Did you know that each year, companies lose up to 30% of revenue due to inefficiencies?
If you own a business, you may be able to tackle some of these inefficiencies by investing in custom software. That’s because such software might allow you to streamline an otherwise time-intensive process.
This post will provide you with a brief introduction to custom software development. If your business is in need of specialist software, these tips will help you create an amazing solution for your company.
Let’s begin!
1. What Is Custom Software Development?
Custom software development is when you create a piece of software from scratch for a specific purpose.
This software can help you do a better job in regards to certain processes within your business, thereby improving efficiency.
Developing custom software is quite challenging, and it’s very easy to make mistakes when you embark on a project like this. Thus, for the rest of this post, we’re going to look at how you can avoid major issues while developing custom software.
2. Create Clear Specifications
If you’re looking to develop custom software, you need to create clear specifications.
If you don’t do this, you’re going to run into a lot of confusion during your software project, and this could then lead to a lot of wasted money.
Creating clear specifications for your software project comes down to the following:
- Deciding what your software will do
- How it will look
- The devices it will work on
When you’re deciding what your software will do, you need to be as clear as you can. One way you can do this is by writing a short paragraph that details what people will be able to achieve with the software.
Note that when you’re deciding how the software should look, you should try to create a diagram that shows what the user interface will look like.
If you don’t know where to begin, you might want to look at existing forms of software that are similar to what you’d like to create.
As mentioned, you’ll also want to mention the devices that your software will work on.
For instance, will it be available on Windows computers or Macs? Will people be able to use it on a mobile device, or will it only be available on laptops and PCs?
3. Finding the Right Developers
Once you have specifications for your software development project, you then need to find some developers.
The way you go about this task will depend on the scope of your software development project.
If you’re looking to develop a simple piece of software, you might be able to work with a freelancer. Yet, if you want to build something complicated, you’ll likely need the help of an agency such as Endertech.
If you think that you’ll be okay with a freelancer, you can often find someone using a website such as Upwork or Toptal.
If you want to work with an agency, you might want to ask some of your peers to see if they know of a good company. If this approach doesn’t work, you might want to resort to using Google.
When you’re looking for a software development agency via Google, it’s a good idea to be as specific as you can. You should also try to find an agency within your city or state.
Therefore, if you’re looking to develop an iOS app and you live in Atlanta, you might search something like ‘iOS developers Atlanta.’
Upon performing a search like this, you will likely see many companies that you can choose from.
The best way to sort through these companies is by looking at their previous work.
Ideally, you want to look for companies that have already developed something similar to what you’d like to create. If you come across a company like this, there’s a good chance they might be suitable for your project.
4. Deciding on Milestones
Developing software is a complicated task, and so you need to break the project down into milestones.
These milestones will help keep the project on schedule, and they’ll also ensure the project doesn’t go over budget.
If you are in a rush, you might want to create some aggressive milestones so that the project is completed in a short period of time.
However, adopting this approach is a bad idea, as you’ll just end up with an unrealistic timeline. Additionally, if you rush the software development process, mistakes will likely occur, and this could lead to delays.
Following this, you should work with your freelancer or agency so that you can come up with realistic milestones. Once you’ve established these milestones, it’s vital that you check in with the developers, to make sure everything is going as planned.
5. Testing the Software
Once the software has been developed, you then need to test it to see if there are any issues.
If you want to make sure the software is technically sound, you may want to give it to a company that specializes in testing software. You can learn more at this website if you need help finding a company that you can talk all things software with.
However, you also want to make sure the software works well in regards to user experience.
Luckily, this isn’t that hard to do as you can just ask people to use the software.
If you watch people as they’re using the software, you’ll be able to identify a few sticking points. You can then mention these points to the developers, and they can then go about fixing these issues.
Time to Develop Some Custom Software?
Custom software development can seem complex and intimidating at first, but you should now see that it’s relatively simple.
It is understandable if you want to complete your software development project as soon as possible. However, if you rush the process, you will likely end up with software that is buggy and ineffective.
Therefore, it’s vital that you try to be as patient as possible during this process. In doing so, you should eventually end up with a custom software solution that is perfect for your business.
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