How to Write a Mobile App Brief That Gets Accurate Quotes from Pennsylvania Development Companies

Many entrepreneurs in Pennsylvania contact app-development businesses with only limited ideas - they then receive quotes ranging wildly from $8,000 to as high as $80,000. There isn’t a fair way to compare these companies, however, because the issue isn’t usually with the developers; it is often due to an inadequate app brief or not enough information provided with regard to what type of product is being developed.

When a brief has been constructed properly, experienced mobile app developers in Pennsylvania will have enough detail regarding your mobile application so that they can correctly provide you with a proper estimate for how much it will cost and how long it will take. If your mobile development firm doesn't have sufficient detail, then they will be guessing, which doesn't provide you with any meaningful estimate.

This document will give you thorough instructions on how to compose a complete, well-organized, and straightforward document that can be utilized by everyone involved in the submission of proposals.

What Is a Mobile App Brief and Why Does It Matter?

The app submission overview will not provide technical information on the coding or framework employed in its implementation. Accordingly, the document will provide detailed instructions on how to write an orderly, complete, and clear submission proposal from a project management perspective for individuals and teams involved in the submission of projects to be developed as a proposal. The purpose of the mobile app brief is to provide a structured way to communicate your vision to the developers so that they all have the same information to work with.

The significance of creating an accurate mobile app brief before starting any actual development can not be stressed enough. Beta Breakers cites that 39% of project failures occur due to inaccurate requirements gathering. This means that by providing the mobile app development Pennsylvania developers with an accurate mobile app brief you will drastically increase the chances of achieving a successful outcome for your project and limit the risks associated with losing a significant chunk of your budget and time.

Step 1: Define Your App's Core Purpose and Business Goal

Your initial section should provide the answers to two questions: "What problem does the app address?" "For whom does the app address the problem?" To create a good format for the app submission overview, you need to write something like: "This app will give [target audience] the ability and capabilities associated with [core capability] to reach [business objective]" For example, "This app will provide Pennsylvania restaurant owners with the tools they need to keep track of their table reservations and reduce no-show rates, which will create a better customer experience."

This single sentence conveys more information than three paragraphs of fuzzy background information to the developer. It establishes a foundation for the entire project. In addition, it provides the development of team members with a way to review new feature requests: if a request does not meet the core mission, it will probably not belong in version one.

In addition to defining the purpose of your app, also define your business objectives. Are you seeking to increase bookings, improve repeat guest business, streamline internal operations or capture a new customer segment? Developers can create the right product if they understand why you are making it.

Step 2: Describe Your Target Users Clearly

Every single design and development decision is driven by your target audience, from how many steps it takes to accomplish an action to whether or not the interface should have large text or advanced filtering options. Unfortunately, these Frequently Documented Facts (FFD's) are frequently vague or omitted in proposals that result in inaccurate estimates of the project.

To help you accurately represent your users' needs within your proposal, you should document the following:

• User age range and level of technical comfort. For example, a field service app for tradespeople in their 50's will have a very different use case than a social media app designed for college students.

• Device preference. Do your intended customers primarily access your app using iPhones, Android devices or both?

• Current usage patterns. How do your potential customers solve their problems today?

• Frequency of use. How frequently will your customers launch the app? Daily? Weekly? Only as necessary to complete specific activities?

A document with even one brief paragraph about your target user will be much more valuable than not including this information. In order for Pennsylvania mobile app development companies to create their app the make sure to have this information available to make a decision on which platforms to develop on, the design and the features that will be included in your app.

Step 3: List Core Features Separated into Must-Haves and Nice-to-Haves

The accuracy of your quote is most directly influenced by this section. Developers will provide you with an estimate based on the scope of your project, and the scope of your project can be defined in terms of features. Therefore, if your list of required features is not well defined, it leaves an ambiguity in your quote, or worse, it could lead to a situation where the developer has estimated a price based on features that may not actually meet your functional requirements.

When building your list of features, it is helpful to create two distinct lists:

Essential Features: These are the features necessary for your app to function for your users at launch. For example: user registration/login; an integrated reservations/ordering system; push notifications to users based on triggers; a method for collecting payments (i.e. credit card).

Future Features: These are features which you would like to have in your app, but they are not absolutely required for launch. Examples of future feature sets include an administrative dashboard, loyalty/discount programs, advanced analytics/reporting capabilities and social sharing capabilities.

Please focus on providing as much detail about how these features will look in your application, and reference some examples if possible. The phrase "Push notifications will be sent to the user, after the status of an order changes", would assist the developer in identifying the scope of features to be developed and provide an accurate estimate.

Stating that you will have a third-party integration (such as credit card processing via Stripe or PayPal, Google Maps, CRM or reservation system) will add increased complexity to the project, and therefore may affect the final estimate you receive. When working with a full-service agency or an app developer for hire in Pennsylvania, these lists will be referred to when providing you with a quote.

Step 4: State Your Platform Preference

When writing your brief, indicate whether you require one (1x) iOS or one (1x) Android application, or both. The selection of how many applications to create could significantly affect the cost and timing of your entire project.

Both Native Development, creating separate apps for both the iOS and Android platforms, will, most likely, provide the best possible performance; however, they will require much larger budgets and longer development times. By contrast, Cross Platform Development (e.g. Flutter, React Native) allows you to build a single codebase to be deployed across different platforms, generally allowing for much quicker and lower cost development.

If you have already determined which devices your customer (or customers) use, please include that information in your brief. If you do not care about the device used by your target customer(s), then please let your development team know so they may give you their recommendation as to whether or not to build for a specific type of device based on your budget constraints and target customer.

Step 5: Include a Realistic Budget Range and Timeline

Some entrepreneurs are reluctant to disclose their budget for development without knowing what to expect, worrying that it will inflate the quote.

Experience shows, however, that this will typically not occur. By revealing what your company has set aside for buildout, the development team can build an appropriate scope and indicate which parts of the project they can prioritize.

In the absence of a budget hint, you will receive a different set of estimates (and many times vastly divergent ones) from each of the pa app developers who respond to your RFP. This explains why an entrepreneur can receive quotes nearly equal in nature, yet differ in total cost by over $10,000.

You do not have to give an exact dollar value, but rather a range (ex: $20,000-$40,000 or less than $50,000) will provide the development contractor enough of a framework for their estimated costs. If you have an expected completion date based on an actual product launch, a seasonal event or other important business event, please let the developers know that as well. Such timing restrictions will have a direct impact on how much of their resources will be focused on your app and whether they will have to acquire additional developers in order to keep the project on schedule.

Step 6: Share Design Preferences and Brand Guidelines

There is no requirement to have a design system in place prior to completing this section. Furthermore, by providing your development teams with the most basic parameters of these feature sets that exist today, this will allow them to create an application that will not require a complete redesign in the future (thus incurring further expenses).

Please provide your brand colour codes, logo files and any previous graphic design guidelines your company already uses or has created; if you have a current company website, please provide its URL as well. Also, please include the names of two or three applications (in any industry) that you think have great design and tell us what you like about them. Also, provide examples of things you would like to avoid either as a design or as a feature of the application, for example, complex navigation, excessive screen transitions, or designs that do not align with your company's brand identity/characteristics.

If you submit documentation containing this information, you can receive a customized initial mock-up of your app based on your desired vision rather than one that is a generic mock-up. The result will ultimately reduce the amount of time spent on revisions and help keep your project from falling behind schedule.

Putting It All Together

An exhaustive mobile application specifications document might not need to be a long detailed reference, but it would need to contain one to two pages that set out what your expectations are in relation to your app and its intended users and full function, the platform it will be built for (i.e. mobile phone or tablet ), and your proposed budget and timeframes along with design details/inspiration the developer must follow when designing it so therefore by having this documentation means that any legitimate mobile app developer will easily be able to provide you with an accurate and fair estimation based solely on the information received from you in addition to having samples of previous apps they have created to isolate their quote.

Regardless of whether you want to develop a mobile application or an additional software application in Pennsylvania, having well-defined specifications gives you control of the entire software development life cycle so that all of your development requests are proposed based upon the completed specifications, versus numerous estimates that cannot be compared to one another or relied upon for financial compensation.

The most efficient investment you will make in your project is writing thorough specifications prior to having your first conversation with a developer.

Experienced tech writer with a background in software development and emerging technologies. I create clear, insightful content on app development, digital trends, and enterprise solutions for both technical and business audiences.