the other relevant needs of your business and develop a detailed list of requirements. But before you go on and move to the next step, ensure no tool in the market can solve your existing problems!

Once you have confirmed that there are no such tools available, you can then move on to the next step!

Determine your budget

You should be ready to pay a higher fee for getting a custom app developed than buying off-the-shelf software.

Different development companies have their own pricing models, and you will need to choose the one that suits your budget. So, before you head out, clearly define your budget first to understand what you want and for how much money!

If you’re unsure what to expect in terms of pricing, feel free to book a FREE consultation with our team!

In general, the cost of a custom application development can depend on the following factors:

• Types of features (basic, advanced, pioneer…)
• The complexity of the solution (simple, medium, complex…)
• Supported platforms
• Use of any 3rd party tools and APIs
• The required skill set of the developers

Now, let’s talk about the pricing models commonly used by development companies… The first option is to pay on an hourly basis. In this pricing model, you only pay for the total hours spent on getting your custom app developed.

Another option is to agree on a fixed cost with your chosen development company. With this option, you will have full clarity of how much to pay and what to expect from the developers. It’s a fixed price rather than a quoting style!

Still, if your project doesn’t have a defined scope, then you must choose a flexible pricing model. In this type of pricing model, the costs can change during the development process!

Choose a tech stack

The next tip is to decide on a particular tech stack for your custom application. If you already have a preference for a particular tech stack, then you can skip this step.

Otherwise, you will have to do some research yourself to pick the right tech stack for your new custom application. Once again, choosing the right tech stack will depend on your needs and what you want to achieve. For this step, you can also consult a development company to explore the available options & the pros of cons of each.

At the end of the day, making a selection of a particular tech stack will depend on the following factors:

• End Product – Define the features, usability, and impact of your application
• Cost – Pick a technology that is not used by most developers may increase the costs
• Platforms – Do you need an application for the web, mobile, desktop…?

To further explain this matter, we can divide the development process into two categories: Front-end development & back-end development.

Front-end development includes HTML, CSS, and Javascript. There are also many frameworks for front-end development, such as Bootstrap, ReactJS, and AngularJS. Usually, these languages and frameworks are ideal for web-based applications.

On the other hand, and since the back-end tech stack is server-side only, back-end development retains many options, such as LAMP stack, Microsoft stack, Mean stack, etc. The LAMP stack, again, incorporates the use of Linux, MySQL, Apache, and any of the following (PHP, Ruby, or Python).

Microsoft stack only includes the products from Microsoft such as Azure, .Net, win.js, C# Visual basic, etc. The MEAN stack includes a combination of MongoDB, AngularJS, Node.js, and Express.js.

Get Quotes

Once you have decided on your requirements and budget, you can contact different development companies. As mentioned earlier, every development company will have its own pricing models & thus will give you a different quote.

Ideally, you will be more inclined toward the company which offers the lowest rates. But when considering rates, also check the portfolio & reputation of the company as well as any after-sales support.

It is not uncommon for bugs to appear in a custom application. So, it would be best to choose a company that also offers accessible or affordable support after the development process.

To check the reputation of development companies, try to find reviews related to that company on Google, Trustpilot, ConsumerReports, and Facebook.

Hire a development company

This is an essential step that will make or break your journey of getting a custom application developed. After getting quotes, you will have to decide on a particular company for your development needs.

When choosing a development company, check the following:

• Company location and history
• Reviews and references of the company
• Communication skills of the development company
• Will the development team be done by an in-house team or outsourced?

Set clear milestones

It would be best to devise a realistic plan for the development company you have chosen for your project. Setting up clear milestones will ensure that the development company stays accountable & delivers work on time.

In general, there are a lot of moving pieces in the development of a custom application. So, one of the main custom application best practices is to divide the development process into small milestones. It will also help you to know about the current progress of the development & to get your app delivered on time.

For example, the development of a custom app could be divided into planning, design individual features, GUI, etc.

Quality assurance & security testing

The company taking care of your custom app development company usually does quality assurance & security testing on their end. However, this doesn’t mean that you can overlook this step! In fact, it is pretty common to discover problems that were missed by the development team…

And since the last thing you would want is to launch a faulty app that degrades the user experience of your product, it’s never a bad idea to triple-test it all!

As long as you choose the right development company, the number of errors in the application will be a few at best.

After doing detailed security testing and quality assurance, pass the detailed report to the development team!

This may require additional time, but the end result will be a custom application that is clean and functional. In addition, the end product will also be entirely secure, which is also very important considering the rise in cyber attacks!

To get the best out of this step, you should involve a team to test out the custom application. It’s common sense that more eyes mean more coverage…

And last but not least, you will also have to account for some extra time taken for quality assurance and security testing. This also involves the time taken by the development team to fix the problems.

Documentation!

 Conclusion

Getting a custom application developed shouldn’t be too hard as long as you choose the right development company! In addition, remember to follow the best practices we have mentioned above. This will make the process of getting a custom application developed very easy & will totally remove any unwanted friction.

At Canadian Digital Solutions, we excel in custom application development and can handle any type of project… From a simple custom application to a highly complex one, our team of experts can get things done with clear and maximum communication from our end!